A Houston organization that rebuilds homes is giving students the chance to finally use their Facebook account for good.Rebuilding Together Houston is an organization founded in 1992 that aims to rehabilitate the homes of low-income, elderly, disabled and veteran homeowners. According to Director of Development and Communication for Rebuilding Together Houston Jennifer Touchet, the organization needs your vote to win the Home Depot Foundation's Aprons in Action competition for October.The competition awards $25,000 each month to the veteran-focused nonprofit that wins the most votes through a Facebook competition, according to the Aprons in Action website. As of Wednesday evening, Rebuilding Together Houston is in second place among four nonprofits for the month of October with approximately 3,500 votes, behind the Michigan Veteran's Foundation's 6,220.Touchet said she hopes a big push to vote over the next week will help Rebuilding Together Houston win before the competition closes on Oct. 31."If we could get one big hit, I think we could win," Touchet said. "Last month's winner got 39,000 votes, and 15,000 of them came in the last weekend."According to Touchet, Rebuilding Together Houston, which operates on volunteer labor, could purchase materials for around 25 to 30 homes with the $25,000 prize. Touchet also said winning would enter Rebuilding Together Houston into a larger competition, where the stakes are much higher."Each month's winner gets entered into another competition in May where the grand prize is $250,000, second place gets $150,000 and third place gets $100,000," Touchet said.Touchet said Rebuilding Together Houston has had a long partnership with Home Depot."[Home Depot is] our community partner here in Houston," Touchet said. "We have gotten materials from them for a while, and around a year and a half ago, local Home Depot employees began volunteering for us."Baker College sophomore Molly Jones said she agrees with the cause and that she has volunteered to help veterans before."I volunteered with an organization in my hometown that raised money to fly Veterans to Washington D.C. to see the World War II Memorial," Jones said. "They go through a lot for us, and government assistance for veterans is actually pretty bad. For the mental and emotional stress they go through, they are sadly unrepresented."Touchet said this competition reinforces the importance of Rebuilding Together Houston's cause, especially in the year of the organization's 30th anniversary. "We are helping keep homeowners in their homes," Touchet said. "They love their homes and they want to stay in their homes, but they are financially and physically unable to keep up with their homes."To vote for Rebuilding Together Houston, visit apronsinaction.homedepotfoundation.org.
A population of 50,000 living on a network of manmade islands, complete with schools and crops, could be more than just a science fiction fantasy, thanks to Rice University architecture students. Their proposal for a safe, sustainable way to access offshore oil reserves scored the team and the university $40,000 total, the top prize of the Odebrecht Award for Sustainable Development.
Everyone knows about NOD; it is easily the most anticipated party of the year. However, few people know anything about the DJ who will be spinning all the tracks for the night. Will Rice senior Clayton Chaney is the man behind the music.A passion for music in high school inspired Chaney to become a DJ."I was always the guy that had the brand new music and gave it to all my friends," Chaney said. "I was always burning CDs for people. Music was always a big thing for me, like number one priority."However, once he started studying at Rice, the demanding schedule of a civil engineering major put a damper on Chaney's interest in music."I got into college and was extremely busy with school," Chaney said. "I couldn't really do the music thing like I wanted to."School was not the only thing occupying Chaney's time. A decorated track athlete, he competed at last spring's Conference USA Championship, winning both the decathlon and the heptathlon with a personal best time in the latter. His athleticism granted him advancement to the national level. He ultimately placed 12th in decathlon at the 2012 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championship and was named a second-team All-America athlete.His performance is even more impressive because of his modesty. In conversation, Chaney barely mentions his involvement on the track team, much less the facts about his medal-worthy achievements. He makes the intensive practice schedule and diligence required for an athlete of his caliber seem entirely inconsequential. His lack of emphasis on his track star status only highlights his passion for and dedication to music.Despite the heavy course load and rigorous track schedule, Chaney managed to make time to pursue music. He was inspired to DJ by watching and learning from other DJs."I go out and about in Houston and I met a DJ that I really liked," Chaney said about mentor DJ Mr. Rogers. "I followed him, went to his gigs, and I eventually met him. I spent the whole past two years with him and he taught me everything about DJ-ing. He showed me