The Rice Thresher | Wednesday, September 6, 2023

Rice Pride extends honorary membership to Texas public university students

HADLEY MEDLOCK A&E EDITOR

As Texas closes the doors of queer resource centers at public universities across the state, Rice Pride is opening theirs.

On June 14, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law banning diversity, equity and inclusion offices and initiatives at state-funded universities in Texas, as well as the hiring or assignment of an employee to conduct DEI office duties.

Despite the law not officially going into effect until January 2024, the University of Houston has already disbanded their Center for Diversity and Inclusion, as well as the school’s LGBTQ Resource Center. After hearing about UH’s center closing down, Rice Pride’s executive board released a statement saying they were planning to extend honorary membership to students at public universities in Texas, allowing them to utilize resources and find community within Rice’s Queer Resource Center.

Cole Holladay, a co-president of Rice

Pride, said that discussions surrounding what their organization could do to support university students affected by Bill 17 began as soon as the law was introduced. While reviewing Rice Pride’s constitution to reapply as a student organization for this semester, they found their solution.

“After a really close reading, we found a clause that talked about how we could extend honorary membership to people from the community, or grad students and other people, which was not something that we had really seen before,” Holladay, a Martel College junior, said. “But because it was already in our Constitution and had been approved before, we were like, ‘Okay, there’s infrastructure, this is something we could do.’”

Though originally intimidated by joining Rice Pride, Holladay said they found encouragement from Orientation Week parents that encouraged them to start visiting the QRC freshman year. They now see the QRC as a space vital to LGBTQ+ community building and said that

Owls horned down by Texas, lose 37-10 in season opener

KATHLEEN ORTIZ FOR THE THRESHER

Rice football led the University of Texas Longhorns for exactly 2 minutes and 40 seconds on Saturday when the teams met for the 97th time. Being ahead may have been unfamiliar, but the final result was not — Rice lost to Texas again, this time by a score of 37-10, for the Owls’ 75th loss against the Longhorns.

While Rice’s 3-0 start, courtesy of a

43-yard field goal from redshirt junior Tim Horn, did not last long, coach Mike Bloomgren praised the defense’s ability to force a turnover on downs to end Texas’ first offensive drive of the game.

“That was a very fun time in the game, but it’s also what I think we were capable of for the entirety of the game and, again, that’s what we’ve got to work towards,” Bloomgren said of the first four minutes

SEE FOOTBALL PAGE 10

extending this community just felt like the right thing to do.

“The Senate Bill that we’re seeing and a lot of other legislation we’re seeing coming out of Texas right now is very obviously an attack on the queer community,” Holladay said. “In times like these, I think having a supportive community where you can experience joy and experience grief or whatever it is you need to experience, and having that support come from other people who understand, is really important.”

For Jorge Arnez Gonzales, a Rice Pride copresident, the QRC has become a place for him to express his queer identity in a way he couldn’t in high school. An international student from Bolivia, Arnez Gonzales said that growing up without LGBTQ+ resources has made this decision especially important to him personally.

“I grew up without having any of these resources back in my home country. I don’t think there’s any university I know of [in Bolivia] that has a queer-specific resource center,” Arnez Gonzalez said. “When

legislation tries to divide us up or bring some of us down, it’s the responsibility of the people who are less affected to help those who are being specifically targeted or affected.”

Extending this membership to outside communities isn’t without its challenges, though. Now that Rice Pride membership has nearly doubled, Holladay said funding will be a large obstacle in hosting events and sharing resources such as contraceptives and safe sex materials.

Paige Fastnow, a QRC coordinator, said that the QRC is currently brainstorming ways to handle other logistical challenges as well. New honorary members are coming from all over Texas, not just the Houston area, and Rice Pride hopes to make their resources and events as accessible as possible.

“At least for the general body meetings, we’re really hoping to have a digital way of accessing that,” Fastnow, a Duncan College sophomore, said. “With some of our bigger

Late-night dining at Rice is hard to come by. Sid Richardson College just made it easier.

The idea was born when Surya noticed the reception to grilled cheese at the campus serveries.

With the serveries closed and the Hoot only open for some of the week, latenight dining at Rice quickly becomes limited. But a new initiative at Sid Richardson College has set its sights on changing that.

Sid Shoots the Cheese — a pun on the college’s GroupMe chat “Sid Shoots the Breeze” — is a pop-up restaurant project started by Sid Richardson sophomore Arjun Surya. The project aims to sell latenight grilled cheese sandwiches, when other on-campus dining options are scarce. Although Surya first proposed the idea, Sid Shoots the Cheese is hosted at and by Sid Richardson College in their commons as a committee initiative. At this point, the committee GroupMe chat has over 50 members, and between 10 to 15 people actively ran the project’s opening event.

The size of this project may come as a surprise to students at any of the 10 other colleges on campus, but the project has been in the works for quite a long time.

“The days that the serveries had grilled cheese tended to be the times where the lines were the longest,” Surya said. “It was also unfortunate that last year, a lot of the places were closed on Fridays and Saturdays. I just thought it would be really convenient if we had food [on campus] that a lot of people love.”

But Sid Shoots the Cheese doesn’t follow the conventional American cheese recipe used by the serveries. Surya was emphatic that every ingredient, from the type and cut of cheese (“a mix of sliced gouda and hand-shredded cheddar, Monterey and Colby Jack”) to even the salt (combining garlic salt and Italian seasoning), was the result of years of trial and error.

“Whenever I was at home during COVID, I would just make grilled cheese sandwiches all the time. Over time, I started experimenting with things like a parmesan crust and Italian seasoning,”

PAIGE FASTNOW FOR THE THRESHER

KATHLEEN ORTIZ / THRESHER

JT Daniels prepares to throw a pass. In his Rice debut, Daniels threw for 149 yards, ran for -6 yards and passed for a touchdown.

PHOTO CALI LIU / THRESHER ILLUSTRATION ALICE SUN / THRESHER

FROM FRONT PAGE QRC

events, we’re also hoping to find ways to get in contact with the Rice shuttle program to get shuttles between some of our more popular campuses.”

Both Holladay and Fastnow also emphasized that this movement to extend QRC resources to Texas universities is student-run.

“It’s interesting to see a lot of the non-Rice community’s reaction to the steps we’re taking because people assume [it’s] being done by the university, not a studentrun movement,” Fastnow said. “I’m really hoping that with the large spotlight that’s on Rice Pride right now, it will convince the administration to also be much more vocal in their support for rights.”

Rice Pride has received 119 interest forms for becoming an honorary member so far, Holladay said. One of the students is Landon Richie, a senior at UH. An avid advocate for LGBTQ+ rights since he was 12 and current co-president of the Deeds Not Words chapter at UH, Richie said he has found community in UH’s queer resource center since starting as a freshman in 2020 in the midst of COVID-19.

“When I was able to start coming on campus, the center was one of the first places I went to try and start building community and finding friends to really make my time worthwhile and feel connected to the people who I was going to school with,” Richie said. “I think that’s going to be one of the hardest things to lose, at least initially.”

Richie said that UH’s LGBTQ+ resource center officially closed on Aug. 31 and is being replaced, along with the school’s Center for Diversity and Inclusion, with a more general Center for Student Advocacy and Community. Richie said he has heard many students have been hit hard by the loss of the LGBTQ+ resource center.

“I’m especially excited about Rice’s efforts to expand membership to any student as a display of solidarity and connection within the struggle,” Richie said. “If there can be a silver lining to the really harmful policy coming down from Austin, it’s this invigoration of community, fighting for one another, being in shared struggle … and building something beautiful in response to the loss of community space for our students.”

Fastnow also said this decision to open up the QRC will allow LGBTQ+ Rice students to further their community and connections beyond the hedges.

“One thing I’ve noticed is that it’s still very hard to find other trans people around any queer space,” Fastnow said. “But as those spaces get bigger, at least for me personally as a trans woman, it’s really cool that I get to meet more trans people and have a larger sense of community even within the queer community.”

“I think that Rice gets very insular at times,” she added. “In order to push away from that, steps like these not only make the queer community in Texas have more resources through us, but it also gives Rice students the opportunity to have more community outside that.”

Mikki Hebl receives Women in Leadership award

MARIA

Michelle “Mikki” Hebl was awarded the Advancing Women in Leadership award by the diversity, equity and inclusion division of the Academy of Management, acknowledging her contributions to education to help the development of women in leadership. Hebl is the Martha and Henry Malcolm Lovett Chair of Psychology and a professor of management at the Jones Graduate School of Business.

Eden King runs a psychology research lab at Rice with Hebl. In her nomination letter for the award, King wrote that Hebl’s greatest impact is on the students she mentors — graduate and undergraduates alike — who she has inspired to attend graduate school and study diversity and inclusion.

“Mikki’s prior students, whom she refers to as her ‘academic children,’ include people from a variety of backgrounds,”

King wrote.

