Special Projects

Home sweet home

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.

Freshman involvement vital for campus

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.

Editorial Cartoon: In a field near Wiess...

Sky rocket's in flight...

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.

From 'Crusade' to 'Agape,' the message remains the same

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.

Zip-a-dee-do-dah

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.

The 'stache is back

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

Carson appointed Dean of Natural Sciences

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.

Career Services Center changes name, Web site

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.

Two laughs and a scream

Just a few years ago, the comedic stage belonged to the super-duo of director Adam Mackay (Anchorman) and chubby funnyman Will Ferrell (Talladega Nights). Since then, they have had to make way for the hilarious antics of Seth Rogen (Knocked Up), another fat white guy, and director-producer extraordinaire Judd Apatow (Step Brothers), yet another out-of-shape white guy. Hmm, I wonder why the target audience for this genre is so huge.

Obama selects VP willing to fight back

"I want you to be nice until it's time to not be nice." Those words originally came from the actor Patrick Swayze as James Dalton, the soft-spoken bouncer with a degree in philosophy, instructing new subordinates in the 1989 B-movie Road House. However, they could also easily be applied to this year's presidential election. With his selection of Senator Joe Biden of Delaware as his running mate, Barack Obama has shown that he recognizes - as the contest has taken a predictable negative turn - the Democratic ticket's need for the ability not to be nice.

Beyond traditional borders

Summer in the United States means winter in Lesotho, and into this winter, Rice University students brought the warmth of aid and ideas. Beyond Traditional Borders, an organization founded at Rice in 2007, awarded internships to 17 students and sent them abroad this summer to develop and carry out missions for sustainable growth in developing countries. Of these, 13 students went to Maseru, the capital city of Lesotho, a small country surrounded entirely by South Africa. To participate in this eight-week program, students carried out projects they developed over the spring semester and found their own initiatives within their community to pursue. Project subject matter varied from bioengineering advances and health education to economic analysis and entrepreneurial training.

Social experiment

Martel College junior Kendall Hollis checks out the hubbub at Martel's Committees Fair Wednesday night.

Common reading upgrades bring success

With yet another Orientation Week come and gone, it is time to sit back and take a look at one of the annual points of debate: the common reading program (See story, page 1). From our point of view, the common reading for this year was a success. Without the results from the formal survey to back it up, we cannot absolutely confirm our conclusion, but the general consensus indicates that most new students and advisors found the common reading to be an engaging experience.We believe several program changes are responsible for the positive response. First of all, the book itself was more engaging than the previous years' choices. Three Cups of Tea is a story written in a style that has more in common with a leisurely read than an academic seminar. While it is by no means a simplistic or childish work, it is of a level well-suited to students working it into their summer vacations. For the common reading program, this meant that more students finished the work than would have otherwise, especially if it had been an academically dense scholarly article, instead.

Daughter of former Brown masters passes away

Emma Hutchinson, daughter of former Brown College masters John and Paula Hutchinson, died Saturday after a long battle with polycystic kidney disease. She was 20 years old.The Rice Memorial Center provided 600 chairs in the Grand Hall for Hutchinson's memorial service Tuesday afternoon. Every seat was taken.

Sports Notebook

Rice represented well in Beijing

Remembering Emma

On Tuesday, Aug. 26, hundreds of students, faculty, associates and others paid tribute to Emma Hutchinson, daughter of former Brown and Wiess College masters John and Paula Hutchinson (see story, page 12).Emma spent 12 years - more than half her life - as a member of the Rice community, and she touched the lives of many, as she spent much of those years in the Wiess and Brown masters houses. A ubiquitous presence at many collegiate events, Emma will be missed by her family - both immediate and collegiate.

Not a sports page, not a magazine, but a book

Summer is a time of endless possibilities. Everyone I know found a different way to stay busy after school ended, and a way to stay entertained away from work. Some of my friends watched television or held movie marathons; everybody went to see The Dark Knight. We argued about Heath Ledger and worshipped Michael Phelps. A couple of people I know even read books.Not many, of course. Reading is a lost art, a means of entertainment going extinct in the electronic age. The average American reads something like four books a year, all of them written by Stephenie Meyer. A quick search of the Thresher online archives reveals a grand total of one book review. In other words, the number of book reviews ever published by the Thresher is probably lower than the number of freshmen who didn't even open this year's summer reading.

Free-software activist speaks on moral duty to share

While most people take for granted FBI piracy warnings and encrypted DVDs barring users from making illegal copies and distributing them, computer expert Richard Stallman offered a starkly different perspective. As a guest of the computer science department, Stallman spoke Tuesday in Duncan Hall's McMurtry Auditorium about the validity of the free-software movement. Stallman, who lectures at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is widely known for developing a free operating system called the GNU Project, which is similar to Unix. He has been outspoken since the 1980s about free software and campaigns against federal restrictions on copyright laws.

Don't labor on Labor Day

This Monday is Labor Day, the first holiday of the year. Make the most of it by doing as little as possible by sleeping or loitering somewhere. So before you go out and decide to be productive, think twice. Once you come back, it'll be all work all the time.