Few words instill more dread in the average Rice student than "8 a.m." It's a time slot reserved for the most popular teachers and the most popular subjects. The result: armies of sullen students that perform a near-lifeless trudge to the servery every morning looking for something that will get them through the next 50 minutes.
It has taken so long for me to write a review on Martin Scorsese because I assumed the whole world knew and loved his films and the thickly bespectacled, furry-browed, Italian New Yorker didn't need any more attention. However, the other day, I made a reference to Raging Bull in conversation. "Raging what?" my fellow conversant asked. I then realized there is a problem with the state of Scorsese awareness.
Houston made history last Saturday morning when, for the first time ever, the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon races for both men and women were held on the same course, on the same day. For the competitors, the road to the London 2012 Olympic Games began in front of the George R. Brown Convention Center on the Avenida de las Americas. In just a few short hours, the course outlined throughout the Space City determined which three men and women would represent Team USA on the biggest athletics stage in the world.
While many Rice University students were at home, the Blue and Gray continued to compete in several swimming events throughout late December and early January. Right after finals, the women's team headed to San Antonio to compete in the University of Incarnate Word Christmas Invitational. After three days of competition, the Owls finished a strong second out of six teams. Rice took four of the top nine spots in the 100-yard freestyle. Sophomore Chelsea Fong finished third overall with a career-best 50.87 seconds. Freshman Casey Clark was fifth (52.23 second prelims), while sophomore Karina Wlostowska (52.83 second prelims) and senior Allison Godbe (52.70 seconds) were eighth and ninth, respectively. After winning the 500-yard freestyle on Saturday's opening round of the three-day meet, freshman Erin Flanigan completed a victory in the mile on Monday, leading a 1-2 finish for Rice, in which she was the only finisher to break the 17-minute mark at 16:55.91. Freshman Madison Livingston scored big for the Owls with a career-best 2:20.86 to take third in the 200-yard breaststroke. In the 200-butterfly the trio of Flanigan (fifth), Clark (seventh) and senior Shelby Bottoms (eighth) all made the finals of the 200-yard butterfly. However, the tournament was capped off just as impressively, as the Owl foursome of freshman Marissa Konicke, Godbe, Fong and Clark closed out the meet by winning in the 400-yard freestyle relay with a season-best 3:24.92. This impressive feat helped secure a second place overall finish for the Owls.
Ah, the start of a new semester! With new notebooks in hand and the determination to make this a great semester, our student body attends its first week of classes. While "syllabus week" is one of the most enjoyable weeks of the semester, with the opportunity to shop for classes and limited homework, it does bring along one annoyance: buying textbooks. After most of us have finally decided which classes we will attend, or at least stay enrolled in, it comes the time to dive into the frustrating process of buying the required materials for our next semester of learning.
The first few weeks back at Rice University bring varying levels of stress. While most students are simply trying to figure out which of their classes they will be able to skip the most, Head Coach Jim Bevan and the women's track team are beginning their indoor season today at Yeoman Fieldhouse for the Leonard Hilton Invitational. The team, while rife with potential talent, will need to replace key performers in nearly all events.
After looking like a team that was turning a corner, over break the Rice women's basketball team regressed, struggling to close out contests that could have certainly been victories.
Rice University has chosen Johnny Whitehead to succeed Bill Taylor as chief of Rice University Police (see story, pg. 1). Whitehead will arrive at Rice sporting an impressive resume which includes university, private sector and public government security experience. He is certainly talented and qualified for the position, and the Thresher is impressed by the positive response he has generated among those who have interacted with him.
Jones College will soon be furbished with biometric fingerprint security to limit access to external and bathroom doors. While improving campus security should always be priority, this proposal fails to significantly enhance student safety for its hefty price tag of $3,000 to $5,000 per scanner. The current proposal plans to place approximately a dozen scanners in Jones, and there are plans to expand the biometric scanners to other colleges with common restrooms. The staggering expense associated with this initiative makes the implementation of biometric security around campus not only unfeasible but simply preposterous.
Last week, perhaps yearning to be closer to a place I so dearly miss, I logged on to the Thresher's website to see what was new with all of you. The front page told me that Dean of Undergraduates John Hutchinson had lifted the ban on alcohol, and subsequent editorials trumpeted the pivotal role that student cooperation had played in the university's decision.
In all the discussions that have occurred since the hard liquor probation was enacted, it is easy to lose sight of one of the characteristics that makes Rice University unique: student governance. Students created the Honor Code and inspired large parts of the Student Code of Conduct and Alcohol Policy. The hard liquor probation itself was, in fact, informed and implemented by student leaders across campus. Our tradition of a student-led judicial system means that students, not university officials, hold fellow students to Rice community standards.
While the 2011 men's track season was filled with the usual ups and downs, one thing that Head Coach Jon Warren and his team could take away from last year was the ability of the team to improve drastically from the indoor to the outdoor season, as evidenced by their sixth-place finish at the Conference USA Indoor Championship and a fourth-place finish at the C-USA Outdoor Championship. With the majority of their main scorers heading back to the track for Rice, the Owls are looking toward 2012 as a season with plenty of promise.
Entering the winter break with a 6-2 record, Head Coach Ben Braun and the Rice men's basketball team went to work against an increasingly difficult non-conference schedule following an 11-day layoff for final exams.
Last year heralded terrible movies varying from the sequel of The Human Centipede to the alternative reality chick-fighting movie Sucker Punch. In spite of these cinematic disasters, Hollywood redeemed itself with raw documentaries and incredible CGI. Here are my favorite films of 2011:
Students walking to their first classes of the new year had to get past more than just their snooze buttons. According to weather data on the university website, Rice's campus received 4.98 inches of rain Monday, flooding roads and parking lots in and around the university.
After receiving 4.98 inches of rain parts of campus flooded Monday morning forcing some off-campus students, faculty and staff to stay home until the water drained. Those on-campus who ventured outside braved water that was more than a foot deep in places. While some students waded across the Inner Loop to get to class, others put on their swimsuits and took advantage of the weather or helped stranded motorists move their cars out of flooded intersections.
As we blissfully enjoyed the lack of classes and time away from Fondren, many of us reveled in the December offerings of our local Cineplex. Unlike summer releases, these winter offerings often take a more somber tone, appealing not just to the popcorn-eating masses, but also to the Hollywood elite.