“By my count over 70 diverse undergraduate research assistants in Mikki’s lab have gone on to graduate school. Mikki actively recruits, promotes and inspires underrepresented and marginalized students.”

Hebl said she environment of her lab is very ‘pro-person’ in that she stresses the importance of students’ lives beyond the work they produce.

“I had an experience in graduate school where I worked with a woman who was really tough and who didn’t make me feel psychologically safe. I felt like I was a cog in the wheel and didn’t matter that much,” Hebl said. “I always remember thinking that when I become a faculty member, I am going to care so deeply

about my students … When I look at my students, it’s really like, ‘How do you define success? Where do you want to ultimately go? [How do we] make that happen?’”

King said Hebl has been an influential mentor to her since meeting Hebl in a Spanish class during her undergraduate studies at Rice in 1988. King went on to join her research lab a few months later.

“She helped me fall in love with research and was the first person to encourage me to get a Ph.D. No surprise, I wanted to work with her,” King wrote in an email to the Thresher. “So I was thrilled she wanted to be my Ph.D. advisor, and that, more than a decade after I earned my doctorate, she convinced the department to bring me back as faculty. I’ve known her for going on 25 years, and I always leave our conversations feeling inspired, energized and grateful.”

Imaan Patel has been studying compensation and pay transparency in the Hebl/King lab as a research assistant since her sophomore year.

“After I started doing this lab, I [realized] I actually really like research, which I didn’t think I would,” Patel, a Brown College junior, said. “I was able to talk to Mikki about it and get guidance, and I’ll be doing an honors thesis next year.”

Hebl grew up in a small town in Wisconsin and attended a private boarding school on a scholarship during her last two years of high school. She met students from diverse countries there and went on to attend Smith College, an all-women’s college.

“I wouldn’t say I entered Smith as a feminist, but I certainly left it as a feminist,” Hebl said. “It was four years of learning about the plight of women, how women have worked so hard to try to gain equal rights and how that is a continuous pendulum swing of them trying to make progress and having it taken away … That really made me want to study gender issues in graduate school.”

Hebl said her studies of gender led her to realize the importance of intersectionality in the workplace.

“You don’t have to be a feminist long to realize that it’s not just women who are minoritized in workplace settings,” Hebl said. “It’s also [underrepresented minorities], people who have disabilities, people who have religious affiliations that are minority affiliations, people who are not heterosexual — all sorts of things.”

King said Hebl was invited to contribute to a paper about the racial activism of 2020. Hebl reached out to 12 current and former Black, gender diverse Rice graduate and undergraduate students.

“Together, they published their collective perspectives, ‘Anti-racist actions and accountability: Not more empty promises,’” King wrote. “She used her privilege to amplify the voices of junior scholars, who gained a platform for expression and publication at the same time.”

MORKAS ASST. NEWS EDITOR

I always remember thinking that when I become a faculty member, I am going to care so deeply about my students … When I look at my students, it’s really like, ‘How do you define success? Where do you want to ultimately go? [How do we] make that happen?’

MIKKI HEBL

MARTHA AND HENRY MALCOLM LOVETT CHAIR OF PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCES

COURTESY TOMMY LAVERNE

Graduate students discuss frustration with new dining plan

KEEGAN LEIBROCK SENIOR WRITER

Housing and Dining launched new dining plan options for graduate students this year, accommodating 300 graduate students during the 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 pm lunch period and 600 graduate students during the 2 pm to 4 p.m. “munch” period.

This new dining plan restricts the use of college commons to undergraduate students only. Graduate students are only allowed to take meals to-go.

“H&D has created an exclusive graduate student space near South Servery [called] the ‘Grad Bubble’ that was formally known as PCF 1,” reads the meal plan released by H&D. “All Graduate students will have access [to] the space.”

Graduate Student Association

President Dhiraj Jain said that the new meal plan was created to help alleviate on-campus food insecurity for graduate students.

“As the GSA president, we have worked very hard to negotiate with undergraduate deans and H&D to have more on-campus meal options for graduate students,” Jain said. “There is a big food accessibility issue on campus for graduate students ... Housing and Dining is working to provide more options, but we are hoping to expand this.”

Graduate Student Association Vice President of Student Advocacy Xin Tan wrote in an email obtained by the Thresher that the meal plan’s restriction of available eating spaces has created frustration among graduate students.

“The email yesterday [from H&D] has created disruption and confusion for many graduate students,

especially the incoming ones,” Tan wrote to members of administration. “As a result, many of them think very negatively of our school due to this, what they call, discriminatory policy.”

Tan declined a request for an interview. Housing and Dining also declined to be interviewed and did not answer specific follow-up questions.

Jain said that although he understands the need for preserving undergraduate common spaces, he feels there should be a solution more accommodating of graduate students.

“Undergraduate commons are for undergraduate students, so I completely understand why there would be a focus on having those spaces,” Jain said. “That being said, Rice is both an undergraduate and graduate institution, so there should be solutions worked out so that graduate students don’t have to walk halfway across the campus to sit and eat.”

Tan said that graduate students should be allowed to eat in college commons as long as they respect the space and avoid it when the college is hosting events.

“So far, the graduate students are very [respectful] of the

undergraduate commons. Even if there are a few individual unhappy cases, graduate students shouldn’t bear the cost as a whole,” Tan wrote. “We are fine with keeping the lunch plan quantity to 300 due to the space limit. Forcing us all to take lunch to-go is really unreasonable.”

Besides his concerns with access to commons seating, Tan wrote that the servery limitations in the new meal plan exacerbate crowding.

“The 300 slots [for lunch graduate student dining] were once distributed fairly across four serveries according to their capacity. Now, the new agreement restricts us to West [Servery] and South (a very small servery), manually creating rushhour congestion,” Tan wrote. “Overall, this new agreement severely reduced our accessibility to affordable dining options.”

Simon Kiang, a third-year graduate student, said that the Grad Bubble is an inconvenient and unappealing alternative to eating within residential college commons.

“If you’re walking from North Servery, it could be around a 15-minute walk, which makes it a pretty unreasonable ask for graduate students with that plan,” Kiang said. “Walking to the Bubble [from South], I need to balance all the stuff I’m carrying, and at the Bubble it’s really just a tent … There’s no water, no restrooms, just a trash bin. It really just feels like a classroom they put tables in.”

Jain said that though the new plan is a step in the right direction, he is continuing to work with campus administrators to expand on-campus food options for graduate students.

“The GSA, the Dean of Undergraduates and Housing and Dining are working on what can be done to mitigate this situation,” Jain said. “At least one thing that we can do is allow graduate students to eat in the college commons during the less utilized 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. [munch] period. That would be one small step to allow graduate students to sit and eat without having to walk across campus.”

Kiang said that he hopes eating servery food becomes more accessible for graduate students because of its extensive dietary and health options relative to other on-campus food.

“I really like the food in Rice serveries. The food is really good with lots of options, and the servery staff is so nice,” Kiang said. “Other options on campus are roughly the same in price but not as healthy and definitely more limited in options, especially if you have dietary restrictions.”

Student Association President Solomon Ni said that he hopes the SA and GSA continue to work with administration to expand on-campus food options for graduate students.

“I want to continue to work with the GSA in figuring out what is best for them in terms of more graduate dining options, including options on where to dine, sit down and eat,” Ni, a Jones College junior, said. “I hope to think more about what open spaces for undergraduates and graduates to eat could look like, especially in a new student center.”

Baker Christmas to become college-only

Baker Christmas, formerly a campuswide public party, will now be Bakeronly, according to Baker College President Jonah Wagner. A new Baker public is being planned for the spring semester.

Wagner, a senior, said the new Baker public would be hosted in the spring to give social chairs more time to plan the event. Most aspects, such as the theme and capacity, have not been decided.

“We didn’t just want to copy and paste a new public [with a] new name that would be basically the same thing,” Wagner said. “We know that Rice students love their public parties, so we want to still deliver that experience for students.”

Baker senior Austin Cox said though he felt Baker Christmas was sparsely attended last year, he still enjoyed the event.

“I had a good time because it was my friends and mostly Bakerites,” Cox said. “[It was] a lot of people I knew.”

Former socials chair Piper Winn said though she felt feedback from Bakerites was largely positive, she heard negative sentiment about last year’s Baker Christmas on social media platforms such as Fizz and by word of mouth.

“The app was pretty much [nonBakerites] complaining about the music, the space being too big and empty, little things like that,” Winn said. “We did everything within our power to have

it run smoothly, but there’s certain aspects that we didn’t have any ability to change.”

According to Winn, Baker social chairs had to work within guidelines from administration reducing capacity due to COVID.

“People from other colleges or people who hadn’t been social chairs or had experience with that were making comments about things that, understandably, would

be frustrating if I had been in their position,” Winn said.

Will Rice College

sophomore Gabe Sanchez said he didn’t attend Baker Christmas last year after hearing negative opinions from upperclassmen.

