News

NEWS 11/18/14 4:04pm

H&D proposes repurposing space creatively

By Jieya Wen

New, creative design spaces may come to residential colleges in the coming years, according to David McDonald, senior business director of Housing and Dining. H&D is initiating the endeavor in collaboration with Rice Education of the Future. The spaces will be multi-disciplinary and their design open to student input.“This is all very new, very student driven and very organic,” McDonald said. “The space we envision in the college is a [multi-disciplinary] collaboration. So we’ve asked the colleges to define what a creative space [looks like] in their college, recognizing the fact that 11 colleges have very unique identities. H&D will help support and help them innovate the design and keep them on the right path of what the ultimate design will look like.”Student Association Executive Vice President Trent Navran said the REF task force is communicating with college leadership about this initiative, but the actual implementation of the creative space depends on the individual colleges themselves.“The idea is students have to, at each of their colleges, come up with their idea of what creativity looks like,” Navran, a McMurtry College senior, said. “It’s a lot more about starting a conversation and getting the residential college to be facilitators for a college wide conversation ... There is a huge burden on residential college presidents to communicate this effectively.”McMurtry Senator Madhuri Venkateswar said her college has already begun considering possibilities for the space.“This has been pitched at McMurtry and at Duncan [College]...and McMurtry specifically has created an innovation space committee composed of architects and engineers to create this innovation space,” Venkateswar, a sophomore, said. “Basically, they are first defining what innovation is.”Susann Glenn, manager of Communications for Rice Facilities Engineering and Planning, said H&D aims to support the students’ design of the creative space in colleges and the SA is responsible for facilitating the conversation with the students. “We are here to support the efforts and help find the space and ensure whatever [is] proposed is reasonable,” Glenn said. “We are not facilitating this conversation. It’s a student-driven initiative.”Currently, several colleges, including Sid Richardson College, Duncan College and Jones College, have started creating committees on creative design space. “Some colleges are talking about combining efforts together,” Glenn said. “Maybe some shared space somewhere can benefit both colleges, and then it also encourages interactions between colleges and collaborations between colleges.”McDonald said creative design space will enrich students’ residential college experience.“You all spend a lot of time in your colleges,” McDonald said. “If [the creative design space] is down on the first floor, it’s more likely that you go down there and play in the space.”

NEWS 11/18/14 3:55pm

Rice follows federal sexual assault rules

By Yasna Haghdoost

The U.S. Department of Education released a new set of rules for college campuses that make provisions for changes to the Violence Against Women Act and the Clery Act. These rules include providing mandatory sexual assault trainings, disclosing “unfounded” reports of sexual assault, using the preponderance of evidence standard in sexual assault cases and allowing for students to have independent advisors during proceedings. Colleges are required to comply to these rules by July 2015 and to make a good-faith attempt in the meantime. Rice University currently has most of these new rules already in place as part of recent efforts to provide training and resources as well as the introduction of the Sexual Misconduct Policy earlier this year. Sexual Assault TrainingAccording to Dean of Undergraduates John Hutchinson, Rice provides sexual harassment training that is mandatory for faculty, staff and graduate students. As of now, the online sexual harassment training emailed out to undergraduate students is considered mandatory, but participation is not regulated. “Technically, that’s mandatory, but right now we haven’t put any consequences in place for people who haven’t participated,” Hutchinson said. “We will soon be adding consequences for not participating.”According to Student Wellbeing Director Kate Noonan, many staff and faculty members have undergone Title IX training in order to better assist students. “This semester alone, Student Wellbeing has provided training to many key faculty and staff, including masters, RAs and over 15 departments who work closely with students, and to student advisors for O-Week,” Noonan said. “This training covers Title IX responsibilities and our sexual misconduct policy at Rice as well as how to connect students with the resources available to them on and off campus.” Student Wellbeing Specialist Kate Hildebrandt said. in addition to Title IX training, Rice uses the Project SAFE initiative to promote discussion and to address issues surrounding assault on campuses. “All incoming students and advisers receive training through Project SAFE, and we offer ongoing sessions throughout the year,’ Hildebrandt said. “We’re also really excited to expand our trainings in the coming semesters to talk about topics like healthy relationships, healthy sexuality and shifting the norms of rape culture.” “Unfounded” Reports of Sexual Assaults The new federal rules also require that colleges provide campus crime statistics that include “unfounded” reports of sexual assault. Rice currently does not follow this policy, but plans to do so in the future, according to Hutchinson. “I think ‘unfounded’ is a poor word ... because we might find [a case] ‘not in violation’ only because the evidence is insufficient to find ‘in violation,’” Hutchinson said. “That doesn’t mean it was unfounded, it just means that there wasn’t a preponderance of the evidence to find in violation.”While Hutchinson said Rice does not report unfounded claims, he also said he does not see any difficulty in following this protocol. “I was surprised when I saw it, because I recognized it as a change, but it’s a change we can easily adapt to,” Hutchinson said. Preponderance of EvidenceAnother nationwide change on campuses outlined by the federal rules is a shift to using the “preponderance of evidence” standard in sexual assault cases instead of the more rigorous “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard. Rice already uses the “preponderance of evidence” criteria in issues involving sexual assault, and according to Hutchinson, this measure is a more appropriate one given the sensitive nature of these cases. “Our standard at the university is to make sure we have an environment where students can study or live without fear of harassment or assault or any form of sexual discrimination,” Hutchinson said. “Any time we have an allegation that comes forward where the preponderance of the evidence tells us in fact that we have created an environment where discrimination has occurred, and in some cases the discrimination may go all the way to the point of sexual assault, then we need to act on that. We’re trying to preserve the safe environment for all of our students.” Independent Advisors The federal rules also require that alleged victims and perpetrators be allowed to have an independent advisor, such as a parent or lawyer, to support them throughout the process. Rice’s Sexual Misconduct Policy from earlier this year allows for the inclusion of such advisors, who, according to Hutchinson, can provide students with advice and moral support. Associate Dean of Undergraduates Matthew Taylor, who is the chair of Rice's Working Group on University Responses to Federal Initiatives on Sexual Assault, said knowing they are allowed to have advisors might encourage students to report sexual assault while also providing advice and perspective. “Those situations are difficult situations, whether it’s a hearing or an informal meeting, and. in my experience, students in those situations oftentimes don’t necessarily have clarity on what’s being said to them or even on what they’re saying,” Taylor said. “These are very intense meetings because they are addressing very serious questions. Having someone familiar nearby as a support can help.” Affirmative ConsentThe federal rules, however, do not include affirmative consent as a legal definition.According to Hutchinson, affirmative consent, given either through words or actions, is a part of Rice’s policy and an important component of healthy, mutual sexual relationships. “Affirmative consent as a standard protects an individual from being a passive victim of someone else’s behavior,” Hutchinson said. “A sexual relationship should be a mutually consensual relationship at the outset and throughout the entire sexual relationship, and that requires affirmative consent.”

