The Rice Thresher | Wednesday, April 10, 2024

‘Change is

through the years

Texas Governor Greg Abbott came to campus to speak at the Texas Electricity Policy Summit, hosted by the Baker Institute for Public Policy April 9. In his 15-minute speech, he discussed Texas’ power grid and economic development.

“Texas [has] a grid that is stable, reliable and robust,” Abbott said in his opening remarks. “The grid truly is better than it’s ever been.”

He pivoted to discuss the state’s gross domestic product, valued at over $2.4 trillion. There are only seven countries with a larger GDP than Texas, Abbott said, including nations such as China, India, Germany and France. Texas has the second-largest GDP of any U.S. state — California claims the largest, with a GDP just shy of $3.6 trillion in 2022.

“Candidly, you look at the way the Texas economy has been growing, probably by this time next year Texas will have the seventh-largest economy because we’ll surpass France,” Abbott said. “When we do so, we’ll come right back here to Rice University and have a big French fry cookoff.”

Abbott then spoke about future utility developments, including bolstering the grid, building electric vehicle

charging stations and adapting power supply to the ever-growing needs of artificial intelligence. Abbott said his administration has added 3,820 megawatts of dispatchable power to the grid in the past year and will add an additional 7,300 in the upcoming year.

He also pointed to Texas’ role in oil production for cementing the state as an “economic legend.” From Spindletop — a Texas oilfield discovered in 1901 that jumpstarted the modern petroleum industry — to the present day, Abbott said that Texas has “literally powered the entire world.”

“The United States is now producing more oil than any nation ever,” Abbott said. “That is because of the hard work and determination of the men and women in this room today. You all have to fight back against an administration in Washington D.C. that constantly demonizes you and attacks your industry. But here in Texas, we support and encourage you.”

He cited this very support as the “secret sauce” that helps Texas excel.

“We truly partner with our businesses because of this simple mathematical formula. When our businesses in Texas succeed, Texas as a state succeeds,” Abbott said.

Today, Rice Village is frequented by students and local families alike for its collection of cafes, restaurants, boutiques and brand-name stores. At the time of its founding in 1938, though, the Village was an undeveloped, wooded area with a single dirt road. On that road — now Rice Boulevard — just two buildings stood: Rice Blvd. Food Market, which would be frequented by Rice students grocery shopping for decades to come, and an ice house.

Over the next few decades, new stores began popping up in the Village. A second grocery store, Weingarten’s Grocery, opened on University Boulevard in 1941. A map of Rice Village in the Sept. 12, 1968 issue of the Thresher showed stores providing university essentials like the Village Laundromat, a post office and Browz-A-Bit, which sold cards, books and buttons. The Oct. 25, 1973 issue of the Thresher offered a $1 coupon good for use at any of three adult cinemas in Rice Village, including Cinema West, Art Cinema and Academy Theatre. By the late 1900s, Rice Village had become a hub for Rice students to do everything from buy groceries to find work.

“When I lived on campus, especially in the first two years of the 1980s, the Village was the most convenient place for almost everything: cashing checks, buying groceries, going to the post office, eating off campus,” Marty Merritt ’85 wrote in an email to the Thresher. Jonathan Horowitz ’95 similarly recalls

going out to eat, drink and shop in the Village with his friends.

“We would get sandwiches from Kahn’s Deli and shop at the small mom-and-pop stores along University and Rice Blvds.,” Horowitz wrote in an email to the Thresher. “Later, my friends and I would spend many nights each week trying the many beers at The Gingerman on Morningside and eating Chinese food at Fu’s Garden or Thai food at Nit Noi. Many key events in all our lives occurred in or around the Village.”

Many students also found work in the Village. Cathy Shin ’88 served gelato and espresso at Dolce and Freddo. John “Grungy” Gladu, who never attended Rice but has been an involved member of the Marching Owl Band since 1970, sold sports gear and printed custom T-shirts at the Rice Sport Shop.

“I got to witness making Beer Bike shirts and things like that because they did nearly all the Beer Bike shirts back then,” Gladu said. “It was local, it was cheap and they turned out a quality product. We cared about what we were printing.”

Others, including Ann Rosenwinkel ’86, indirectly found work through the Village.

“I put an ad up in the Weingarten’s to babysit because I was trying to make some money and I liked babysitting,” Rosenwinkel said. “I got a job with a doctor that lived in Southgate and I babysat for them on a regular basis.”

At the time, Rice Village was unique for its collection of locally owned, affordable stores. Students frequented these stores, and knew

BRANDON CHEN / THRESHER Mohamed Abead, a Lovett biker, celebrates alongside fellow seniors after the men’s team finished in the first heat.

BRANDON CHEN / THRESHER Baker College chug captain Paul Filerio competes in the first heat.

BRANDON CHEN / THRESHER TJ Li, a Hanszen College biker, catches up with Brendan Hlibok, a Jones College biker, in the second heat of the men’s race.

HACER keeps name after student vote

SARAH KNOWLTON NEWS EDITOR

The Hispanic Association for Cultural Enrichment has voted to keep their current name after announcing that it would be changing in October. Club members voted on different name options throughout the semester, culminating in a final vote alongside HACER’s executive board elections, copresident Melissa Cantú said.

“We had [the voting form] spread out in a bunch of different places, and we got a lot of name submissions,” Cantú said. “We figured that if we included a name change election along with the E-Board election, it would get the most participation.”

Although the organization did take alumni comments on the change, Cantú said that the vote was intended to best represent the feelings of current HACER members.

“People from the boomer generation think that Mexican-American or country-American is still the most

appropriate, or Chicano,” Cantú said. “We have people from the millennial generation that think Hispanic is good or even Chicano, and then there’s

There was absolutely no downside to just experimenting and seeing what the Latiné community feels at this moment.

Melissa Cantú

HACER

undocumented.”

Valeria Aguirre, the club’s other co-president, said that she hopes that the club may consider a name change again in the future.

“I think that change is hard to come by, especially in our community,” Aguirre said. “I think this is definitely just a first step in having this discussion more widely known on campus and having it be a more relevant topic of conversation.”

CO-PRESIDENT WILLIAM LIU / THRESHER

people from our generation that think Latiné, Latino [or] Latinx is the more appropriate term for including people of all genders, and also including identities that may have been excluded by the terms like Hispanic or countryAmerican, like indigenous people or Afro-Latinés or even people that are

Cantú and Aguirre attributed the results of the vote to the fact that HACER was one of three options on the ballot, so the votes of those that wanted a new name were split between two options.

Despite HACER keeping its name, Cantú said she does not consider the initiative a failure.

“I think that this was just an experiment,” Cantú said. “There was absolutely no downside to just experimenting and seeing what the Latiné community feels at this moment.”

Rice community members see solar eclipse on day off from classes

BELINDA ZHU ASST. NEWS EDITOR

Students, faculty members, and community members gathered to view the solar eclipse April 8. The total solar eclipse swept across North America and was visible in parts of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. While parts of Texas were in the path of totality, approximately 94% of the sun was blocked in Houston. It was the first total solar eclipse visible from the United States since 2017, and the next one won’t occur until 2044.

Rice president Reggie DesRoches described the solar eclipse in an April 8 Instagram post.

“The solar eclipse reminded me of what spurs our curiosity and drive to explore our world and the universe,” DesRoches wrote. “The awe and wonder of the solar system, of this rare celestial event, has been a powerful experience. I’m glad I got to share it with members of the Rice community.”

Rice Program Council hosted a solar eclipse viewing party in the central quad. Anya Yan originally wasn’t planning on viewing the eclipse due to hearing about the cloudiness, but upon seeing many students gathering outside, she decided to check it out.

“We were very lucky to see the sun a little bit when the clouds went through,” Yan, a Martel College sophomore, said.

“I remember that my neck hurt so much from looking up at the sky the whole time. I have a sister in Boston and my parents are back in China, so I took a lot of videos when viewing the eclipse. I wanted to record the moment and share it with my friends and family members.”

Yufan Wang said that the day off allowed him to travel to Austin to view the eclipse.

“After the moon blocked the sun’s light, the sky became completely dark, and the streetlights in the distance lit up,” Wang, a graduate student, said. “When the sky became bright again, it felt like a new day. I am very appreciative that Rice arranged a day off for the eclipse, so we had the opportunity to drive to Austin to witness this spectacle.”

Ethan Zhang, who got his pilot license when he graduated high school, flew to see the eclipse in DeQueen, Arkansas with his dad.

“My dad’s an amateur photographer and he likes to go chase the eclipse[s],” Zhang, a Wiess College sophomore, said. “We thought it’d be nice to go fly since we’ve never gone on this type of trip before. I chose that place because it had a nice airport, was out of the way of all the major cities, and it had a long time of totality. The eclipse itself was really amazing. Clouds parted as soon as totality occurred. I think the best part of it is that as soon as I kinda got used to the environment, the sun started appearing again. I’m sure it’ll never get old the next time I see it.”

After the moon blocked the sun’s light, the sky became completely dark, and the streetlights in the distance lit up. When the sky became bright again, it felt like a new day.

Yufan Wang

GRADUATE STUDENT

With no classes on April 8, many students traveled to other parts of Texas to view the totality.

Brian Jeong drove to Ding Dong, Texas after hearing that the weather in Houston wasn’t great for seeing the eclipse.

“Ding Dong was like a farmland so we just pulled out a blanket, sat on the road and watched the eclipse,” Jeong, a Duncan College freshman, said. “It was interesting to see the surroundings fade off and become dark. The place we went was really detached from the city; it was filled with grass and people just had their cars parked around so I really liked the atmosphere.”

Abram Alvarado went to Copperas Cove, Texas and stumbled across a festival.

“We were driving and saw [this festival] in the area so we stopped because we were right where we needed to be,” Alvarado, a Duncan College sophomore, said. “It was pretty cool and there were lots of locals there. We saw the total eclipse for the maximum amount of time, which was 4 minutes and 22 seconds, so it was great even though the clouds covered it for a minute.”

