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NEWS 3/14/15 6:51am

RAFSI to develop junior and sophomore class gift program

By Mengjia Liu

Mengjia LiuThresher StaffThe Rice Annual Fund Student Initiative has launched sophomore and junior class gifts for the upcoming fall in addition to the pre-existing senior class gift.According to Sean Cowan, associate director of the Rice Annual Fund, the new class giving projects will function similar to the senior class gift.  “They will run concurrently each fall, led by volunteers,” Cowan said. “We envision volunteers from all three classes working together in colleges, educating their classmates about the importance of philanthropy and facilitating participation.”Cowan said the undergraduate class gifts were not created in previous years because RAFSI wanted to ensure significant participation in the giving project before expanding the program. However, with increased student interest in recent years, the RAF staff, volunteers and campus partners decided to establish class gifts for underclassmen and encourage students to participate in philanthropy earlier on in their college careers.“People often do not realize until graduation that every class of alumni has Annual Fund volunteers who lead class giving projects each year,” Cowan said. “When students learn about these programs and opportunities while on campus, they become more informed and effective alumni volunteers and philanthropists.”According to Cowan, student contributions to the RAF have a lasting impact on Rice’s future, regardless of gift amount. “Every gift is important to Rice University as smaller gifts add up to make a real impact,” Cowan said. “For example, this year alone, hundreds of members of the Class of 2015 collectively contributed nearly $10,000. That's a remarkable demonstration of their passion for Rice.”Cowan said the RAF also created The Parliament, a new giving society that acknowledges loyal supporters, to encourage juniors and sophomores to donate.“The Parliament recognizes those in the Rice community who make gifts [for] the university each and every year,” Cowan said. “To be inducted, you simply give for three years in a row and then continue to give yearly to stay in the society.”According to Cowan, a freshman class gift has not been created  so new students may gain a deeper understanding of the university before giving back, although they can give through Jar Wars and National Philanthropy Week.“Freshmen should experience Rice's unique culture and traditions so they truly appreciate what their future gifts will support,” Cowan said. Nick Thorpe, a fall 2014 Senior Gift Campaign volunteer, said he believes student contributors are crucial to the functioning of the RAF.“These students eventually become lifelong donors and once again give back to the university where they received a quality education,” Thorpe, a Lovett College senior, said.Carmella DeSerto, a class gift representative, said she supports the expansion.“These gifts give students a chance to give back, especially when they are students like myself who benefit from the charity of the university in financial aid,” DeSerto, a Jones College sophomore, said. “I feel it is my duty to pay it forward.”Rachel Bowyer, a Hanszen College freshman, said juniors and sophomores should not be expected to give.“It is very unrealistic to expect sophomores and juniors to donate because their own financial situations are not yet stable,” Bowyer said. “They will lack motivation to give because they have not completed their college experience yet. They are the ones who should still be receiving the benefits from the funds.” 

NEWS 3/14/15 6:51am

Rondelet tickets sell in record time

By Wesley Yee

 Rondelet, Rice’s annual spring formal hosted by the Rice Program Council, has seen an increase in demand and popularity this year, according to RPC President Aisha Jeeva. This year’s Rondelet will feature a ballpark theme, swing dancing and  a live band, and will be hosted on March 20 at Minute Maid Park.“This Rondelet holds the record for fastest ticket sale in RPC history — all 1,400 tickets were signed up for in a record five hours and 43 minutes,” Jeeva, a Martel College senior said. Jeeva said RPC had taken steps to ensure the ticket distribution method would remain functional. The ticketing website for last semester’s Esperanza had crashed within 10 minutes of opening due to high internet traffic, forcing RPC to distribute tickets through a random lottery drawing.“We worked incredibly hard to ensure that there were no issues with this new ticketing system, including moving away from using Rice servers, which were obviously unable to handle the huge amount of traffic caused by high ticket demand,” Jeeva said.According to Jeeva, the college demographics for ticket sign-ups differed between the two formals. For Esperanza, each college had between 110 and about 150 sign-ups, with Jones and McMurtry having the most at 153 each. For Rondelet, Jones, Lovett, Baker and Wiess each had more than 70, with Wiess having the most at 92.In addition, the number of total ticket sign-ups were around half of Esperanza’s. A total of 1,507 people signed up for the random drawing for Esperanza tickets. For Rondelet, a total of 761 people signed up to purchase 1400 tickets. According to Jeeva, around 1,100 tickets have been paid for. The 300 remaining unclaimed tickets were sold on a first come, first served basis on Thursday, Feb. 26. RPC will host a final round of sales on Thursday, March 12 after students are given a chance to refund their tickets before then.“Students who do not return their tickets [before the 12th] will no longer be able to receive a refund for their tickets whether or not they can attend,” Jeeva said. “As tickets are non-transferable, they will be unable to sell them to other students. This method has been implemented to avoid any instances of unfair ticket scalping.”Jeeva emphasized the importance of student participation in events such as Esperanza and Rondelet.“We do not make any profit on these formals, and all ticket sales are used to cover event costs,” Jeeva said. “[We] hope students understand that if they wish for us to continue to have Esperanza and Rondelet, then it is in their interest to attend the events and support us.”

