The Rice Thresher | Wednesday, October 4, 2017

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VOLUME 102, ISSUE NO. 6 | STUDENT-RUN SINCE 1916 | RICETHRESHER.ORG | WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2017

BLURRY VISION SA V2C2 committee fails to include all students

MR. SADSIDE New album by the Killers fails to live up to expectations

SHOOT AND SCORE Soccer alone in first in Conference USA

SEE OPS P. 4

SEE RICETHRESHER.ORG

SEE SPORTS P. 10

TIME TO SHINE

Moody opens 'Waiting on a Prime-Time Star'

In the first exhibition since its opening, the Moody Center for the Arts features the works of artist Mickalene Thomas. Thomas' works explore representations of black women in art and popular culture and themes of personal and cultural identity. The exhibition opened Sept. 28 and will be on view until Jan. 13, 2018. SEE REVIEW ON PAGE

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serena liu/thresher

Rice offers aid in wake of Harvey SA seeks student ideas to SHAMI MOSLEY THRESHER STAFF / SMM25@RICE.EDU

The Rice Emergency Student Disaster Assistance program is offering disaster financial assistance and reimbursements for flooded cars to some students affected by Hurricane Harvey. Only off-campus students who are already receiving financial aid can apply for the disaster financial assistance, which includes up to $1,500 for costs not covered by insurance, according to Bradley Fralic, associate vice president of and university controller of Rice. The money comes from donations to the Rice Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund, which was established to support employees and students impacted by the hurricane as well as fund outreach efforts. “We focused the assistance on meeting immediate needs not covered by insurance primarily because there’s only so many resources and we decided to focus on those who had the greatest need,” Fralic said. “Rather than get invasive and ask for all kinds of personal information, we decided to focus on those who had some type of need based aid as the best way to make that determination.” McMurtry College junior Tram Nguyen said she applied to receive financial assistance after her apartment flooded with two feet of water, causing her to lose

every piece of furniture in her apartment. “For me, as a low-income student, it’s a big deal to know exactly how money is coming in, so you can plan your whole entire semester and year around that,” Nguyen said. “Yes, there’s emergency funds, but re-buying furniture completely is a big sum, really for any college student. We all know Rice is already hard and to have that added burden of not knowing where this money is coming from, it affects your mindset academically.” Wiess College sophomore Sam Robedee said he applied to receive disaster financial assistance but found he was ineligible because he does not receive need-based aid, although he does receive free tuition for eight semesters because he has a parent who is a faculty member at Rice. Robedee met with Dean of Undergraduates John Hutchinson on Tuesday and said he will receive $500 of assistance through the Dean’s office, which he will use to pay apartment fees his landlord charged him even after he said his off-campus apartment became uninhabitable due to mold. “The experience has been long and tiring, but good and helpful,” Robedee said. “I’m glad Rice is here to help.” The program will also provide reimbursements to students who sustained damages to automobiles

with Rice parking permits parked on campus during the hurricane while they were out of town on approved Rice travel. Auto reimbursements are up to $500 for either the payment of insurance deductibles or completed repairs, depending on which is lower, according to an email sent to all students on Sept. 14 announcing the financial assistance program.

The experience has been long and tiring, but good and helpful. I’m glad Rice is here to help. Sam Robedee Wiess College Sophomore Before the storm, Rice Crisis Management announced that students with parking permits could park their cars in the Entrance 3 Garage or the BRC Garage to prevent their vehicles from flooding. Because students who were out of town for Rice-related activities did not have the opportunity to move their cars to one of the garages, Fralic said the Rice administration thought it was the right thing to do to reimburse these students.

HARVEY CONT. ON PAGE 2

shape university vision

EMILY ABDOW & CAMERON WALLACE NEWS EDITOR & ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR ESA2@RICE.EDU & CFW2@RICE.EDU

The Rice University Student Association is gathering student ideas to develop the seven major goals of Rice’s Vision for the Second Century, Part Two, which President David Leebron outlined at a Rice town hall on Tuesday. Leebron first announced the V2C2, an initiative to shape Rice’s strategic plan for the next decade, in February. On Tuesday, Leebron sent a draft of the V2C2 and its major goals to the Rice community. “This is first and foremost a learning opportunity for the university,” Leebron said. The seven major goals outlined in the V2C2 aim to transform undergraduate education, improve graduate programs, expand diversity, strengthen research, develop faculty, engage Houston and extend Rice’s impact. To create the goals, Leebron gathered feedback through a survey that received over 4,500 comments from over 1,100 members of the Rice community between February and mid-March, according to the V2C2 website. According to SA President Justin Onwenu, 187 of the survey respondents were undergraduate students. The SA’s 100 Ideas for

Rice’s Future Task Force, which was created on Sept. 26, consists of ten members selected by Onwenu from the applicant pool and aims to engage more students in brainstorming specific ideas for the goals, Onwenu said. “The [V2C2] survey was pretty involved, so I wanted something that would be more accessible, to say, ‘don’t worry about funding, don’t worry about logistics, just give me your craziest ideas on how to improve Rice,’” Onwenu, a Sid Richardson College senior, said. Leebron said that while he believes some of the 100 ideas will impact the final V2C2 document, they will have the greatest impact when implementation begins in December or January. “It’s not that all of [the 100 ideas] will belong in a strategic document like this,” Leebron said. “I have no doubt that some of them will end up with some reference in the document.” The draft proposal establishes the goal of increasing the percentage of the endowment dedicated to financial aid from 38 percent to 50 percent, a process which will require raising about $160 million, as well as increasing research funding by about $250 million over the next 10 years.

V2C2 CONT. ON PAGE 3


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