Sachin Shurpalekar went back home to Coppell, Texas to view the eclipse with his family.

Duncan sophomore Josh Stallings went to Killeen, Texas to view the eclipse with friends.

“We chose to go to Killeen because we wanted to get as close to the center path as possible,” Stallings said. “The original place we wanted to go to seemed cloudy so we went more north. It was cool. We showed up early and had fun. It was a ten out of ten experience.”

It was definitely worth the trip. As the moon covered up the sun, it was as if the sky was just losing its color rather than getting dark. The total eclipse was really beautiful, and it was a great moment when everyone just went silent and appreciated nature.

Sachin Shurpalekar

“It was definitely worth the trip,” Shurpalekar, a McMurtry College sophomore, said. “As the moon covered up the sun, it was as if the sky was just losing its color rather than getting dark. The total eclipse was really beautiful, and it was a great moment when everyone just went silent and appreciated nature.”

MCMURTRY COLLEGE SOPHOMORE

Kyle Sanderfer viewed the eclipse on a “little dirt road” right outside of Temple, Texas to avoid heavy traffic going into Austin.

“We initially didn’t plan to travel but decided it would be worth it the night before, after realizing the next total eclipse in America wouldn’t be for 20 years,” Sanderfer, a Duncan sophomore said. “I thought the eclipse was awesome! One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen and totally worth it, especially because of how dark and serene it was, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Sallyport

to temporarily open for commencement, academic quad to fully open in the fall

NAYELI SHAD SENIOR WRITER

The academic quad construction is on track to be completed in late April, according to Executive Vice President for Operations, Finance, & Support Kelly Fox. The Sallyport entrance will temporarily open for graduation, with the rest of the quad remaining closed until the fall semester.

“The Academic Quad redesign project is on schedule,” Fox wrote in an email to the Thresher April 2. “The Sallyport will be open temporarily for commencement for graduates to walk through. We look forward to a grand opening celebration for the campus early in the fall semester. Fencing will remain up in the quad until the fall semester celebration to protect new landscaping and to allow the roots of new plantings to become more established.”

The quad closed in November 2023 to begin construction of the redesign. The Board of Trustees announced in January 2022 the intention to reimagine the quad “to be more welcoming, to be an active heart of the university, and more completely represent our history, our achievements and our values,” including relocating the Founder’s Memorial.

Kelly Fox

“They [started the redesign] without considering how it would affect the senior class, who has already experienced several years of grievances and obstruction in their typical college activities,” Cerio said. “Our first two years were practically [taken over by] COVID. Now, us just wanting a normal graduation is obstructed by this new construction.”

Will Rice College senior Gazi Fuad said he and other seniors have been worried about whether the quad would be completed in time for graduation. When he was Will Rice president, Fuad said he expressed to the Dean of Undergraduates Bridget Gorman the possibility of partially opening the quad if construction was incomplete so that seniors could walk through the Sallyport.

“That’s been the main thing that people are concerned about, because I think that is a very iconic part of graduation, being able to walk down with your college and your friends,” Fuad said.

Cerio also said his primary concern about the quad closure has been getting to walk through the Sallyport at graduation, and though he has criticisms of the design, he is open to seeing a new quad once it is finished.

“It is a little sad that we don’t get that fullcircle experience of, you know, the quad we walked into is the one that we leave with,” Cerio said. “I’m willing to accept the change … if it’s actually done and we get the experience to walk through [the] Sallyport.”

The Sallyport will be open temporarily for commencement for graduates to walk through. We look forward to a grand opening celebration for the campus early in the fall semester.

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT FOR OPERATIONS, FINANCE, & SUPPORT

Jerome Cerio, a Wiess College senior, said the redesign was a compromise to move Willy’s statue but feels the rest of the project was unnecessary and slights the class of 2024.

The tradition of taking senior photos has also been impacted by the redesign, Fuad said. Fuad has been photographing graduates since his sophomore year and said the Sallyport and cloisters of the academic quad are popular photo spots. This year, Fuad said he has had to be more creative with angles to minimize the fencing of the academic quad visible in the background.

Cerio said the timing of the quad redesign demonstrates the university’s lack of consideration for graduates.

“Right now is prime time to take grad photos, and now students are [having] to find other places or, I heard some friends considered photoshopping old photos [into the background of graduation photos],”

Cerio said. “[It’s] kind of sad that we have to deal with that, especially in our graduation time. It would be one thing if it was a necessary evil, but like I said, this quad design didn’t feel like it was immediately necessary.”

Though the academic quad is a staple image of Rice, photographer Zeisha Bennett said she prefers to use different locations on campus to have more diverse senior photos. She said taking photos hasn’t changed much for her this year, but she hopes the obstacle of the quad redesign will lead to more creative grad photos.

“I think [the quad] being closed … [will allow] for more creativity going about grad photos and a different array of what grad photos could look like or will look like,” Bennett, a Baker College junior, said. “It was a little challenge, but a fun, creative challenge.”

With a year to utilize it, Bennett said she is interested in seeing how the design and its intention translate to the future use of

MARIA MORKAS / THRESHER

the academic quad. “It’ll be nice to see how their vision of it plays out, like it being more interactive. I’ve definitely been a little confuzzled about how they want it to be interactive and how we should interact with the quad. It’s the main one, it’s just supposed to look pretty,” Bennett said. “But you know, they wanted other things for it. So I’m curious to see how it’ll play out and new traditions for it.”

Fuad said that he appreciates the redesign because he saw the space in the quad was not being fully used. Though he laments the timing of the redesign during his senior year, Fuad expressed that the closure had to happen at some point.

“I am happy that a redesign is happening,” Fuad said. “I understand that there needs to be at least a couple of months where they need to actually build everything out, but I am still somewhat frustrated. But it’s a necessary evil … We just kind of have to make do with the best we have.”

Professors honored with 2024 George R. Brown awards

The Center of Teaching Excellence announced the winners of the George R. Brown Teaching Awards. Ten professors were awarded, with nine winning the Superior Teaching Award, and one winning the Excellence in Teaching Award.

According to assistant teachinf professor Laura Kabiri, who serves on the University Committee of Teaching, the winners were selected

alumni who graduated from Rice two, three or five years ago. For the 2024 recipients, the classes of 2022, 2021, and 2019 were eligible to vote.

“We would love for every alumnus to participate,” Kabiri wrote in an email to the Thresher. “Your opinions matter and continue to drive these awards which aim to celebrate outstanding faculty and teaching at Rice.”

Betul Orcan-Ekmekci, the Excellence in Teaching Award recipient, said she was honored to receive this award.

“It is a great recognition knowing that my students were

also appreciating what I’m trying to do,” Orcan-Ekmekci said. “Being recognized for this is a great feeling.”

Carl Caldwell, a recipient of the Superior Teaching Award, said the award was especially meaningful because it was awarded by recent graduates.

“This is a teaching award based not just on what people might say in a given semester, but also based on what people think afterwards and indicates that maybe I’ve had an effect that goes beyond the class,” Caldwell said. “Whether we’re writing a book that’s also teaching or giving a paper at a conference, or especially in the classroom … to hear that what we’re doing makes a difference, it’s a wonderful feeling.”

out to them, and that there is something about the class that they connected with … that they would even think to check my name off multiple years later,” Nicolaou said. “It’s incredible.”

Whether we’re writing a book that’s also teaching or giving a paper at a conference, or especially in the classroom...to hear that what we’re doing makes a difference, it’s a wonderful feeling.

Carl Caldwell

Philip Ernst, an adjunct professor of statistics at Rice and a current fulltime professor of Statistics at Imperial College of London who received the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2022, said that this award was something very special when looking back on his time at Rice.

SUPERIOR TEACHING AWARD RECIPIENT

Colette Nicolaou, last year’s Excellence in Teaching honoree, said she was moved by how her class could still impact students years later.

“It just blows my mind that there’s something in our time together that stood

“There are many schools in America of the caliber of Rice that say ‘We expect our faculty to be excellent in research and in teaching,’” Ernst said. “Rice is a very special place where that is 100-percent meant literally. These awards are a testament to keeping to the original mission of the school, to be an undergraduate focused institution where teaching is taken into the highest account and the highest level.

After alleged election procedure violation, RWRC to undergo special elections

BELINDA ZHU ASST. NEWS EDITOR

The Student Association will be conducting special elections for the Rice Women’s Resource Center directors on a campus-wide ballot. Although internal elections have concluded, SA director of elections Jocelyn Wang said it is currently unknown when the ballot will go out to the student body.

Wang said this special election comes after receiving a complaint from an unnamed student that the directors did not follow the election procedure outlined in the most recent 2023 RWRC constitution, instead using the 2022 constitution with a different procedure.

“Something a bit icky has been done,” the student wrote in their complaint. “The RWRC Directors are running for a second term, but they did not tell any of the [coordinators] to run or anything about it. They did not host the typical interviews, either, but ran for a second term without a vote.”

“The version of the constitution [the directors] used left the candidate nomination process to the outgoing directors, which in this case happens to be the same directors running for re-election,” Wang, a Baker College

sophomore, said. “We received a complaint that the directors did not publicize the elections within the RWRC, so the rest of the interested candidates were unable to run because they didn’t know what was happening.”

The 2022 constitution stated that “the application review and interview process will be conducted by the outgoing Director(s).” The 2023 version added a requirement for an internal vote where “a majority of the current leadership, including director(s) and coordinators, must agree to nominate candidate(s) for the position of Director(s).” The internal vote did not take place for the 2023 nomination.

RWRC co-director Gillian Gravatt said she and her co-director, Jenny Liu, were operating under the most recent version of the constitution they had access to, which was the 2022 one rather than the 2023 version. Liu redirected an interview request to Gravatt.