NEWS 3/14/15 6:50am

Course to provide physician shadowing opportunities

By Christy Leos

 For undergraduate students considering a future in medicine, the application process and requirements for medical school can be daunting. A new course is currently being developed, which will have Rice students shadow physicians at Methodist Hospital and will be offered next year to help those going through the process.Gia Merlo, the new Vice Dean for Health Professions, said the course comes from a task force she created to strengthen the affiliation between Rice and Methodist Hospital to provide opportunities for students pursuing medicine. “Students will shadow physicians at Methodist and will attend a didactic component that places emphasis on professionalism, ethics [and] reflection on the shadowing experiencing,” Merlo said.According to Merlo, the program’s first goal is to develop an intensive physician shadowing program available exclusively to Rice undergraduate students, beginning in fall 2015. This new course will provide students considering the medical field an assortment of 25 physicians to shadow. The three-credit course will include three to four hours of shadowing and one to two hours of coursework and reflective seminars per week. Currently, the course has 164 slots for undergraduate students. In order to gauge student interest, Merlo’s team sent out a poll, which received 246 responses. The details of the program’s shadowing structure are still being finalized.Merlo said the mission of the program is not to increase the number of medical school applicants accepted, but to enhance the students’ experiences and help them determine if a medical profession is the right fit.“Medical education is undergoing a major transformation for the first time in over 100 years,” Merlo said. “Historically, the focus of medical colleges was almost exclusively on science competencies. Now, the new holistic approach includes focusing on understanding human behavior and the needs of an increasingly diverse patient population.” The medical school application process requires more than just research and a strong GPA, and applicants’ lack of clinical exposure and reflection of experiences is noticed during the interview process, according to Merlo.Christian Capo, a Jones College freshman looking to go into medicine, said he was eager for the new course, but was doubtful he would be able to register for it.“I think more courses should have [a reflective aspect], as it lets students think personally about their courses,” Capo said. “I just fear that the course would be too heavily desired and that many won’t be able to get [medical] perspectives.”The Rice Premedical Society currently runs Doctors Offering Shadowing Experience, a student-run program that connects select RPMS members with a physician willing to be shadowed. Merlo said the new course would provide shadowing opportunities to more students.“Last year, [DOSE]  had over 150 applications and only were able to match about 20 students,” Merlo said. “Therefore, the program was not very effective recently.”DOSE co-coordinator Caroline Zhu said the new course originated from and will replace DOSE.“We were notified last semester that the university would take over the shadowing program and build formal affiliation with hospitals so that eventually all interested students can get spots,” Zhu, a Martel College junior, said. “Now the shadowing course has a different format than DOSE, so essentially DOSE doesn’t exist anymore. We already handed over all DOSE information to Dr. Merlo, and are currently assisting her in planning the shadowing course next year, along with the task force.”

NEWS 3/14/15 6:49am

Humanities merges small departments

By Ellen Trinklein

Soon, there will no longer be a French studies department, Spanish and Portuguese department, German studies department, Latin American studies department or classical studies department. Effective July 1 for the 2015-16 academic year, the School of Humanities is merging its smallest departments into two larger ones: the department of classical and European studies and the department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American studies. This merger will combine German studies, French studies and classical studies into the department of classical and European studies. Latin American studies and the department of Spanish and Portuguese will similarly combine to make the department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American studies. The majors within the departments will remain as they are now. According to Dean of Humanities Nicolas Shumway, all majors and major requirements will remain unchanged, and students’ transcripts will continue to state “French studies” or “classical studies.”“Students will hardly notice,” Shumway said. “As far as students are concerned, the ATM has another bank behind it, but it will still look same.”According to Shumway, the only change for students with these majors is the new interdisciplinary opportunities the larger departments will be able to provide students.One such opportunity, a new minor in politics, law and social thought, will become available next year through the department of classical and European studies with elective courses in departments such as philosophy, political science and anthropology. Shumway also noted the possibility of a program in comparative literature.German professor Christian Emden, one of the professors leading the new minor, expressed interest in a film program.The ability to breach the divisions between majors in the form of new majors and minors is, according to both Shumway and Emden, one of the largest benefits of the new departments.“Small departments … are obviously not able to pull that off by themselves,” Emden said. “In fact, I would even go so far to argue that classical and European studies offers the opportunity to think outside traditional departmental structures. Students and faculty alike often forget that departments are nothing but administrative units that are not coextensive with the research questions we all work on.”In addition to creating a space for interdisciplinary opportunities and administrative efficiency, Shumway said the merger makes sense for intellectual reasons.“People have more and more questioned the existence of the nation state, or that culture is somehow based in the nation state,” Shumway said. “There’s a lot of cross-pollination. The Enlightenment doesn’t just happen in one place; it’s something that engulfs all of Europe.”Emden also said the merger will increase student awareness of how vast and interdisciplinary many of these departments are.“German studies or French studies shouldn’t even be called ‘language departments.’ After all, we don't call mathematics the ‘numbers department’ or engineering the ‘gadget school,’” Emden said. “What students really become involved in when they opt for German studies, for instance, is the study of literature, politics, film, history, philosophy, intellectual history and so on — all in a setting that is much more interdisciplinary than what happens in many traditional departments.”Laurel Bingman, a Duncan College senior majoring in biological sciences and Latin American studies, said the interdisciplinary aspect of her Latin American studies major is what interests her.“I’ve personally enjoyed the freedom to be able to mold my major into whatever I wanted it to be, so I could see a lot of benefits in pooling resources from already established departments in that way,” Bingman said. “On the other hand, I can also see potential disadvantages if priority is given to other subsets within the department purely because they are more established.”                                                                                                     

