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Opinion

OPINION 9/27/22 10:56pm

Rice is not your average school. We don’t want an average band.

By James Karroum , Kaitlyn Esneault and Ryan Mbuashu-Ndip

Starting this season, Rice’s Marching Owl Band, longtime instigators of musical shenanigans at various Rice sporting events, will no longer play at basketball games — a role the university intends to fill with the traditional-instruments-only, student-only, audition-only, near-perfect attendance-required Owl Pep Band. To the three of us, this is a slap in the face to everything the MOB, and indeed Rice, stand for. 

OPINION 9/27/22 10:54pm

Universities should support the public good

By Moshe Vardi

What is the purpose of universities, in general, and Rice University, in particular? This is a subject of much debate these days. Let me first offer a disciplinary perspective. I am an active member of the Association for Computing Machinery, the oldest and largest professional society dedicated to computing. The Associations’ Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct states: “Computing professionals’ actions change the world. To act responsibly, they should reflect upon the wider impacts of their work, consistently supporting the public good.” So ethical computing has a responsibility to support the public good. Going back to the opening question, I believe that the core purpose of universities is to support  the public good.  What is the public good? My favorite definition was provided by Hammurabi almost 4,000 years ago: “to further the well-being of mankind.”

OPINION 9/27/22 10:47pm

Backpage is satire, not journalism

By Thresher Editorial Board

Every week, the Thresher’s Backpage staff spend their Monday nights in a corner of our office coming up with a satirical take on the week’s news. Their goal is simple: to bring some levity to what might otherwise be a dreary week of problem sets, essays and exams. Their works of comedy also serve as a delightful ending to much of our more serious journalistic content; and for this reason, the Backpage is a consistent favorite for many of our readers.

OPINION 9/20/22 11:46pm

The Rice career fair fails Rice students

By Wills Rutherford

Comments like “What’s with the suit? What’s the occasion? Who’s getting married?” surrounded me as I strolled into my college commons one day last fall. It caught me off guard; why am I the only one dressed up on career fair day? My bioengineering friend quickly answered my question. “Why should I bother going to the career fair?” he said. “There’s no bioengineering companies there.” He’s absolutely right. But the problem extends beyond just bioengineering.

OPINION 9/20/22 11:44pm

Dare to be wise

By Paul Mayer

In the 18th Century, Immanuel Kant (often considered the central figure in modern philosophy) used the phrase Spaere aude in a 1784 essay titled “Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment.”  Translated from Latin, it means “dare to know,” or in some cases, “dare to be wise.”  Kant argued our inability to think for ourselves was due to fear, not due to a lack of intellect.  In the opening paragraph of his essay, Kant states “Have the courage to use your own reason—that is the motto of enlightenment.”

OPINION 9/20/22 11:42pm

Support diversity in the arts in Houston

By Thresher Editorial Board

The Oscars may be so white, but Houston art isn’t — as long as you’re looking in the right places. It is all too true that arts organizations still fall short of creating accessible spaces with equitable representation of artists. For instance, white men still make up the majority of artists represented in prominent museums across the United States. Even with increased attention to elevating the work of women artists and an uptick in women-only art shows and exhibitions focused on the work of underrepresented artists, only 11% of permanent acquisitions by major American art museums from 2008 to 2019 were by women; of that 11%, only 3.3.% were by Black women artists. 

OPINION 9/13/22 11:10pm

Don’t skip the 2022 midterm elections

By Alexa Thomases

With no presidential election at stake in 2022, do this year’s midterm elections even matter that much? I wasn’t sure until I saw the complete list of offices up for election in Texas this November. Most notably, the midterm election will determine the next Texas Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, both chambers of the Texas Legislature and all 38 U.S. Representatives. 

OPINION 9/13/22 11:07pm

Start your service on the ground

By Sophia Peng , Sejal Gupta and Denise Maldonado

Rice undergrads often treat "community service" as a box to tick for graduate school applications or a story to impress interviewers. It is easy to conduct our service within the Rice bubble – researching and designing solutions without venturing beyond the hedges to the community members we are trying to help. However, to truly make an impact, students need to identify community needs and find service opportunities that act with, and not on, the community. As we enter the school year and begin scouting volunteer opportunities, we want to share an experience that taught us the value of grassroots involvement.

OPINION 9/13/22 11:04pm

Re-evaluate priorities of college committees

By Thresher Editorial Board

Residential college life is often considered the cornerstone of the “Rice experience.” Just look at any Rice admission materials or listen to the chants at Beer Bike. College governments, then, play an integral role in representing and serving the students within their residential colleges. From Brown to Wiess, residential colleges host a plethora of committees, including the standard committees across campus and ones that stand out in their singularity like with Hanszen’s cheese committee.

OPINION 9/6/22 11:13pm

Shadows of anonymity: Fizz should fizzle out

By Riley Barker

Shortly after arriving at Rice for the fall semester, I noticed a piece of purple paper peeking out beneath my room’s door frame. “An app just for Rice Students!” announced the cardstock. The ad was for Fizz, a social media app launched by two Stanford University students my equal in age at their university just one year ago. Wary but curious, I downloaded the app. 