“When the previous directors selected us, they told us the precedent is the directors who get selected as juniors stay in the position for two years, and when they are about to graduate, they choose two new directors,” Gravatt, a Martel College junior, said. “We were operating under [the 2022] constitution and the

Philosophers debate the problem of evil

The Houston Institute hosted a debate on “The Problem of Evil” at the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies April 2. Rice students and Houstonians filed in to listen to Rob Koons from the University of Texas at Austin and Luis Oliveira from the University of Houston debate how evil could be present assuming God exists.

This event was sponsored by the Houston Institute, an organization which “provides a venue where students can think deeply about the best way to live,” according to their website.

“Though we are rooted in the natural law tradition … we look at the best thinkers with a range of views in a fair-minded way. All students committed to serious intellectual engagement are welcome, regardless of their views,” the website reads.

think we shouldn’t look at it in terms of God being a total happiness maximizer… he’s a God of love, because it’s love of individuals and not adequate quantities [of happiness],” Koons said.

Oliveria made a non-traditional argument, specifically, about how “reflective normative unintelligibility” makes it “dangerous” for humans to trust God. Oliveria defined “reflective normative unintelligibility” as a contradiction that arises when one assigning the value of goodness to God creates concrete expectations for God’s behavior, which are then unmet through his permittance of inexplicable evil.

If we’re going to address this in a religious context...one competing view of ethics is that a morally good person produces as much happiness as possible. But with that model, it doesn’t seem like God’s doing the right job.

The debate began with a 25-minute opening argument from both sides, followed by a response from each speaker. The debate continued with a question-and-answer period, where participants could inquire about Koons’ and Oliveria’s claims.

Rob Koons PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

Koons began the debate by proffering various arguments for why God would allow suffering.

“Let’s start with the first obvious [issue], why didn’t God create a world that was full of happiness and devoid of pain?” Koons said in his opening argument. “If we’re going to address this in a religious context … one competing view of ethics is that a morally good person produces as much happiness as possible. But with that model, it doesn’t seem like God’s doing the right job.

“From my Christian perspective, I

precedent, so based on that, we thought we would be continuing our term and didn’t think as critically as we should have.”

In the complaint, the student wrote that “the directors did not live up to many of the promises made and said they did on the paragraph on the SA site. Thus, there is a lot to be implemented at the center, but no one got the option [to do so].”

Following the complaint, Wang worked with the RWRC co-directors to outline a process for a special election. According to Gravatt, the new process proposed by the SA would allow Gravatt and Liu to choose the candidates after the interview process, as outlined in the 2023 constitution.

However, Gravatt said she and Liu felt that this process felt odd and presented a conflict of interest.

“Given the fact that we were trying to remedy a past failing and be as democratic as possible, we asked to bring in faculty [to conduct the interviews] instead,” Gravatt said.“My co-director and I were present for interviews, but we didn’t make any decisions. We had our faculty sponsor and a representative from the SAFE office make all decisions.”

The faculty team chose two students

among the four who interviewed, and the RWRC coordinator team voted for either Gravatt and Liu or the two students chosen by the faculty team on March 28. There will be a special ballot for the student body to confirm the candidates chosen by the coordinators. Gravatt declined to state which candidates were selected.

The Senate must vote to approve the special elections ballot before its release to the student body. There are two more Senate meetings for the rest of the semester, according to SA president Jae Kim’s April 7 public notice, but Wang said she is unclear about the election’s timeline.

“If your relationship to God suffers from reflective normative unintelligibility, trusting God isn’t appropriate,” Oliveria said.

According to Victor Saenz, the executive director of the Houston Institute, this debate was an opportunity for students to learn about both sides of the issue in a fair-minded way.

“We deliberately chose two speakers who held very different perspectives, but also deliberately structured debate in a way that they would, in advance, get to see each others’ presentations and respond thoughtfully,” Saenz said.

According to Houston Institute’s Student Club president Jahnavi Mahajan, debates such as this allow her and other Rice students to practice philosophy beyond the classroom.

“I started with Houston Institute in the fall of my freshman year … it was one more way for me to do philosophy beyond class in a more nonplussed way, getting into more discussions [about philosophy],” Mahajan, a Lovett College sophomore, said.

A new chapter of Spectra is being introduced at Rice this spring semester. Spectra is a professional association for LGBTQ+ mathematicians, originating as a protest after the 1995 Joint Mathematics Meeting conference was scheduled to take place in Colorado, which had recently passed a state amendment prohibiting anti-discrimination laws for lesbian, gay and bisexual people.

Only recently did Spectra begin allowing university chapters on Sept. 1, 2023. Anna Lowery is one of the mathematics graduate student founders of the Rice chapter.

“The broader organization is probably more specifically for mathematicians, so people who are pursuing a Ph.D. or have a career in math can network,” Lowery said. “At Rice, we want this to be a community for math graduate students and math majors. I’m also excited about it being a space for any students at Rice or people in the Rice community at large who aren’t even students, like professors, postdocs, just people who are generally interested, even if they’re not pursuing math as a career.”

a communitybuilding

organization to academically and professionally support LGBT+ mathematicians, arranging events and maintaining a contact list of “out” mathematicians and allies according to their website. Though Spectra may seem to serve a very specific intersection of identities, Lowery foresees it having a significant impact on its members.

“Math is really about pushing against what you know, so if you’re doing math and you feel like you’re good at it and you’re just getting everything … you’re not asking questions that haven’t been asked yet,” Lowery said. “There’s always stuff that’s going to feel challenging. One thing that makes that struggle a lot more bearable is doing it in community.”

Lowery also said that Spectra can broaden people’s perspectives on math as a subject.

“Through joining Spectra, people might also see other sides of math that they’re not being presented in these standard calculus classes,” Lowery said. “That could be really exciting if they change their minds.”

The Spectra chapter at Rice is currently gauging student interest to decide what events and support would be most appreciated, and the chapter’s executive board elections will be held

AMELIA DAVIS SENIOR WRITER Spectra, LGBTQ+ mathematician organization, launches Rice chapter

MARIA MORKAS / THRESHER

HONGTAO HU THRESHER STAFF

Historian Avi Shlaim gives talk on Gaza

JAMES CANCELARICH ASST. NEWS EDITOR

Avi Shlaim, a historian of Israel and Palestine, spoke April 6 at Rice in a talk titled “Gaza in Context: Reflections of an Arab Jew.” The event was a collaboration between the Rice history department, Jewish studies program and ArabAmerican educational foundation chair of Arab studies Abdel Razzaq Takriti.

Nathan Citino, head of the history department, said that Shlaim was invited to speak because of his preeminence in the field of Israeli and Palestinian history.

“We invited him mainly because he’s one of the most accomplished, senior historians who studies the international history of the Middle East in the 20th century, specializing in the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Citino wrote in an email to the Thresher.

Citino said that Shlaim’s visit to Rice was part of a wider range of speakers of various perspectives and disciplines who are speaking about the current conflict.

“He’s one of the New Historians whose research in Israeli sources in the 1980s revolutionized scholarship about the founding of Israel in 1948,” Citino added. In his event opening statements, Citino said that the New Historians is a group of Israeli scholars who provided critical historical interpretations of Zionism and the founding of Israel.

Shlaim calls himself an Arab Jew.

“An Arab Jew I define as someone who lived in an Arab country … To be an Arab Jew in the sense of having lived in an Arab country, you have to be born before 1948,” Shlaim said.

In Shlaim’s interpretation, Zionism was created by European Jews, and Arab Jews were largely excluded from Zionism

until Germany murdered some 6 million European Jews in the Holocaust. Shlaim said Zionists then turned to Arab Jews — often forcibly displacing them — to fill the new state of Israel.

“Jews lived throughout the Arab world, and they lived, by and large, happily with their non-Jewish neighbors. In Iran, we were a minority. In Iran, there were a lot of minorities … There was a long tradition of religious tolerance,” Shlaim said during his address.

Shlaim recounted his involuntary displacement to Israel and said that Zionists perpetrated terror attacks in Baghdad to force Jewish migration into Israel. He maintains that Israel is an apartheid state that was founded upon the ruins of historic Palestine, and said that there can be no two-state solution and that Palestine must be emancipated.

“Today, I support one democratic state from the river to the sea for every citizen, regardless of religion or race,” Shlaim said. The phrase “from the river to the sea” refers to a liberated Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, according to NPR.

“[Israel] is an apartheid system,” Shlaim said. “It’s a messianic, murderous and genocidal government. This kind of Zionism has no room for Arab Jews like myself, and I think that this kind of Zionism is not sustainable in the longer term.”

Shlaim called the prior situation in Gaza a colonial enterprise of Israel.

“In 2000, Gaza was a classic colonial situation. A few 1,000 Jewish settlers controlled 25% of the territory, 40% of the arable land, and the lion’s share of the desperately short water resources,” Shlaim said.

“Hamas has a really impressive record of honoring agreements,

honoring ceasefire,” Shlaim said. “Israel is the opposite. Israel has broken every ceasefire.”

Shlaim recalled when Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections and election of Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh in 2006, in an election he called “free and fair.” He said that the Hamas government attempted peace talks with Israel, which were refused. The U.S. did not recognize the Hamas-led government. Hamas was, and still currently is, recognized by the U.S. as a terrorist organization.

Liberation Movement, is a political party whose primary goal is a “free and Arab” Palestine, according to an 2009 Palestine National Liberation Movement internal charter.

Following Hamas’ seizure of Gaza, Israel instituted a blockade, which Shlaim said has been enforced for the last 17 years and is a form of collective punishment, which is illegal under international law.

I feel that as a Jew, as an Israeli, I have a moral duty to stand by the Palestinians in this hour.

Avi Shlaim

HISTORIAN OF THE MIDDLE EAST IN THE 20TH CENTURY

“The original aim [of Hamas] was the Unitary Islamic State, from the river to the sea,” Shlaim said.

“[In 2007] this [aim] was modified to a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders,” Shlaim said. The 1967 borders refers to the borders before the Six Day War, when the Gaza Strip, occupied by Egypt, and East Jerusalem and the West Bank, occupied by Jordan, were separated from Israel by armistice lines, according to the BBC.