NEWS 3/14/15 6:48am

Rice's tuition has risen faster than its peers'

By Drew Keller

The Rice University administration announced Friday that undergraduate tuition for the 2015-16 school year will rise to $41,560, an increase of 4.2 percent from this year’s cost of $39,880. Next year’s total cost will be $55,903. The cost of Rice’s graduate programs will also increase, keeping doctoral and undergraduate tuition equal.Rice’s records show that tuition will have risen 135 percent in the last 15 years from the average annual price paid by undergraduates in 2000-01, $17,720. Over the same period, the United States has experienced 36 percent inflation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.The tuition of many peer institutions has also increased faster than inflation over the same period, according to their archives. Vanderbilt University’s tuition rose 110 percent since 1998; Duke University and Northwestern University saw tuition increases of 91 percent and 69 percent since 2000, respectively. In absolute terms, Rice’s tuition is still less than Vanderbilt’s, Duke’s and Northwestern’s, though the gap between the prices has decreased since the beginning of the century.According to data gathered by the College Board, the average yearly cost of a four-year private college was $31,231 for 2014-15. The cost of such colleges has risen 41 percent since 1999, slightly faster than inflation. The Princeton Review currently names Rice No. 12 on its list of “Colleges That Pay You Back,” and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine ranked Rice No. 4 for best value.According to Kathy Collins, vice president for finance, tuition increases help cover the costs of educating students, faculty salaries,  library resources and other operational expenses. Additionally, Collins said tuition should be compared between schools in terms of real dollars.“Tuition at Rice has been about $5,000 to $6,000 less than at its peer institutions, so comparisons should be based on the dollar amount of increase rather than the percentage,” Collins said. “To generate the same dollar increase in tuition, Rice has to increase its rate at a higher percentage than its peers.”

NEWS 2/24/15 2:06pm

New common app for co-advisors hits roadbumps

By Jieya Wen

First Year Programs is implementing a new online platform for the Orientation Week 2015 co-advising application. According to Chris Landry, Associate Director of FYP, the application consists of a series of common questions followed by supplements for each individual college. Applicants may apply for up to four colleges.However, some students have reported issues with the application. McMurtry College junior Will Eldridge said he unwittingly submitted his incomplete application when he unsuccessfully tried to go back through the application to review his answers. After attempting to resubmit his application with changes, his old application was not replaced.“It obviously doesn’t work as planned,” Eldridge said. “I don’t even know why they do it if the normal advisor applications worked. Obviously they want to streamline it, but they should keep it the way it’s been working for several years.”The application has since been updated to include a confirmation before submission.Landry said the common application streamlines the application process and saves time for both applicants and O-Week coordinators.“In previous years, applicants would have to complete a full paper application for each college to which they wanted to apply; many times these included similar or identical questions,” Landry said. “They would then have to return it in person to the colleges. ”Sneha Kohirkar, Student Director of O-Week 2015, said the four-college limit makes the application process more effective.“The coordinators were able to select what [their college’s supplement] would look like,” Kohirkar, a McMurtry College senior, said. “This allows for individual colleges to still have the chance to use their theme and ask for specific information.”Kohirkar said the common application gives students more time to apply to co-advise should they be rejected from advising at their own colleges.“We know there is always a quick turnover from advising decisions to co-advisor application deadline,” Kohirkar said.Because the Common Application for college admission has increased applicants for many universities, FYP is interested to see whether this change will increase the number of applicants for co-advising.“As with any new program, there have been a few minor glitches in the survey, but we are responding to issues as quickly as they are reported with our partners in the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Qualtrics (the survey company),” Landry said.