NEWS 11/18/14 3:51pm

Course, instructor evaluations show engineering lags

By Drew Keller

Course evaluations have improved on average for all academic schools at Rice University since they were first published in 2004, but the engineering and natural sciences departments still lag behind social sciences and humanities in both course and instructor evaluations.President David Leebron mentioned the rise in evaluations during his speech to the Student Association on Oct. 1, and the evaluation process is currently being investigated by an SA Senate subcommittee that includes students, faculty and Registrar David Tenney (Sid Richardson ’87).Course evaluations have been made publicly available since 2004, a development Tenney said is valuable to Rice’s student body.“There’s a recognition that evaluations serve an important role for Rice students,” Tenney said. “They’re not just for teachers; they’re critical forstudents.”Since 2007, all six of Rice’s academic schools have shown improvement in two important measures included in evaluations: average course quality and average instructor effectiveness. Both of these metrics are measured on a five-point scale where one is the best possible response and five is the worst. The departmental averages have fallen by between 0.1 and 0.2 points since 2007, with the School of Architecture and School of Social Sciences showing thegreatest improvement. Despite the advances, a clear difference still exists between the evaluations for the STEM and non-STEM subjects. Since 2007, the School of Engineering has consistently had the worst or second-worst average course and instructor evaluations, around 2.15 and 2.1 respectively for the fall 2013 semester. This is between 0.3 and 0.4 points worse than the School of Social Sciences, the School of Humanities and the School of Architecture, which are all in the 1.7to 1.9 range. The School of Natural Sciences has received evaluations only slightly better than the School of Engineering, standing at 2.05 for course quality and 1.9 for instructor effectiveness for the fall 2013 semester. The School of Music, on the other hand, has the best evaluations of any division at 1.5 for both metrics, though it has shown the least improvement, about 0.05 points,since 2007.However, not all engineering classes or even majors have lower evaluations than other subjects. For example, mechanical engineering and chemical and biomolecular engineering courses tend to have worse reviews than computer science and electrical engineering, which are actually comparable to average courses in the humanities. In addition to this trend, which holds true across departments, upper-level courses generally have better evaluations than introductoryclasses.Dimitri Nikolaou, a chemical and biomolecular engineering major, pointed to course difficulty and lack of focus on teaching as reasons for the School of Engineering’s worseevaluations.“The kids are pushed more, so innately they’re more frustrated because they have to work more,” Nikolaou, a Brown College junior, said. “I feel like more engineering professors are brought in for being research-oriented rather than oriented toward undergraduateteaching.”According to Alexandra Franklin, the Brown Senator and a member of the SA Senate subcommittee on evaluations, the SA plans to modify the evaluation process in the future to make it more useful to administration andstudents. “We are currently looking into different options for future evaluations,” Franklin, a junior, said. “The changes will probably take about two years to completely integrate, but everything is pending presentation to the Teaching Committee at large and the Faculty Senate.”With the changes, Franklin said the SA hopes to continue the role of evaluations as an important tool in the Rice community.“We want to create evaluations that better serve the students, the faculty themselves and the administration as a whole,” Franklin said.

NEWS 11/18/14 3:49pm

City health code bans reusable containers

By Hannah Che

Hannah Chefor the ThresherA proposal to set up reusable take-out containers at the serveries has been prevented by the city of Houston health code, according to Housing and Dining Senior Business Director David McDonald. The objection rose from a concern about cross-contamination hazards. “The logic was, let’s say you have a cold, and you bring back a container that is contaminated,” McDonald said. “When you take food, the serving spoon touches the container, and when it is placed back into the food, it contaminates everybody else who’s going to get food that day. That’s what we call cross-contamination.”McDonald argued the sanitary concern is unfounded because the reusable containers would be washed by H&D. “We’re professionals, and we’re certified,” McDonald said. “Since we’re washing the containers, the risk of contamination would be no different from the risk associated with using paper plates. We feel like we’ve taken the risk out of it, but [the health officials] didn’t see it that way.” The reusable containers would replace the current paper plates and greatly minimize both paper waste and cost, according to McDonald. The system was tested at the Faculty Club last year and seemed to work, but McDonald said logistical issues would arise from the greater demand at the serveries.“There were concerns that the system would slow down lines,” McDonald said. “Also, that students wouldn’t like the idea of us charging five dollars at the counter to get the container, or the fact that they wouldn’t have paper plates.”The University of Houston has a similar container system already in place, according to McDonald, but it follows a different health code.“They’re governed by the state of Texas, because they’re a state school,” McDonald said. “As a private institution, Rice is governed by the city of Houston health code, which has one of the strictest set of food handling guidelines I’ve seen.”McDonald said this container idea came three years ago from an ENGI 302 class project.“Students wanted to see if the serveries could use reusable to-go containers instead of paper plates,” McDonald said. “How it would work is you would come in and say, ‘I want to-go today.’ Then I would charge you five dollars on your tetra points, give you a container and you’d get your food. When you returned the container, I would credit back the five dollars for the cost of the container or switch with you and give you a new clean container.”Tierra Moore, the co-chair of the Student Association Environmental Committee, said a survey by the new student representatives last month found most students were in favor of the idea. “We collected over 270 responses from students and found that 80 percent of them would have liked to use this product,” Moore, a Baker College senior, said. Moore said that students cold contact city health officials to discuss setting up a special-case situation for Rice.According to McDonald, the reusable containers are no longer being considered by H&D. However, students are allowed to bring in reusable bottles to fill with water and other beverages.“The reason I can get away with that is because they’re dispenser style,” McDonald said. “So there is no cross-contamination hazard.”McDonald said the reusable container proposal reflects broader issues about sustainability and the growing take-out culture on campus.“The disposable paper plate usage just ticks up every year, and with the reusable containers, we’re primarily trying to mitigate this,” McDonald said. “But I think the best thing that could happen from a sustainability standpoint is to just stop using so much take-out. In the seven years I’ve been here, I’ve seen a huge increase in people taking out plates instead of eating in their commons.”Moore said discussion stems back to the issue of how much student behavior can be controlled. “I don’t really think you can add [reusable containers] to the serveries and expect the takeout culture to decrease — I mean obviously it would facilitate the existing demand for takeout,” Moore said. “But that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing.”

NEWS 11/18/14 3:44pm

Speakers discuss benefits of legalizing marijuana

By Mengjia Liu

Speakers presented on the medical benefits of cannabis and the possibility of its legalization for medical use in Texas in 2015. The James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy and the Drug Policy Alliance sponsored he talk on Nov. 12.William Martin, the Harry and Hazel Chavanne Senior Fellow for Religion and Public Policy at the Baker Institute, said therapeutic use of cannabis has faced less opposition than recreational use, with 23 states and the District of Columbia having some system of medical marijuana.Terri Davis Carriker, co-founder of Embrace Moms, described how traditional medicine cannot help her daughter, Catherine, who suffers from treatment-resistant epilepsy. Carriker said early tests with medical marijuana for epileptic patients have shown promising results.“Over the last nine years, we had countless ER tripss and two brain surgeries,” Carriker said. “To disallow [medical marijuana] is tantamount to medical neglect.”Amy Lou Fawell, president and co-founder of Mothers Advocating Medical Marijuana for Autism, said primary caretakers of autistic children and the children themselves are often victims of violent behavior that pharmaceutical drugs cannot control. However, despite anecdotal reports of children improving from cannabis treatment, even states that permit medical marijuana do not recognize autism as a qualifying condition. “In [certain cases], breaking the law is necessary to prevent a harm worse than the one the law is aimed at preventing,” Fawell said. Neeraj Shah, a physician at the Seton Medical Center and the Victory Medical Center, said compared to other pharmaceutical drugs and psychoactives, marijuana is relatively safe.“There is no respiratory suppression with cannabis or cannabinoids,” Shah said. “Opiates and benzodiazepines can make you stop breathing, and you can end up on a ventilator, or dead.”Elliott Naishtat, a member of the Texas House of Representatives, said several bills on medicinal marijuana will be introduced in the upcoming session. Naishtat said he has introduced a medical marijuana affirmative defense bill six times, which he believes has the best chance of passing.“A patient, if arrested, would have to prove in court that he or she was suffering from a bona fide medical condition, as defined by his or her physician, and that physician has discussed or recommended marijuana as an option to alleviate the symptoms of the condition,” Naishtat said. “The bill does not legalize marijuana. The judge would be authorized to drop the charges. The judge wouldn’t be required to drop the charges.” Hanszen College freshman Rachel Bowyer said the lecture felt one-sided.“It’s clear that medical marijuana can benefit patients, but they did not present the other side of the argument,” Bowyer said. “I would like to see a more representative debate about the actual legislative issues of passing marijuana laws.”