“It’s pretty early for a Christmas theme party,” Sanchez said. “And obviously there’s not that many Christmas-themed songs you can

actually dance or party to.”

For the new public in the spring, Baker sophomore Vinay Joshi said he’s seen efforts by Baker social chairs to solicit Bakerites’ opinions.

“They sent out a brainstorming Google Form last year, my freshman year, for new ideas for what the Baker public could be,” Joshi said.

Joshi also said he was excited for the reveal of the new public theme, hoping for something that ties more into Baker culture.

“I’d want something more internal to Baker .. tied into our [college] themes,” Joshi said. “We’re the hell college. We have so much fire and devils everywhere, why is Inferno [the] Jones [public]?”

The last time Baker Christmas was college-only was in 2021 due to COVID. Despite restricted attendance, Wagner said the event was still a success.

“The whole week [of events] leading up to it was Baker-focused and then the event itself was Baker-focused,” Wagner said. “Many of our juniors and seniors that were there for that event said, ‘That was one of my favorite Baker events ever.’”

According to Wagner, the history of Baker Christmas passed down in the college is that it was started by a student in the 1990s.

“We just had a student that was really passionate about Christmas,” Wagner said. “He started celebrating it in the middle of September and so that ultimately evolved into the Baker Christmas tradition that we have today.”

SPRING CHENJP ASST. NEWS

EDITOR

It’s pretty early for a Christmas theme party. And obviously there’s not that many Christmasthemed songs you can actually dance or party to. GABE SANCHEZ WILL RICE COLLEGE SOPHOMORE

Rice is both an undergraduate and graduate institution, so there should be solutions worked out so that graduate students don’t have to walk halfway across the campus to sit and eat.

DHIRAJ JAIN GSA PRESIDENT

GUILLIAN PAGUILA / THRESHER

FRANCESCA NEMATI / THRESHER Students line up in West Servery during lunch hours.

Flu shot mandated for fourth year, Oct. 27 deadline

MARIA MORKAS ASST. NEWS EDITOR

Students are required to have their seasonal flu vaccination prior to the start of spring class registration, Oct. 27. To facilitate this process, the university is holding vaccine clinics Sept. 14, 19, 27 and Oct. 5, according to a campus-wide email sent by Student Health Services Aug. 28.

Director of Student Health Services

Jessica McKelvey said the university first started expecting students get the flu vaccine in fall 2020 to prevent the combination of sickness from COVID and the flu.

McKelvey said that throughout the school year, many universities around the country had flu surges, but Rice had very few due to its commitment to flu prevention.

“Prior to our flu vaccine expectation of students, we had large numbers of flu cases between Thanksgiving and the end of the semester,” McKelvey wrote. “Students can be very ill for over a week. So, this preventable illness can [wreak] havoc on an entire semester due to its timing during finals and length and severity of illness.”

Last year, on-campus clinics at the Rice Memorial Center vaccinated 3,521

students, McKelvey said. This year, Rice expects to provide more than 4,000 shots through clinics. Some students get vaccinated at Student Health, and others go off campus to physicians or pharmacies.

According to the estimates by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, between Oct.1, 2022, and April 30, 2023, there have been between 27 to 54 million flu illnesses, 12 to 26 million flu medical visits, 300,000 to 650,000 flu hospitalizations and 19,000 to 58,000 flu deaths.

Martel College junior Jasmine Pachuca said she thinks mandating the vaccine is the right choice, as students can forget how deadly influenza can be.

“We’ve all seen how easy it is for viruses to spread at Rice. A large portion of students live on-campus in very close proximity to one another,” Pachuca said. “If the flu vaccine were not mandatory, the rate of infection would be significantly higher.”

Lovett College sophomore Ayush Suresh said he thinks the mandated flu vaccines help make campus a safer community.

“We see a lot of people getting sick [in the first few weeks] because they’re coming back from different places,”

Suresh said. “People are able to handle that missed time [because it’s during the first few weeks of school], but certain people … might be immunocompromised and not able to. Even a small flu might hurt their bodies a lot.”

McKelvey said Student Health organizes campus vaccine clinics so students can use their insurance programs to cover the vaccine. As a result, most students have a zero-dollar copay.

“Students are welcome to come to Rice Student Health for the vaccine,” McKelvey wrote. “It’s $18, which is at cost, and we give students a coded receipt to submit to their insurance companies. Both Rice Aetna student health and Wellfleet international student insurance reimburse for the vaccine.”

Suresh said he thought the vaccine was accessible on campus last year, especially with a prior appointment.

“For me, I had to get some

insurance information so it took me a little bit longer than it should have, but the way that Rice set it up is pretty efficient,” Suresh said. “If you didn’t have an appointment set up, I think the lines were a little long, but they were still accepting people on the spot, so I thought that was really good.”

Faculty and students continue adapting to endemic COVID-19

NAYELI SHAD MANAGING EDITOR

The first two weeks of classes have seen a rise in COVID-19 cases among the campus community. The number of positive cases is unknown as Rice stopped collecting data and phased out Crisis Management’s COVID resources.

Rice’s current COVID-19 guidelines mirror those of the CDC: People who test positive must isolate for five days and wear a mask in public for five days after that.

Wiess College senior Karm Ghei said he started to have symptoms of COVID-19 after participating in Orientation Week. While Ghei said his symptoms were mild, he said he chose to isolate for seven days to prevent infecting others with COVID-19. He wished Rice provided specific regulations rather than relying on personal responsibility as cases increase.

“It was a little frustrating because I saw [some] people take it more seriously than other people,” Ghei said.

Rice administration is allowing each instructor to decide what academic

accommodations to provide to students who are missing class due to illness, according to Dean of Undergraduates Bridget Gorman. Jacqueline Couti, a professor of French and Francophone studies, has let students join class through Zoom or watch asynchronously since the first week of classes. She wants students to be able to participate and engage with their peers, she explained.

“I believe in flexibility and making students’ lives easier, because it’s hard … you’re sick, it’s the beginning of class, you don’t want to worry about anything else,” Couti said.

Moramay López-Alonso, an associate professor of history, said she gives asynchronous work to her students who are sick to keep up with the class.

“When I prepared the syllabus I was aware that another wave of COVID could very well happen at some point in the semester,” López-Alonso wrote in an email to the Thresher. “The fact that there have been COVID cases in my class has not affected the way my classroom runs and it should not affect [students’] performance.”

Ghei said all of his professors were

understanding of his situation, but some were more accommodating than others.

“There wasn’t any professor that was not receptive,” Ghei said. “There was one professor that I didn’t have a Zoom for, and there wasn’t really an explanation for that … it didn’t affect my grade or anything, but I just didn’t have any class time for that class. But all the other classes … responded quickly and set up a Zoom for a lot of the people in the class who had COVID.”

Gorman said that the academic policy is meant to allow instructors to decide the manner in which they want to provide accommodations.

“As is the case for any class absence, including related to COVID or any illness, we do not mandate the manner in which instructors provide accommodations to students regarding missed classes and coursework that may be due,” Gorman wrote in an email to the Thresher. “We encourage instructors to be accommodating and work with students who must miss class due to COVID or any illness.”

Another professor said they held their face-to-face class exclusively on Zoom for the

week of Aug. 28 to Sept. 1. to allow many of their students who tested positive for COVID but had few symptoms to continue learning.

The instructor made the decision to protect both their students’ and their own health, but they said it was difficult to do so as a non-tenure professor who did not want to violate any policy. They wished that Rice had acknowledged the increase in COVID cases and clarified delivery mode requirements. This professor spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of consequences to their job due to not having tenure.

Outside of classes, the operations of most campus establishments have continued. Rice Coffeehouse, however, closed temporarily to help reduce the spread of COVID.

Rice guidelines allow sick students to get food from the servery provided they wear a mask. Ghei said he tried to avoid the crowds during busy hours by either ordering food elsewhere or wearing a mask and staying away from others.

“People [in the servery] would try to say hi and I was like, ‘Oh, stay away from me’ … because I didn’t want to get other people infected,” Ghei said.

Ghei said it was helpful that his college coordinator provided COVID tests and masks for free, though they ran out quickly and not everyone he knew who wanted to could access them.

Duncan College magisters Winston Liaw and Eden King emailed health information to the college Aug. 24, nearly a week before the deans sent information to students, and followed up Aug. 31 with additional information. The magisters wrote in an email to the Thresher that they had to order more COVID tests through Rice after those in the college coordinator’s office ran out.

As the school year unfolds, Gorman said Rice’s approach to navigating post-pandemic COVID is to continue promoting healthy practices.

“COVID seems here to stay, and our posture reflects that reality,” Gorman wrote. “By treating it as endemic, we navigate it by encouraging COVID vaccination and adherence to best practices when you feel or are ill — test if exposed or symptomatic, isolate and rest if you test positive.”