NEWS 2/24/15 2:05pm

OIE surveys to gauge academic, career resources

By Andrew Ligeralde

The Office of Institutional Effectiveness is administering three surveys to Rice University undergraduates this spring. According to John Cornwell, associate vice president of the OIE, the Survey of All Students, Senior Exit Survey and Consortium on Financing Higher Education Enrolled Students Survey will be used to gauge student satisfaction with current academic and career resources.“Documenting what students currently are doing with internships, externships, research and such is very important to these initiative as Rice plans to increase these experiences and learn from our current best practices,” Cornwell said.The SAS, which was also released in fall 2014, asks about the university’s teaching, learning and research opportunities to help formulate a plan for the Student Association’s Rice Education of the Future Initiative. Cornwell said he hopes this round of the SAS will expand on the fall results and help the OIE meet the demand for extracurricular learning.“The results supported the president’s view that undergraduate students value experiential and other out-of-classroom experiences and see them as very important to their Rice education,” Cornwell said. “With the new SA Initiative on the educational experience at Rice and the Office of Development’s ‘Initiative for Students,’ the interest in students’ out-of-classes learning has increased substantially.”In addition to the SAS, which will be sent to all undergraduates, the OIE will release the SES to all students graduating this spring. According to OIE Senior Survey Administrator Angela Thompson, the SES will ask, among other questions, whether students would still choose to come to Rice if they were entering college today and if there are any changes they would have made to their experience. As with any survey process, a barrier the OIE faces is student apathy. According to Thompson, the OIE has eliminated this problem by placing holds on student accounts until they complete the surveys.“Overall, we typically receive between a 96 to 98 percent response rate for the Senior Exit Survey and the Survey of All Students,” Thompson said.However, not all students are comfortable taking mandatory surveys. Joelle Whyte, a Baker College freshman, said she finds the practice problematic. “I think there’s a better way for them to convince us,” Whyte said. “They could bribe us with incentives like gift cards, like I’ve seen been done before. I’d definitely take it then.” Unlike the SAS and SES, the ESS is not mandatory and sent only to a representative sample containing 33 percent of Rice undergraduates. According to Thompson, the responses measure student satisfaction and are compared to those from several peer institutions, including Stanford, Duke and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “We generated a list using a stratified sample method based on gender, ethnicity and matriculation year,” Thompson said. “This ensures the sample is reflective of the university.”While all students are guaranteed to receive at least one survey this spring, not all students are clear on their purpose. Becca Hsu, a Jones College sophomore, said she has not been satisfied with the undergraduate survey process. “The surveys would be nice if we actually knew what they were used for,” Hsu said. “I don’t feel that invested in them because I don’t get how they are being used in the decision making.” Thompson said that while the results are not available to individual students, they are sent to the departments that use the data for program improvement.“Program-level reports are provided to each program chair regarding how their students answered the major specific questions from the Senior Exit Survey,” Thompson said. “Copies of the reports are also sent to the Dean of Undergraduates as well as the Center for Teaching Excellence.”

NEWS 2/24/15 1:59pm

Rice invests in more Village property

By Ellen Trinklein

Rice recently closed on its third Rice Village purchase within the last year. In February, Rice acquired the 7,500-square-foot retail building on the corner of Kelvin Drive and Times Boulevard that holds stores such as Miss Saigon Cafe, Yum Yum Cha Cafe and GraceAnne’s Boutique. The Houston real estate website Swamplot estimates the building sold for a little under $4 million.The Rice Management Company, the group responsible for the management of the Rice endowment, bought two other Rice Village properties in the past year. The first was the multi-building, 193,000-square-foot Village Arcade for an estimated $55 to $60 million, according to the Houston Chronicle. The second was the 15,273-square-foot Urban Outfitters store.The Rice Management Company has partnered with Trademark to increase their Village properties’ values. Trademark is a real estate development firm that focuses on outdoor retail and regional malls. In the past, this company has worked on project such as that of Market Street in The Woodlands, TX.Rice has not yet made any statements on intentions for the purchased properties. In an email statement to the Thresher, the Rice Management Company stated it made real estate investments to benefit the university’s endowment.

NEWS 2/24/15 1:58pm

Students to develop new Rice apps

By Isaac Schultz

On Rice University’s campus, mobile apps have been welcomed with open arms, as Yik Yak and Snapchat have become some of the major forms of quick connection with society. However, there is little in the ways of practical mobile apps. Imminently, this issue will be resolved due to the newest development on Rice’s campus: the mobile app revolution.Student Association Director of Technology Xilin Liu said a team is developing mobile and web apps that will help with searching for restaurants, tracking inner loop buses and voting on election ballots. Liu said three separate apps might be created: a petitions app, a well-being app and a student life app, the last of which will eventually take the place of the dated Rice app.The new petitions app will expedite voting for elections, according to Liu, and simplify the acquisition of signatures for petitions. “[The petitions app] has already been released and can be found at upvote.riceapps.org,” Liu said. “Everything works, and we’ll hopefully have it ready by second-round elections … We just need to make it look better.” Liu said the well-being app will be released by the end of the spring semester, and the student life app by the end of the calendar year. “The Wellbeing Committee of the SA requested the well-being app, and it was also directly [requested by SA President] Ravi Sheth … and [Dean of Undergraduates] John Hutchinson himself,” Liu said. “Two important features [will be] the blue button system … [and] the Uber[-esque] night escort.” According to Liu, the blue button system will help the Rice University Police Department track  students’ movement using their mobile device if they request aid, rather than students having to stop at blue button kiosks. The Uber-inspired night escort service will simplify the process of requesting the night escort bus.“We aren’t changing anything about the Night Escort bus itself, but simply providing a more accessible, easier way to make reservations,” Liu said. The student life app will institute features including, but not limited to, a map, servery menus, an events calendar, live updates on the Hoot’s inventory and stock as well as the time, place, opponents and amenities featured at Rice sporting events.“[The student life] app would be targeted for undergraduates,” Liu said. “Our goal is to conglomerate a lot of our apps into one mobile app and replace the current Rice app … We’re hoping to have more functions.”