NEWS 11/12/14 8:07am

M.I.A: This semester, Baker and West serveries lost all 3,200 of their plastic cups

By Amber Tong

The Student Association Environmental Committee presented at the SA Senate meeting on the issue of lost cups from the servery, according to committee co-chair Tierra Moore.“In the last academic year, roughly 8,000 cups were purchased, lost and replaced,” Moore, who presented on Nov. 5, said. “Baker and West serveries have had all of their cups replaced this semester alone. This adds up to a significant 3,200 cups.”According to Moore, to offset losses, Housing and Dining has proposed that disposable, recyclable 16-oz. plastic cups be added to the serveries. Moore said she thinks this proposal is environmentally undesirable.“With [Rice’s] recycling rate at just 28 percent, this might negatively impact [our] waste stream,” Moore said.H&D Senior Business Director David McDonald said the additional cost of disposable cups may potentially increase H&D expenditure, which is ultimately funded by students.“It is important to note that behavior directly influences the cost of room and board each year,” McDonald said. “If we are spending more on disposables and tumblers, we will need to make up for this increased cost in some way.”Moore said the committee thought the real issue is a growing take-out culture among students and proposed replacing fewer cups in serveries to discourage wastefulness.“The loss of dishes in the serveries is an issue driven by student behavior,” Moore said. “For that reason, I proposed reducing the amount of cups replaced in the serveries … The reduced supply may prompt students to be more conscientious about returning cups.”H&D, however, said they are uncertain whether purchasing fewer cups is appropriate, since it goes against the mission of the department, according to McDonald.“We are a service organization funded by the room and board payments by students on meal plans,” McDonald said. “If students don’t have cups available, we feel that we are not meeting our goals of providing for the students.”At the SA Senate meeting, University Court Chair Brian Baran said reducing the number of reusable cups may leave students with no alternatives but to take disposable cups. Baran said a more realistic option is to keep the current number of reusable cups and to increase the disposable ones. “I doubt any marketing effort will convince enough students to change their behavior to outweigh the increase in reusable cup shortages,” Baran said. “If the disposable cups were a reasonable size, students taking their meal to go would be less inclined to take the reusable cups, so fewer would go missing. We have to accept and work with the reality that many students’ schedules prevent them from eating every meal in their college’s commons.”Moore said the overall response she got at the SA Senate meeting seemed to suggest a reluctance to take her proposal; most seemed to favor H&D’s plan.“Ideally, the SA would campaign this change as a positive, student-led initiative to improve campus sustainability,” Moore said. “However, at last week’s [SA Senate meeting,] the SA showed a tepid response to this proposal. They appear to support the addition of the disposable plastic cups, as long as there are places to recycle them.”Moore said work has already been done with regards to adding recycling infrastructure.“It should be noted that Rice has been working toward installing outdoor recycle bins across campus,” Moore said. “This initiative was supported by Ping [Leebron], who helped secure a $50,000 grant to add approximately 25 outdoor recycle bins. [Facilities, Engineering and Planning] is working towards installing these bins within the next year or so.”Ultimately, the root of the problem of lost cups is still student attitude, accordintg to Moore.“It is also important to address student behavior,” Moore said. “A general lack of education, misinformation and student apathy contribute significantly to these problems.”Richard Johnson, director of Energy and Sustainability for Rice University, said the cup problem warrants serious attention.“I fully support H&D’s efforts to initiate a broader conversation about this topic,” Johnson said. “In the interim, I appeal to Rice students to return tumblers, plates and flatware — which are Rice property — back to the serveries where they belong.”

NEWS 11/12/14 8:06am

Contingency Committee deliberates outcome

By Yasna Haghdoost

The Student Association Blanket Tax Contingency Committee deliberated on whether to find Honor Council in good standing, violation or aggravated violation of the blanket tax process at the latest meeting on Monday. As of the latest meeting, Honor Council has submitted a letter to the committee in response to concerns raised in the Oct 27. meeting, as well as an amended budget for 2014-15 and a projected budget for 2015-16. Amended BudgetIn the letter to the committee, Honor Council Chair Hurst Williamson wrote that the organization will now discontinue its practice of buying gifts for departing seniors, an expense that totaled around $400 a year. Williamson, a Hanszen College senior, also wrote that Honor Council’s changeover dinner will be reduced from a price of $50 per person to a maximum of $25 per person starting in spring 2015. “Changeover dinner at $50 or less per person was consistent with Honor Council’s understanding [of] Rice University policy,” Williamson wrote. “The Honor Council now understands, through the committee, that the student body wants blanket tax organizations to follow a different expectation.” In the original 2014-15 budget submitted before its meeting with the Contingency Committee, Honor Council had listed $1,700 under “Student Organization Events,” with $1,500 of that amount allocated for the changeover dinner. Now, under the amended 2014-15 and 2015-16 budgets, Honor Council allocates $2,200 for student organization events. While the price of the changeover dinner has been halved to $750, a new expenditure of $1,250 listed under “misc. meals” has been added. This expense was not included in the original proposed budget. The amended budgets also include a new expenditure of $2,260 for training and conferences. The training, which Honor Council has projected as a two-night event for four people, allocateds $900 for three hotel rooms, $1000 for conference registration and $360 for meals. However, Honor Council has still failed to provide its C- and D- fund expense reports from the past four years, which were requested by the Contingency Committee over a month ago now.In a constitutional clarification regarding the contingency process, University Court stated that an organization’s noncompliance can be grounds for a violation.“An organization’s failure to comply with the contingency process, unless the available information supports a finding of Good Standing despite the noncompliance, constitutes a violation [of the SA constitution],” UCourt Secretary Makenzie Drukker wrote in the court’s abstract.Potential OutcomesThe voting members of the Contingency Committee can find Honor Council either in compliance, in violation or in aggravated violation of blanket tax review criteria. The SA constitution states blanket tax organizations must use their funds to further their “mission, purpose and goals,” solely for “organizational purposes,” and “in a manner consistent with all Rice University rules and regulations.” It further requires these organizations to be “good stewards of student money.” If a blanket tax organization does not meet one or more of these four review criteria, then the Contingency Committee will find it in violation.An aggravated violation can occur if an organization has a surplus greater than 50 percent, cannot justify such a surplus and does not address the issue reasonably in its proposed budget for the current year. A single violation is similar to a strike, while an aggravated counts as two strikes. If an organization accrues three strikes in a four-year period, the Contingency Committee can recommend a decrease in blanket tax funding.

