Special Projects

My Naji Hakim Experience

Monday saw the initiation of this fall's President's Lecture Series. Graced by the presence of the renowned Lebanese-French organist and composer Naji Hakim, the Rice community, especially the Shepherd School of Music, was abuzz with anticipation for the rare appearance of a musician on the academic platform. Hakim is most famous for having succeeded Olivier Messiaen, one of the most important composers of the 20th century, as organist at Paris' Église de la Sainte-Trinité. He has won many awards for his playing and compositions, so I was excited for his lecture, although I did not know what to expect considering no one in the composition department had ever heard of him.Composers are not usually given the chance to address the public. It is hard to intimately discuss music in front of an audience who has little understanding of the musical lexicon. It may be for this reason that Hakim's lecture was bland. His improvisations were very safe, almost stunningly simple to an experienced listener like my friend Tema Watstein, a Lovett College junior and violin performance major.

Amy's: Sushi ice cream ! !

When all that is good and holy in this world comes to a tragic end, the thought that Amy's Ice Cream is still delicious is comforting. This, however, is no longer the case. The once reputable ice cream joint, located at 3816 Farnham St., does not live up to its historic hype anymore.Ask any student who knows anything about ice cream. It's always Amy's this and Amy's that, except when Ben and Jerry's has Free Scoop Day. Sadly, in their recent years of being considered the number one ice cream joint in the Rice community, their fame has gone to their head. Serving mediocre ice cream, offering disappointing flavors and creating flavor combinations that taste of sushi and soy sauce cannot possibly be good for business. Here are some selections to stay away from: Belgian Chocolate, Atomic Blaster and Coffee White Chocolate.

Ike causes $3 million in campus damage

When it tore through campus in mid-September, Hurricane Ike left $3 million in campus damages in its wake. About two-thirds of the buildings and one-third of the trees on campus were affected, Facilities, Engineering and Planning Manager of Communications Susann Glenn said. Glenn said the majority of the damage was minimal. She said hurricane damage typically involved wet carpet and some broken windows, she said.

News in Brief: Traffic stop yields wanted felon

A routine Rice University Police traffic stop turned into a criminal chase when the car's driver turned out to be a wanted felon. A Rice University Police Department patrol stopped a car going the wrong direction down College Way on Sept. 28, Chief Bill Taylor said. After looking up information about the driver, Drake Young, the officers discovered that he had a felony warrant for a parole violation in Fort Bend County. The officers handcuffed Young and transported him to the RUPD station. While being transferred from the car to the building, Young took off running west down University Blvd. RUPD called the Houston Police Department for backup and were soon joined by a helicopter crew and a canine team, Taylor said.

WipEout HD wipes out even the most demanding players

Last Thursday, futuristic anti-gravity combat racing made its debut on the PlayStation 3 with WipEout HD, the latest entry in the WipEout franchise.Since WipEout HD is essentially a retooled version of the PlayStation Portable titles WipEout Pure and WipEout Pulse, some gamers may be hesitant about spending money on the game. Rest assured - there is plenty of stuff crammed in there for both veterans and newcomers alike.

This Week in Photos: Screw Yer Roommate and more

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Students voice discontent at finance forum

Vice President for Finance Kathy Collins and Dean of Undergraduates Robin Forman fielded questions at the Student Association meeting Monday night to a full house in an attempt to assuage students' concerns about the financial transformation planned for colleges and clubs. The changes will apply to over 150 clubs at Rice who currently have independent bank accounts, as well as each of the residential colleges, Forman said.

New finance policy another deception

Treasure these years. Because at the rapid rate things are changing, you won't recognize Rice at the end of your years here. Remember the school that you fell in love with during Owl Weekend? On your campus tour? When your brothers and sisters moved in five years ago? Kiss it all goodbye, because you're about to get hit with the full force of a reorganization nearly five years in the making.Some will argue that this is simply the next step in Rice's 10-year cycle of expansion. "It's natural," they will tell you. "This is how things are meant to happen." But what we as a student body are witnessing is not progressive thinking, but rather the result of an administration that consistently turns a deaf ear and a cold shoulder to the concerns and complaints of its student body.