Following the Six Day War, Israel was left in occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, among other contested areas.

“But this moderation was not available because Israel refused to negotiate [with Hamas],” Shlaim said. “So Israel and America then encouraged Fatah to stage a coup to recapture power in 2007 … Since then, Gaza has been ruled by Hamas and the West Bank by the Palestinians.” Fatah, formerly the Palestinian National

“The scale of this military offensive in Gaza is unprecedented … It’s a cultural genocide,” Shlaim said. Over 33,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 75,000 have been injured, as of April 5 according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

Shlaim criticized the American response to the violence and cited America’s use of their U.N. Security Council veto to block U.N. Security Council Resolution 2720 in 2023, which called for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

“This is not a war between Israel and Hamas. It’s a broader war between Zionist settler colonialism, backed by American imperialism, against the people of Palestine,” Shlaim said.

“I feel that as a Jew, as an Israeli, I have a moral duty to stand by the Palestinians in this hour,” Shlaim said at the conclusion of his address. “This is why I am here to denounce the Israeli genocide and to show my solidary with the Palestinian people in the struggle for dignity, freedom and independence.”

Overly stringent public capacity limits harm Rice traditions

At 7 a.m. sharp on Beer Bike morning, students gathered in a line (if one can call it that) stretching nearly to McMurtry College commons, in hopes of attending Martel College’s iconic morning party. Upon entry, students would discover that the historically packed public boasted the attendance of, well, a large FITQ.

This shift arrives in light of new capacity limitations and a closed sundeck, recommended by the Alcohol Policy Advisory Committee. As we await the last public of the year, capacity policies for Bacchanalia should return to a reasonable medium.

The stringent Martel capacity limit, which required checking each student’s net ID against a massive spreadsheet of ticketed students, was an administrative overstep

that harmed Rice’s beloved student selfgovernance and traditions. This year’s

By no means should the success of this year’s Beer Bike imply that overly stringent ticketing and net ID checks are the correct path. If Martel’s morning party was just a test, we hate to see what’s next.

Beer Bike was relatively controlled, likely pointing to efforts on the part of college

leadership to encourage safe drinking practices and students for monitoring their own drinking. Fun yet responsible publics exemplify Rice’s high degree of student autonomy and traditions, which remain a key selling point for potential students. We hope administration can respond in kind with more reasonable policies for Bacchanalia and upcoming years, preserving these traditions that make Rice, Rice.

The ticketing process of Martel’s morning party, which has been the same used for many post-COVID publics, is inefficient and unnecessarily burdensome for volunteers. Instead, as we’ve advocated for in the past, let students show up and close entrance to the public once capacity is reached, removing the need to note down

In defense of the Honor Council

Editor’s Note: This is a letter to the editor that has

Recently, the Thresher Editorial Board published an editorial criticizing the Honor Council’s decision to allow confidential accusations by students. While their editorial does bring some valid points, it is in many ways misinformed about the Honor Council process.

I have been involved in the Council for (soon to be) four years, and, in my time as part of the Council’s leadership, I have been interviewed by the Thresher numerous times. Perhaps exactly because of the Council officers’ availability to be interviewed at any time, I was especially dismayed by this mischaracterization of the Council process.

First, the editorial contains outright falsehoods, such as the claim that we

Student

Editor’s

lack “rules specifying until when a violation can be reported.” We do have such rules — violations must be reported within 90 days. Indeed, the statute of limitations is in the very first article of our procedures. Similarly, the Thresher states that students are presumed guilty in the Council process — a posit that is not only factually false but also rebutted by the fact that, this year, over 50% of students who contested their accusation were found “not in violation” of the Honor Code and many others had their cases dropped. (Most students, however, rightfully take ownership for their actions).

Other criticisms simply lack context. For instance, the Thresher argues that our policy of not allowing students to speak to their professors about their cases is overly burdensome. Yet they neglect to mention the rule goes both ways (professors are also barred from discussing cases with students) exactly because we want to prevent animosity between professors and students that could negatively affect students’ performance in class. Our rule about evidence follows federal law to

protect students’ privacy and students have to send just one email for us to grant them access to the evidence.

Perhaps the greatest issue with the Thresher editorial, however, is how it neglects all the great work that the Honor Council has done. In the past three years, the Honor Council has restarted new student orientations, restructured syllabi to be more clear to students, standardized honor code policies and definitions across classes, fought to keep unproctored exams, created “warnings” for relatively minor violations that don’t affect students’ records, changed procedures to end nearautomatic suspensions, made Council training more stringent and clarified university plagiarism policy. All of these measures, along with the countless hours our members put in to create outreach events and adjudicate cases, have led to about a 40% decrease in the yearly number of accusations compared to the beginning of my time in the Council.

That is not to say that all the editorial board’s criticisms are without merit, however. Changes to the Alternative

individual net IDs and deal with thousandrow spreadsheets crashing. Believe it or not, there was a time before Google Form ticket drops and freshmen reselling wristbands for 10 times their original cost.

Coming off a five-month dry spell of publics, we understand the need to monitor Beer Bike more strictly this year. But by no means should the success of this year’s Beer Bike imply that overly stringent ticketing and net ID checks are the correct path. If Martel’s morning party was just a test, we hate to see what’s next.

Last year, our editors-in-chief voiced their concerns about the slow death of campus traditions. Their sentiment still rings true. We’ve had our slap on the wrist — now, we ask that Rice traditions aren’t sacrificed in the name of overdone safety procedures.

Resolution, which the Thresher characterizes as a plea bargain, have been brought up unsuccessfully several times. I think the suggestion for confidentiality to be granted on a case-by-case basis is certainly reasonable, too.

Indeed, I think that fair criticism of the Honor Council is great: Such criticism has led us to change many of our policies for the better (including, for one, how we notify students of pending violations). We need more members who are dedicated to upholding Honor at Rice. For those who desire to see changes in the Honor System, I encourage you to run for Rice’s oldest student government. Only with more diverse views in our ranks will we be able to make even better policies for the student body.

activism is working – and fear-mongering cannot hold us back

S.RES 02, titled “Student Association

Boycott and Divestment from Corporations

Complicit in the Ongoing Genocide in Gaza,” was presented to the Student Association on March 25. This resolution proposes the creation of an Ethical Spending Advisory Board designed to ensure that Blanket Tax funds are not dedicated to corporations that are complicit in Israeli colonial violence and apartheid based on guidelines created by the BDS movement. S.RES 02 also calls on Rice University to divest its endowment from these corporations and to disentangle itself from the war economy more generally.

S.RES 02 implements divestment as a powerful political tool to dismantle systems of racism, oppression and warfare. It joins

the calls for divestment in the Israeli colonial war machine that are now echoing across the United States, following in the footsteps of student divestment movements that targeted South Africa and were key to its liberation S.RES 02 would be a powerful first step in a long-term campaign towards divesting from Israeli apartheid and colonial violence more broadly at an institutional level.

Just two days after proposing the resolution, the two Senator co-sponsors and the Student Association president received an order from Richard Baker of the Office of Access, Equity and Equal Opportunity to halt voting on the resolution indefinitely due to a complaint from a single student. The complaint alleged that S.RES 02 proposes an antisemitic policy based on the false claim that the resolution could entail the defunding of Jewish student organizations in the future. However, this is clearly an attempt to falsely discredit the resolution, which does not restrict, in any way, funding to any Blanket Tax or other student organizations. Rather, it calls for the ethical spending of Blanket Tax

funds by existing student organizations. No organization under this resolution would lose funding.

The fact that this single complaint blocked the democratic process of voting sets a dangerous precedent that blatantly disregards student freedoms, democratic practices and the will of the student body. We cannot establish a university standard for policing speech and political activism that immediately conflates any criticism of the state of Israel with antisemitism. The same standards do not apply to the sanctioning of China, Russia, Iran or the divestment from South Africa. The critique of the actions of states represents legitimate and necessary political discourse.

As a Jewish student, I can unequivocally say that the sentiments in this resolution do not, in any way, foster antisemitism. This resolution is not about dividing us — it is about coming together as one united student group to take concrete actions towards justice.

On April 1, the day scheduled to vote on the resolution, Dean of Undergraduates Bridget

Gorman and the General Counsel Omar Syed met with every voting member of the Student Association. I’ve spoken to voting members who alleged they discussed the possibility of individual lawsuits being filed against Senate members.

I believe these meetings were designed to instill fear of legal repercussions amongst the voting members. It is hard to imagine that these meetings were unconnected to the injunction on voting by Baker, which suggests a coordinated attempt by the Rice administration to suppress this resolution using lawfare on multiple fronts.

Editor’s Note: This guest opinion has been cut off for print. Read the full article at ricethresher.org.

In “Honor Council’s new confidentiality policy is misguided,” the Honor Council has a statute of limitations as outlined in its procedures as 90 or more days between the date of violation and the date of accusation, or 60 or more days between the date of accusation and the date when evidence is presented.

Two-faced Rice administration undermines university values

Editor’s Note: This is a guest opinion that has been submitted by a member of the Rice community. The views expressed in this opinion are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of the Thresher or its editorial board. All guest opinions are fact-checked to the best of our ability and edited for clarity and conciseness by Thresher editors.

The recent tabling of S.RES 02 showcases the blatant hypocrisy of the Rice administration and sets a dangerous precedent of silencing students’ intellectual discussion. The resolution called for the SA’s creation of an Ethical Advisory Board, which would monitor Blanket Tax spending on companies deemed complicit in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

The resolution was tabled at the request of an unnamed student who

filed a discrimination complaint alleging antisemitism with the Office of Access, Equity and Equal Opportunity. Students and faculty claim the resolution is antisemitic, but no quotes from the resolution or cited evidence have been brought forth to support this claim.

