Last week, I quit my role as Student Association director of elections because I need to take more time for music and academia this semester, but there are two additional reasons I left the position relevant to campus politics that I want to share.
Student Association elections at Rice routinely garner little attention, often struggling to break 25% turnout, which the Thresher and years of SA representatives have called problematic for the health of our student government. With the recently proposed election timeline cutting campaigning to just one week, we’re worried this year we might manage to reach a new low.
A choice, by definition, must be between two or more possibilities. As I read about Rice’s Reproductive Health Working Group in the Thresher’s Nov. 30 Special Project, I’m struck by the fact that only one response to student pregnancy was presented. Reproductive health is not limited to contraceptives and abortions, but also includes prenatal, postnatal and maternal care and it is critical that the RHWG include these elements in their priorities. For Rice to be pro-choice means that it supports students regardless of their choice, and while some might choose to procure an abortion, others may choose to keep their child.
The social media app Fizz made its way to our campus earlier this semester, offering an anonymous discussion platform for exchanging messages and memes amongst Rice students. In recent weeks, antisemitic and racist posts were made by members of our community on this app. It is entirely hateful and dangerously intolerant.
Anyone who walked through the academic quad on Monday encountered the statue of William Marsh Rice visibly covered by sheets of A4 paper that read “习近平下台,” which roughly translates to “Resign Xi Jinping.” Other signs read “No emperor in a republic” and “Not my president.” These signs are part of larger protests happening in mainland China — that are being echoed by Chinese people across the world — in response to nearly three years of aggressive COVID lockdowns across the country.
The words “free speech” will likely elicit groans from Thresher readers. Over the last three years, there have been three articles in the Opinion section bemoaning the need for a “classically liberal” political discourse at Rice. Unfortunately, between their self-righteousness and needless wordiness, they read more like whiny lectures than conversation starters. However, despite their condescension, their existence does suggest something unsettling about not just our campus politics, but politics at large. As the electorates of democracies around the world have become more sharply divided, the way we speak to each other, not just across the aisle but to our similarly minded partisans, has become more accusatory, exclusionary and violent. Put simply: we do not want to talk to each other, and understandably so. It is exhausting, and, more than that, we just don’t seem to know how to.
For the first time since 2019, Rice is not allowing undergraduate students to remain in their on-campus housing during winter break. While this is a disappointing development, we understand why this decision needed to be made. Like students, staff need a break after a long semester. Further, keeping students on campus by providing housing over break was originally implemented to address pandemic travel restrictions, which are mostly gone. However, the need for winter housing is not gone. This decision still leaves some international students — or any other on-campus student looking to remain in Houston — scrambling for housing.
For the past year, I have served as an at-large representative on the Rice Honor Council. I have sat through dozens of cases, read hundreds of pages of evidence and spent countless hours working to improve the transparency and fairness of the Honor System. While there are a myriad of issues with the Honor System, as there are with any institutional system, there is one in particular that needs to be addressed with expediency. The Honor Council is currently not an effective deliberative body due to the general lack of engagement from some of its members, which include elected representatives.
If you had stumbled into the Baker Institute on Nov. 7 expecting a showdown between the Rice Democrats and Rice Republicans, you would’ve been sorely disappointed. The debate, a tradition which has not occurred since 2018, was canceled. We are not missing much, though: the debate would have just regurgitated generic and predetermined political party talking points. If we want campus discussions on politics to have an impact beyond elections, we should invite all voices to the table and talk policy on a comprehensive level.
Rice faculty must include a mental health statement in their syllabi going forward after the faculty senate adopted part of a Student Association recommendation Sept. 28. Specifically, professors must include a list of mental health resources on campus compiled by the Wellbeing and Counseling Center and encourage students to use them as necessary. We applaud the faculty senate’s actions as a step in the right direction, but it is truly the bare minimum that they could have done to address students’ mental health.
Party culture is back, babes. We’ve got publics nearly every weekend, Pub every Thursday and freshmen scoping out the best (read: most awkward) parties on campus. While we’re excited to welcome back a “return to normal,” there’s been a concerning increase in dangerous drinking habits on-campus. In the wake of consistently high numbers of alcohol related transports and students being found passed out drunk and alone, we’re calling on Rice students to think about what it means to be a good friend and community member in situations where alcohol is involved.
The last time Rice football made a bowl game, the world was singing “Let it Go,” Ebola cases were in the headlines and it had been a mere 52 years since a certain president spoke at Rice Stadium about going to the moon. Yes, 2014 was the last time Rice played postseason football. In the seven full seasons since, the Owls won a grand total of 20 games. But seven games and four wins into this season, they find themselves on the precipice of their first bowl game appearance under head coach Mike Bloomgren. Let’s make sure to show them the support they deserve this weekend.
In December of last year, I drafted an opinion entitled “Dear Rice, We Need to Talk (about suicide).” I chickened out on submitting it to the Thresher because I believed, against my own written argument, that talking about suicidality wouldn’t do anything — wouldn’t prevent death or injury or start the right kind of conversation. I was mostly worried about sending previously-suicidal students back into their own memories, or worse, forcing currently-suicidal students to endure a dialogue so close to their pain. But I believe if we continue in relative silence, the wound will scar, not heal. Rice, we need to talk about suicide.
This week, Izzie Karohl, a Rice alumna, wrote an opinion piece highlighting the need to talk about mental health and suicidality in our community. We at the Thresher want to add to her piece and encourage students who are struggling with their mental health or suicidal ideation to reach out for help, whether from on- or off-campus resources.
Two Wednesdays ago, instead of ending my weekly Thresher reading with a laugh, I was shocked to see a piece that included the Bible and prayer in order to mock a Christian professor on campus. Turning to other Christian students and Rice parents, I found similar shared disappointment and sadness. Myself and others sent emails to the Thresher explaining why we found this piece distasteful and discriminatory. We were answered only with an editorial published Sept. 27 saying, in essence: it’s satire, so take a joke.
The Center for Career Development thanks Wills Rutherford for his time as a Peer Career Advisor at Rice, providing students with career guidance, and we congratulate him on securing his job from the Rice Expo. Responding to his opinion piece, “The Rice career fair fails Rice students,” I’ll elaborate upon the factors employers consider when deciding whether to participate in Rice career expos, the overall recruiting environment and the process Rice students should pursue when seeking employment.
It’s nearly time for Night of Decadence, the ever-popular, notorious and sex-centric Wiess costume public. NOD is, hands down, Rice’s most renowned public. It’s been highlighted in Playboy and Rolling Stone magazines. It even has its own Wikipedia page.
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.
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.”