Dunn foundation gives $3 million to CRC

Students interested in assisting professors and researchers with biomedical research at the Collaborative Research Center will now have a greater opportunity to do so. Over the next ten years, the CRC will receive $3 million from the John S. Dunn Research Foundation. The money will be used to fund grants for medical research done by Rice researchers working in collaboration with other institutions, Charles Hall, president of the John S. Dunn Research Foundation, said. Although this money will not go directly to students, Provost Eugene Levy said the grant money would benefit students by giving them the opportunity to participate in more research projects. Hall said the money would be used to fund seed grants for open-ended projects, allowing researchers to have as much free rein as possible in biological research.

'Trial by Jury' overrules

The Rice Light Opera Society returns to the stage this week with a solid production of W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's one-act light opera, "Trial by Jury." The play is directed by electrical engineering graduate student Patrick Kruse and Claire Hein (Sid Rich '08), with music direction by music graduate student Michael Dirk.The simple plot of the play revolves around the plaintiff Angelina - played by Brown College freshman Rosanna Butterfield - who is suing her former husband, Edwin, played by Geoff Copper (Sid Rich '07), for calling off their engagement. The deep-voiced usher (Sid Richardson College freshman Andrew Owens) urges the members of the jury to remain unbiased, but as soon as Edwin enters, he begins receiving abuse while Angelina's beauty causes the entire men's section of the jury to swoon, and it quickly becomes apparent that things may not be quite so easy.

Volleyball downs SMU and McNeese State in three sets, falls to Tulsa in five

For the second weekend in a row, the volleyball team entered the weekend with high expectations only to emerge with a split, earning a victory over Southern Methodist University but taking a difficult loss to a strong University of Tulsa team. Rice rebounded with a three-set sweep of McNeese State University Tuesday night. The Owls hit the road again as conference play continues on Friday night against the University of Marshall. The match will be at 6 p.m. in Huntington, W. Va. From there, Rice travels to Greenville, N.C., to take on East Carolina at 11 a.m. on Sunday. East Carolina and Marshall, both with 1-4 records, are the 11th and 12th place teams in Conference USA, respectively. Rice lost to Marshall 3-1 the only time the two squads faced off in 2007. The Owls will be looking for revenge against East Carolina, which also defeated Rice in 2007.

Rice football, stadium undergo four-year metamorphosis

I have never been a big football fan. Ask my friends, my parents, anyone who knows me. Despite living in Texas - a state that virtually worships football for half a year - I have never caught the fervor that accompanies the pigskin spectacle. Rather, I had never until two weeks ago at the Families' Weekend football game. Let me tell you: Rice's Athletic Department has done an excellent job in transforming Rice football games into events worth attending.The last time I attended a Rice football game as a student - and I mean really attended a football game, wearing Rice colors, cheering on the players - the stadium had worn, wooden, splintery stands that were literally a pain to sit in. Vendors didn't really exist, much less tempt spectators. And the student section was nonexistent. I've been to college football games at Texas A&M University and the Alamobowl in San Antonio and noticed that despite the different venues and teams, there was always a show of spirit: large buttons and fans with the school's logo and catchphrase and the endless stream of tables with college trappings and emblems. Despite my apathy towards the game, I have wondered whether I was missing out on something by attending a school that didn't celebrate its football games in a similar way.

South College plans finalized

The first residents of Duncan and McMurtry Colleges will not be a new generation of freshmen. Rather, they will be Baker College and Will Rice College students relocated from their own colleges during the south college renovations, Facilities, Engineering and Planning Project Manager Kathy Jones said. The renovations to the south colleges will begin next May and finish in August 2010. Over this 14-month period, the "new" wing of Will Rice will be replaced, Baker's tower will be removed, a new wing of Baker will be constructed along the inner loop, the seventh and eighth entrances of Baker will be handed over to Lovett College, and a new servery will be constructed between Will Rice, Sid Richardson and Lovett colleges. A total of 82 beds will be added to the south colleges in the project, Jones said.