NEWS 2/18/15 4:11pm

Rice moves to seven percent solar energy

By Sana Yaklur

Rice University has taken early steps toward  green power and sustainability by signing a one-year contract with MP2 Energy, a renewable energy company. This agreement signifies that an average of seven percent of Rice’s power supply will come from solar energy, according to Richard Johnson, director of Rice’s Administrative Center for Sustainability and Energy Management.“During the afternoon, as much as 25 percent of Rice’s energy will come from [off-site] solar energy, since the amount of solar power we get naturally varies over the course of the day,” Johnson said.Rice had been interested in using solar energy for a while, but there were concerns regarding any extra cost the move might entail, according to Mark Gardner, manager of Energy Strategy and Utility Program Development. According to Johnson, Rice continually indicated its interest in renewable energy sources to MP2 to demonstrate it as a topic about which they remained interested.“We kept signalling our interest, and it didn’t take long for them to catch on that it was something we really wanted,” Johnson said. “They wanted this to happen as much as we did. They’re a really innovative group and they want to be able to demonstrate ways that people can procure green without paying extra.”Rice was able to formulate a plan with MP2 Energy to minimize cost. As a part of this plan, instead of paying one flat rate over the course of the day, Rice pays in hourly increments, with prices varying with the demand for electricity over the course of the day. According to Johnson, with this method of paying for electricity, Rice would pay more for electricity in the afternoon, when the most electricity is used on campus, and less for electricity at night, when less electricity is used and produced via the solar panels.According to Gardner, another benefit to this incremental method of payment involves the solar panels installed on the roof of Jones College. When the prices for solar electricity peak, the panels at Jones produce the most energy. Gardner said because of these sets of solar panels, Rice does not need to purchase as much solar energy from MP2 Energy when prices are the highest.“Because of the shaped curve method [in which the per hour price of electricity varies over the course of the day] of paying for electricity, there is no change in the cost of electricity for Rice,” Gardner said.According to Johnson, this is the first time a commercial entity in Texas has made a deal with an electricity company to use off-site solar power.Johnson said Rice has been looking into incorporating other renewable sources of power as well in order to increase environmental friendliness.“Before we made the agreement with MP2 Energy, we looked into using landfill gas, as well as wind power and other solar power opportunities,” Johnson said. “We’re still looking into using wind power, and we’re looking into opportunities to increase the photovoltaic cells on campus. Our big strategies are [to] use less energy and buy green when it doesn’t cost us more.”Johnson credits Gardner and Energy Manager Eric Valentine with being the most dedicated to finding cost-effective ways for Rice to use green energy.

NEWS 2/18/15 4:09pm

McMurtry addresses surplus housing with proposal to remove point bonus

By Jieya Wen

The McMurtry College government will vote on a proposal designed to encourage students to remain on campus at their Town Hall meeting on Feb. 17, according to McMurtry College Internal Vice President Sean Harger. The proposal intends to address McMurtry’s current housing surplus issue.The proposal removes housing point bonuses given to students the year after they move off campus, which Harger said encourages students to move off campus. Therefore, one proposal is to remove the bonus for the people who move off campus voluntarily but keep the bonus for people who apply for on- campus housing but fail to get eligibility.“We will no longer incentivize people to move off in order to encourage as many people to try to get on campus as possible,” Harger said. Whether to keep the bonus for students who get kicked off campus instead of voluntarily move off campus is more questionable, according to Harger. “The process of eligibility and being kicked off campus is as fair as it can be, and a bit impersonal,” Harger said. “That’s going to be a decision the college is going to have to come to.”According to Harger, there are 324 beds at McMurtry, of which 100 are for freshmen, leaving 224 beds for current McMurtry students. Last year, the number of students who applied for on-campus housing was less than the number of available beds, Harger said.“We don’t want to ever be in a situation again where we have to ask people to move back on campus, and it’s an awkward situation because they moved off, [so] they got a bonus,” Harger said. “We don’t know whether we should let them keep the bonus and move back or get rid of the bonus we promised them.”Harger said the number of vacant beds led to non-McMurtry students living at McMurtry and some on-campus McMurtry students getting off-campus point bonuses. McMurtry sophomore Seth Berggren said he supports the removal of point bonuses for moving off campus to avoid repeating last year’s situation. “If we disincentivize people going off campus, we can hopefully retain more people on campus, which I feel would be a very valuable asset to college culture,” Berggren said. McMurtry sophomore Seyeon Cho said she does not support the proposal because she believes the removal of the point bonuses will make on-campus housing overly competitive and will not accurately reflect students’ preference. “Do you have to incentivize students to live on campus in order to improve the culture?” Cho said. “I feel like the order of problem and solution should be the other way around.”At McMurtry, people who have declared senior status, as well as the college president, internal vice president, external vice president, the chief justice, scholarship athletes and students with documented disability have automatic eligibility for on-campus housing. Other McMurtry students will go through the eligibility jack, according to Harger. “We order those people by oldest, in terms of how long they have been at McMurtry,” Harger said. “The people who have been here the longest will be most likely to be kicked off campus. The only exception to this is anybody who declared senior status. In practice, the juniors are most likely to be kicked off.”