This preventable illness can [wreak] havoc on an entire semester due to its timing during finals and length and severity of illness.

JESSICA MCKELVEY DIRECTOR OF STUDENT HEALTH SERVICES

VIVIAN LANG / THRESHER

EDITORIAL

Rice needs a competitive season opener, not a blowout

Rice football kicked off its season with yet another rout at the hands of the University of Texas Longhorns, losing 37-10. At least it wasn’t 58-0.

With the step-up to the American Athletic Conference and the heavilycovered transfer of former fivestar recruit and national champion quarterback JT Daniels from West Virginia, the Owls entered their season opener with high expectations. Honestly, when considering the Owls’ performances over the past couple seasons, the final result against America’s No. 11 football team was not surprising. We just wish it were not broadcast on national television.

Marching Owl Band, Rice Owls Dance Team and Rice Cheer were all absent from the game. Rice Rally made a valiant effort as always, but at the end of the day, it’s hard to cheer when Rice is doomed long before kickoff.

Rice

Unfortunately, photos showed a lack of Rice student support for the team, and instead a sea of UT orange. Many Rice students even joined their Longhorn friends in the UT student section. The

Such a demoralizing season opener for both the team and its supporters makes it more difficult for students, especially freshmen, to want to follow the Owls and take its football program seriously.

It is certainly beneficial for Rice to start the season against a school close enough for students to easily travel to, like Texas. But it does not have to be such a mismatch. Rice does not need to begin every season with a ‘David vs. Goliath’ situation — especially if David cannot win.

The University of Houston, for example, is conveniently located and provides an opportunity for students to see their other Houston-based friends.

Rice and UH are more evenly matched, too; starting the year successfully — or at least not as poorly — may increase hype for an athletic program in real need.

Other programs that the Owls could open their season against include similarly academically rigorous and athletically-inclined schools like Vanderbilt University and Duke University. Though a bit far to travel, Rice students may have friends in both places, and the games would be far more balanced than against Texas.

Since the hiring of head coach Mike Bloomgren six years ago, the football program has made massive strides in returning back to national relevance. However, starting every season with a depressing loss moves us one step back instead of two steps forward.

Our Owls should not be the tune-up game for big schools like Texas. Rice is not a “football school,” and it may never become one. Nevertheless, students should still feel like they can hope for a win once in a while. Playing Texas first takes that away. We should choose not what is easy, but also not what is too hard.

Prayag Gordy* Editor-in-Chief

Riya Misra* Editor-in-Chief

Nayeli Shad* Managing Editor

NEWS

Brandon Chen* Editor

Spring Chenjp Asst. Editor

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The Rice Thresher, the official student newspaper of Rice University since 1916, is published each Wednesday during the school year, except during examination periods and holidays, by the students of Rice University.

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does not need to begin every season with a ‘David vs. Goliath’ situation — especially if David cannot win.

Rice researchers talk media bias, nuance

Sifting through the cacophonous jumble of information available at the tap of a screen can be a daunting task. Modern online socialization means the news we receive is never-ending, multifaceted and sometimes dangerous. What are the implications of the rampant accusations of biased journalism and misinformation in today’s academic climate? Researchers at Rice have some ideas.

Dominic Boyer is a professor of anthropology at Rice and helped found the Center for Environmental Studies. In researching for his book, “The Life Informatic: Newsmaking in the Digital Era,” which was published in 2013, Boyer was able to observe firsthand the overhaul of traditional news media in response to the rise of the internet and social media.

“When I was conducting research in the Associated Press office in Frankfurt, Germany in the 1990s, I was amazed by how fast news flows, how many really important decisions about newsworthiness had to be made in just seconds,” Boyer said. “[My] focus was how digital information technologies impacted news … With the internet, we had a shift away from these broadcast patterns toward a much more decentralized, peer-to-peer messaging system.”

Boyer characterized the media transformation as having both extremely positive and negative implications.

“The internet activated a lot of people’s sense of engagement … people who felt cut out of the production and dissemination of information now could actually become very active in it,” Boyer said. “The problem is a real crisis of authority and truth was created.”

Boyer outlined the heightened susceptibility of media outlets to hoaxes or false news events, largely brought about by the constant internet news cycle. To keep up, some journalists turned to objectionable practices such as imitating neighboring news organizations’ content.

Boyer said he sees these impacts in the climate research he conducts today. The oil and gas industry is a particular source of misinformation, Boyer said, especially as it relates to climate change.

This phenomenon of media-based misinformation influencing scientific topics is not exclusive to climate change, though. Brenton Kalinowski, a graduate student in the sociology department,

also encountered media influence and misinformation in his recent research examining the response of Houston’s religious leaders to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kalinowski said that several religious leaders he interviewed reported pushback from their congregations against restrictions such as masking or social distancing, which these leaders attributed to media polarization and downplaying of the public health crisis.

“When individual congregants heard misinformation in the media and in turn impacted the congregation … [religious leaders] had to loosen a lot of their protocols because they can’t afford to lose members and funding.” Kalinowski said. “That had a dangerous implication.”

complex implications.

“The rise of misinformation has often been cited as an explanation for rising polarization in other areas of politics,” Tyler stated. “The [academic] picture on misinformation has become a lot more nuanced. It’s now clearer that the misinformation … specifically on social media, is really concentrated on one side of the political spectrum.”

Tyler also said that research constraints make it difficult to identify causal relationships between media misinformation and political behaviors. However, he made note of a theory in his line of work that political violence may be exacerbated by such misleading content.

“Pundits … have argued that misinformation will cause partisans to become more accepting of using political violence,” Tyler said. “The idea is, some misinformation reaches someone … and inspires them to believe things that aren’t true, and that inspires them to act in a violent way.”

Reflecting on journalism as a whole, Tyler acknowledges that although the state of media consumption is becoming increasingly disjointed, the actual quantity of misinformation being published is often exaggerated.

He distinguished between the posting of deliberately misleading content and journalism that may favor one perspective over others, citing the latter as a potential contributor to more polarization.

Hot clubs in your area

He also noted a mounting tension between scientific research and media polarization as a whole. When it comes to scientific topics in contemporary public discourse, Kalinowski said that taking a particular stance can lead to assumptions about a scientist’s personal morals or political beliefs, a phenomenon that often deters such academics from speaking on controversial topics.

“Scientists feel less comfortable wanting to correct misinformation, because the political climate is very volatile,” Kalinowski said.

Intimately familiar with this volatile political media climate is Matthew Tyler, an assistant professor in Rice’s political science department. Tyler’s latest research topics include partisan political violence and the magnitude of polarization in online news consumption. He said that in political science, media misinformation is a relatively new research focus, with

“Now the media market is so fragmented, it’s so easy for someone to seek out a source that diverges on what they emphasize,” Tyler said. “It’s much easier to think about how different media outlets can affect people differently than 4o years ago … I don’t think we’ve stabilized yet.”

Kalinowski’s biggest concern looking forward is journalistic credibility, especially in the context of pressing scientific issues.

“The aspect of trust, when it comes to misinformation, is very important … getting points across in a way that encourages people to make the best decisions for themselves and their communities,” Kalinowski said.

Boyer also expressed that journalism has room to improve in the age of the internet and social media.

“We just have fewer people out there actually generating new credible information across the world, and that’s a problem for our public awareness,” Boyer said. “I hope we can keep finding ways to circulate information while also being inclusive.”

The Rice Memorial Center was packed with over 350 booths and crowds of students scanning GroupMe QR codes on Sept. 1. The Student Activities Fair boasted clubs of all kinds. The Thresher has compiled a list of [ADJECTIVE] new and returning clubs for anyone on the hunt for another extracurricular activity.

Latino Medical Student Association

LMSA is composed of undergraduate, medical, dental, nursing and other pre-health institutions nationwide.

Luke Alejandro, the president and cofounder of LMSA, said he founded the Rice chapter last March after seeing other affinity preprofessional groups on campus and wanting a similar space for Latino and Hispanic students interested in health-related industries.

“[We] felt like there was not really a presence on campus for Hispanics to explore health professions,” Alejandro, a Duncan College junior, said. “Why not have a space for Hispanics to mingle and have a community within a community?”

Rice Ice Skating Club

From those who’ve never touched a pair of skates to the professional figure skaters at Rice, Rice Ice Skating Club is open to all students. The club hosts weekly skates and specialized events, such as Kick Off Skate at the beginning of the year and Holiday Skate with hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls. This semester, Anya Gu, the founder of Rice Ice Skating Club, said Rice Ice Skating Club hopes to give more ice skating lessons to students.

“Ice skating is very expensive. We provide opportunities for people to skate at an extremely subsidized cost,” Gu, a Brown College junior, said. “No experience is necessary to join. Most people in our club have never skated before.”

Moody Student Collaborative

The Moody Student Collaborative hosts student receptions for exhibition openings and educational workshops. Maddie Garrity, the collaborative’s president, said she reactivated the club so students could get involved in the oncampus art space.

