Drink in hand, Sid Richardson College sophomore Graham Johnson gets pumped up for Rice's football game against SMU last Friday. More than 23,000 fans turned out to watch the Owls' first game of the year.
If you're an off-campus student, food is a big deal. Most off-campus students aren't masters in the kitchen, and their main recipes are easily made, pre-packaged, sometimes tasteless food. And who has an hour or even thirty minutes to prepare a meal? Many off-campus students resort to microwavable cuisines or a meal at a restaurant or deli. It can get to be expensive.But Will Rice and Wiess Colleges have a solution: offer free lunches to off-campus students once a week in their respective serveries (See story, page 1). Will Rice came up with the idea two years ago, and Wiess tested the idea last spring and decided to implement it this semester. These two colleges have the right idea, and we think it is something the other seven should implement.
Tonight marks the start of the 2008 season for the football team as they face Conference USA foe Southern Methodist University in their first game of the year. The contest, which is being broadcast nationally on ESPN, marks the debut of SMU's $2 million a year head coach June Jones and his run-and-shoot offense, both of which join C-USA with much fanfare. The run-and-shoot is one of the oldest sorts of spread offenses, and Jones has been a run-and-shoot disciple since his playing days as a quarterback at Portland State in the mid-1970s.
The Rice Student Association's HedgeHopper program will soon provide the campus community with discounts at sixteen Houston restaurants by way of the revamped HedgeHopper card. Soon to be distributed to undergrads and made available to Rice faculty and staff, the card will serve as a permanent coupon for the 2008-2009 school year. In support of this program, the Thresher has embarked upon a journey to review its sponsors. This week: Mission Burrito in the Rice Village.A good burrito is now closer than ever. With its new location on Morningside Dr. between Times Blvd. and University Blvd. across from Brian O'Neill's, Mission Burrito has created quite a fervor among the Rice population.
With the closing ceremonies last weekend, the Beijing Olympics have officially come to a close. These Games featured their share of exhilarating victories, devastating defeats and questionable antics, just like the Olympiads of yore. So, barring any unforeseen Russian invasions of Georgian locker rooms, let's see what we've learned: The producers of Entourage had it backward: Michael Phelps, not Adrian Grenier, should have auditioned for the role of Aquaman. And just imagine how many more medals he would have won if he'd grown a Mark Spitz mustache?
Students audition for a capella group The Philharmonics Tuesday in the Will Rice College private dining room. The group held auditions both Tuesday and Wednesday for the more vocally gifted of Rice's students.
Two seasons of falling short of an NCAA tournament berth and months of intensive off-season training culminated in an exciting opening weekend for the soccer team. With convincing wins against Sam Houston State University and University of Texas- San Antonio last weekend, the squad sent a message to the district and the nation. "Any time you get two home openers, you are hoping to start with a 2-0 record," head coach Chris Huston said. "The girls did fantastic."
For years I have kept a deep secret about myself. Afraid of the reaction of my friends and family, scared of certain humiliation, I have concealed a forbidden passion in the closet. But it is time to finally confess my feelings to the public and to endure the shame and ridicule which I will surely face. Yes, I am a fan of the Washington Nationals.
A fractured team without a home: this is an image of the 2007 soccer team that the Owls are trying to put behind them. On the field the first steps towards redemption came with a filled depth chart, and off the field, the Owls have found a new home after Autry construction stripped the team of a locker room in 2007. "In order to improve the future of Rice and other sports, it's one of the sacrifices that needed to be made," senior captain Christine Petric said. As the season began, the team found that the sacrifice, while seemingly inconsequential for on-field performance, was taking a toll on the team.