the world."With DJ Mr. Rogers as his model, Chaney set out to provide a similar experience as a DJ who interacts with the audience and feeds off the crowd's energy. Since he began, he has worked at about 20 weddings. He is most active around campus; Chaney had three gigs over Centennial weekend and often DJs for Willy's Pub. Throughout his experience, his favorite part of the job is encountering new people."You meet all kinds of people from all over," Chaney said. "They just come over to check out your system and you always make connections."At Rice specifically, Chaney has found unique music tastes. "I love it," Chaney said. "Everybody here is so diverse; everybody likes all types of genres. I just take what I like and take what other people like and integrate it into my own thing."His comprehensive style and his involvement on campus helped him secure the NOD DJ position."I asked them two months ago," Chaney said. "They said, 'We really want you to do it.'"Chaney has been busy preparing for NOD. As part of his preparations, he has created a special NOD mixtape to distribute to Rice students."I decided to make a tape full of slow R&B type songs to get it on to, to set the mood for NOD," Chaney said. "Hopefully out of the whole CD, everyone will like at least one of the songs."Beginning with Mario-themed dialogue and sound effects with definite elements of the spirit of NOD, the hour-long playlist features an array of seductive tracks. In addition to the downloadable version of the mixtape which is available on his website, Chaney plans to distribute CDs on campus. The mixtape serves to increase excitement about NOD, but Chaney put just as much thought into the actual NOD playlist. In addition to incorporating the NODtendo theme, he will also be acknowledging the occasion."I mean, it is Halloween too," Chaney said. "That'll definitely be integrated into my mix, especially for the prime hour."The tracks will include popular Halloween hits like "Thriller" and the Jaws theme song.Following NOD, he has no intention of slowing down."With the DJ thing in general, I'm like a kid in a candy store," Chaney said. "I don't really know where it'll go after I'm done with college, but I hope that I can pursue it around Houston. I'm going to get my job and then, on the weekends, DJ."
Rice University students, when considered in totality, are not well-dressed. We wish we had a dollar for every time someone walked past in running shorts - two if they were also wearing a free T-shirt from some RPC event. The typical Rice student is busy with so many commitments that perhaps wardrobe choices, when considered at all, are made hastily. Oftentimes, these wardrobe choices are made out of sheer necessity to throw something on other than pajamas.
The Rice Rugby Football Club will play its first regular season game tomorrow at 2 p.m. against Texas State University. Though only the season opener, captain Agha Nkama said he thinks the game will be a good indicator of who will win the league championship."I look forward to the game against Texas State because it practically determines who's going to win the league," Nkama said. "It looks like we're the favorites, and I'm looking forward to success."Last year, the rugby team finished second in the Southwest Conference to the University of Texas. This year, the Owls are favored to win the Division I-AA conference championships since UT has since moved up to Division I-A. However, the rugby men are not taking this season for granted. In addition to practicing on Tuesdays and Thursdays like last year, the team has added Monday and Wednesday morning runs and conditioning to its regimen.The true test of the team's fitness will come tomorrow as the team expects to beat the only other team, after UT, that beat the Owls last year. "Last year, we weren't prepared physically so we ended up losing [to Texas State]," Rugby President Shaun Haby said. "Now, we have stepped up our training, and I think it shows."Not only have the Owls trained harder this year, but they have also, for the first time in Rice rugby history, prepared for the regular season by participating in the 7s (7 men on each side) preseason in an effort to gain extra practice entering the year. Despite finishing as the seventh overall seed after playing in two round-robin tournaments, the Owls are optimistic about their upcoming 15s (15 men on each side) season."7s wasn't too kind to us, but 15s is what we've always done, so it should be our bread and butter," Haby said. "We didn't lose too many guys from last year, so we should have a strong team."Nkame, who has been in the rugby club since his freshman year and played on the team that went to Division II national championship two years ago, said this team looks like it has the most potential since he joined it."We have strong senior and junior classes that make up all the starters," Nkame said.Haby, who spent the past summer playing rugby in New Zealand, he said he wants to end his career on a high note by winning the conference championship and going to nationals. Though Rice lost to Texas State in the 7s conference championship tournament earlier this year, Nkame and Haby have confidence that their strong returning roster will play to win.
