VOLUME 103, ISSUE NO. 16 | STUDENT-RUN SINCE 1916 | RICETHRESHER.ORG | WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2019
Rice celebrates MLK Day at parade, vigil RYND MORGAN THRESHER STAFF
Still perfect
Women’s basketball remains undefeated in conference play MADISON BUZZARD ASST SPORTS EDITOR
The women’s basketball team extended its undefeated stretch to seven games, claiming a 6452 victory on Saturday over the University of North Texas at Tudor Fieldhouse. The win gave Rice a 5-0 Conference USA record and a 14-3 overall mark. Rice took a bit of time to settle in at the start of the game. Sophomore center Nancy Mulkey began the game by committing a turnover on offense before blocking a shot on defense, then surrendering another turnover on offense. Each team missed its first three-point shot before senior guard Nicole Iademarco deposited the game’s first bucket. North Texas senior guard Grace Goodhart scored six points in the first six minutes to narrow the margin to 9-8 in favor of the Owls. Rice extended its lead to eight points by the end of the first quarter thanks to baskets from junior guard Erica Ogwumike, senior guard Lauren Grigsby and sophomore center Alexah Chrisman. Grigsby and Chrisman were Rice’s only two bench players to play more than three minutes (Grigsby played 25 minutes and Chrisman played 12 minutes). Head coach Tina Langley’s decision to play only a few reserves enabled four of Rice’s five starters to score more than seven points. SEE BASKETBALL PAGE 11
cloris cai / thresher
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Business & Pleasure: A conversation with Paul Hester CHRISTINA TAN
A&E EDITOR
A group photo usually includes three elements: the passerby photographer, the impatient photographed group and a phone camera. On Thursday, I got to be a part of the photographed group — but the photographer was former photography professor Paul Hester (Wiess ‘71), and instead of using a phone, he opted for a giant view camera. In classic Paul fashion, we were gathered in this film photo to celebrate the opening of his exhibition, “Business & Pleasure: Fifty Years of Photographs by Paul Hester.” The event, hosted in the Rice Media Center, was packed — Hester later commented to me that it was a good thing the fire marshal didn’t stop by. Fans, former students and fellow colleagues jammed into the space to look at work ranging from Hester’s college years to post-grad photographs taken on a Thomas J. Watson fellowship to collaborative work with his wife, Lisa Hardaway (Brown ‘81). Like its onlookers, the photographs themselves were arranged in every nook and cranny: visit the men’s room, and you might be confronted with a photograph of Spanishstyle architecture. Hester, who taught photography at Rice for 15 years, is a Rice alum, as are Hardaway and his two sons, Eric Hester
(Wiess ‘07) and Noah Hardaway (Wiess ‘18). At the opening, Hester clarified that he is not retired, but “taking a break from teaching” and focusing his time on taking photographs of the Menil’s collection.
She started pulling prints out of the boxes, making connections between work from different periods of time. Paul Hester FORMER PHOTOGRAPHY PROFESSOR I had the opportunity to talk to Hester, also a former teacher of mine, twice — once, for two hours, before I lost the audio file, and a second time, for two hours, since he was patient enough to do it again. Parts of the interview are embedded online for a more holistic experience of Hester and his exhibit. HESTER & HARDAWAY Hester and Hardaway own a joint business, Hester + Hardaway, and worked together for this exhibit. Hardaway, a Shepherd School graduate, curated the exhibit, choosing which photographs to display and where.
“I was busy doing some other work, and [Hardaway] said, ‘You gotta get started on this,’” Hester said. “So she started pulling prints out of the boxes and getting things together, making connections between work from different periods of time, expressing her preferences for different things.” Throughout the exhibit, Hester expressed his appreciation for Hardaway’s vision, chuckling at some of her paired choices and exclaiming that he never would have seen such connections. The result is an exhibition that feels cohesive, with a chronological beginning that unravels into a new order later, paired together by composition and subject as opposed to time. Such careful thought even led Hardaway to place a photo in the men’s and women’s restrooms — a fireplace in the men’s and a cactus in the women’s. Equally thoughtful are the architectural photographs that lead visitors in a winding U-turn, finishing in an almost hidden room full of Hester’s students’ work. “I put up photographs from students that I had that maybe they never picked up from the class, or that maybe I had kept from an assignment and forgot to return,” Hester said. “At the end of the exhibit, I’m going to put the students’ books in a collection in Fondren Library.” SEE HESTER PAGE 9
After students voiced concerns about the dilapidated state of Rice’s float, Rice students, alumni, faculty and staff honored Martin Luther King Jr. weekend by participating in Houston’s MLK march and attending an on-campus vigil featuring speakers including Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Rice President David Leebron. THE PARADE At 8 a.m. on Monday, members of the Rice community gathered at the Allen Center for breakfast before going to the 41st Annual “Original” MLK, Jr. Day Parade downtown. Instead of the float used in the parade last year, Rice presented “a very energetic walking group,” as described by the Facebook event page. According to William Edmond, assistant director of multicultural affairs, students decided walking as a group would be a better option than a float. “Logistically, we advertised the opportunity for students to participate,” Edmond said. “By determining to walk, we were able to solicit the participation of students, alumni, faculty and staff close to 100 volunteers, including the Marching Owl Band.”
I give a lot of credit to [Martin Luther] King’s message; that pushed me along, motivated me, inspired me. Sylvester Turner MAYOR OF HOUSTON Greg Marshall, director of university relations, said that both the Houston Pride Parade group this past summer and MLK group this weekend opted for walking groups instead of redecorating the float used in last year’s parade, primarily for financial reasons. “We explored the possibility of trying to rent a larger float this year, but the cost to do so is thousands of dollars — many times what we spend each year on redecorating the float, printing T-shirts, providing food, transportation and security to parade participants,” Marshall said. “So that simply wasn’t feasible.” Yonas Tekola, vice president of the Black Male Leadership Initiative, said that a walking group made more sense to promote turnout to the parade. “I think a big critique from last year was the float itself and the processes that led up to the float,” Tekola, a Jones College junior, said. “But the parade itself was a good time. I was on the float, and I was there with other students, faculty, alumni. I think the more students that get involved, the better we feel in the group, as well as the better we present ourselves as a university.” Brown College sophomore Mathias Adamu walked in the parade this year, along with a group of other Rice community members and the MOB. “The parade was wonderful,” Adamu said. “Getting up early was kind of a struggle but actually walking was really fun. Cheering and waving and handing out bookmarks to all the people was awesome.” THE VIGIL On Sunday night, Turner and Leebron spoke at the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Vigil. SEE MLK PAGE 4