The reason for this lack of evidence is that the resolution is not antisemitic. The resolution does not mention or single out Jewish people anywhere in the document and extensively cites reputable sources (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Amnesty International, Desmond Tutu) to substantiate the crimes attributed to the Israeli regime. To extrapolate this criticism to mean discrimination against all Jewish people is preposterous, as many Jewish organizations (Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow) and Jewish students

Honor at Rice is in jeopardy

and that their cases be heard by their peers. It is a privilege that can only be maintained if all members of the Rice community — the student body and faculty — actively nurture mutual trust. As I am about to graduate, having deliberated in over 90 Honor Council cases and talked with students, TAs and professors, I can say that honor at Rice is a joke.

around the world support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement and oppose Zionism.

Furthermore, 350 Holocaust scholars signed the Jerusalem Declaration On Antisemitism affirming that critiques of Israel, even those perceived as excessive or contentious, or deemed to reflect a “double standard,” as well as calls for BDS, are not antisemitic.

Editor’s Note: This guest opinion has been cut off for print. Read the full article at ricethresher.org.

Ibrahim Al-Akash

SID RICHARDSON COLLEGE JUNIOR

I decided to go to Rice in part because I was told that this university had a unique culture of honor, trust and freedom. The honor system is one of Rice’s longeststanding traditions, created by the first class in 1912. I joined the Honor Council four years ago because I believed that students, rather than faculty or administration, should keep other students accountable

Student workers matter

Editor’s Note: This is a guest opinion that has been submitted by a member of the Rice community. The views expressed in this opinion are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of the Thresher or its editorial board. All guest opinions are fact-checked to the best of our ability and edited for clarity and conciseness by Thresher editors.

It is commonly accepted at Rice that our plates are always full. Beyond keeping up with our demanding coursework, Rice students are involved in a variety of research opportunities, administrative work, community advocacy and so much more. Our classmates are integral to our favorite student-run businesses and world-class research, and you can even find them giving tours to prospective students all around the year. In short, undergraduate employment is a core aspect of the Rice experience.

The Student Association’s Labor Commission recently conducted a study

of 326 current undergraduate students, finding that over 66% of current Rice students have held a job on campus at any point. When only considering upperclassmen, 90% of students have been employed at Rice. Even with this large percentage, many students seemingly do not consider themselves to be a part of the labor force despite spending hundreds of hours each semester working for Rice in various capacities, and accept low wages and opaque hiring practices.

Though a large portion of undergraduate students may not necessarily see themselves as workers, it does not mean they shouldn’t receive a livable wage and full working protections. According to our survey, the average Rice student earns $12/hour, yet there remains a sizable population of student employees who work for much less. In the fourth-largest city in the nation, Houston’s minimum wage remains at the

The student body does not give professors reason to trust them.

Editor’s Note: This guest opinion has been cut off for print. Read the full article at ricethresher.org.

Rodolfo Gutierrez

BAKER COLLEGE SENIOR

Many professors respect the Honor Council and the honor system. Nevertheless, too many professors do not trust their students. Professors and TAs have expressed, both to me and the Council, frustration about feeling unable to accuse students of violating the Honor Code during tests because of a policy barring active proctoring. The rise of assignments written by AI has further alarmed professors already trying to limit other avenues of cheating, such as homework forums or unauthorized collaboration.

federally mandated rate of $7.25 an hour. $20 is considered a livable wage — so why are so many Rice undergraduate students earning less than half of that?

Editor’s Note: This guest opinion has been cut off for print. Read the full article at ricethresher.org.

Sarah Sowell JONES COLLEGE SENIOR

Denise Maldonado

LOVETT COLLEGE SENIOR

To bike or not to bike? Beer Bike 2024 sees tents,

VIOLA HSIA & RIYA MISRA ASST. NEWS EDITOR & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

This year’s Beer Bike took place Saturday, April 6. After a seven-minute delay, the alumni races began, followed by the women’s and then the men’s. For the second year in a row, each of the races were divided into two heats. As usual, the times from both heats will be compared, along with calculated penalties, by the Rice Program Council to determine final results. Results are not available at time of publication, and the campus-wide Beer Bike coordinators did not provide a timeline for when they will be.

“We’ve continued the two-heat format for the races for the continuation of safe bike races, as well as setting a precedent for future Beer Bikes as we introduce new residential colleges to Rice,” Willa Liou, campus-wide Beer Bike coordinator, wrote in a statement to the Thresher.

Despite no major crashes this year, there were a couple spills. Bikers from Martel, Wiess, Baker and Hanszen Colleges fell while landing in the pit during the men’s

race, and the fifth mens’ fell while exiting the pit.

One of the major changes the inclusion of tents student spectators. To president Annie Ribordy around an additional furniture this year.

“Last year’s heat something that we when planning this year’s wrote in a statement to the spectator tents are additional funding, RPC’s the safety and comfort

Other teams took college level. Right next to its spectators’ stationed a giant inflatable with the words “oink According to Wiess Beer Jerome Cerio, the inflatable tradition that got resurrected dying out in years past.

“The inflatable war really old Wiess tradition over time,” Cerio wrote “You can see old photos

BRANDON CHEN / THRESHER

MARLO WILCOX / THRESHER Hanszen College pit crew members help a biker mount during the second heat of the women’s race.

BRANDON CHEN / THRESHER

Will Rice College sophomore James Puckett competes in the second heat of the men’s race.

BRANDON CHEN / THRESHER Bikers from Baker College and the Graduate Student Association go wheel-to-wheel in the first heat of the women’s race.

BRANDON CHEN / THRESHER Lovett College sophomore Max Kuhlman celebrates as he finishes chugging.

BRANDON CHEN / THRESHER Bikers from Duncan, Brown and Sid Richardson Colleges compete in the men’s race.

bike? tents, possible wind mens’ biker from Wiess pit. changes this year was to provide shade for To accommodate, RPC Ribordy said RPC spent $20,000 on tents and heat concerns were really took to heart year’s event,” Ribordy to the Thresher. “While are costly and require RPC’s priority is always comfort of event attendees.” college spirit to a new spectators’ tent, Wiess inflatable pig emblazoned “oink oink bitches.” Beer Bike coordinator inflatable pig was a Wiess resurrected this year after past. war pig is actually a tradition that kind of died wrote to the Thresher. photos of Beer Bike where

they’d fly it over the track.”

Sid Richardson College hired a plane that spelled “SID RICH RULES! BFA!” as a play on the college’s motto “SRR DFA.” According to Priya Armour, one of Sid’s Beer Bike coordinators, the ‘BFA’ was intentional, standing for “Beer From Above.”

“We wanted to do Beer From Above … because we knew BFA would get people talking,” Armour wrote in an email to the Thresher. “It was a plane, so we knew that would draw attention anyways.”

Prior to the race, there was speculation on residential college GroupMes about switching the races to a run due to forecasted windy weather. The bike races ultimately continued as planned.

“We were ready to fully transition into Beer Run as needed if Environmental Health and Safety or Risk Management made the call, but we are thankful that we were safely able to continue Beer Bike as originally planned,” Liou wrote.

Other annual Beer Bike festivities continued as usual, including the water balloon fight, color war, Martel’s morning party and the parade leading up to the race.

BRANDON CHEN / THRESHER Jones College freshman Richie Su celebrates with her hands above her head as she finishes the race.

BRANDON CHEN / THRESHER

BRANDON CHEN / THRESHER Chug captain Lucia Fernandez competes for Lovett College in the first heat of the women’s race.

MARLO WILCOX / THRESHER Pit crew members Debi Saha and Brian Bishara stand with Lovett College biker Siddharth Vuskamalla on the track.

BRANDON CHEN / THRESHER Sophia Wilson, a Hanszen College sophomore, chugs in the second heat of the women’s race. Wilson also raced on the track in the same heat.

MARLO WILCOX / THRESHER

BRANDON CHEN / THRESHER

Rice professors tackle teaching, tenure

for Will Rice College and the director of undergraduate studies in the psychological sciences.

Jamie Catanese stands outside the Anderson Biological Laboratories with his students as they present research posters for his BIOS 211 class. With his hands down at his sides, he snaps his fingers and throws out questions to familiar students passing by. One student comes to him with an empty major declaration form, and he fills it out without hesitation, laughing and cracking jokes as he signs his name.

“Coming out of Micro?” Catanese, an associate teaching professor of biosciences, asked one student. “315?”

Catanese is one of 341 non-tenure track instructional faculty at Rice whose primary foci are educating undergraduates. In 2013, Rice instituted the teaching track, a promotable professional track which allows professors to build a career out of teaching and pedagogical research.

Initially, non-tenure track positions only last up to three years, but dedicated faculty members can stay on as professors or associate professors for up to eight years if Rice renews their contract. Outside of these traditionally tenure track positions, non-tenure track promotable positions include research professors, teaching professors, lecturers, professors in the practice and instructors; these positions have no time limit.

Sandy Parsons has been teaching at Rice since before the new track was instated, and she said she’s grateful for the fact that Rice has recognized her desire to make a career out of teaching.

“When you have a track that’s designated for teaching faculty, then you’re more likely to have teachers who stay,” Parsons, an associate teaching professor of psychological sciences, said. “I have been here for 13, 14 years, and I like knowing that the university recognizes I want to be here for my career.”

Parsons said that she was attracted to the idea of a teaching job as a graduate student because of its relative flexibility. When she originally applied for a job at Rice, she was brought on as a temporary hire to fill in for a professor who had recently left the psychological sciences department. After working as a lecturer for a few years, Parsons was eventually promoted to the teaching track. Since then, she has also become a resident associate

“One of the things that I really love about teaching at Rice is that the students are so sharp,” Parsons said. “Every single semester, even after teaching the same class many times, there are new questions that come up, and I think that’s really exciting.”

Catanese said that most of his educational career was spent doing research, but a cutthroat environment exacerbated by the 2007 financial crisis turned him away. He began teaching during his postdoctoral research fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine when a colleague notified him of an opening to teach online for the University of Phoenix. His primary investigator at Baylor also gave him the opportunity to give guest lectures, and when a teaching job opened up at Rice in 2015, he said he knew it was perfect for him.

