Special Projects

HackRice returns in-person for year 12

The twelfth annual HackRice was held in-person this past weekend for the first time since 2019. Anthony Yan, one of three student directors, said that while engagement was slightly lower than previous years, the event ran successfully.

Rice breaks ground on Cannady Hall

Construction broke ground earlier this month for the new School of Architecture building, a 22,000 square foot structure that will sit adjacent to the current architecture hall.  In 2019, Rice announced the building would be named after Professor William Cannady, who has been a faculty member at Rice since 1964. 

Kinder receives $50 million grant

The Kinder Foundation announced a $50 million grant to Rice’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research on Sept. 23. According to Director of the Kinder Institute Ruth López Turley, the institute focuses on five main areas of research — housing and neighborhoods, economic mobility, community health, education and population research — and utilizes a holistic approach to solve societal challenges.

Proofpoint digest implementation brings mixed reactions

Rice expanded Proofpoint Digest, an email filtering system that quarantines emails suspected to be spam or bulk into one single daily digest, to the undergraduate community this fall, leading to mixed responses within the student population.

HackRice: A Rich History

09-28-2022 Crossword Solutions

09-28-2022 Crossword: "Latiné Libations"

Diving into the DEEP with Rice’s Data Science Club

Data Education and Exploration Program is an annual data science showcase competition put on by Rice’s Data Science Club, open to all levels of coding experience. According to Vinay Tummarakota, president of the Data Science Club, the program consists of a semester-long workshop series that alternates between lessons where senior Data Science Club students teach curriculum, and application-style workshops where mentors help students apply skills learned the week before. Over the course of the fall semester, student teams develop projects on their chosen data set, and eventually present in a final showcase.

Explore these Houston attractions from new heights

Check out Houston from a new perspective by visiting some of the city’s best rooftops scenes. These venues offer varieties of activities to keep their visitors entertained throughout the day, with sunrise yoga at Skylawn, midday swimming at Marriott Marquis or night-time dancing at one of the many rooftop bars. Browse through some of the following recommendations to explore Houston from above.

ROPEing Rice into the outdoors

Rice’s location in Houston is beneficial in a variety of ways. After all, we have access to entertainment, culture and research in a world-class city. However, we don’t have as much access to nature — a problem Rice Outdoor Programs and Education is trying to solve.

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

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. 

Universities should support the public good

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.”

Backpage is satire, not journalism

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.

Rice Athletics plans new pep band for basketball season, angers MOB

A new paid and audition-only student pep band will replace the Marching Owl Band at men’s and women’s basketball games and some volleyball matches, according to Rick Mello, Rice’s deputy athletics director. Mello said Rice athletics hopes to have a band of 30 students in place for the first basketball game in November.

Six computers, two iPads stolen from north campus

Rice University experienced a series of thefts this past week. Six laptops and two iPads were stolen from a Duncan College suite and Duncan Hall respectively, according to the Rice University Police Department in a campus-wide email sent out last Wednesday morning.

Inflation nation: Campus grapples with rising costs

As prices for various goods and services continue to rise nationally, student-run businesses and Rice departments such as Housing & Dining and Facilities Engineering & Planning are among those on campus implementing changes to handle this inflationary spike, while also working to keep prices reasonable for students. 

Engineering professor Marc Robert remembered

Marc Robert, a professor in the department of chemical and biomolecular engineering, died Sept. 2 from COVID-19 complications at the age of 72. Robert, a physicist, became a professor at Rice in 1984 after receiving his doctorate in physics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he was born and raised. 

50 years later, Rice’s first Black student-athletes reflect on their impact

Stahlé Vincent came back to Rice over the weekend. But this time, he got a different reception than he did when he first set foot on campus over five decades ago. “[When I first got here] there was not an open-arm reception,” Vincient said. “There were people who never spoke [to me], people avoided me, I had professors who wouldn’t call my name at roll. There was an animus there that you could feel.”

Review: ‘See How They Run’ is a fun, quirky ode to the whodunnit

The prospect of writing a whodunnit is undeniably challenging – as Adrien Brody’s character says in “See How They Run,” “Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.” Audiences have been accustomed to solving the mystery due to both the formula’s consistency and the Internet’s role in facilitating fan theories, creating a generation of filmgoers looking out for every detail. However, despite this challenge, the whodunnit genre is seemingly making a comeback: 2019’s “Knives Out” was a major success with a sequel coming out later this year, and “See How They Run” debuted in theaters to positive reception this past Friday. “See How They Run” forges its own identity by simultaneously taking a comedic approach to the whodunnit through parody  and creating a loving tribute to the mystery subgenre.

Review: BLACKPINK crafts an addicting and varied album with ‘BORN PINK’

On “BORN PINK,” BLACKPINK creates an addicting album that melds elements of pop, hip-hop and rock, leaving listeners wanting more. Drawn from a wide range of locations and forged through years of preparation in K-pop’s trainee system, BLACKPINK has found a unique sound that draws from both the strengths of its members Lisa, Jennie, Rosé and Jisoo, as well as the combined production savvy of their agency, YG Entertainment, and producer Teddy Park.