NEWS 11/12/14 8:05am

Recommendations for non-tenure track faculty members pass in Faculty Senate

By Miles Kruppa and Tina Nazerian

In light of a greater conversation in academia about the rights and roles of non-tenure track faculty, Rice University is reconsidering their titles, obligations and job security.According to the Rice Faculty Handbook, “academic tenure protects faculty members from being dismissed for teaching, researching or inquiring into areas that might be politically or commercially controversial.” However, NTT faculty do not have tenure and are not on paths that potentially lead to tenure within the university.The Faculty Senate approved the Task Force on Non-Tenure Track Faculty’s five recommendations to increase job stability and growth opportunities for non-tenure track faculty while more clearly defining their roles at its meeting on Oct. 1. Paula Sanders, vice provost for academic affairs, and Stanislav Sazykin, senior faculty fellow in physics and astronomy, presented the five recommendations at the Student Association Senate meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 5. The task force’s primary recommendations were to create full-time NTT teaching and research positions with the titles of Assistant, Associate and (full) Teaching/Research Professor. The other three recommendations were to clarify the titles and roles of lecturers and instructors, limit the use of the “Professor in the Practice” title and allow the Schools of Business, Music and Architecture to develop their own NTT titles. Trends in NTT FacultyThe recommendations come in the wake of a greater discussion in academia about the roles and treatment of NTT faculty, according to Sanders, a professor of history.Nationwide, NTT positions account for 76 percent of all instructional staff appointments in American higher education, according to the American Association of University Professors. According to the Office of Institutional Research, in fall 2013, NTT faculty taught 38 percent of undergraduate courses at Rice compared to 45 percent TTT faculty and 15 percent other instructors. Additionally, in fall 2013, TTT faculty made up 71 percent of instructional faculty on a Full-Time Equivalent basis, compared to 29 percent NTT faculty. The OIR calculates FTE by adding all the full time TTT faculty to one-third of part time TTT faculty. “Many universities have used more and more contingent faculty, meaning faculty who are part time, have no benefits and have no job security, to carry out their undergraduate teaching mission,” Sanders said. “At Rice, the majority of our faculty continue to be TTT, tenured and tenure track faculty.” Sanders said Rice also has a number of full-time faculty who are NTT and have served the university well for a long time and that Rice actively attempts to employ full-time NTT faculty whenever possible. She said there are organizations in higher education, like the AAUP, that have called for universities to take measures similar to those in the recommendations. “There are lots of places where you have individuals who will piece together a living,” Sanders said. “They teach at three to five institutions, they teach a gazillion courses, they get paid almost nothing, they have no benefits. That’s a terrible situation. It’s a bad situation for those people, it’s a bad situation for a university.”An NTT faculty member, who asked to be anonymous for their job protection, said one of the main concerns of NTT faculty nationwide is that their expiring contracts will not be renewed. “One effectively doesn’t have to be fired; one’s contract only need not be renewed,” the NTT faculty member said. “So that’s kind of how the employment situation works for NTTs.”The NTT faculty member said they think one of the arguments in favor of moving toward the sorts of recommendations the task force endorses is to encourage academic freedom in teaching and research. “I’m not suggesting that NTTs don’t have that, because I think that most NTTs function in their positions as if though they do have academic freedom,” the NTT faculty member said. “You’re at a university, you assume you have academic freedom. But one of the broader concerns that’s been expressed in the country by many organizations that are looking at these issues is academic freedom, in addition to the issue of employment security.”The NTT faculty member said the task force’s recommendations will not only benefit NTTs, but will benefit the campus at large, in particular students. “If you look at countrywide trends, NTTs are an integral part of universities,” the NTT faculty member said. “I don’t see that changing, I don’t see that landscape changing. NTTs are people, basically, who have dedicated their careers to either doing teaching or research, but not both. The fact that Rice put together this task force and recommendations, a year in the making, shows that Rice is acknowledging the role that NTTs play in the overall academic experience at Rice.”Sanders said the new policies will make Rice more competitive for hiring the best NTT faculty and retaining them.“We ... wanted to ensure that we are able to hire and retain the highest quality faculty for everything we do at Rice, from our [tenured and tenure track] positions where tenure track faculty have the responsibilities for research, teaching and service, all the way through the whole range of faculty who teach full time or even part time mostly for our undergraduates,” Sanders said. “If we want to recruit and retain the best faculty, we have to have jobs that are appealing for people.”ImplementationAccording to Sanders, the task force decided to put management, planning and implementation issues in a separate document that the Faculty Senate did not vote on, but serves as a record of issues that have been raised for consideration and discussion by the administration. She said her highest priority is the full implementation of the recommendations by June 30, 2016.“We decided that we would put a lot of other things that are not really governance issues, but management and planning and implementation issues, in a separate document so that they would be there, so that they would be on the record of things that people wanted to have considered,” Sanders said. Sanders said the task force did not discuss compensation.“There are compensation questions that our committee did not address,” Sanders said. “And those are things that are going to have to be addressed down the road.”According to Sanders, issues such as whether or not NTT faculty will be eligible to become college masters and whether or not NTT faculty should have sabbaticals will be discussed during the implementation phase.“There are questions about what privileges and rights [and] entitlements different categories of employees should have,” Sanders said. “Having these principles doesn’t mean everybody should have exactly the same entitlements for their role.”At the Faculty Senate meeting on Oct. 1, Senator Mike Wolf said the wording “While not required, the record of scholarship and professional activity outside the university … should be considered in the promotion and renewal process” is problematic given the definition of NTT teaching roles. “Is such activity a part of the job description or is it not?” Wolf, a professor of mathematics, said. “If it is not part of the job, it has no role in promotion and renewal. If it is part of the job, then those activities need to be included in the job description — currently centered on teaching, teaching-related activities and service — and there need to be provisions made so that all candidates have a fair and adequate opportunity to engage in those activities.”According to the Faculty Senate meeting minutes, Sanders replied by saying the task force felt it was reasonable to say that scholarship could be part of the total assessment of NTT faculty, but it was not required, and that the goal is to create a career track for NTT faculty. In an email, Sanders said the conversation with Wolf was centered on making sure that all the requirements and criteria for evaluation and promotion would be included in the job description. She said the conversation was not a definitive discussion of the issue, and the task force’s feeling that it was reasonable to say scholarship could be part of NTT faculty’s total assessment was not a position that she personally espouses. Susan McIntosh, Committee on Undergraduate Curriculum chair, said NTT faculty bring diverse expertise in teaching and research to the undergraduate student body. “The NTT initiative serves to ensure fair treatment of our valuable NTT faculty, creating career tracks in those cases where their teaching skills contribute to the undergraduate program on a long-term basis,” McIntosh said. “NTT is not a single, monolithic category and can’t really be discussed as such. NTT faculty bring a wide variety of qualities and benefits to our undergraduate curriculum.”