“Research is … a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck,” Catanese, the recipient of this year’s George R. Brown Award for Teaching Excellence, said. “I got to see it up close and personal for 10 years as a postdoc … I didn’t want that kind of pressure.”

“I think the biggest thing I enjoy about teaching is interacting with the students, because I learn from them almost as much as they learn from me,” Catanese continued. “I love thinking about how people think, how they get to an answer, I love watching the ‘aha’ moments and making those connections. It’s absolutely fantastic.”

While Catanese no longer publishes his own biological research, he and other teaching faculty at Rice engage in pedagogical research aimed at improving their curricula and teaching styles.

“Every semester I’m tweaking, every semester I am modifying, adapting some aspect of the class [or] an assignment, because I see roadblocks,” Catanese said. “Every student has that potential and every student should get that attention.”

Editor’s Note: This article has been cut off for print. To read more, visit ricethresher.org.

FROM FRONT PAGE RICE VILLAGE

them well. Shin was particularly fond of the Blue Hand, a gift shop which sold trinkets until it was replaced by a flower shop about a year ago.

“There was a somewhat terrifying older French lady who seemed to run it … the whole place looked like the attic of a welltraveled eccentric relative,” Shin said. “There are things that you might guess had been there for 30 years, and other things that had just been brought in. It was great because even though things were really unique there, they were very affordable even to someone making $3.35 to $5 an hour working part-time in school.”

Other popular stores included Wellhausen’s, where many students got their diplomas framed, and World Toy & Gift, which stood right next to the adult cinema named Village Theatre and was owned by two Holocaust survivors. Half Price Books was well-loved by students and community members alike until it closed in 2021. Iconography sold funny postcards and rubber stamps until they moved due to rent increases. Rosenwinkel said one of her favorite locally owned stores in the Village was the Variety Fair 5 & 10, which closed in 2010.

“It was family-run, and they had an open cash register; it was filled to the brim with everything under the sun,” Rosenwinkel said. “There was an old guy, I think that he must have found that his two daughters were just helping him live out the rest of his days doing what he loves.”

Beginnings of change

As the Village became a vibrant and unique community fueled by student activity, wealthier families became drawn to the area, Shin said.

“In the ’80s, there was the beginnings of a cultural homogenization and there was some fear of the different and unique, whereas the ’70s had embraced a bit of craziness and the seamy side of life,” Shin said. “It was the Reagan era, and being preppy was cool. Different, unique, funky, got replaced by clean, upscale, expensive.”

It was also in the mid-’80s that Rice began to purchase land in the Village area. Merritt described how Rice used this land ownership to determine what buildings could be demolished or built.

“When a moratorium on the demolition of historic buildings expired in 1991 at the end of then-Mayor Jim McConn’s term, the owner of the land, Rice University, promptly allowed Weingarten Realty to tear down the whole block to develop the Village

Arcade,” Merritt wrote. “This is probably the real beginning of the active solicitation of national chains such as The Gap into Village properties.”

More recently, in 2014, Rice acquired the Arcade building from Weingarten Realty. In an email statement to the Houston Chronicle at the time, Rice Management Company president Allison Thacker noted that the Arcade is a core investment for Rice’s endowment.

The increase in land value and insurance rates over time also drove up rent in the area. Many of the small houses from the ’40s and ’60s have since been replaced by larger homes, Horowitz said.

“It’s definitely evolved over time — just as Houston has overall,” Horowitz wrote. “The Village has become larger, more affluent and more commercial. Many more national chains and high-end eateries are there, as they are more likely to be able to afford the rent. There’s also more residential living opportunities in the Village now, which changes the demographic of those who frequent the stores and restaurants. Even charging for parking made a difference in who would go there and how frequently.”

Rising rent has not only seen more affluent inhabitants of the Village, but has also raised prices at local businesses.

“It’s not nearly as affordable now, although I don’t think it is unique in that regard,” Merritt wrote. “Businesses have to be highly profitable to survive, and that usually translates to high prices.”

Gladu noted that one of the biggest changes was the loss of both Rice Epicurean Market — once named Rice Boulevard Food Market and now an urgent care center — and Weingarten’s, which was demolished in 1984 during Rice Village renovations.

“It’s weird,” Gladu said. “There were two groceries. And now you practically live in a food desert.”

Rice Village today

Just last November, Lululemon opened a new 4,600-square-foot location on University Boulevard. Construction on The Chaucer, a 12-story luxury condo offering residential units starting at $1.5 million to $4.5 million, is set to begin in September 2024 next to Hungry’s restaurant on Rice Boulevard.

The Village currently consists of over 900,000 square feet, of which approximately 300,000 is owned by Rice.

“Rice has continued to add new tenants, update building facades and create verdant public spaces that contribute to the collective energy and atmosphere that makes the Rice Village community unique and popular,” the Rice Real Estate Company wrote in an email to the Thresher.

Changes in affordability have caused some Rice students to frequent the Village less often, especially with closer food options available in the Texas Medical Center.

“[Rice Village is] too far, and the places available are not very affordable,”

Kamisi Adetunji, a freshman at Will Rice College, said. “It’s just not convenient, and then the places there are not necessarily worth it for me to go all the way there.”

Rising rent has driven affordability changes over the past several decades, but Chelsea Morin ’19 said prices have recently been steepening at an even faster rate. She describes taking the Saturday night shuttle to Rice Village to have cheap dinners with friends, especially as a freshman just a handful of years ago.

COURTESY JAMIE CATANESE

NOAH BERZ SENIOR WRITER

ACROSS

Pronto “Dang, she’s thicc! Lookin’ like a _____!”

Sounds of insight

____-pedi

Suffix for speech disorders

Art ____

Just _ ___ bit (slightly)

Martin Luther’s plea, “Help me, Saint Anne, and I will become _____!”

Milk’s favorite cookie

_______ v. Texas: decision that made same-sex sexual activity legal in all 50 states Novelist Hemingway Prefix for eight On the ocean

Prenatal exam, for short Sulk

from wood Apple computers Goodyear airship Hippie-esque fashion style

Taylor Swift is about to enter a new one

Fathers of babbling infants -kraut or -braten Passover Seder rituals, or condiments for dunking

Like some peanuts

Pride Week

Human rights activist Clooney “Today, I ___ _ balloon!”

Once again Polish dumplings Biases

Bandai _____ Entertainment, producer of Elden Ring and Dragon Ball Sunburn balm The Reds, on a scoreboard

Masterpiece ________ v. Colorado: decision stating that refusing service to queer couples on religious grounds is protected free speech

Longhorn wide reciever Mitchell

Not there

Does well on, as a test

Chimney dust Cave sound

Woodwind instrument Molecule building blocks Twelfth Hebrew letter Browns wide receiver Cooper To remove the lid Opera solos Yell Sound of 26-Across Excalibur, for one Class locations, abbr. What queer men would put in their back pockets to communicate their sexual preferences

Equally weighted Carpe ____ Discount event

a sermon

Abdel Razzaq Takriti reasons with revolution

AMY LI

SENIOR WRITER

At 16, Abdel Razzaq Takriti already knew two things: he wanted to be a humanities scholar, and he wanted to teach. He was inspired by his mother, a high school teacher; his grandfather, a university professor, dean and prominent academic; and many of his teachers.

“That’s how you develop an interest in teaching,” Takriti said. “If you actually have good teachers around you, you start appreciating the impact they had on you, and you try to replicate that in your own life.”

At the time, Takriti already had a variety of interests, but was particularly fascinated by history and political science, a specialist program in which he majored at the University of Toronto. After graduating, Takriti went on to study political theory through the master’s program at York University before returning to history as a Ph.D. student at the University of Oxford.

Inspired by books including “Orientalism” by Edward Said and “Wretched of the Earth” by Frantz Fanon, Takriti developed a focus on writing histories of anti-colonial movements. He first wrote histories of the Dhufar Revolution in Oman, which was both the subject of his doctoral dissertation and his book “Monsoon Revolution: Republicans, Sultans and Empires in Oman, 1965-76.”

“People were not talking about episodes like the revolution in Oman because they were portraying the Middle East as not a dynamic site of change and visions for political and social change, but as a site of reactionary politics, backward-looking, not forward-looking,” Takriti said. “This created a whole tradition … which we refer to as Orientalism. I very much contributed towards reversing that Orientalist tradition.”

After writing his book, Takriti began writing histories on the Palestinian

revolutionary tradition. He is currently working on a book which covers events from the 1948 Nakba, which saw the mass displacement of some 700,000 Palestinians, to the present.

“It’s not an easy topic to talk about. But it’s something that I’m honored to do, and I think it’s missing in the literature,” Takriti said. “We need it, desperately need it. We need to understand what’s going on in Palestine and understand the experiences of its people — now more than ever — as the current events have proven.”

Outside of his writing, Takriti has also held a variety of teaching positions at the University of Oxford, the University of Houston and Brown University. He began teaching Modern Palestinian History and Modern Arab History at Rice this spring and is also the university’s second ArabAmerican Educational Foundation Chair in Arab Studies.

“Rice was particularly attractive to me because I know that it has a very intimate setting for teaching,” Takriti said. “The student-faculty ratio here is very low, which allows for wonderful conversations, wonderful interactions.”

Editor’s Note: This article has been cut off for print. To read more, visit ricethresher.org.

FAITH ZHANG / THRESHER

Wiess Tabletop to perform ‘Hello, Hamlet!’ this weekend

they’ll have modern elements like sneakers or headphones.”

through characters like Horatio. In contrast with past renditions of “Hello, Hamlet!” Wiess Tabletop’s version of the character was written as female. Played by Paola Hoffman, Horatio is in love with Hamlet and “will do anything” to win his favor, she said.

“I don’t wanna spoil it, but there’s definitely a great moment at the end of the show where Horatio realizes how much of a hole she dug herself into — both literally and metaphorically,” Hoffmann, a Sid Richardson College sophomore, said.

