The Student Association Senate will vote Wednesday on the creation of a director of government relations position, who would advise the Senate about governmental initiatives. SA President Griffin Thomas introduced the legislation in March.
Rice’s Honor Council has announced changes to its penalty system: It will base penalties in proportion to the grade weighting of assignments found in violation.
Hannah Todd was elected Student Association external vice president in an uncontested election last week.
James Carter, a Brown College junior, was confirmed as Student Association Associate Vice President at the April 13 meeting of the SA Senate. As associate vice president, a position which was newly created this month by a Senate bill, Carter will assist SA President Griffin Thomas on diversity-related projects. Thomas, a Lovett College junior, said Carter will work on Senate, student body and administration diversity.
The Student Association Senate voted April 13 to convene the Committee of Constitutional Revisions with the goal of reforming some of the “procedural deficiencies” in the Constitution, according to the legislation.
The Rice University Court held a public hearing Sunday afternoon to deliberate on the revocation of Rice Catalyst’s blanket tax status.
The Faculty Senate voted 14 to 9 in favor of the Committee for Undergraduate Curriculum proposal to lower the limit on the number of credit hours undergraduate students can enroll in from 20 hours to 18 hours, starting with the incoming class of 2020.
The Student Association is organizing a sit-in to protest the Committee for Undergraduate Curriculum proposal to limit the number of credit hours undergraduate students may enroll in each semester. According to the SA, the Faculty Senate will very likely pass the proposal on Wednesday.
A coalition of students called the Students of Color Collective has been collaborating with administration to improve underrepresented minority students’ experiences. The Collective is comprised of members of the Black Student Association and the Hispanic Association for Cultural Enrichment at Rice.
Over 150 students, faculty and administrators attended the mechanical engineering town hall, where undergraduates discussed some of the issues they face in the department, including a lack of tenured professors, underresourced labs and the general underfunding of the department. Mechanical engineering is the second-largest major by enrollment at Rice, with about 190 students.
What is citizenship? Rice students and professors sought to define this idea and discussed the state of citizenship in marginalized communities as part of a panel held by Houston’s chapter of Black Lives Matter. The event, which took place in Hamman Hall on April 7, also featured work from local artists.
Hindi will once again be offered by the Center for Language and Intercultural Communication in the fall 2016 semester as a two year program. According to Meng Yeh, associate director at the CLIC, students will have the option of enrolling in either First Year Hindi or Accelerated First Year Hindi, a faster paced program for heritage students who have been exposed to the language through their culture. She said an accelerated language program is already being offered in Chinese due to the amount of heritage students enrolled at Rice.
Rice University has approved funds for the Rice University Police Department to install security cameras outside of residential colleges to record entrances and exits. According to Police Chief Johnny Whitehead, several hundred security cameras are already on on campus in administration and academic buildings, but crime statistics have revealed the majority of crime including thefts, trespassing and sexual assault, occur in and around residential colleges.
What makes a good O-Week? College coordinators have struggled to tackle this question since they were appointed to the position last semester. With a variety of factors and concerns, diversity has emerged as a topic of discussion.
Public records show that Rice University employees have given 87 percent of their campaign contributions to liberal or Democratic organizations since 2000, while 10 percent of the contributions have gone toward those that are associated with Republicans.
Rice University alumni Kevin Ting (Hanszen ’12) and Jennifer Shen (Hanszen ’14) have been working to develop an app, called Soapbox, designed to help inform voters about the 2016 presidential election.
Antonio Merlo, the department chair of economics at Rice University, has been appointed dean of Rice’s School of Social Sciences effective July 1, according to an announcement from the provost’s office. As dean, Merlo will supervise the departments of anthropology, economics, linguistics, political science, psychology, sociology and sport management.
Former Wiess College Senator Hannah Todd was appointed interim external vice president of the Student Association by an SA Senate vote March 30. Todd, a sophomore, came in second in the general election race for EVP to former Sid Richardson College Senator Justin Onwenu.
For several months, Queer Resource Center facilitators and Facilities Engineering and Planning have been working on increasing the number of gender-neutral bathrooms at Rice. The group of QRC facilitators, including Catherine Wu, Seth Lauer and a student who goes by Brook, said their goal is to provide a safe, comfortable, healthy, accessible and convenient option to all people who use the bathrooms at Rice, including students, faculty, staff and visitors. “[Gender-neutral bathrooms] can be something that is beneficial for all people on campus and doesn’t make anybody less comfortable,” Lauer, a Duncan College senior, said. According to Lauer, the main concerns behind the push toward more gender-neutral bathrooms are health and safety of both students and visitors to the campus. “With the number of accessible bathrooms that are gender-neutral on campus right now, it’s very likely that a student who has to go to the bathroom may have to hold their bladder as they walk entirely across campus,” Lauer said.
Students have responded positively to an effort to revamp the economics department more than a year in the making, according to Sawyer Knight, a student on the Economics Student Advisory Board.
