All hyperbole aside, we are living in historic times. Last week was one that will fill memory banks and scribbled diaries forever more-an era to be shared fondly with your children and maybe even yelled about to your grandkids. And unless you were standing in line to try some new BioBeer, you were lucky enough to be there in person.
Winston Churchill once said, "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." After being defeated by four out of the five teams they have competed against this season, this is exactly the attitude the swim team has chosen to maintain, even after falling last weekend to the University of Houston 173-121 and New Mexico State University 151-143. Head coach Seth Huston said he believes in the strength of his team across the board.
The big blue curtain is finally gone, and Tudor Fieldhouse has finally opened its renovated doors (see story, page 1).First and foremost, we would like to congratulate everyone directly involved with the project for finishing everything necessary for the hosting of both women's and men's basketball home-openers this weekend. The ridiculous Houston weather never quite cooperates with the construction schedules of mere mortals, but despite torrential rains, flooding and a bonus hurricane, the doors will still be open tonight and tomorrow for the arena's game-play inauguration.
After a strong individual showing from junior Bruno Rosa at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association South Central Regional Championship and National Intercollegiate Indoor Championship, the men's tennis team will settle down for a long rest over the next few months. The Owls will kick off the spring-heavy year with a match-up against Conference USA rival University of Memphis on Jan. 16. After their sixth consecutive NCAA Tournament bid and yet another promising fall season, the Owls look only to improve upon their success with returning strong leadership and new firepower from the eighth best recruiting class in the nation. With much to prove, freshmen Sam Garforth-Bles, Christian Saravia, Isamu Tachibana and Andy Wang as well as returning All-American stars Rosa and senior Christoph Müller have high expectations for this 22nd nationally-ranked team. None, however, exude as much confidence as junior captain Chong Wang.
A new home, a new look, and five new freshmen on the court are all reasons that the 2008-2009 Owls are looking forward to the future. In their lone exhibition match last Thursday the Owls delivered a convincing 81-56 win against Houston Baptist University, showcasing the prospects for the coming season, before getting ready for their home opener against California State University-Northridge tonight. While both players and coaches are excited to prove themselves on the court as the first game inside the newly built Tudor Fieldhouse approaches, they are even more excited about the new court itself.
Brooklyn rockers The National performed at Rice last Friday as part of the weekend's homecoming festivities. The activities culminated with a well-attended Esperanza Saturday night.
After years of declining attendance and profit loss, Rice Program Councilhas found the key to hosting a successful Esperanza.
As online registration for spring semester classes began this week on ESTHER, some students encountered several inconveniences which prevented them from signing up for upper-level courses. For this registration period, the Registrar's Office is implementing the prerequisite rule established by the academic departments, which bars students who have not taken the required courses from registering for classes, Registrar David Tenney (Sid '87) said. Instead, students will need to bring a Special Registration form to the appropriate department and obtain the professor's signature to enroll in the course. However, the main difficulty was differentiating between what the academic departments deemed as hard prerequisites, which are absolutely required courses, and soft prerequisites, which are recommended courses, Tenney said.
On March 7, 2007 Lee Greenwood watched as her son, Joseph Nichols, an African-American, was brought into the death sentence chamber after he was transported there in a manner designed to scrape away at his dignity. Joseph wrote before his execution, "They cut off all my clothes and stripped me naked. I finally got a pair of boxers but my feet were shackled together, my hands were chained and then another chain bound my feet, went up over my shoulders and bound my hands. This is how our people were brought here from the motherland, naked and chained, and this is how I will leave."
Last Friday I got the chance to sit down with Matt Berninger, lead singer of The National, after the band's fully "get up and dance" concert in the Central Quad. Clad in all black, wearing sunglasses, drinking whiskey on stage and smoking a Marlboro, he seemed like the ultimate rock star - until I talked to him and found out he was a totally normal guy. Which is the ultimate rock star cliché, right?I asked him a few random and not-really-music-related questions, and what follows are excerpted answers. The full interview will be bouncing around the airwaves of RTV5 at some undetermined point in the future.