Look, I know we were all freshmen once, but I think it is time we be reasonable, time we be honest with ourselves, time we sit down and say, "Enough is enough - we hate the freshmen." Every year, a wave of greedy-eyed, overzealous freshmen swarm in like gold prospectors and either steal or ruin all Rice's valuable resources and perks, which are naturally meant for the use of the upperclassmen. With their sophomoric antics (no offense, sophomores) and sociopathic, type-A personalities, these freshmen annually reduce Rice to a state of martial law: Every fall, freshmen create Soviet-era queues at the bookstore, turn Autry Court into a zoo, overrun our precious sports fields, steal all the good study spots on campus, occupy every single Fondren Library computer the one time I desperately need to print out a document, get ridiculously drunk and then puke directly outside my door on Friday night . like they do every year. Not that I am bitter.Isn't the freshmen progression slightly too predictable? Each fall we witness a bunch of cocky little runts inundate the campus, flood every useful facility, ruin college aesthetics with their haughtiness, take all the KTRU bumper stickers so I can't even find the yellow letters necessary to spell "Zach is a stud," act like idiots on the weekend, slowly lose their zeal for life due to the horrors of orgo and physics classes, generally make stupid decisions and total fools of themselves and ultimately fail to rebrand themselves as something other than the pathetic geeks they were in high school. It is not until Christmas that things return to normal, i.e., when conversations are no longer routinely punctuated by a prepubescent voice behind you squeaking, "That's what SHE said!". or more accurately, not squeaking anything at all, but rather silently thinking similarly-perverted thoughts behind an awkwardly blank look. Those socially backward freshmen.
We set out to do some quick investigative reporting on the new south-campus steamy topic - the rocket-shaped cylinder protruding from the middle of old-Wiess field near the South Servery. You know what we are talking about - the 10-foot high pipe that blasts a white mushroom cloud of gas into the air just about every lunchtime. Is it poison? Is it radioactive waste? Is it a rocket ship manned by maniacal squirrels (see editorial cartoon)? A quick search for "construction" at www.rice.edu reveals that the cylinder is, in fact, an exhaust vent for the steam running through the newly-installed underground tunnel running to the South Plant. Workers are apparently testing the tunnel's integrity, and in order to do this, they have to release the built up steam so they can get inside.
Campus Crusade for Christ at Rice is now known as Agape Christian Ministries. Below is an explanation of this change and how our new name reflects what we do.To some, the word "crusade" is an offensive term associated with the horrific religious wars of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. Last semester we began to consider the effect our name had on how people viewed our organization. In an effort to see how the campus viewed the word "crusade" in our name, we did a campus-wide survey. We found that 50 percent of students entering Rice had a mildly or strongly negative view of the name Campus Crusade for Christ and many said they would view a name change positively. In light of these considerations, we voted for a name change. We are still part of Campus Crusade for Christ International; However, at Rice we will be known as Agape Christian Ministries. Several other branches across the nation have made a similar name change.
Top: Veronica Bernal and Lisa Galley check out the new Prius Zipcar Monday in front of the RMC.Bottom: Zipcar representative Kristina Kennedy answers questions about the Zipcar.
Per the request of senior quarterback Chase Clement, many of the Owls have grown mustaches with varying thicknesses and styles as a sign of team unity and to keep things light and humorous.Last week we brought you the
Beginning next year, the Wiess School of Natural Sciences will get a facelift. Dan Carson, professor and chair of the department of biological sciences at the University of Delaware, will take over from Kathleen Matthews when she steps down in January. Carson was offered the position in June. Provost Eugene Levy had organized a committee to search for the new dean last semester.
Along with new faces and new buildings around campus come revamped services for students looking beyond their Rice years. The Career Services Center, which counsels students on how to position themselves in the graduate and professional world, changed its name this year to the Rice Center for Student Professional Development. The first version of its new Web site, which will launch in Sept., will show this year's changes in the mission and structure of career services. Future versions of the site will include innovative software for job and internship exploration. CSPD Director Erik Larsen said the changes in career services will chiefly involve an online networking system that promotes meaningful exchange with potential employers. The Web site is planned to go beyond brief job listings and instead serve as an interactive career research forum. New software, which is being developed exclusively for Rice students by an external firm, will offer a chance for personal dialogue between students and employers.