“I took a lot of art classes and [volunteered at] festivals in high school. I missed that engagement and community,” Garrity, a Hanszen College junior, said. “I’m really excited to see more people join and become part of this community.”

Editor’s Note: This article has been cut off for print. Read more online at ricethresher.org.

The internet activated a lot of people’s sense of engagement … people who felt cut out of the production and dissemination of information now could actually become very active in it. The problem is a real crisis of authority and truth was created.

Dominic Boyer PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY

JULIANA LIGHTSEY THRESHER STAFF

SEJAL GUPTA THRESHER STAFF

COURTESY KATHARINE SHILCUTT

GENESIS HAHN / THRESHER

ACROSS

Into the Woods

Name of a Twice member, or a type of dumpling often seen at the servery

Course code for CTIS classes

Tick-borne disease

What one might do in an LPAP

Breathing problem

Like some potential

Aces

Cable car

Poivre’s partner

What you might find on a poster at Rice

Piece of cake?

Apple music player

“No thanks!”

Herbaceous plant

Long and lean

“Star Trek” captain

South American cornmeal cake

Showers affection (on)

February follower

Alerted in advance

Love, Italian-style

Oxidizes

What I might eat in defeat?

Cauldron

Black-and-white treat

Reporters’ accessories

CAAM department at Rice

Hokkaido natives

Bynes or Lepore

Kiss mark

Heap

Witty remark

Petri dish gel

With pleasure Appeal Part of Rice’s Lilie

Cart puller

Mom’s sisters

Ear cleaner

Striped stone

Type of drum

TV host Kelly

Silent actor

Error’s partner

Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk, e.g.

Inundate

“Reputation” and “Folklore,” e.g. Results of big hits, perhaps?

The __ Laroi

Navy officer

Weapon

Common RuPaul’s Drag Race challenge

Off-white shade

“__ bien”

Raison d’__

Netflix series starring Jason Bateman and Laura Linney

Have a snack

Chest muscle, for short

Largest Greek island

Blood line?

Chargrined

Like the brightest teeth

Cow sound

Portland’s state

Iago’s master

Prickly rodent

“A Visit from the Goon Squad” author

Jennifer

Drop heavily

Driver or Levine

Verbalized

Actress Zellweger

Red state?

It carries amino acid to the ribosome

Golfer’s helper

Back talk

Linsey Sainte-Claire wants to share her knowledge

Surya said. “This summer, I spent more time trying to figure out which types of cheeses work the best. I found out that Gouda and Colby and Monterey Jack definitely have the best meltability while also tasting really good, too.”

The work paid off. Sid Shoots the Cheese held their first pop-up event Thursday, Aug. 31 to rave reviews. Surya estimated around 100 people purchased sandwiches, with some waiting 40 minutes. In the line, students remained enthusiastic.

“We can see other people’s reactions as they walk back with their [grilled] cheese, and it seems pretty promising,” Sara Avalos, a Sid Richardson freshman, said while waiting. “I’m excited.”

Aiden Vierra, a freshman from Lovett, was one of the first in line to buy a sandwich, which he called “scrumptious.”

“It tasted buttery, and a little salty and crisp,” he said.

While Surya and the Sid Shoots the Cheese team were proud of how well received their first event was, Surya also said he hopes to improve efficiency in the future.

“The one thing that I do want to improve upon is the wait time,” Surya said. “The griddle that we had was something that I actually just got as a birthday present, because it was all out of pocket. But now that we have a decent amount of money in our budget, we’ll definitely be trying to get at least two to three more grills so that more people can come in without having to wait 40

minutes to an hour in line.” Surya also said that the addition of more griddles would open the project up for creating allergenfree alternatives, making the restaurant more accessible.

“Over the summer whenever [we were] doing questionnaires on Instagram, dairy free and gluten free options were [what] a lot of people asked about,” Surya said. “In the future, that is something that we definitely will try.”

In the meantime, Sid Shoots the Cheese has not announced when their next pop-up event will be. But following the unexpected size of the reception to the first event, the project is planning to host more events soon, which they intend to announce on their Instagram page.

“Based on the success of the first [event], we’re definitely going to try to expand so that we can have it maybe multiple times throughout a single month.” Surya said, “It was really cool to see so many people show up to something that we weren’t even sure [people would come to].”

SARAH KNOWLTON FEATURES EDITOR

Linsey Sainte-Claire left home at age 15. She moved from her native French Guiana to attend school in Paris, France in hopes of receiving a better education than she could get in the Caribbean.

“It was very tough, especially because it was not my choice. There is a false idea that studying in France will lead to bigger opportunities, and especially for parents of Afro descent,” Sainte-Claire, an assistant professor in the Modern and Classical Literatures and Cultures department, said. “My mom decided to send me to France after my first year of high school, because she believed that … having a degree that says that it was given by someone in Paris would have a higher value than a degree from French Guiana.”

With her Parisian degree, Sainte-Claire went on to attain her doctorate from the University of Chicago. Before Rice, she taught at Davidson College and Middlebury College.

At Middlebury, she was named a Public Humanities Lab Initiative Fellow and given the opportunity to create a public-facing project and accompanying seminar. SainteClaire taught a class titled “Education in the Caribbean.”

“I was able to ask students to create two book pages that will help students from the Caribbean relate to what we were learning,” Sainte-Claire said. “I wanted to make sure that [Caribbean students’] learning was not focused only on the western world, but that their cultural setting and identity was also reflected in those book pages.”

Sainte-Claire said that this project, along with much of her own writing and research, was inspired by her personal experience with education in French Guiana. French Guiana is one of France’s five overseas departments, along with Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte and Réunion.

Departments are roughly analogous to states in the U.S. Overseas departments are represented in France’s national governing

bodies and are subject to the same laws and regulations as mainland departments, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. Education in France’s overseas departments is based around the curriculum used in mainland France, which typically includes little to no information about the history, geography or culture of the departments.

“[The project] was very much inspired by my own experience as someone growing up in an overseas department of France, but only [studying] the history of mainland France rather than its overseas departments,” Sainte-Claire said. “As someone who is originally from French Guiana [and] moved to France when she was 15 … it was really important for me to study the political facets and history of my people.”

Originally a farming colony for sugar plantations, French Guiana had a large population of enslaved Africans until 1794, when France abolished slavery in its overseas colonies. It was later used as a penal colony, then as a home for resettled Hmong and Maroon refugees from Laos and Suriname, respectively. Brazilian and Haitian economic migrants also make up a significant portion of the population, as do indigenous groups that inhabited the area prior to French colonization, according to the CIA World Factbook.

Editor’s Note: This article has been cut off for print. Read more online at ricethresher.org.

LILY REMINGTON / THRESHER

ZEISHA BENNETT / THRESHER

It tasted buttery, and a little salty and crisp.

Aiden Vierra

LOVETT COLLEGE FRESHMAN

Review : ‘Zach Bryan’ makes the deeply personal universal on eponymous album

referencing Brewster’s service and deep connection to Bryan with lyrics like, “El Dorado, hell if they know a difference in a hero / And a man I wish was still by my side.” Bryan is donating all profits made from this song to professional football player Christian McCaffrey’s 22 and Troops foundation, an organization that works to help veterans overcome PTSD and prevent suicide.

One of the highlights of the album, “Spotless” is a collaboration between Zach Bryan and The Lumineers. The song addresses the difference between spotlessness and truth, acknowledging that no one is perfect and that “everything meant to be is bound to stay.”

WEEKLY SCENES AND SCREENS

HADLEY MEDLOCK A&E EDITOR

Spring Street Studios

Spring Street Studios is hosting an art show and sale with live music, food, and drinks Sept. 8 from 5 to 9 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public.

MFAH

Zach Bryan straddles the lines between country, rock and folk on his eponymous album. A follow up to his two-hour long 2022 major-label debut, “American Heartbreak,” and his “Summertime Blues” EP from the same year, “Zach Bryan” proves that Bryan is nowhere close to running out of ideas.

Bryan grew up in Oklahoma and enlisted in the U.S. Navy for eight years before embarking on his music career. He’s always performed in the lyrical side of country music, writing meaningful songs that take from his own life. “Zach Bryan” doubles down on Bryan’s independence as an artist, featuring only self-produced songs.

Instead of starting the album with a traditional song, Zach Bryan opens with “Fear & Fridays (Poem),” which is a spoken word performance over instrumentation. The track plays like a purpose statement, outlining Bryan’s state of mind and beliefs. This bold choice highlights what makes Bryan different from other musicians, both sonically and lyrically.

“East Side of Sorrow,” which Bryan describes as the most hopeful song he’s ever written, is another deeply personal track that centers on the loss of loved ones

to war, age and alcohol. Despite the bleak subject matter, with lyrics relating to the death of Bryan’s mother and losing friends in war, the song sticks to a message of hope, reminding listeners that “[T]he sun’s gonna rise tomorrow / Somewhere on the east side of sorrow.”