The building formerly known as Autry Court now has a new name and a new face, after almost two years of construction. Former Rice basketball player Bobby Tudor (Hanszen '82) fulfilled a longtime dream when he donated $7 million for Autry renovations, which began in February of 2007. Tudor Fieldhouse had its grand opening last Friday and will open for the 2008- '09 basketball season tonight when the women's basketball plays California State University-Northridge. The athletic court itself will keep the name Autry in honor of Mrs. James L. Autry, whose daughter donated to the gymnasium building. Assistant Athletic Director and Media Relations Director Chuck Pool said a new Autry Court has been a dream for a very long time. Bobby Tudor, after whom Tudor Fieldhouse is named, was told that renovations to Autry Court were on the table when he went on his high school recruiting trip to Rice 31 years ago. The plans became a reality when Rice received a $7 million contribution from Tudor and his wife, Phoebe. Tudor is a former Rice basketball player and is now chairman and CEO of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., LLC.
To coincide with this week's arrival of the highly anticipated and much-hyped video game Mirror's Edge, EA and EA Digital Illusions CE (DICE) have also released a digital album featuring the game's theme song by Lisa Miskovsky, as well as five different remixes by noted dance and electronica artists Benny Benassi, Junkie XL, Paul Van Dyk, Teddybears and Armand Van Helden. As a whole, the album is a solid effort and definitely worth a listen, but listeners shouldn't expect anything groundbreaking.The title track, "Still Alive" (not to be confused with the hilarious end-credit song by GLaDOS at the end of Portal), is performed by Swedish pop rock star Miskovsky, who enjoys a considerable reputation across the pond in Sweden but is relatively unknown here in the states, although she did help write of "Shape Of My Heart" for the Backstreet Boys in 2000.
Due to student complaints about the vagaries of honor code violation notifications, the Honor Council voted Tuesday to specify the information in the initial e-mail sent to students under investigation. Students will now be notified of the class in which the honor code violation is being contested before their initial investigative meeting with the council. The council hosted a mock trial Tuesday to show students how an honor code violation is dealt with, the result of concerns raised at its Consensus Penalty Structure meeting in October, President Jackie Ammons said. After the trial, the floor was opened to discussion and afterward, the council voted on an issue raised by students in previous weeks about the transparency of the process, Ammons, a Brown College junior, said.
Many students attempting to register for their Spring 2009 classes discovered this week that there is a new error message to be found in the ESTHER system: "Pre-req and Test Score Error." Newly-implemented by the Registrar's Office, the change comes on the heels of of the double-booking restriction put into effect during registration for this semester (See story, page 1).This newest change signals a disturbing trend in the Registrar's Office. In conjunction with the pending changes to the academic calendar, which will greatly diminish the timeframe in which students can modify their schedules, the double-booking restriction curtailes the possibilities of the course shopping period. Prerequisite checking - and the associated errors within ESTHER related to it - has done nothing to repair this situation. In fact, ESTHER's failure to properly identify cross-listed and in-progress courses has prevented students from registering for courses in which they belong.
Who is Matisyahu?An Ashkenazi Hebrew and Yiddish pronunciation of the biblical name Matthew?
Everyone likes art, right? The glass boats recently hung from the ceiling of Fondren Library are supposed to be the first of many projects around campus, according to the Arts Committee. Art may well be an "essential element to achieving our mission as a great university," as President David Leebron said during the official unveiling of the sculptures. However, as enjoyable as art can be, there remain several much more direct ways to make Rice a better school.The unveiling ceremony was exciting enough for there to be wine. The pavilion was crammed with men in sportcoats and women in bright skirts holding wine glasses while the four plasma screens featured the oozing of molten glass. Leebron stood somewhere in the middle of them all. Around 5:45 p.m., the group made its way into the library to admire nine glass boats hanging from the ceiling. A few inspirational speeches were given, a few pictures taken on BlackBerry phones. A student employee at the front desk, referring to them as "radishes," wondered if the rumors about the cost of the boats were true.
Once infamous for its low turnout and unpopular venues, this year's Esperanza attracted an unprecedented 1,000 students, the highest number the Rice Program Council has seen in recent years. The formal, this year hosted on campus in a tent between the Jesse H. Jones School of Management, the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy and the Shepherd School of Music, sold out last Thursday, two days before the event last Saturday. While last year saw an increased turnout of 550 students for Esperanza, this year's turnout almost doubled. RPC Formals Committee co-Chair Maggy Taylor said she was surprised and pleased by the turnout.