OPINION 9/6/22 11:11pm

The new meal swipe plan needs to be clarified

By Thresher Editorial Board

Over the summer, Rice Housing & Dining announced significant changes to the dining schedule and meal plan that went into effect at the start of the semester. The most notable change was the addition of a new meal time, affectionately known as “munch.” The other adjustment implemented the following change: “Re-entry to ANY servery requires a student to swipe to receive up to two entree plates again.”

OPINION 8/30/22 10:37pm

Will a new student DJ please stand up?

By Victor Nguyen

Rice DJs are dead. Long live the Rice DJs. Seeing the first Texas Party since Fall 2019 happen is both a joy and a solemn reminder. Yet another public has come and gone and yet no student DJ has risen to prominence. It may not seem like a problem, but this is critical. Rice DJs play an integral part in campus social life, but they cannot survive and thrive without the help and advocacy of campus socials and the boldness of potential DJs rising to the challenge.

OPINION 8/30/22 10:35pm

Don’t let paid wristbands become the norm at publics

By Thresher Editorial Board

Three years ago, in the pre-COVID world, there were only three public parties that charged for admittance. NOD and Y2K needed the money to hire extra security, and Architectronica charged because it wasn’t funded by a college and depended on the money from ticket sales to cover event fees. Now, we fear more colleges will charge for entrance to publics, a poor practice we urge socials to avoid.

OPINION 8/23/22 9:23pm

Let’s show our gratitude for campus staff

By Alexa Thomases

“If Seibel serves PAOW one more time, I’m dropping out.” It’s all too common for Rice students to gripe about the food and facilities. I know I’ve been guilty of it. In my experience, complaining sometimes becomes an easy bonding opportunity amongst students: lulls in the conversation are frequently filled with hyperbolic jokes about food at North being inedible or about dorms the size of shoeboxes. I don’t want to dismiss the legitimate difficulties that students with dietary restrictions or accessibility needs face at Rice. However, the majority of complaints I hear seem to come from students who expect luxury but overlook the employees who work so hard to provide for our every need. Rice’s campus staff is incredible and I urge us all to show them more respect and gratitude.

OPINION 8/23/22 9:21pm

We love Rice. We hope our work this year reflects that.

By Ben Baker-Katz and Morgan Gage

Each year, past editors in chiefs have penned welcome letters to the Rice community about their goals for the upcoming year. Many of them have urged the community to trust the Thresher in our pursuit of accurate, thorough reporting and storytelling. We enter this year with a similar goal, but we don’t have an ask of our community or our readers. Instead, we are calling on ourselves to reach out to the Rice community as a whole and meet the standards of journalistic integrity that our community deserves and that we expect of ourselves.

OPINION 8/23/22 9:19pm

New semester offers new beginnings for students, admin

By Thresher Editorial Board

Every August, as Orientation Week wraps up and the fall semester begins, it feels as if the campus is rejuvenated with new life. That feeling is especially prevalent for students this time around, as this is the first semester to start with fully in-person classes since January of 2020. But what many students might not realize is that this year is also a fresh start administratively. In addition to welcoming a new president, Rice announced the hiring of five new vice presidents and a new provost. 

OPINION 8/23/22 9:18pm

Let’s progress together

By Reginald DesRoches

This is my first column for the Thresher as Rice’s new president, and the opportunity fills me with a sense of awe and gratitude. Rice is a remarkable institution of higher education, and I am honored to lead and serve our community.

OPINION 5/12/22 4:05pm

The Wellbeing Center should be transparent about its true confidentiality policies

By Dylan Glenn

Before you attend a counseling session at the Rice counseling center, you will be told that “the RCC maintains strict standards regarding privacy.” You will find statements from the university that your mental health record will not be shared with anyone outside of extreme situations of imminent harm, and only then that your information will be shared with only the necessary officials. This sounds great, except that these assurances bear no teeth whatsoever — no enforcement agency ensures that Rice follows its public confidentiality promises, and there are no penalties for Rice if they break them. The Wellbeing and Counseling Centers should more directly communicate the limits of their confidentiality policies when compared to unaffiliated counseling centers, and students in sensitive situations should take the necessary precautions to protect their information.

OPINION 4/19/22 11:11pm

We’re in student media to learn

By Savannah Kuchar

This week marks the last issue of the Thresher for the year, and for the seniors like myself, our last issue ever. I have been a part of the Thresher since freshman year. And it would not be an exaggeration to say it has defined my Rice experience. As someone pursuing a career in journalism after graduation, there has been no better place to learn than at this paper.

OPINION 4/19/22 11:02pm

Philanthropy doesn’t excuse slavery

By Shifa Abdul-Rahman

In January, the Rice Board of Trustees announced plans to move the Founder’s memorial to another area of the academic quad as part of a whole redesign, adding additional context of his “entanglement” with slavery. This comes despite continual calls from the student body to not have the enslaver displayed in the quad regardless of the context provided. It would be just for these calls to action and the majority of the Task Force Committee who voted to not keep it there that the Board of Trustees decide to not keep the memorial prominently displayed in the quad at all.

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