Dinosaur mummy exciting in the abstract, disappointing in person

Dinosaur Mummy CSI: Cretaceous Science Investigation is the new dinosaur exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The main attraction is Leonardo, the first ever fossilized dinosaur mummy. Seeing as how it's close to Halloween, when the word "mummy" is mentioned, my mind immediately jumps to Boris Karloff. I was stoked to see this dinosaur mummy. A T-Rex wrapped in T.P.? Sign me up!Unfortunately, when they say "mummy," they don't mean King Tut. They mean a dead dinosaur that dried out and mummified before turning into a fossil. And Leonardo isn't exactly one of the cooler dinosaurs, either. He's a Brachylophosaurus, which is a type of hadrosaur. Remember The Land Before Time? Remember Ducky, that annoying little dinosaur who would always say "Yup, yup, yup!" in a really high-pitched voice? That's Leonardo.

XC places 8th at Notre Dame, outruns 5 top-ranked schools

Friday evening, the night before the Notre Dame University football team defeated Stanford University in front of tens of thousands of fans, the Rice women's cross-country team ran in the Notre Dame Invitational in front of a slightly smaller crowd. Last season the Owls won the Notre Dame Invitational, but this season they stumbled, finishing eighth. This weekend Rice will run a smaller squad at the Houston Baptist University Invitational. In order to give some of the less experienced runners more practice, head coach Jim Bevan decided that he will send a portion of his team to the Saturday race. Other teams at the meet should include HBU, Texas Southern University, Pan-American University, Prairie View A&M University and a few more to-be-determined schools.

Commentary: Sports editor from down under gets rugby fever

They are the stuff borne of nightmares. They are more terrifying than Donald Trump's hair, Mike Tyson's mind and season three of "Are You Afraid of the Dark?"

Rice Swimming 2008 Preview

Riding on the wave of many past accomplishments, the swim team enters this season poised to match or even exceed their high performance last season. The Owls finished 10-4 in dual meets and second at the Conference USA Championships last spring for the second consecutive year. The only team they did not overcome was Southern Methodist University, which amassed an impressive 926 points, almost 300 points above Rice's finish. At the national championships on March 22, 2008, Rice finished 39th in the nation. Additionally, senior sprinter Carlyann Miller competed at the 2008 Summer Olympic Trials. One of the team's goals this season is to remain in the top two in the conference and narrow the gap between themselves and SMU.

Grad student wins Kennedy Fellowship

Arta Sadrzadeh, a mechanical engineering and material science graduate student, has won the Ken Kennedy-Cray Inc. Graduate Fellowship Award for 2008. Sadrzadeh will receive $5,000 for personal use. Given to graduate students who have a history in high performance computing, the award is named after the late Ken Kennedy, a professor and founder of the computer science program at Rice. The global supercomputer corporation Cray Inc., of which Kennedy was a board member, gave $150,000 in his honor to establish the Ken Kennedy-Cray Inc. Graduate Fellowship Fund in 2007.

This week's Editorial Cartoon

Families Weekend well-attended despite Ike

Unwilling to let Hurricane Ike prevent them from seeing their children, almost 1,975 parents flocked to Rice for last week's Families Weekend. Student Association External Vice President Nicholas Muscara, who helped organize the event, said this number was consistent with turnout in previous years. Parents and students participated in a variety of activities, which included walking tours, coffee with President David Leebron, speeches, a football game and Baker Blues last weekend during Families Weekend. The number of participants was probably higher because 1,975 only reflects the number of parents and guests who registered over the weekend. Muscara, a Martel College sophomore, said the turnout was especially impressive considering that Families Weekend took place just two weeks after Hurricane Ike. There were concerns that factors such as high gas prices and lack of electricity in some parts of Houston would keep many parents from making the trip.