The track’s instrumentation mirrors the feelings of the lyrics, starting up with a stripped down sound before building up into “Askin’ God where the hell He’d been.” The reply is a message of hope with lush instrumentation in contrast to the verses’ more solemn sound.

In one of the most affecting moments of the song, written by Bryan and sung by The Lumineers’ Wesley Schultz, they assert that “pеople die a thousand times to get to who they are” before leading into the imagery of “prayin’ to the heavens on a late train car.” The lines both reflect on personal growth and create a strong image of someone trying to grow through prayer. Bryan and Schultz’s voices compliment each other to elevate the quality of the song.

Top Track: ‘Spotless (feat. The Lumineers)’

“El Dorado” is another standout track from the album, beginning with a powerful violin part before starting a tribute to Bryan’s friend Garrett Brewster, a former U.S. Marine Corps sergeant who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder before his death in 2020. The song is touching and contemplative,

“Zach Bryan” is another exemplary album from the Oklahoman musician, steeped in the songwriting traditions and sounds of country while bringing in elements from other genres to create a rounded sound. Bryan’s lyrics continue to be among the best in the genre today, making the personal relatable. Bryan continues to prove why he is at the forefront of country music and one of the most unique talents performing today.

Acclaimed exhibition “In Praise of Shadows” with work by South African artist William Kentridge is closing Sept. 10 and includes more than 80 pieces in visual arts, sculpture, film and theater.

Menil Curator Talk

Associate Curator of Modern Art Natalie Dupêcher is giving a talk and introducing a new installation by Chilean Surrealist Roberto Matta. The talk is Sept. 10 at 3 p.m. and is free and open to all.

Rice Cinema

Rice Cinema is showing “Letter from an Unknown Woman,” a classic romance directed by Max Ophüls, on Sept. 8 at 7 p.m. in Sewall Hall.

Read more online at ricethresher.org.

Review: ‘Bottoms’ is a welcome addition to the high-school comedy canon

JAY COLLURA THRESHER STAFF

It’s uncomfortable how rarely straightforward comedies are released in theaters these days. This is not to say that the cinema is devoid of comedy, as quipping has become an inescapable part of just about every blockbuster of the last decade. Rather, it feels that jokes are either buried within CGI battles or relegated to scripts likely created or, at the very least greenlit, by AI. But “Bottoms,” Emma Seligman’s new raunchy teen satire, is bringing real comedy back to theaters.

Nostalgia for rare genuine comedies like “Ferris Bueller” and “Superbad” is not what makes “Bottoms” a great time. “Bottoms” succeeds because almost everyone associated with the project is fully committed to the bit.

The film follows PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri), a pair of longtime best friends who accidentally start a fight club in an attempt to hook up with two of their school’s cheerleaders. This premise is elevated by the over-thetop satirical slant that the film’s setting takes on. Everything about this fictional high school is straight from the mind of the worst person you went to school

with. Popular kids and football players sit on top of a ridiculous caste system that evokes genre contemporaries like “Heathers,” but the absurdity of the core story and its queerness twists this inspiration into something refreshing.

While the satire certainly bleeds through the story, the dialogue is more concerned with snappy improv. Jokes are appropriately fast and well-placed as no bit goes on for too long, yet nothing feels overly scripted.

Sennott and Edebiri do a great job of selling each conversation as a moment between friends rather than a planned-out sketch. Former NFL player Marshawn Lynch, of all people, also has hilarious moments as Mr. G, the sponsor of the fight club. Seligman’s ability to coax out these great performances cannot be understated.

Unsurprisingly, the most unsubtle component of the film’s blend of humor is the physical comedy. Given that fistfighting is central to the story, there are plenty of laughs structured around perfectly timed punches that have a hilarious amount of weight to them.

As the film continues, it becomes clear how strong the premise truly is. Jokes continue to ramp up as the plot is stretched, and the romance of the story

becomes shockingly heartwarming as the ridiculousness of it all is internalized by the viewer.

JACOB PELLEGRINO THRESHER STAFF

COURTESY WARNER MUSIC NASHVILLE

A celebration of diversity launches on the edge of campus

American public about an important aspect of Mesopotamia and its ancient civilizations,” Shaibani said. “Senan was very familiar with the region, he was very inquisitive. He loved the culture and history of Iraq … he was a big-time activist.”

Conceived with the Arab diaspora in mind, Shaibani said this project also serves as a cultural touchstone for Iraqi and Arab-Americans.

“We hope this project informs not only our fellow Americans but even ArabAmericans and Iraqi-Americans who have not had a chance to visit,” Shaibani said. ”[They] say it reminds them of the lost families they left back home.”

Shaibani said he wants tours, lectures, events and other educational activities to help unfamiliar Houstonians learn about Mesopotamia and demystify Iraq.

“We’re going to host similar traditions, such as serving coffee, and host programs for families and school students to come and visit,” Shaibani said.

maintained by the local Sheik.

Contrasting the modern brick and tile of the Moody Center for the Arts and directly opposite the bland facade of the Rice police department lies a bright and organic structure — the first traditional mudhif ever constructed outside modernday Iraq. Opening Sept. 9 with an event from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., the mudhif is a product of the Senan Shaibani Marsh Arabs project.

A mudhif is made out of dried reeds that are bundled together and then woven to create the structure. These structures have been built in the Mesopotamian marshes for more than 5,000 years, and are typically

“When you enter the space, look up to the ceilings, look at the walls, the carpets. I think you will live a moment of dahsha,” said Shaibani, which he defined as an Arabic word meaning a sense of wonder and awe.

A collaboration between Archaeology Now and the Arab-American Educational Foundation, the project is named after the late Senan Shaibani, a law student at University of Houston who passed away earlier this year. Aziz Shaibani, Senan’s father and president of the AAEF, said that his son’s passion and commitment towards the Arab-American community lives on through this project.

“The project was created within the context of enlightening the

“It is basically a teaching moment for all of us about the life of ancient people. History is useless if you don’t learn from it, so we’re trying to learn from history.”

The idea to construct the mudhif formed two years ago, but the team faced several challenges. From visa issues to the unsuitability of Galveston Bay reeds for construction, Shaibani said the project was not easy.

“There were so many hurdles at one point we were about to give up,”

Shaibani said. “Basically, we ended up commissioning a group of [locals in the marshes] to do all the work we needed, ship the reeds and then [video called] as we assembled them.”

Shaibani said that at the heart of this project lies a desire to celebrate a unique cultural practice, while also challenging the assumption that this region of the world is uncivilized.

“Civilization as we understand it is a chain each [person has] added [to], rather than a place that is owned and controlled by only one entity,” Shaibani said.

The location at the edge of Rice campus was a natural choice, owing to the AAEF’s close ties with Rice. Shaibani said his foundation has a strong working relationship with President Reggie DesRoches.

“Our partnership with Rice began in the ’90s … when we started thinking about establishing a chair of Arabic studies,” Shaibani said. “The president is very close to our community and knows the foundation very well and was willing to give us some space for the year.”

Shaibani said the project is also an example of Rice’s commitment to diversity, as well as an example of a more sustainable relationship between humans and nature.

“[DesRoches] said we do not tolerate diversity, we celebrate it, [and] this is a big celebration of diversity,” Shaibani said.

HUGO GERBICH-PAIS THRESHER STAFF

COURTESY AZIZ SHAIBANI

A group of people visit the newly constructed mudhif outside the Moody Center for the Arts.

A mudhif is a traditional home made from reeds native to marshland of southern Iraq.

It is basically a teaching moment for all of us about the life of ancient people. History is useless if you don’t learn from it.

Aziz Shaibani

ARAB-AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION PRESIDENT

Tommy McClelland still picks up the phone

State’s corresponding graduate program. McClelland wanted to stay close to the game. This was his solution.

In 2004, Northwestern State’s master’s program in sports administration required a sixweek internship. McClelland chose to stick close to home, interning under Burke.

University in Nacogdoches, Texas, said. “We both had dreams and plans of growing in the business, and we knew that we needed each other to do that.”

Achieving high at a young age, McClelland said, set a lofty standard for the rest of his career. After fourteen years as an athletic director, six at McNeese State and seven at Louisiana Tech, McClelland accepted a lower-ranking job at Vanderbilt. It was a move questioned by many around him, he said, but Nashville was better equipped for his family.

of play.

After a Texas touchdown in the first quarter ended Rice’s lead, the Rice defense held Texas to three field goals in the second quarter, giving Texas a 16-3 lead at the half. Redshirt junior linebacker Myron Morrison said the team was proud of their defensive performance in the first half.

At Louisiana Tech University’s first football home opener in 2014, fireworks lit up their field — but not for them. In the last eight minutes of the game, their opponents from Northwestern State University had scored 10 points, then sealed their 30-27 victory with a tie-breaking 50-yard field goal. Not anticipating a loss, Louisiana Tech had pre-planned fireworks to celebrate their home opener.