NEWS 11/12/14 8:01am

Rice reflects on Kennedy's famous moon speech

By Sarah Frazier

As part of the homecoming lecture series, Director of Rice Space Institute David Alexander reflected on Nov. 7 on how Rice is continuing the legacy of President John Kennedy’s famous speech at Rice Stadium.“[Kennedy’s speech] is one of the highlights of the hundred years of Rice,” Alexander said at the lecture, titled “Continuing the Legacy of the Kennedy Speech at Rice Stadium." “It’s still relevant in 2014, [roughly] 50 years after the speech.”According to Alexander, some of Rice’s current programs and accomplishments are a direct result of Rice’s role in the early space program.“Rice created the very first department dedicated to the space sciences,” Alexander said. “Over the course of 50 years, we’ve graduated 248 Ph.D.s. We have instruments on the moon.”The space race was primarily motivated by the prospect of beating the Soviet Union, Alexander said.“There was this competition for all the wrong reasons,” Alexander said. “It wasn’t about science, it wasn’t about technology. [It] was the drive … to prevent the Russians from claiming technological superiority.”However, the space program has been key to the United States’ technological and economic development, according to Alexander.“The biggest spin-off [of the space program] was the number of people who entered science, technology, engineering and math,” Alexander said. “The American economy became the economy of the world because of [this].”According to Alexander, the space program has motivated cooperation with other nations in a way Kennedy probably could not have predicted.“[Kennedy would] be amazed that right now the biggest piece of hardware we have in space was built by different countries [and] one of the partners is Russia,” Alexander said.Kennedy would likely be discouraged by the lack of progress since the moon landing, according to Alexander.“Kennedy said we’d get to the moon by the end of the decade, and we did,” Alexander said. “[But] he’d be very surprised … by how little we’ve done in the 45 years since.”McMurtry College senior Shane Alpert said she hopes Rice will continue the legacy of collaboration with the space program.“I think Rice should be involved with … the future of the space program,” Alpert said. “Their connection to NASA is partially why I chose to attend Rice, and it’s an important role that they should continue to hold.”Alexander said thinking about space needs to change.“We need to be thinking of space as … what it does for us on Earth,” Alexander said. “Space isn’t just a destination; it’s a resource.”

NEWS 11/12/14 8:00am

Humans, not squirrels, compose Homecoming court

By Anita Alem

Rice Homecoming broke tradition this year in choosing students as the newly crowned Homecoming King and Queen. Hanszen College senior Chris Chu and Sid Richardson College senior Morgan McNeel were crowned at the football game on Saturday.The student body nominated the Homecoming Court on Oct. 30, and the final list consisted of four male and four female students. Traditionally, nominees have been various random objects, animals or faculty members. According to the centennial timeline, Rice students first began nominating unconventionally candidates for the Homecoming Court in the 1940s. A few of the nominated individuals were masters’ spouses and children, a cat, an iguana, a car and a former Texas governor. In 2011, Saint Arnold Centenni-Ale was crowned Homecoming King, while in 2008, Hurrican Ike took the honors. More recently in 2013, Bucky and Bushy the squirrels were placed on the ballot following an active Facebook campaign. Bushy ultimately won the title of Homecoming Queen.Melissa Cespedes, Chair of the Homecoming Committee and a Homecoming Court nominee, said she has been working with students and faculty to establish Homecoming as a Rice tradition. Cespedes, a Wiess College junior, said she thinks students enjoy having a voice in nominating the Homecoming Court instead of treating the tradition humorously.“Putting the face of actual students, instead of objects or faculty, can make an impact in establishing Homecoming as a tradition at Rice,” Cespedes said. “Since students have friends actually participating in the Homecoming Court, I think the election will allow them to be more notified of what is happening around campus and will encourage more participation in the Homecoming events.”Sid Richardson Senior Michael Gwede was nominated for Homecoming Court but said he prefers the old tradition of choosing silly objects or animals.“I think that type of lightheartedness is what makes Rice a fun place to go to school,” Gwede said. “Luckily all of the nominees took a lighthearted approach to the competition, so it was still a fun experience. However, I could see this change resulting in more serious Homecoming King/Queen races in the future, which would be pretty lame in my opinion.”Brown College junior Ibrahim Akbar, who was nominated for Homecoming Court last year as well as this year, said he thinks the Homecoming Court has always been a fun tradition. “It’s a running joke for my friends — I didn’t campaign or anything but I had lovely friends who found embarrassing pictures of me and made memes that they would spread on Facebook,” Akbar said. “I grew up overseas — personally I think Homecoming Court is a funny tradition; nominating animals seems to make fun of something that other schools take too seriously.”Duncan College President and Homeocoming Queen nominee Mary Anderson said even with this year’s switch to actual student nominees, the competition was purely in the spirit of fun and nominees had a carefree attitude, which separates homecoming from other schools’.“At other universities, there [are] interviews, pageants, etc. and [are] overall extremely more stressful,” Anderson said. “I’d say that the process this year is still unconventional since we don’t take Homecoming King/Queen too seriously.”

NEWS 11/12/14 7:58am

Medical alums form support network

By Sana Yaklur

Rice Alumni in Medicine, a network of Rice University alumni in the medical field, officially launched with a lecture and alumni-student mixer the day before Homecoming.“RAM was formally launched this year just before homecoming but has been in the works over the past year as we [recruited] alums [for] the initial leadership body,” RAM President Freddy Nguyen said.Rice alumni in medical and health care professions had expressed a desire to give back more to the Rice community by helping Rice students interested in medicine. There was also a need for alumni to band together to support Rice’s large body of pre-health professions students, leading to the creation of RAM, according to Nguyen (Lovett ‘02). Nguyen said RAM allows Rice alumni in medicine to support Rice pre-health students by mentoring students and hosting networking events, among other activities.“Rice alums already participate in a number of programs throughout campus on an individual basis,” Nguyen said. Some of these programs include Rice Pre-Medical Society’s mock interviews for juniors preparing for interviews, as well as RPMS’s Big Owl, Little Owl program, where Rice pre-medical students learn about medical school and the medical field from medical students and physicians, according to Nguyen.“RAM will look to further strengthen those programs in working with the Rice Pre-Med Society,” Nguyen said. “This allows for easier access to these opportunities for alumni instead of reinventing the wheel each time. RAM is also looking into potential opportunities with [the] Rice 360 Institute for Global Health Technologies.”Some pre-medical students said they supported a network for alumni in medicine.“I believe RAM will be helpful because it is kind of like networking and will help the [pre-medical students] have connections even after graduating,” Tamer Ghanayem, a Duncan College sophomore, said.Other students had some ideas for how such a network could best help them.“It’ll be great if each alum gets paired with one or two students and serves as their mentor,” Wenting Li, a Sid Richardson College sophomore, said. “Personally, I would love to have a designated mentor who’s there to give me advice when I need it and ... it’s a more personal connection.”Nguyen said he believes a network for alumni in medicine is essential, because even though Rice alums in medicine have been involved on an individual basis, a network will allow for more alumni to support Rice pre-health students. Additionally, RAM would allow support of Rice pre-health students even after they graduate from Rice.“RAM will provide an opportunity for Rice alums in medicine to come together to network and support Rice students and alumni during not only their time at Rice, but also as they embark into their lifelong trek in medicine through medical school, residency, fellowship and profession,” Nguyen said.