The writers of the show also contributed to the production’s comedic elements, according to McKenna Tanner, the lead writer for the production. Having also participated in the show in the fall of 2020, she said that it has a special place in her heart and is excited to contribute this year as both a writer and an actor.

Review: ‘Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire’ is Peak Cinema

The Wiess Tabletop performance, “Hello, Hamlet!” is returning to Wiess College commons this weekend after four years. The show, according to members of the cast and crew, is a comedic parody of the original Shakespeare production. There will be three performances from April 12 to 14, each starting at 7:30 p.m. and free for all students and alumni.

“Hello, Hamlet!” is performed every four years and has been running for over 50 years. This year, the show aims to create a stark contrast between Shakespeare and modernday references, according to director Alayne Ziglin. “We have some [characters] that are more plucked straight out of a Shakespeare show [and] some that are a little more modern,” Ziglin said. “You’ll see characters who are wearing Shakespearean outfits, but then

With over 20 musical numbers from popular Broadway musicals, such as “Mean Girls” and “Hairspray,” the show is meant to be a dramatic comedy, according to co-stage manager Cece Gonzalez. The abundance of cultural references will allow anyone in the audience to connect with the characters in some way, she said.

“Every time there is a laugh at something that [the writers] wrote, we’re just really rooting for the cast because they’re doing so well,” Tanner, a Hanszen College senior, said.

Auggie Schwarz, who plays Hamlet, said the show gives the performers an outlet to express themselves creatively.

‘Hello, Hamlet!’ is making a comedy out of a tragedy.

“Pretty much every scene has jokes in it [and] a light-hearted kind of energy … even in the scenes that are a little bit more dark,” Gonzalez, a Baker College freshman, said. “‘Hello, Hamlet!’ is making a comedy out of a tragedy.”

Cece Gonzalez

BAKER COLLEGE FRESHMAN

The comedic elements of the show are emphasized through acting, especially

“I have a lot of fun on stage, just being goofy and getting to really ham it up ... I have fun doing all the singing and the acting, and I work with wonderful people,” Schwarz, a Lovett College sophomore, said. Every aspect of “Hello, Hamlet!”, including directing, acting and technical, is student-run. This enables the crew to work as equals and share their own ideas, according to Gonzalez.

Huberman and Hugetz observe American empire

For around 30 years, filmmakers Brian Huberman and Ed Hugetz have been working on their seven-part series “Once I Moved Like the Wind: Geronimo’s Final Surrender to the American Empire.” The two present the fourth part of their film, titled “Carcosa” at Rice Cinema April 13 at 7 p.m. Hugetz, a former Rice Media Center professor, provided a brief summary of the first three installments in the series charting the Apache leader Geronimo and his resistance against the United States’ government during the late nineteenth century.

“There’s a breakout; Geronimo breaks out of San Carlos reservation, then the U.S. military hunts him for 18 months and then there is a surrender,” Hugetz said.

With this project, Huberman, an associate professor of film at Rice, and Hugetz are interested in the idea of the United States as an empire in the context of aggressive American occupation of Native American land. The filmmakers believe that many Americans don’t see the country’s history with indigenous peoples as what it is: empire-building.

“We’re writing about the history of the American empire, an empire that America has spent most of its time hiding … that’s the big theme of this one, that there’s a monster in America that America is delusional about,” Hugetz said.

In contrast to the first three installments of the series, “The Breakout,” “The Hunt” and “The Surrender” this fourth installment is titled “Carcosa.” The title is based on the Ambrose Bierce short story “An Inhabitant of Carcosa,” about a man who contemplates death after waking up from a sickness-induced sleep in an unfamiliar land, Hugetz said.

As shown by the difference in titles, the fourth part is a departure from the first three. According to Huberman, it’s much more personal and introspective.

“It’s much more of an interior journey,” Huberman said.

Because Huberman was battling liver cancer during the majority of production, the atmosphere, tone and themes of the film echo that sentiment, he said.

“A lot of this film is autobiographical stuff of me, and I’m not well — in fact, I’m dying,” Huberman said. “On occasion I find myself in areas where the boundaries between hallucination and reality don’t seem to matter too much.”

Brian Huberman ASSOCIATE PROFESOR OF FILM

The film includes around three decades of material. None of it was created for a specific script, but it was brought together after Huberman and Hugetz saw thematic threads.

There is no easy way to quantify a film, much to the chagrin of lazy film critics and lazier audiences. We may try to force a movie to fit into a box labeled ⅗ or ⅘ , but occasionally, there appears a work of art that refuses such indignity. A breathtaking fabrication that rejects the premise of a “rating,” whatever that monstrous practice might entail. These magna opera simply are. Along this line of thought, it makes sense to characterize this film for what it is, rather than lambast it for what it is not. This movie is about giant monkeys and lizards fighting.

Now, give the monkey a mechanical power fist and let the lizard have radioactive fire breath, and you have begun to comprehend the ambitious scale of this movie.

“Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” is the latest edition in the MonsterVerse, a film franchise produced by Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures that has generally received positive critical and audience reception since its first installment, “Godzilla” (2014). The latest episode centers around Kong who, following the aftermath of “Godzilla vs. Kong”, is now attempting to find his presumably extinct kin, as he wanders his new habitat of Hollow Earth.

And yes, this 335-foot tall monster gorilla literally lives in an ecosystem under the crust of the Earth. This concept, which was once an actual conspiracy theory (and still is in some … interesting circles) is somehow the least nonsensical thing about the whole plot. We would attempt to describe to you the rest of the story, but it is so bizarre that you would be better off reading a multi-page synopsis online. Watching the movie would also just take less time.

It would be a disservice to all those involved in the making of this movie, and the movie itself, to attempt a systematic deconstruction of this movie — although, for the record, it does have awkward writing and gauche acting, to say the least. Let’s start our analysis with this: have you ever had a friend (business majors can pause here), that warns you to ‘turn off your brain’ before a movie? For this movie, you will need to surgically remove your brain and dump it into the nearest smoothie blender.

HAMZA SAEED THRESHER STAFF

ARMAN

CHIARA MORETTI THRESHER STAFF

BRYAN MENDOZA / THRESHER

Museum fellows talk art, academia and experiential learning

NOAH BERZ SENIOR WRITER

On Monday mornings at 8 a.m., Ella Langridge walks upstairs to her desk at the Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens and gets to work, sifting through photocopies of Americana and decorative arts with pasts unknown. Langridge’s job, as this year’s Jameson Fellow for American Painting & Decorative Arts, is to research these artifacts, uncover their histories and communicate their uniquely American stories to the collection’s thousands of annual visitors.

“Decorative art is such a great way to engage with art history,” Langridge, a Lovett College junior, said. “It’s objects that people would have lived with every day [and] used in their day to day lives.”

An art history major, Langridge is one of three Rice students selected for this year’s Jameson and William A. Camfield fellowships, two programs in the art history department which allow selected students to gain work experience at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and its affiliated collections. Fellows are given the opportunity to engage in original research and curatorial work, Leo Costello, Rice art history department chair and Camfield fellowship faculty liaison, said.

that I find really meaningful already, which is a great surprise, and really encouraging,” Langridge said.

These fellowships are usually reserved for art history students, but sometimes require students with specialized knowledge in a specific field or artistic discipline. As this year’s undergraduate Camfield fellow, film major Ayla Davis works alongside MFAH film curator Marian Luntz to program screenings. Davis also writes program notes and researches the work of burgeoning filmmakers from Houston and beyond, but she especially loves interacting with museumgoers.

“My favorite part is getting to meet the people who come to the movies,” Davis, a Lovett College senior, said. “People don’t always think to go to a cinema to see a movie because it’s so easy to stream movies nowadays, but it’s really great to see how many people want to come out and watch these movies that we’re showing.”

Being immersed in that kind of environment is really great for any type of art student.

Ayla Davis

LOVETT COLLEGE SENIOR

The fellowships also provide students with the opportunity to surround themselves with art and artists from the greater Houston area and around the world, exposure which fellows say is vital to their education as artists and art historians.

to get outside the hedges, to get into a professional environment,” Costello said. “The fact is that in the not-for-profit world … a lot of opportunities happen through networking [and] through already having been someplace.”

Graduate Camfield fellow Eilis Coughlin said she cherishes the opportunity to physically interact with works she has spent so many years learning about. Coughlin works in the prints and drawings department at MFAH alongside curator Dena Woodall to write labels, set up exhibit mockups with images she helps choose and write acquisition reports on works the department wants to acquire.

students will eventually find work in. These fellowships serve to bring students down from the theoretical world of academia and into the more immediate world of museums, Coughlin said.

“Label writing has taught me that I want my writing accessible to everyone, but readable at more levels,” Coughlin said. “I want a student majoring in art history to be able to get something out of it, [and to write] something that someone coming to a museum for the first time can get out of it too.”

“One of the founding ideas of [the fellowship] is that it’s really substantive, that there’s no busy work involved, and the students are really plunged into the workings of a curatorial department,” Costello said.

“[I expected] to be doing things to get [my foot in the door], but I’m doing work

“Being immersed in that kind of environment is really great for any type of art student,” Davis said. “You’re always meeting new artists … hearing artists’ lectures … getting to see a lot of different perspectives through the artworks and through meeting the people who work at the museum.”

Students involved in the fellowships also get introductions into the professional world, Costello said.

“It’s so important as early as possible

Senior Spotlight: Orion

Miller spins his own tune

Orion Miller began playing classical instruments before most toddlers refine their motor skills. Now a bass performance major at the Shepherd School of Music, Miller’s passion for music began during his childhood in New York. Both of his parents are musicians and encouraged their children to play instruments — Miller began playing the cello at age three and bass at 11.

“It was required to play music in my household. Both me and my younger sister started at a young age,” Miller said.

After deciding he wanted to pursue music, Miller looked for higher education institutions that combined a music curriculum with outside activities and academics. He wasn’t looking for a traditional program or a conservatory, he said.