“I was pulling into a hospital in Shreveport … The phone rang and it was Tommy [McClelland],” Greg Burke, the then-athletic director of Northwestern State in Natchitoches, said. McClelland was Louisiana Tech’s athletic director at the time.

“I’m paraphrasing a little bit, but … he said, ‘Well, I’m finally bringing myself to the point where I can pick up the phone and give you a call,’” Burke said. “And we laughed.”

President Reggie DesRoches announced July 30 that Tommy McClelland would join Rice as its athletic director. The position had previously been held by Joe Karlgaard, who left Rice in the middle of July for a job in the private sector.

Prior to starting at Rice, McClelland was Vanderbilt University’s deputy athletic director. Before that, he held athletic director positions at both Louisiana Tech in Ruston, La. and McNeese State University in Lake Charles, La.

“We were all very much on the same page in seeking someone who had a broad basis of experience in college athletics,” Rice Faculty Athletic Representative Leo Costello said. “It’s a winning business. It’s competition … but nobody wanted someone who was going to win in spite of the academic rigor of Rice.”

McClelland’s basis in athletics is rooted in his childhood. He fell in love with sports as a player, he said, before he ever thought about management.

“If I rewind the clock to being a young child … I was first introduced to sports as a participant, whether it was little league baseball or, as we called it in my community, biddy basketball,” McClelland said. “I appreciated the lessons that it taught me about teamwork, about failure and overcoming that failure.”

McClelland was a student-athlete at Northwestern State University, competing both as a football player and javelin thrower. He credits his undergraduate years at Northwestern State for fostering an interest in sports administration, which he later pursued through Northwestern

“You may have to ask [McClelland] why he decided to stay at Northwestern [State] and get his master’s because he could have gone to any number of schools with his credentials and his academics,” Burke said. “I do remember when he came to see me and to ask if he could do his internship in our office. Of course, I knew enough about him that nothing told me ‘No, I don’t want this guy.’”

Burke and McClelland had known each other since the latter’s studentathlete days, Burke said, but McClelland’s internship was the “genesis of when [they] became connected.” The two went on to forge a friendship spanning nearly two decades, even when McClelland accepted a position at rival McNeese State University.

At McNeese, McClelland worked as an events coordinator for nine months before applying for the newly-vacant athletic director position. He got the job. At age 25, McClelland was the youngest to hold that title at an NCAA Division I school.

“That was [being at] the right place at the right time,” McClelland said of his hire. “I was not qualified for that job. I was 25 years old. But I earned the opportunity every day afterwards.”

“How many people can look themselves in the mirror and honestly say that they were capable of assuming oversight of a Division I athletic program at age 25?” Burke added. “I’ll tell you, I’ve got the answer for me — I could not.”

McClelland, in turn, hired another recent graduate: In 2007, Ryan Ivey, just one month older than his boss, became McNeese State’s assistant athletic director.

“It was two 25-year-olds trying to elevate McNeese State,” Ivey, now the athletic director at Stephen F. Austin

EDITORIAL CARTOON

“From a personal standpoint, my oldest son is autistic and having the opportunity to go to a city that had more resources for him was highly important,” McClelland said. “Although it may have not been what people thought I would do for Louisiana Tech, it was still an investment in my career, while also [an investment] in my family.”

McClelland commutes regularly between Houston and Nashville, where his family still lives for now. He flies out on day trips to see his son’s sixth grade football games. He takes any opportunity to bring up his family in conversation, even unprompted. He talks more like his father every day, he says.

“My wife is from Nacogdoches. I’m from Southwest Louisiana. This is us moving home,” McClelland said. “[My kids] have grown up in this lifestyle of being at every sporting event, supporting our student athletes … [inviting] teams over into our home and cooking for them. They’ve grown up just being a part of the athletics fabric of [a] university.”

While college athletics may be ingrained in his sons, McClelland said he’s approaching his new role — for the first few months, at least — slowly.

“I have to take the approach of listen, learn, lead,” McClelland said. “It’s irresponsible to say ‘This is how I did it before and we’ve got to do it this way.’ Rice is different [from] Vanderbilt, Rice is different, certainly, [from] Louisiana Tech or McNeese.”

Yet, despite McClelland moving through three different universities and a slew of colleagues, Burke and Ivey make the exact same observation about him: He still picks up the phone to call.

“There [are] a lot of rewarding parts about working in college athletics,” Burke said. “But to me, the best part is those relationships with coaches, administrators and student athletes that pass the test of time. They endure.”

“We consider ourselves one of the best short-yardage defenses in the country, so no surprise to us,” Morrison said. “We just knew that was something we needed to continue doing, and I was proud of how we played through the first half with that. I think it was something we needed to play all four quarters with.”

However, the Owls were not able to hold onto that performance into the second half — the team allowed three Texas touchdowns without an offensive response in the third quarter. Morrison said he believes that part of the problem was the way the team started after halftime.

“I feel like we came out the third quarter flat,” Morrison said. “I’ll take some of that blame as well. I feel like that first drive in the third quarter on defense, there were certain mental errors, certain physical errors that were made on my end as well. I think we need to find a way to come out with the same energy we did first quarter in the third quarter.”

In the fourth quarter, however, Rice played well on both sides of the ball as the defense shut out the Longhorns, who brought in their backup quarterback, running back and wide receiver at the start of the quarter. Taking advantage of the last 15 minutes of play, the Owls scored a touchdown with 3:04 left on the clock after graduate transfer quarterback JT Daniels, who started his third career game against Texas on Saturday, connected with wide receiver Luke McCaffrey for the sole Rice touchdown.

“You play against Texas, and whether it’s the ones, twos, threes or anybody, it’s a really good team, a really good roster,” Daniels, who threw for 149 yards, ran for -6 yards and passed for a touchdown, said. “They have a lot of depth across the board. I think we got good game reps. Definitely a lot of things that we’ll learn and get better at, but I’m very proud with how offensively we responded and finished.”

The Owls’ next chance to make these changes and improve comes Saturday, Sept. 9 at 6 p.m. against the University of Houston. The “Bayou Bucket Classic,” which will be broadcasted on NFL Network, will be Rice’s first home game this season. Last year, Rice and Houston were tied at 27 until Houston scored the winning touchdown with 3:34 left in the game. The Owls hope to beat Houston for the first time since 2010.

“This team is well aware of the fact that the best teams always grow the most from Week 1 to Week 2,” Bloomgren said. “We know we’ve got an unbelievable opponent coming into our house next week, so we’re going to be motivated. We’re going to be fine to get the work in. The improvement is what has to come.”

RIYA MISRA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

FROM FRONT PAGE FOOTBALL

“You’re hired!”

HONG LIN TSAI / THRESHER

PHOTO COURTESY JEFF FITLOW BRANDON CHEN / THRESHER

Lack of leadership, defensive errors see soccer lose this weekend

Rice soccer lost both their games last weekend to the University of Houston and Loyola University Maryland, dropping to 2-4 to start the season. Despite winning two games in a row last week, tallying a combined seven goals, Rice scored just one and conceded four in their most recent bouts.

One of the team’s biggest hurdles so far this season has been the loss of so many players from last season. According to head coach Brian Lee, while there is still quality in the team, the roster turnover has left some holes on the pitch which have not been filled.

“[The transition has] been [okay],” Lee said. “The biggest thing probably missing is leadership. [For example, former goalkeeper] Bella [Killgore] was such a communicator. [Junior goalkeeper] Ann Steph [Fortin] has played great in goal to be honest, she’s made a bunch of blinding saves and has been very good one [versus] one, but we miss that leadership component right now.”

Rice debuted at home this season with a “Bayou Cup” match against UH. Lee stuck to a 5-3-2/3-5-2 formation hybrid that debuted after the first couple of games this season. The formation sees two wingbacks — junior Natalie Gorji on the right and sophomore Kallie McKinney on the left — playing in both defensive and offensive roles, filling in for centerbacks on their respective side when the ball is on the opposite side of the field.

The formation proved effective last

week and made its own impact against the Cougars. Seventeen minutes into the first half, Gorji’s high press against the UH defense led to an interception for the Owls deep in UH territory. Graduate transfer forward Ellen Halseth quickly got the ball and dribbled past the defense, eventually beating the keeper and giving the Owls the early lead as well as her third straight game with a goal.

“It’s always fun to score and get a lead going into the game,” Halseth said. “Getting the first goal is huge in a game like this, it sets the standard and brings energy to the team.”

Rice was able to take the momentum and controlled play for most of the first half, but some defensive breakdowns late in the half eventually led to a Cougar goal, tying up the game with four minutes left. According to Lee, the team has struggled with deflecting shots away from goal, which has cost them in games like this.