NEWS 2/18/15 4:07pm

QEP seeks student opinion

By Jaecey Parham

A task force of faculty, students and administration has begun the process of developing a new Quality Enhancement Plan for Rice University  aimed at a measurable and fundamental improvement in student education.The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools requires Rice to create a QEP every 10 years. Rice’s previous QEP in 2006 created the Center for Civic Engagement, which is now the Center for Civic Leadership. The goal in opening the center was to better integrate the Rice and Houston communities by providing community-based research and civic engagement opportunities for students.The QEP Task Force is co-chaired by James Weston, a professor of finance at the Jones School of Business, and Susan MacIntosh, a professor of anthropology. Weston said the QEP will be spearheaded by Rice faculty and will incorporate input from the entire Rice’s community. Weston said he credits the lead of faculty to the overall goal of the program.“The purpose is an initiative to improve student learning, which makes it a curricular objective,” Weston said. “So if it’s a curricular objective, then it becomes a faculty initiative, but [we will] gather input from all stakeholders in the community— student, staff, alumni, administration, everybody.”Weston said the task force is currently launching a website that will allow everybody to submit their opinions regarding student learning.“We are in the process of casting as wide a net as possible,” Weston said. “We are looking at broadening the input to the entire community.”Weston said the task force will filter through the input submitted over the next six weeks.“The committee will give two [representative] proposals to the administration, Weston said. “Ultimately, it’s the president and the board’s decision about what we do.”According to Weston, though the QEP is required by SACS, the program is not being created simply because it is obligatory, but because it is what should be happening.“We are constantly in the process of developing and evolving curriculum,” Weston said. “And here’s an opportunity for us to point a focus on something that we’ve been up to or want to get up to and communicate that to our accreditation body.”Weston said the QEP’s goal is to significantly improve student learning outcomes. The key parts to making it a successful program are the administration and resources.“Whatever this initiative is, the university as an institution has agreed with this initiative and is putting resources in place to see it happen,” Weston said.