Rice University has that well-known curse that students either find a partner during Orientation Week and date him or her until marriage or constantly hook up with random people at parties and never settle. This curse is an exaggeration, of course, but the Rice social culture seems to have no semblance of a third realm in this dichotomy of committed couples and hook-ups. What if you are not keen on the random hook-up, but also do not care to spend the rest of your life with the next person you date? The answer: casual dating.
In a New York Times column published last week, William Rhoden lambasted the idea of an idealized "sports hero." Citing the fall from grace of stars ranging from Tiger Woods to Michael Vick to, most recently, Lance Armstrong, Rhoden argued that the definition of a sports hero as an example or a role model needs to be thrown out. At one level, I agree with Rhoden that we often incorrectly equate greatness on the field with greatness off it. Athletes and coaches, like all people, are incredibly complex and often face vices just as impressive in magnitude as their athletic talent. There is value in being able to separate out and praise someone's admirable characteristics without projecting that across their entire person, whether that person is an athlete or holds a different position of influence. The principle holds just as well for Michael Jordan as it does for Steve Jobs. However, Rhoden begins to take the path a step further, implying that at some level we shouldn't hold athletes to a standard of conduct. It is here that I strongly disagree. Rhoden begins his article by citing an old commercial with Charles Barkley where Barkley asserted that he is "not a role model," that instead the responsibility is on parents to be role models and raise their kids. Rhoden then goes on to infer that the not-a-role-model idea is fundamentally right, that society should not have expected Barkley to be a role model because he can shoot a basketball. But role model or not, Barkley was, and had no choice but to be, a representative of the organizations and cities that he played for. And it is because of this that we can and should hold athletes to a standard of conduct outside of competition as well as in it. This idea is particularly clear when applied to our Rice student athletes. By putting on the Rice uniform, they become representatives of the university, its alumni, its students and its values. They become representatives of us. And, realistically, that representation doesn't end when the uniform comes off. Instead, personal interactions and off-the-field headlines (positive or negative) add significantly to the public perception of Rice athletics, and therefore Rice University. Social media has added a new dimension to off-the-field interaction between fans and athletes, and therefore applies in this area as well. What student athletes post reflects to a certain extent on this university, whether that works to build its reputation or tear it down. Critics will argue that athletes are compensated for their athletic performance, not for the quality of their character or conduct. Rice does not give out athletic scholarships to individuals because they are "good people," and even star athletes whose personal misconduct has tarnished their and their organizations' reputations are often still rewarded for athletic performance. Michael Vick still makes a lot of money playing football. Tiger Woods still is rewarded handsomely by golf tournaments and his myriad endorsement deals. But even though we reward athletes primarily for their athletic prowess, being a representative is part of the job. Therefore, their organizations and endorsers should hold them to a certain standard of conduct, encourage them to go above it and not tolerate if they fall too far below it. In practice, this idea seems to still hold. Tiger Woods did lose endorsements. Michael Vick did spend time in jail. Olympic athletes who posted racially inflammatory comments were dismissed by their countries.Athletes are going to make mistakes, sometimes egregious mistakes. Inevitably, we will at some point be blindsided by personal revelations about an athlete whom we admired. I already have been, many times over. But expectations drive behavior, and therefore we should continue to expect athletes to be positive representatives of their organizations and fans. Just because they sometimes fail does not mean that the expectation should be lowered. We wouldn't lower them on the field. We shouldn't off the field, either.