NEWS 11/12/14 7:56am

Undergrads present business plans at OEDK Elevator Pitch Competition

By Amber Tong

The Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen held the sixth annual Elevator Pitch Competition on Nov. 6, where Rice undergraduate teams and individuals presented 90-second pitches for their business concepts and ideas. According to Maria Oden, professor in the Practice of Engineering Education and director of OEDK, the scale of this competition surpassed the previous years’ by both number of contesting teams and number of judges.The pitches varied greatly in content, covering a spectrum ranging from medical equipment, transportational device for natural disaster relief, golf training software and short term bike rental system to mobile apps, according to the team summaries sheet.Team SharpTank, a senior design team working on one-time-use syringes to prevent syringe reuse in the developing world, captured both the Most Investable award and the first place honor. Team Presenter Sergio Gonzalez said winning the competition was a pleasant surprise.“There were no real expectations,” Gonzalez, a Duncan College senior, said. “The team and I wanted to do our best to present our project in an interesting and compelling way. It felt great to win, though; the top presentations were all fantastic, and I think everyone enjoyed giving their pitch.”Judge and co-founder of Cormedics Corp Houston James Meador (Baker ’75) said the presentations were of high quality.“They will learn the financial sides and shareholder returns, but the Rice students are better than some professionals, including some in California, New York and Boston, that I have watched and presented in for many years,” Meador said. This year, unlike previous years, a reception and judges feedback session followed the competition. Gonzalez said it was a welcome change.“The networking event is new, but I think it was a good addition,” Gonzalez said. “It’s important to have practice giving a formal presentation, but it’s also important to talk with people in a more personal environment.”Fay Pauly, a presenter for Team BOP-it, said the competition was a good learning experience even though they did not win. Pauly said the team aimed to develop a new annular blowout preventor.“I thought it was a great opportunity to practice my speaking skills, especially in front of such a large audience,” Pauly, a Lovett College senior, said. “[Also,] I was very impressed by the other pitches and really enjoyed all of the witty puns.”

NEWS 11/12/14 7:52am

Journalist reflects on Mexican identity

By Drew Keller

Alfredo Corchado, a well-known Mexican-American journalist and author, spoke at Rice University about drug-related violence and journalism in Mexico this Monday.Corchado, who was born in Mexico, said his experience with journalism began after his family immigrated to the United States; when he was working on a farm in California at age 13, a reporter investigating immigrant labor asked him how old he was.“It really marked me; it was like, wow, somebody really wants to tell my story,” Corchado said. “What a noble profession... It’s that sense of giving a voice that always inspires me.”Corchado said he later dropped out of high school and expected to become a hairdresser, but he ended up graduating from community college in Texas and then attending the University of Texas, El Paso and finally Harvard University. Corchado has worked for the Dallas Morning News since 1994, winning several journalism awards, and is now the Mexico bureau chief for the newspaper.Earlier this year, Corchado also authored a book, Midnight in Mexico, which relates his experience reporting in the dangerous conditions of present-day Mexico. According to Corchado, the book deals with the emotional side of his experiences much more than his reporting did.“As reporters, something we do a pretty good job of is keeping our emotions to ourselves,” Corchado said. “And then when you open the gates, it’s like a flood — the emotions take over. There were times [writing the book] when I couldn’t stop crying.”Corchado identified his split Mexican-American identity as one of his main sources of emotion.“It’s the nostalgia of the immigrant,” Corchado said. “It’s like you’re searching for your identity, you know, where do you belong? Do you belong in Mexico, do you belong in the United States? That’s the tears — it wasn’t just the bloodshed in Mexico, it was also this longing to belong to one country or the other.”Throughout the talk, Corchado emphasized the importance of being informed about events in Mexico. He pointed to the protests in the U.S. of South African apartheid when he was in school as an example of Americans becoming passionate about a foreign injustice.“I wonder whether that kind of outrage is here about Mexico,” Corchado said. “I think what Mexicans want more than anything is for the outside world to share her pain.” Enrique Walsh, a Baker College sophomore originally from El Salvador who attended Corchado’s talk, also said he emphasized the importance of spreading concern for Mexico.“I always find it very interesting and encouraging that people like [Corchado], who have first-hand experience with these problems, can spread their voice, write a book,” Walsh said. “[They] make other people feel the same way I feel, and other Mexicans and Central Americans feel, about issues that are very hard to solve.”Walsh said he went to the discussion hoping to hear about possible solutions.“I see a lot of the same problems in my country as in Mexico,” Walsh said. “I was curious about how [Corchado] treated these problems in his book and if he would talk about any solutions.” While acknowledging the continued conflict in Mexico, including the recent disappearance and likely murder of 43 students in the state of Guerrero, Corchado concluded his talk on a hopeful note.“Think about where Mexico has been in the last 20 years,” Corchado said. “And yeah, this is a very dark, difficult time in Mexico. It’s almost like the country is transfixed by what has happened with the massacre of these students in Guerrero... but it’s also a much more plural, much more open society [than 20 years ago].”According to Corchado, the fact that the media has been publicly reporting on the role of the government in Guerrero is emblematic of the changes occurring in Mexico more generally.“Think about the fact that you have journalists today who in the last ten days have been shedding all this light about the administration,” Corchado said. “That kind of stuff you wouldn’t have seen 20 years ago. Is it a country that has changed? No. But it’s a country that’s changing.”

NEWS 11/5/14 6:46am

New initiatve seeks to enhance Rice education

By Hannah Che

Rice University is launching a three-year volunteer and fundraising effort called the Owl Edge: Initiative for Students that will aim to enhance Rice’s student experience, according to the Office of Development and Alumni Relations. The initiative will debut during Homecoming weekend and will seek to provide an educational edge for students through the funding of three specific goals.The first goal involves raising student scholarship aid through new endowments, according to President David Leebron. “We have an increasingly diverse student body, which is resulting in greater demand for scholarships,” Leebron said. “The cost of funding these scholarships is becoming more challenging.” Leebron said another goal of the initiative is strengthening the Rice educational experience.“Part of what we’re trying to do is fund more opportunities for students, whether it’s research, travel, internships or mentoring programs,” Leebron said. “We will also be enhancing the Center for Teaching Excellence and creating a new entrepreneurship track within the business minor.”According to Leebron, the third aspect is related to helping students achieve lives of impact both while they are here and beyond. “[The third aspect] involves providing more professional development opportunities for students and developing entrepreneurship programs like OwlSpark,” Leebron said.Leebron said the initiative reflects a time in Rice’s history during which there must not only be a continuation of volunteer and fundraising efforts done in the past, but also the introduction of new campaigns. “For me, there are two big pillars of this campaign,” Leebron said. “How do we make sure that, having admitted the most remarkable students that we can find, this education is possible for them and how do we make sure the education is as good as it can be, in terms of a full range of opportunities that we can offer?” According to Darrow Zeidenstein, the vice president for Development and Alumni Relations, the initiative will invite parents, alumni and friends to support the mission to educate and prepare students for leadership for the future. An explicit goal of the effort will also be to ask for contributions of time and effort.“For a lot of people, giving their time is every bit as valuable as giving their money — for some of them it’s even more,” Zeidenstein said. “So asking them to make a difference in student’s lives by giving their time is something that we have to be very thoughtful about, and this initiative is meant to mobilize that effort.” Leebron said the impact of the initiative will reach both incoming and current students. “There will be ideas we will develop, pilot programs we can get started and opportunities that we will continue to enhance and sustain,” Leebron said. “We hope to acquire resources for the future but also impact students that are here already.” Zeidenstein said success of the initiative will not be measured by a dollar goal but on what is achieved through the funding. “At the end of three years, we want to be able to say that we’ve accomplished what we put forward in our three goals,” Zeidenstein said. “So this isn’t really a dollar-driven effort so much as a ‘get it done on the ground’ effort.”According to Leebron, student involvement is encouraged for the initiative’s success. “I think our students’ enthusiasm is actually the biggest driver of everything,” Leebron said. “My experience with Rice students has led me to realize they’re remarkably dedicated to making Rice better for the people following them — that they are very thoughtful and very generous when it comes to thinking about making Rice stronger for the next generation.” Leebron said the initiative reflects both the concepts outlined in the Student Association’s Education of the Future initiative and the ideas of the administration regarding the improvement of the Rice experience.“Those two things are remarkably aligned,” Leebron said. “Faculty, students, alumni and donors are all pretty much headed in the same direction — to make our education more impactful, in terms of giving people not just knowledge, but skills and ambition, and excitement. We want our students to arrive thinking they’re going to change the world, and we want them to leave thinking they can change the world.”