NEWS 2/18/15 4:06pm

Rice Left members protest Hillel-hosted IDF soldier talk

By Anita Alem

After listening to a presentation from former Israeli Defense Force soldiers, community members, students and representatives of Rice Left silently walked out of HUMA 120, where the talk was held. Elad, an IDF soldier in reserve who could not give his last name due to security reasons, was discussing the composition of the IDF when protesters walked out.“The IDF, like America, is a melting pot,” Elad said. “Like I said, there’s Jews, Christians, Muslims — guys, this is very unfortunate. I came all the way to tell my story hoping that you would stay and be respectful and let me finish.”Hillel hosted the hourlong event, which was co-sponsored by the IDF and Stand With Us, a nonprofit, pro-Israel education organization.Members of Rice Left planned the walkout, which students from the University of Houston and other community members attended. The protesters met prior to the event in an adjacent classroom. Four Rice University Police Department officers were present as protesters convened. Jeremy Reiskind, vice president of engagement with Hillel, said the event was held to promote a dialogue between groups on either side of the issue between Palestine and Israel.“The focus of [Stand With Us] is not about combat and hating of the Palestinians,” Reiskind said. “We want peace also. The biggest thing is in issues like this that are so big and have so many complex issues is dialogue.”However, Rice Left member Heather Dial said she does not believe the event provided opportunity for a dialogue.“They have only invited a very narrow group of people from one side of a discussion,” Dial, a psychology graduate student, said. “We’re walking out because there is no room for dialogue in a biased conversation.”The talk was not listed on the Rice University Events Calendar, but was advertised through a Facebook event. “The soldiers’ stories on this tour are inspirational, human, personal and demonstrate clearly how the IDF employs the strictest moral standards while fighting a terrorist foe that callously puts civilians on both sides in harm’s way,” the event description states.Rice Left member and mathematics graduate student Kenan Ince said he found the description to be one-sided.“If you look at the killings on both sides, there is an enormous … imbalance of Palestinians being killed by Israelis, and I thought that was something they were definitely keeping out of their dialogue as well,” Ince said.Stand With Us Central Region Program Coordinator Vida Velasco introduced the event and said the purpose of Stand With Us is to convey the facts about the Israeli military. Velasco said she was aware of the walkout and preferred people stayed to promote a dialogue and understanding.“You should be informed that in Texas, it is a misdemeanor to create a premeditated disturbance, verbal or physical,” Velasco said. “So if you do choose to leave, please do so quietly.”Elad and another soldier, Tamir, spoke of their experiences in combat as well as their personal lives and background.“I don’t hate,” Elad said. “Palestinians are not our enemies, nor have they ever been our enemies. I’m here today to share our stories.”Elad said he unexpectedly came across different languages, religions and cultures as a part of the military, at which point the protesters walked out of the classroom.“We came from the other side of the world to talk to you, from Israel,” Tamir said as the walkout proceeded. “We’d love to answer your questions.”According to Rice Left member Michelle Pham, the event’s lack of publicity, despite its controversial topic, was problematic. Pham also said she did not think hosting a politicized event fell under the responsibilities of a cultural organization. “People have looked at Rice Hillel as a cultural club,” Pham said. “Promoting Israel, the nation state, is a move away from that. That’s a different orientation.”Reiskind, a Duncan College sophomore, said the role of Hillel extends beyond culture.“Hillel deals with all aspects of being Jewish,” Reiskind said. “We are in charge of helping students in different ways, [including] connecting with Israel.”Hillel member Zach Birenbaum said he would be open to hosting an event with Rice Left regarding Palestine.“They showed a pro-Palestine propaganda film [Five Broken Cameras], and I didn’t feel like that was an open dialogue,” Birenbaum said. “So I guess you have both sides where we’re kind of showing both perspectives on the issue.The event continued after the walkout, when Tamir and Elad more explicitly explained the combat zone and Hamas war tactics. During the question and answer session that followed, Hanszen College junior Aruni Ranaweera said she agreed with the sentiments of the protestors but planned to stay and listen to the presentation. Attendees applauded her choice to remain at the event, but Ranaweera said she questioned the goal of the discussion.“In the case that this is supposed to be a dialogue, I felt it was very one-sided,” Ranaweera said. “There were only Israeli soldiers, and no Palestinians. I just want to know what kind of dialogue you were expecting.”Velasco responded to Ranaweera’s question and said the goal is to start a more nuanced conversation.“The full story of Israel is not being told,” Velasco said. “One of the most demonized groups when talking about Israel is the military.”The soldiers provided information on Israeli tourism at the event’s closing.In a private interview, Elad and Tamir said it is important to remember them as regular people, as opposed to representatives of the IDF itself.Tamir said these events are not easy for him, considering how many people resent the existence of Israel. “I am the IDF soldier you’ve seen on TV in the last operation,” Tamir said. “I am that guy you allegedly saw killing and murdering those innocent people on purpose. I am here, talking to you, and that’s not me and as that guy that you saw in the media, I tell you one on one: I want peace.”Elad responded to criticism of bias towards the Israeli forces.“We just tell the truth, that’s all,” Elad said. “I’m over here because I believe in the truth.”

NEWS 2/12/15 5:40pm

Rice professor links Mayan decline to drought

By Sarah Frazier

Rice University professor of earth science Andre Droxler and a graduate student have found further evidence that the disappearance of the Mayan urban civilization was linked to a drought.“The decline of the Maya was so unexpected...it was very fast," Droxler said. “The demise of the Maya could well be connected to this one-century drought."Droxler said he and earth science graduate student Ayca Agar Cetin used measurements of titanium in layers of old sediment to reconstruct the rainfall history for the Yucatan Peninsula, where the Maya lived.“When you have … high precipitation, these metamorphic rocks are going to be altered chemically and release titanium," Droxler said. “[The titanium] goes to this lagoon, it settles down, and you have a kind of a record.”The team used X-ray fluorescence to identify the elements in cores of sediment from a location off the coast of Belize.“You can scan the core, and it gives you certain elements," Droxler said. “You could see there was a trend [in the titanium measurements].”According to Droxler, they compared the measurements of titanium and aluminum in this sediment to estimate how much rain there was in the region during that time — more titanium means more precipitation.“This titanium aluminum ratio becomes a precipitation record,” Droxler said. “We call this a paleo-precipitation proxy.”Using X-ray fluorescence, they identified a century-long period of low titanium, which meant there had been very little rainfall during that time. The drought period corresponds to the time the Maya abandoned their southern urban civilization, Droxler said.“The Maya kind of disappeared between 800 and 900,” Droxler said. “Some of them migrated … [to] the northern side of the Yucatan Peninsula [at] Chichen Itza.”Droxler said another major Maya city, Chichen Itza, was abandoned about 150 years after the southern urban civilization.“Chichen Itza was abandoned at 1040,” Droxler said. “[1000-1100] is another point where you have low precipitation.”Droxler’s work is just another piece of evidence pointing toward the idea that drought was a major factor in the demise of the Maya urban civilization.“There are at least three different types of paleo-precipitation records [that support this], plus [the] tropical cyclone record.” Droxler said.Another study that Droxler collaborated on used sediment samples to show there were fewer tropical cyclones during these periods, which supports the drought hypothesis, Droxler said.  “When you have … very little precipitation, you have no cyclone,” Droxler said.Droxler says an understanding of how climate affected the Maya civilization is more than just historically interesting.“It’s very important for us to study the past … to try to assess the change in climate we’ve witnessed in the past 50 years,” Droxler said. “How will our civilization … react to this change of climate?”Droxler said a drought of even a few years can significantly change an area.“The summer [of 2011] with no rain, in Memorial Park we lost one-third [to] one-half of all the trees,” Droxler said. “Imagine if that summer [were] three or four years in a row. South Texas would have changed completely.”