“I feel like I had been surrounded by the arts for so long that I wanted something a little different … I’m really glad I came [to Rice],” Miller said.

together to find something that was new and engaging,” Miller said.

Aside from being a music student, Miller also plays rugby and works at Pub. “Trying to juggle all those things has definitely been a challenge, but you get all the resources to do it,” Miller said.

He has an extraordinary sense of musicality when he plays.

Tim Rinehart JONES COLLEGE SENIOR

As someone who has been playing since childhood, music sometimes feels like a routine, according to Miller. However, he said he still finds ways to creatively engage with the curriculum, such as in his freshman year. He composed a concerto in collaboration with a friend, and said he was the first person to premiere it.

“I entered a bunch of competitions [with the concerto] … We really worked

In addition to his academics and extracurriculars, Miller has formed valuable friendships within the Rice community. He met one of his closest friends, Tim Rinehart, at a music camp before coming to Rice. The two bonded over their similar passions for music.

“I really enjoy being friends with him … He’s a really good person to be around outside of music and [within] music,” Rinehart, a Jones College senior, said. “He has an extraordinary sense of musicality when he plays.”

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

“I got to go to the Hirsch Library and look at all the books that I thought would fit well with this hanging that we’re going to do,” Coughlin, a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in Rice’s art history department, said. “There’s something personal about being able to hold the book and knowing that someone else did that before you hundreds of years ago.”

Fellows are required to tailor the skills they acquire in an academic setting to the world of public art, which many HART

“Sometimes being in academia, and being a Ph.D. student, you get buried in books, and you lose sight of the artwork that you’re actually dealing with,” Coughlin said. “In a space where you’re actually surrounded by art, it’s like, ‘Okay, this is what I’m talking about, this is what I want to interact with.’”

The Jameson and Camfield fellowships have been an integral part of Rice art history education for the past 50 years, and have helped launch illustrious careers for many. Editor’s Note: This article has been cut off for print. Read the full article at ricethresher. org.

CHIARA MORETTI THRESHER STAFF

COURTESY ORION MILLER

WILLIAM LIU / THRESHER

The Dahlins turn Beer Bike into a family affair

KATHLEEN ORTIZ SPORTS EDITOR

As Marla Dahlin finished her first lap around the bike track early Saturday afternoon, she could hear chants coming from the Wiess College tent.

“Kelly’s mom! Kelly’s mom! Kelly’s mom!”

The Dahlin family made up more than 10% of Wiess’s bike team this year, as Wiess sophomore Kelly Dahlin successfully convinced her parents, alums Mike and Marla Dahlin ’91, to bike on the alumni team for the second year in a row.

“Beer Bike was something that we remember fondly,” Mike said. “It was nice that [Kelly] wanted us to be there both to see her do it and also [that] she was willing to have us and encouraged us to ride with the alumni. It was nice that that was something that she wanted to share.”

one of her little bikes next to their indoor trainer, so Kelly could bike alongside them.

“We’ve still got videos of her in Austin doing loops just around the porch,” Mike said. “Looking back, just terrifyingly fast. We’ve also got some videos of her very young biking at the parks in Austin, so it’s what she’s always done and liked.”

It wasn’t until Kelly was 13 years old that she started to get more serious about biking. She and her mother took a class at the Jerry Baker Memorial Velodrome to try track cycling. As soon as they finished the class, her mother went on Craigslist and bought herself and Kelly a track bike to share.

Does it really matter how fast I can ride two laps? No. But the joy and excitement that I can give my teammates, friends, fellow Wiessmen and honestly myself, by being fast and putting on a good show, is worth much more than the temporary pain in my legs.

Kelly Dahlin

WIESS COLLEGE SOPHOMORE

Marla and Mike both biked for Wiess when they were students, but Mike said that they never wanted to pressure Kelly to do the same.

“We knew that [Rice] was great for us, but we wanted to make sure that she picked a place that she wanted to go,” Mike said. “We were super excited when she did decide to go to Rice, and Beer Bike was part of that package.”

However, whether they meant to or not, Mike and Marla had been preparing Kelly for Beer Bike for a long time. They always had bikes around the house. When Kelly was young, her parents would put

“I’ve been in love with it ever since then,” Kelly said. “That’s what I do every summer. I love biking in circles.”

Beyond biking, the velodrome was where Kelly said she found a tight-knit community. She started volunteering at track cycling summer camps just a year after she attended her first camp. By 2021, she was running the camps. She still goes back to Redmond, Wash. every summer to continue running them at the same velodrome where she started.

“The biggest thing we value is that she found her people there — that she was happiest there,” Mike said. “She would spend as many hours at the velodrome as she could, you know, biking, volunteering and just hanging out with people there.”

In her teens, Kelly began to bike competitively. In 2021, she competed in the junior national championship and

won the Individual Pursuit for women aged 15-18 and Points Race for women aged 15-18. Beer Bike, on the other hand, Kelly said, has much lower stakes.

“Does it really matter how fast I can ride two laps? No,” Kelly said. “But the joy and excitement that I can give my teammates, friends, fellow Wiessmen and honestly myself, by being fast and putting on a good show, is worth much more than the temporary pain in my legs.”

Kelly makes it a point to tell her teammates that Beer Bike is just for fun despite the pressure she may put on herself. This year, she said she was most proud of how everyone else on the team performed.

“[The Wiess bike team] all did so good, and they’re all so fast and athletic and awesome,” Kelly said. “If it was my first year ever clipping into a bike, I would be nowhere near that. I would be terrified.”

Kelly started her Beer Bike day off in the pit for the Wiess alumni team, where she helped launch both of her parents for their laps. Then, she was both the first and last biker for Wiess’s women’s team, biking four laps in total.

“There was a group of people around us who were watching that, and they were just like, ‘Oh, Wiess just wrapped that up,’” Marla said. “They’re like, ‘It’s

done for you. Look at that.’”

Marla and Mike were stationed in the alumni area at the first turn. While they may not have been able to hear chants from the Wiess tent, they said they did hear other alumni in awe of how fast Kelly was racing.

“[After Kelly’s first laps] I know [there’s] the whole team to go, and I know a lot can happen in a race like that,” Marla said. “It was just funny to hear the people around me talk about the gap she opened up.”

While the results haven’t been announced yet, Kelly said that was never what really mattered to her.

“I really hope that everybody does know how proud I am of them and how much progress they’ve made,” Kelly said. “And I hope that I’ve been a good mentor. The thing I’m most proud of is just how everybody else did.”

MARLO WILCOX / THRESHER Wiess College sophomore Kelly Dahlin stands with her parents, Mike and Marla Dahlin ’91. All three biked for Wiess this year.

MARLO WILCOX / THRESHER Kelly Dahlin biked first and last this year in her second year biking at Beer Bike.

RUPD Crime Bulletin

On Wednesday, April 10, the Rice University Police Department received multiple reports of incidents at various residential colleges. RUPD would like to update the community on each of these five incidents and is posting descriptions of each suspect posted below.

RUPD was unable to locate the suspect of each incident but are actively investigating. RUPD would like to remind members of the Rice community to please contact RUPD at 713-348-6000 if they observe suspicious persons or activity on campus.

Suspect #001: John Curylo

The suspect was seen strolling around Lovett College Commons wearing nothing but a speedo on three separate occasions this week. Although no longer sporting a middle part, RUPD was recently made aware that the suspect is the same individual apprehended several years ago for achieving near full nudity at Lovett’s Finest. RUPD is investigating potentially fetishistic motives given previous student reports that the suspect vigorously rejects shaving cream coverage when participating in Baker 13 runs. Please keep your vision at shoulder-level and above at Lovett College’s crawfish boil later this month, where police officers intend to lure the suspect in with professionally hired crawfish actors.

Suspect #002: Mariela Garcia

The suspect was involved in a high-speed car chase with RUPD from Will Rice College to Galveston, where the individual was last seen escaping via rowboat after briefly falling asleep at the wheel and crashing into an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant that had threatened to kick her out several months earlier. The chase occurred after the suspect was approached for questioning on several dozen counts of fraud, including fraudulent robotics team membership, fraudulent Red Bull Racing loyalty, and identity fraud using undisclosed photography of various Will Rice students. The subject’s rat terrier has been located and brought in for questioning and has already made several allegations of animal cruelty for deafening them at the age of three via piccolo rehearsal.

Suspect #003: Joon Lee

The suspect was first reported this morning for public intoxication at McMurtry College. Upon being found by an RUPD officer, unconscious in an unsuspecting student’s double, the suspect pulled out a pair of boxing gloves and instigated a physical altercation with the officer, shouting “Try and rusticate me now.” The suspect managed to evade arrest through the steam tunnels and was last seen on the roof of O’Connor Building with a potential accomplice. Please remain alert for him, as a background check on the suspect flagged an additional criminal history of illegal sports betting on chess matches.

Suspect #004: Victor Huang

The suspect was seen around Brown College after the latest of several reports of loitering, most recently while “forcing the cats to take a hit of his vape” (RUPD could not substantiate this claim, as the suspect communicated with the cats exclusively through mewing). Although the suspect escaped on all fours, witnesses claim the suspect was wearing glasses, an English soccer jersey featuring a team too irrelevant to recall, and a characteristic, high-pitched wheeze. RUPD has made several attempts to identify and contact the suspect, but all attempts have strangely only reached President DesRoches’ office instead. OIT is actively investigating this phenomenon.

Suspect #005: Gautam Chaudhry

The suspect has been linked to an underground burglary ring targeting students at Jones College. Last sighted on the run from RUPD officer while clutching three pairs of stolen jeans, he has previously been incarcerated for the synthesis and distribution of over twenty kilograms of adderall to Rice students, operating alone from under the Pub counter under the excuse of “come ooonn, I’m your O-Week kid!” RUPD advises students to leave where they are immediately if they hear any trace of Gracie Abrams playing through his earbuds.

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.