“We have to step out and block shots around the top of the box,” Lee said. “Take out the Texas game, almost every goal against us has been the same thing over and over. Until we fix it, it’s going to be tough to win games.”

Just four minutes into the second half, the Owls conceded their second goal after allowing a long defensive run, giving the Cougars the lead. Despite late chances, Rice was not able to find the goal, marking their first home loss against UH since 2001.

On Sunday, the Owls flew to Baltimore for a match against Loyola University Maryland. Rice had a few early chances

that even saw Halseth almost convert from the top of the box, but was denied by the crossbar, leaving the score 0-0 at the end of the first half.

The Greyhounds controlled the second half almost as soon as it began. A little over a minute into the half, Loyola converted from a rebound off a corner kick, giving them the lead that they maintained for the rest of the game. With only five minutes left in the half, they put one in from another set piece, this time a cross off a long free kick. Fortin came off her line to punch out the cross, but was unable to beat the Greyhound scorer, who headed the ball over Fortin and into the goal, sealing the game for Loyola.

In light of these losses, junior midfielder Mikala Furuto, playing as a centerback, explained that there are still defensive errors that are impacting the team thus far in the preseason that must be fixed.

“I think one of the biggest things [we’re working on] is just blocking shots,”

Furuto said. “[Against UH], we had two goals where we could have flown a little faster into the box to try to block those so I think that’s the main thing we need to work on.”

The Owls stay on the road next Thursday, Sept. 7 at 7 p.m. to face Sam Houston State University, which will be streamed on ESPN+. They return home Sunday, Sept. 10 at 7 p.m. to play Texas A&M University.

A despondent fan’s guide to Rice football

It hasn’t always been this way.

On Sept. 2, the Owls played their first football game as members of the American Athletic Conference. They lost to their 109-year rivals the University of Texas at Austin, just like they have in every meeting but two since 1963. In that time, much has changed about how those teams relate to each other: Texas is in a “power five” conference, and Rice is not; Texas has won four national championships, and Rice has won none. The Owls have gone from playing the Longhorns in a mid-October rivalry match to being a season-opening tune-up game.

“The Southwest’s most bitter gridiron feud is ready to flare again,” the Austin American-Statesman wrote in October 1938, “when the Longhorns and the Owls clash for the 25th time in Houston.”

“A blowout of Rice is expected,” the Associated Press wrote last week.

In time gone by, Rice football dominated one of the top conferences in collegiate sports. This was the Southwest Conference, which hosted Rice from its founding in 1914 to its dissolution in 1996 and of which the Owls were champions six times between 1930 and 1960. Over that period, the Owls’ yearly opponents included powerhouses Texas A&M University, the University of Arkansas and Texas. Their record against these three was 54-36-3. During those thirty years, Rice finished seven seasons ranked in the AP Poll, played in six bowl games and won four.

With the sixties came shifts in who held conference power. As Texas and Arkansas rose to prominence, claiming national championships in 1963 and 1964, respectively, Rice would fail to have a winning season from 1964 to 1992. This period of decay occurred

in the background of rival Southern Methodist University’s “Pony Express,” as that program claimed two national titles in the early 1980’s before being shut down by the NCAA in the wake of a vast cheating scandal. This, followed by the departure of several schools for other conferences, led to the Southwest Conference dissolving in the summer of 1996. The very final football game played with “SWC” painted on the field and printed on the jerseys was between the Owls and the University of Houston, in Rice Stadium. Rice lost.

“Texas and Texas A&M were off to greener pastures,” ESPN wrote in 2020, “and Rice and Houston were left twisting in the wind.”

The SWC’s largest schools, such as Texas and A&M, went on to found the Big 12, while Rice, SMU and Texas Christian University joined the Western Athletic Conference. The football Owls performed well during their nine WAC seasons, being conference-title runners-up twice, but were separated from most of their historic rivals and could not form compelling new enmities with their constantly shifting lineup of yearly foes; by 2004, only three of the eight conference opponents Rice faced in 1996 remained on the schedule.

“Rice has enjoyed more success across the board in its athletic department,” the Houston Chronicle wrote in 2004, “but its stay in the ever-changing and far-reaching WAC hasn’t helped the Owls succeed at the turnstiles.”

This period of transition and realignment finally saw Rice land in Conference USA. By 2006, the Owls had not made a bowl game since 1961. They were coming off a 1-10 season, it was their second year in a new conference and their first year with a new head coach, Todd Graham. They began the season by losing four games in a row, then beat Army, then lost to Tulane.

The Owls proceeded to win six consecutive contests, the school’s longest streak since they were SWC Champions and ranked fifth in the AP Poll in 1949, to clinch a ticket to the New Orleans Bowl. They lost that game, but would win the Texas Bowl two years later, their first postseason victory since the 1954 Cotton Bowl. These events initiated a period of resurgence under the guidance of head coach David Bailiff, who led the Owls to two more bowl game wins and an eventual C-USA championship in 2013.

According to Chuck Pool, Rice’s assistant athletic director since 2006, those football teams’ successes were among Rice Athletics’ most significant as a member of the C-USA.

“Football winning ten games twice, receiving votes in the final AP Poll in 2008 and winning a C-USA title were milestones,” Pool said, “but it was truly memorable to see the excitement among [Owls] fans when the 2006 team earned Rice’s first bowl berth in 45 years.”

2014 was the Owls’ last winning season to date. This dropoff in success coincided with changes on the business side that, according to Pool, had negative effects on brand promotion.

“When realignment came again in 2012 and 2013, [C-USA] lost a number of branded programs and replaced them with programs that were just making the move to the [Football Bowl Subdivision] level,” Pool said. “By 2015, the national exposure became even more challenging and that continued creating even more difficulty in promoting the brand.”

Despite being AAC newcomers, this year the Owls will play many old faces; nine of the 12 teams on this season’s schedule once shared another conference with Rice. It is a new gallery filled with familiar rogues, and a chance for Rice football to begin a better future by performing more like the past.

DIEGO PALOS RODRIGUEZ ASST. SPORTS EDITOR

LANDRY WOOD THRESHER STAFF

COURTESY RICE ATHLETICS Sophomore midfielder Naija Bruckner attempts a pass against the Houston Cougars. The Owls went on to lose that game 2-1 and lost their next game against Loyola University Maryland, dropping to 2-4.

NDIDI NWOSU / THRESHER

Newest Clubs You May Have Missed at the Club Fair!

1. Tragedy Prediction & Prevention Club

In this club, we ponder national tragedies yet to come and discuss how to prevent them. Save the world, join Rice TPPC.

3. Intramural Judgment

In IM Judgement, our members crowd around people working out at the Rec Center and helpfully judge/critique their form. Out loud. In unison.

5. Chi Boom Honor Society

Organization in which students work in design teams to build weapons of mass destruction and get to network with alumni in the war industry.

7. Rice Theories

The club where members can propose their theories.

9. Sloppy Steak Club

Students go on monthly trips to steakhouses and dump glasses of water on their steaks. Slop it up! Fundraisers involve boba sales and the semesterly Sloppy Boba Tea Steak Experience.

11. Rice C0nsulting

Consulting club for those rejected by Rice Consulting, could be mistaken for Rice Consulting on LinkedIn.

13. The Hambones

Acapella group whose only instruments produce sounds that naturally emanate from their bodies! Toot toot!

2. Premeditated Implosion

A SpoCo-affiliated club that hires students to shout out their scripted prompts when the improv performers ask for audience suggestions.

4. Big Dick Student Ministry (BDSM)

A club that gives students waffles, hard drugs, and a hearty spanking across from BSM pancake servers at publics.

6. The Stark Collective

Every week we have a nude model pose for club members in the middle of a classroom, while we observe silently and appreciatively with our hands folded. Actively recruiting models!

8. Junior RUPD

Club for students to prepare for a career in law enforcement, similar to REMS. Activities include giving out parking tickets, DUI stations, and checking IDs at Pub.

10. The Evil “Rice student turns his room into ball pit” Fans

The club where instead of filling their dorm rooms with balls, they instead fill them with something much more sinister.

12. Baker 14

No description submitted.

14. The Wolfpack

Fraternity roleplay society for those that wish Rice students weren’t such sissies. New pledges enter as Maggot rank and work their way up to High Value Male.

Are you a funny fella? Want to write headlines for the Backpage Instagram? Fill out this interest form: http://tinyurl.com/BackpageIG

The Backpage is the satire section of the Thresher, written this week by Ndidi Nwosu, Andrew Kim, and Timmy Mansfield and designed by Lauren Yu. For questions or comments, please email dilfhunter69@rice.edu.

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TUTORS WANTED

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TUTORS WANTED

Rice Alum hiring well-qualified tutors for all levels of STEM, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Reliable transportation highly preferred. Pay $30/hr+ based on experience. Email resume to sri. iyengar@sriacademicservices.com Visit our website www.sriacademicservices. com to learn more!

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