NEWS 11/5/14 6:46am

Information Tecnology hires new CIO, VP to consolidate different IT units

By Jieya Wen

Incoming Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer Klara Jelinkova will officially come to position in the first week of January. The Rice University Task Force on Information Technology suggested the creation of the new position. “Rice would benefit from having a person vested with sufficient responsibility and authority to influence the entire IT ecosystem and help set policies and priorities at the senior management level,” the Report on IT Principles, Governance & Organization said. “The university should formally create the position of Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the university, reporting to either the President or Provost.”According to Kevin Kirby, vice president for administration, the vice president for IT and CIO will serve as senior technology leader supporting the research, education and administrative functions. The CIO will consolidate the university’s academic and administrative IT units. “Reporting to President David Leebron and serving on the senior leadership team, the CIO will provide leadership on issues facing the university broadly and work with Rice’s academic and administrative units to achieve the desired results,” Kirby, chair of Rice University Task Force on Information Technology, said. Kirby said the CIO will also implement the governance and organizational changes according to the recommendation by Task Force on IT. “One of the core premises of the task force was not to add or reduce resources allocated to IT at Rice but rather to reallocate existing resources,” Kirby said. “This new position and the other recommendations are intended to make the current IT organizational structure more effective and efficient. [The CIO] will focus IT on supporting Rice’s strategy and core missions of research and education, while simultaneously improving the day-to-day operations and services.”Jelinkova is currently the senior associate vice president and chief information technology officer at the University of Chicago. She was the assistant vice president of Shared Services and Infrastructure at Duke University prior to her position at the University of Chicago.In an interview with Rice University News and Media, Jelinkova said she is excited to serve as VP and CIO of Rice’s IT department.“I am delighted to be joining Rice University, where technology is playing an increasingly important role in all aspects of university life and has the potential to catalyze new ideas in both education and research,” Jelinkova said. “I look forward to working with the faculty, students and staff at Rice to articulate an innovative technology vision for Rice and make that vision a reality.”

NEWS 11/5/14 6:45am

RUPD purchases new Chevrolet Tahoes to replace aging patrol vehicle fleet

By Jaecey Parham

The Rice University Police Department recently acquired new 2014 Chevrolet Tahoes for their patrol fleet. The new vehicles feature updated and enhanced exterior graphics, as well as a larger appearance and other exterior modifications.The funds for the new patrol Tahoes came from the university’s fiscal year 2014 operations budget. Chief of Police Johnny Whitehead said the police department requested funding for the new vehicles because of high mileage and maintenance of the old patrol vehicles.“The fleet is pretty aged,” Whitehead said. “We were spending so much on maintenance. When the cars are in the shop, you can’t put them out in patrol.” According to Whitehead, RUPD had several vehicles with high mileage — between 80,000 to 90,000 miles.“The maintenance costs were [also] very high,” Whitehead said. Whitehead said each new Tahoe cost around $18,000. However, the police equipment that had to be added to the vehicles, including emergency lights, sirens and in-car camera and computer systems, cost an additional $19,000 per vehicle, making the total cost of each vehicle $37,000.According to Whitehead, the choice of Chevrolet Tahoes was based partly on Michigan state’s police department, which annually conducts precision driving tests on police vehicles, including the Tahoe. When testing, they look at braking distance, fuel economy, ergonomics, dynamics and comfort level for the officer. “The Tahoe consistently rates well in the Michigan state police testing,” Whitehead said. “We checked with other police departments, and those that have the Tahoe are very pleased with it. [Also,] the cost is lower than a lot of other options out there.”Whitehead said RUPD has been happy with the new Tahoes and the replacement of some of their patrol fleet. The update of the patrol vehicles was a priority for the police department this year, according to Whitehead.“We [also] like the Tahoe because it’s high [off the ground] and we get a lot of flooding on campus, so we are able to continue to patrol and respond to emergencies at those times,” Whitehead said. “We are in pretty good shape. All of our patrol vehicles have been the priority. All of the patrol vehicles are now up to date.”

NEWS 11/5/14 6:45am

Slackerplanner allows students to select classes by difficulty, ratings, distribution

By Maha Aziz

Brown College senior David Nichol has created a website that allows students to browse courses using data from Esther course evaluations.“The website lets people search for courses based on course evaluations,” Nichol said. “What this means is that you can ask, ‘What are the easiest distribution classes?’ or ‘Which FWIS is the best?’ You can use this information to then choose which classes you should take next semester.”The website is available at www.slackerplanner.com and has course evaluations from fall 2012 to spring 2014, not including summers. Nichol said he created Slackerplanner to see which courses are better than others. “I created the website over winter break when I was incredibly bored,” Nichol said. “I remember when registering for courses wishing I knew which classes were the best ones to take, and then being all like, ‘Oh wait, I’m a comp sci major, I know how to make this thing a thing.’ So then I did.”The website allows students to narrow their search by semester, distribution group, subject and either workload or quality. According to the website, courses with lower numbers are easier or better. Nichol said he hopes the website will make it easier for students to pick classes.“I’ve spent a long time on the website just looking at different courses just to see how classes compare against each other,” Nichol said. “Hopefully people can use it to decide which classes they plan on taking in future semesters.”Peer Academic Advisor Magen Eissenstat said she will not shut out the possibility that students can use a tool like Slackerplanner for good, but she worries it could also fuel a negative mindset when engaging with academics. “I think the most important question to ask yourself when using a tool like this is: Why?,” Eissenstat, a McMurtry College sophomore, said. “We are all here to get an education and to grow in our knowledge and understanding of the world. The distribution program, in particular, is designed to give us the freedom to challenge ourselves to think in new, unfamiliar and therefore sometimes uncomfortable ways.” Eissenstat said students looking for easy distributions for the sake of not working hard or learning may want to think about the opportunities and values associated with academic challenges. “When we think about our academic experiences at Rice, I believe it is more valuable to think about our classes in terms of what we want to gain from them, rather than as an arbitrary list of requirements that we want to ‘get through’ as easily as possible,” Eissenstat said.

