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Opinion

OPINION 11/12/14 4:33am

Rice needs Queer Resource Center

By Query

When the Princeton Review ranked Rice as one of the Top 20 Most LGBT Friendly schools this year, frankly, we were shocked. Rice severely lacks the dedicated staff, programming and resources for our queer* students when compared to our peer institutions. In a student-led effort to remedy this, we at Query have founded Rainbow, a Queer Resource Center for the greater Rice community.

OPINION 11/12/14 4:32am

40k should be spent on sustainability, as intended

By Michael Donatti

The $40,000 remaining from RESET should continue funding student-driven environmental projects. These funds originated from a 2010 SA bill, which allocated a $9 per student blanket tax “to combat rising energy costs and combat climate change.” That same year, students passed a 100-year sustainability plan, expressing a desire to make Rice more sustainable. Because of a sunset clause, the RESET blanket tax was voted on twice more, but ambiguous wording and the lack of a quorum caused it to fail.

OPINION 11/5/14 5:50am

Attend the Homecoming football game

By Evan Neustater

Rice University is hosting its annual homecoming football game this Saturday, Nov. 8. The team is competing for its sixth win of the season, which will essentially guarantee a spot in a bowl game for the third-straight season and the fifth time in the last 40 years. Additionally, Rice is currently riding a five-game winning streak, has won 11 of their last 12 home games and looks as if they could be contenders for the Conference USA title.

OPINION 11/5/14 5:49am

Institutionalized activities don’t define Rice experience

By Tina Nazerian

I remember the first time I got rejected from co-advising. Having just left my FWIS class, I was on the steps of Fondren Library, heading toward the quad, when I got the email informing me I had not been selected. I slumped my way back to McMurtry College; I had really wanted to advise. This was not the first, nor last, rejection I received. Advising is one of the institutionalized experiences that Rice students apply for, and get disappointed if they are rejected.

OPINION 10/28/14 4:49pm

Honor Council should stop defending spending

By Thresher Editorial Board

The Student Association Blanket Tax Contingency Committee held their first meeting with Honor Council on Monday, Oct. 27 to discuss the documents it submitted for review. During the meeting, Honor Council defended its choice to allocate $50 per head to its yearly changeover dinner and other expenses that include the purchase of 15 tablets at $350 each and a new computer every three years (see p.1). 

OPINION 10/28/14 4:47pm

Students should consider unconventional paths after Rice

By Christine Jeong

Every time someone asks me how senior year is going, I just laugh and say, “It’s going.” Because it is going. And it keeps going, adding to the time that has passed since I should’ve figured out what I’m doing with my life after graduation, or at least it feels that way being at Rice. People at this school are so good at having their lives together.

OPINION 10/22/14 5:43am

Students must respect alcohol policy at NOD

By Thresher Editorial Board

Following the 2012 Night of Decadence, during which 11 students were hospitalized, as well as other similar instances of unsafe behavior, Rice instituted a new alcohol policy. According to the Student Handbook, the policy “encourages with both regulations and sanctions a shift away from distilled spirits toward beer and wine, which pose a less serious danger of abuse.”

OPINION 10/22/14 5:41am

Sexual activity should not confer status

By Kaylen Strench

Saturday night, hundreds of scantily-clad men and women will file into the Wiess commons with one thing on their minds. Perhaps, even more importantly, the next day’s stories of who “got it in” will dominate conversation.

OPINION 10/8/14 3:38am

Remembering life outside Rice

By Riley Robertson

A broken laptop saved my life this week. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was in desperate need of some time outside of Rice University. My eventual venture off campus gave me a vitally refreshing reminder that life still exists outside of Rice.

OPINION 10/1/14 10:22am

Life's a Mitch: Examining Rice's neglected outdoor spaces

By Mitch Mackowiak

Hi, my name is Mitch, and I’ll be your guide for the Rice University Tour of Publically Neglected Outdoor Spaces. Many outdoor spaces on campus exceed in beauty, like the grove outside Brochstein Pavilion, the courtyards abutting Anderson Hall and the Humanities Building and the engineering quad. As we shall see, some spaces are equal in beauty and opposite in utility.

OPINION 9/24/14 10:34am

Campus involvement should be deep, not broad

By Tina Nazerian

Two weeks into the semester, I was sitting on McMurtry College’s fifth floor, on the verge of tears as I told my friend I felt overwhelmed. “You’re just ‘Sophomore-Tina’ again,” my friend told me. He had confirmed my suspicion that I was overcommitting again. Sophomore-me spread herself too thin due to a combination of exploring too many interests and having a fear of missing out. As I sat on McMurtry fifth, I knew I did not want to revert to my overcommitted sophomore-self. The next afternoon, I made a difficult decision and withdrew from a research opportunity.

OPINION 9/24/14 10:32am

Make sure your vote counts in November elections

By Anastasia Bolshakova and Clara Roberts

In the 2012 presidential election, Texas ranked 48 among the 50 states and Washington in voter turnout. Since then, Texas legislators have enacted a series of regulations that many believe will suppress voter turnout. For example, did you know that you need one of seven select government-issued photo IDs to vote? If you didn’t, you’re not alone. Many people, Rice students among them, are not informed about the changes that have been made since the last general election. While it is not yet evident if these new laws will suppress voter turnout, it is important to understand them to make sure that your vote counts this November.

OPINION 9/17/14 2:44pm

SA should not discourage fiery rhetoric

By Thresher Editorial Board

At the most recent Student Association meeting, SA President Ravi Sheth and other SA members expressed concerns over what they considered to be the aggressive wording of the legislation opposing the CUC drop limit proposal (see p. 1). Another point of contention raised in the meeting was whether such a formal mode of expressing disapproval was constructive or appropriate. The Thresher believes that, by critiquing the language of the proposal, SA members distract from the function of the legislation, which is to act as a permanent record of student response to administrative actions.

OPINION 9/17/14 12:39pm

Engineers should embrace unconventionality

By Aakash Shah

I did not take a private, Wi-Fi-equipped shuttle to work for my engineering internship this summer. Instead, I walked, squinting into the sunlight as I passed numerous fruit and vegetable stands on the dusty road that led to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi. I was as far from Silicon Valley as I could be; the Internet connection, when it functioned, was painfully slow, and I worked in a hospital so strapped for cash that it couldn’t afford to buy spare parts for the dozens of broken oxygen concentrators that were desperately needed to keep babies alive. The constant chatter of “disruptive innovation” that fills the air in tech circles and universities these days was nowhere to be heard. (And there was no Snapchat, either.) But even without all these things that characterize modern day engineering, I was in Malawi to learn how to be a better engineer.

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