NEWS 2/10/15 9:01am

EVP candidates split on REF initiative results

 

At first glance, Student Association external vice president candidates Madhuri Venkateswar and Joan Liu appear to campaign on similar platforms of empowering students to control their own Rice experiences. However, McMurtry College senator Venkateswar and SA treasurer Liu differ in their approach toward this broader goal of realizing student interests.Venkateswar cited her experience as a part of the Rice Education of the Future initiative as an indication of her ability to collaborate with administration. However, Liu said she finds the future plans of the REF to be outlined vaguely and desires more tangible results.“To make student priorities a reality, I want to translate these into something accomplishable, as opposed to [just] setting a vision and revolving around it,” Liu said. “When I asked how we could realize REF, I never got a clear response. It was always, ‘We’re deferring to administration’ or ‘We’re working on it.’”Liu said although considering the big picture is important, being able to create something real is what students want.“Experiential learning, like the ideas from REF or the SA40K — that’s what the SA should be making a reality,” Liu said. “So many good initiatives came from giving students money via the SA40K. That shouldn’t be a one time thing. Making something like that happen on a regular basis — that’s what the SA is for.”Venkateswar said the projects she tackled as a senator were particularly suited to preparing someone for EVP and that she will apply the lessons learned working on REF to ensure changes come to pass.“I want to continue initiatives like blanket tax reformation and parking and look at tangible things to do in the short term,” Venkateswar said. “I also want to take the ideas REF came up with and implement those ideas over the long term. We’re at a unique point where [both students and administration are] in agreement that something needs to change.”Liu said her role as treasurer allowed her to work closely with the Blanket Tax Crack Team and contribute to the final SA40K proposal. Venkateswar said, as a senator, she has contributed more to legislation, including the initiative for oral communication courses in different schools of study.“I’m uniquely qualified because I took the senate position not just as, ‘Let me represent McMurtry,’ but I took it as, ‘What do I see in the Rice community?’” Venkateswar said. “It’s about noticing specific things and saying, ‘I can make a difference here.’”

NEWS 2/10/15 8:50am

RPC candidates offer differing skillsets, styles

 

Rice Program Council presidential candidates Dixita Viswanath and Jodie Nghiem present different approaches to leadership centered upon their current roles in the organization. Viswanath, a Will Rice College junior, is the publicity co-chair while Nghiem, a McMurtry College sophomore, is the socials co-chair.Nghiem said she has two years left at Rice, allowing for the possibility of either a second term or the ability to provide mentorship to the next president.“Continuity in leadership is important,” Nghiem said. “I’ll be there after my term as a source of guidance.”Viswanath said being a part of Rice Emergency Medical Services provided her with a sense of calm in stressful situations as well as the ability to see the big picture of any event.“I redesigned the website and added a line-by-line budget so students can see exactly where their blanket tax goes for each event,” Viswanath said. “I have different ideas that I want to see changed, [such as] the entrance fees for some of our events so it could be a more equal chance for everyone.”Nghiem cited her crisis management throughout Esperanza as evidence of her communication expertise, and stated that the RPC president would need to deal with emergencies and unexpected difficulties.“The [Esperanza] experience has taught me to keep calm during high-stress situations, [so I] really think about choices as we run at them,” Nghiem said. “[I learned to] deal with repercussions and respond to student feedback. My co-chair and I responded to every single email and created an extensive FAQ to answer any questions.”Both candidates stressed that they respect each other but have different visions for the organization. “As publicity chair, Dixita is more in charge of how RPC is perceived,” Nghiem said. “At the end of the day, RPC is planning events, and my experience gives me the perspective I need to really improve RPC. RPC is my Rice experience.”Viswanath said her role of gaining feedback actually aids the co-chairs and said she has different skills to offer from Nghiem.“I have a very broad way of thinking and very specific goals for RPC,” Viswanath said. “Jodie’s a socials chair and is very focused on individual events. As publicity chair, my role is more big picture. I help bring students to events and see how we can improve by gauging student feedback and incorporating social media into this.”

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