NEWS 11/5/14 6:44am

SA solicits proposals for $40,000

By Naoki Shiba

The Rice University Student Association is encouraging students to join the discussion on how to spend a leftover sum of $40,000. The money comes from the Rice Endowment for Sustainable Energy Technology’s $9 blanket tax, which was approved in 2010 and dissolved in 2013. Leftover funds RESET was originally approved in 2010 as a blanket tax organization with a “sunset clause,” meaning its blanket tax status had to be reapproved in three years. According to a report published by the SA, RESET intended to use the $40,000 to fund any student-led initiatives to promote energy efficiency and sustainability on the Rice campus. However, the blanket tax ultimately failed reapproval in 2013. According to SA President Ravi Sheth, these funds are now under the jurisdiction of the SA. Sheth, a Martel College senior, said although the money was originally intended to go towards the promotion of energy efficiency and sustainability, the SA is willing to consider to any creative proposals from the student population. “How this money should be spent is a difficult question, but also an opportunity for creativity,” Sheth said. “It [is] ultimately up to the student body to decide the best way to spend the money.” Archit Chaba, a Will Rice College senator and Rice Environmental Society member, said the funds should be returned to their original purpose of funding campus environmental projects.“Previous projects by RESET have positively impacted a significant portion of the student body while improving campus sustainability,” Chaba, a senior, said. “A survey conducted recently demonstrated continued student desire to improve Rice’s environmental infrastructure. We should use the former RESET funds to support these aspirations.”According to Chaba, RESET no longer exists due to ambiguous wording of policy and lack of quorum. However, the Rice Environmental Society, the umbrella organization for all environmental clubs on campus, is currently trying to achieve the same goal that RESET sought to accomplish: supporting and funding student environmental projects. Chaba said if chosen to receive the $40,000, RES — an organization that currently has no source of funding — would start an environmental initiative fund that could be used for any student-led environmental project.“According to a recent survey taken by the SA’s environmental committee, students have expressed an interest in installing more water bottle refilling stations, similar to ones in the RMC, recreation center and Fondren Library, improving the sustainability of older buildings such as Herzstein and Sewall and expanding the bike share program,” Chaba said. “This list is by no means exhaustive, and that is the inherent beauty of this proposal — any student with an idea for an environmental project will be able to gain the funding required to actually implement that idea.” Student Input According to Sheth, the SA Executive Committee will discuss options with the college senators and give them the freedom to engage the students in the discussion however they wish. Hanszen College Senator Nathan Andrus said he will be leading the senators in engaging students and is currently asking senators to not only talk to college residents, but to also encourage them to fill out an online form. Andrus, a senior, said the online form will help the SA understand how students wish to spend the $40,000. “The purposes of the online form are to gauge numbers and ask for specific proposals, which all the senators will be able to see and judge critically,” Andrus said. “What students want has a priority in determining what we will do.”Andrus said the most popular idea thus far is using the money for RESET’s original purposes, although other ideas have come up. “There have been ideas of starting up an initiative fund — investing the money for the long term to be used in physical improvements or in event programming,” Andrus said. “However, spending money towards RESET’s original purpose is still currently one of the frontrunners.”According to Andrus, when the senators sit down next week to review the proposals, they will look for ideas that are creative and sustainable.“We will be evaluating proposals based on their thoughtfulness,” Andrus said. “Proposals should describe how the idea will have a long-lasting, long-term impact on the students.”Hanszen College President TJ Patel said she agrees the money should not be spent on one-time events.“We should spend the [$40,000] on something sustainable, especially because it is rare to have so much [funding],” Patel, a senior, said. Rice Environmental Society According to RES President Ashley Ugarte, the SA received $40,000 in RESET funds the same year students created a 100-year sustainability plan outlining their desire to make Rice more sustainable. Ugarte said the student population still supports sustainability, which is why RES should receive the funds. “We hope [that the decision to give the $40,000 to RES] will honor all students — those whose initial intention for these funds was to be used for campus greening and those today who also hope to see the same outcome,” Ugarte said. “We believe this to be an incredible opportunity to expand environmental sustainability projects beyond just water and energy and to include other areas of need such as recycling, composting, expanding the Rice gardens and other similar ideas.” According to RES, the organization is actively raising awareness about their efforts, which includes running a photo campaign in front of Coffeehouse. Ugarte said the campaign invites students to offer their input regarding specific sustainability projects they’d like implemented. “We believe this will model the positive, lasting and sustainable change we can make with the [$40,000],” Ugarte said. Sheth said the discussions on how the $40,000 will be spent or whether the funds should be spent on RESET’s original purposes should strive to actively involve the whole student body, because an opportunity like this does not come often.“There are very few times in Rice’s history where students have had this magnitude of unallocated funding,” Sheth said. “[The executive committee] urges, with the utmost importance, that the discussions should be transparent, extensive and involved.”

NEWS 11/5/14 6:43am

Esperanza tickets sell out again

By Isabella Bender Zevallos

Due to demonstrated student demand for more tickets, Rice Program Council decided to rent the second floor of the Museum of Natural Science, thus providing 425 more tickets for Esperanza. RPC President Aisha Jeeva stated that while RPC had always considered renting this extra space, they did not want to book it without knowing the demand for tickets and then losing money due to an overestimation. The opening of the second floor has enabled RPC to add new elements to the homecoming dance. “There will be a photo station with props and a karaoke set-up on the second floor,” RPC Socials Committee Co-chairs Jodie Nghiem and Audrey Smith said. “While we have had similar photo areas at past Esperanzas, we have never had karaoke. However, we believe that the main attractions of the second floor will be the five additional exhibits that attendees will be able to explore, including the Hall of Gems and Minerals, the Hall of African Wildlife and more.”Given the additional space, RPC had to re-adjust the budget to cater to additional costs. Nghiem and Smith said costs were mostly incremental and were easy to calculate on a per-person basis, such as food and drinks, which amount to about $9 per person. Jeeva explained that other flat fees costs were also easily predictable, such as the additional $2,000 needed to rent the second flood.“Additionally, the cash bars were both incremental and step function cost increases,” said Jeeva. “The cost of alcoholic drinks are a combination of a flat fee per bar which increases on a per-person basis, only taking into consideration attendees over 21 … Ultimately, we were able to get the venue cost, HPD, RUPD, EMS, food, cash bars, non-alcoholic beverages, activities for the second floor, tables, chairs, table linens and decorations covered for about the $8,500 we made on ticket sales.” Thus, Nghiem and Smith said RPC did not need to increase its blanket tax contribution to the formal. The RPC Socials added that extra tickets had to be limited to 425 not only because the caterers could only prepare food for the current amount of guests, 1,800, but also due to the fact that the Museum imposed a limit of 1,000 guests on the dance floor at any given time and because the caterers could only prepare food for the current amount of guests, 1,800. “If it starts to exceed that capacity, the HPD officers present to keep an eye on the fossils according to our contract will start to remove people,” Jeeva said. “We didn’t think it would be fair to sell 2,000 tickets when only [a half] of the attendees could be on the dance floor at one time.” Nghiem and Smith said ticket sales have been going well, as an increasing number of students have been taken off the waitlist in several rounds.Initially, there were over 1,000 students on the waitlist, and now there are less than 600 remaining.However, RPC remains confident they will allow the majority of students to buy tickets. Jeeva admits there were many issues previously surrounding the sale of tickets, but hopes that students will acknowledge the work that RPC has dedicated in making this event happen. “We know it was a frustrating time for students,” Jeeva said. “We really appreciated the people who were patient and understanding while we were trying to work through the issues and find reasonable solutions, and hope that students will keep in mind that the people they are so harshly criticizing are their peers who have put significant time and effort into making this event as successful as possible.”

NEWS 10/28/14 4:56pm

Alumni return to campus in various roles

By Tina Nazerian

For some Rice University students, being at Rice on an almost daily basis does not stop at graduation. Some, like Andrew Bowen, director of the Levant Program for the Baker Institute’s Center for the Middle East; Dylan McNally, research analyst for the Baker Institute’s Mexico Center; and Neely Atkinson, senior lecturer in statistics, come back to research or teach at Rice.