Houston’s top horn musician allegedly harassed Rice students for decades. ‘COLLATERAL
And the school knew.
DAMAGE’:
Rice University’s famed horn professor William VerMeulen abruptly retired last spring amid a swirl of sexual misconduct allegations. But dozens of students and industry insiders say “the administration has known for 30 years” — and failed to act.
RIYA
MISRA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
This story has been published in collaboration with The Barbed Wire, a Texas-based digital news outlet. Read the story online now at thebarbedwire. com, and later at ricethresher.org.
This story contains descriptions of sexual trauma that may be triggering to some readers. Visit RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network), which has a 24/7 hotline and helpful resources. The National Sexual Assault Hotline can also be reached at 800-656HOPE (4673).
Myrna Meeroff hadn’t had a seizure in four years. But in 1995, on her first day of graduate classes at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, she had one. Recovering in the hospital, she missed the beginning of the semester.
She entered the French horn studio a week behind her peers — “compromised in every way,” she said. Meeroff’s horn instructor, William VerMeulen, invited her to lunch off-campus in
what seemed to Meeroff like a gesture of goodwill. VerMeulen gave her a lay of the land and caught Meeroff up on missed material. He reassured her about her absences and even offered to find her opportunities with community orchestras, she told the Thresher..
Everything would be alright, she remembered him saying. Then, she said, he placed his hand on her thigh.
Why is this man touching me in any way? Meeroff remembered thinking. It gave her pause. Other teachers had touched her during lessons, placing their heads on top of hers to hear the horn’s sound — weird, she said, though not sexual — but this was different. She forced herself to brush it off.
The touching continued in lessons, Meeroff said, even as other male studio members watched. Though her previous teachers sat across from her as she played, VerMeulen sat next to her. He often touched her stomach, without permission, to ensure she was breathing deeply enough for her belly to expand. He’d rest his hand on top of her thigh, she said, letting it stay for too long.
I had heard, ‘If you’re a girl, don’t go to Rice.’
Corin Droullard
SHEPHERD
MASTER’S ’19
“When the hand is on your thigh?” she told the Thresher.
“That has nothing to do with music whatsoever.” Meeroff had a sheltered childhood — “the music was my life,” she said — and she sometimes wondered if VerMeulen’s behavior was a figment of her imagination. She’d been told he was one of the best teachers in the field. That he had the ability to
make stars out of his students. “This was going to be the defining moment that was going to get me the career that I wanted in music,” she said.
She wore pants to lessons, moved her chair, practiced at home in her apartment — quiet rebuffs to his repeated advances.
“Once he realized that he wasn’t going to get anything from me,” Meeroff said, VerMeulen began “systematically destroying my confidence.”
Meeroff said he ranked her last in auditions. He gave her parts she felt he knew she couldn’t do, then would “berate me for not being able to do it to his satisfaction,” she said. Beat down, she slowly stopped attending classes.
Because she was afraid of losing her spot in the studio, Meeroff said she didn’t report the behavior, or dare say the words “sexual harassment” out loud. But she felt sure others knew. “They saw what was happening, and they couldn’t help me without running the risk of, you know, having their career destroyed,” she said.
ON PAGES 7-10
ILLUSTRATION BY THE BARBED WIRE
Student Judicial Programs investigates snow day antics
CHARLIE CRUZ THRESHER STAFF
Editor’s Note: The identity of students mentioned in this story have been removed to protect them from retaliation due to ongoing disciplinary procedures. The anonymous students were given false names, marked with an asterisk when first mentioned.
Rice students climbed onto the roof of Lovett Hall Jan. 21 during a snowball fight in the academic quad. The Rice University Police Department received a call about
students on the roof, which prompted officers to respond and direct students to leave. Student Judicial Programs is still investigating the situation.
“This incident is still under investigation,” Kamran Riaz, SJP director, wrote in an email to the Thresher. “No sanctions have been issued, but that does not mean there will not be any once we complete the investigation.”
RUPD Chief of Police Clemente Rodriguez said names were collected for potential disciplinary measures on the day of the event.
“Officers responded and advised the
OBTAINED BY THE THRESHER
Late-night car thief runs from police near OEDK
SARAH KNOWLTON NEWS EDITOR
Students received an alert Feb. 2 near midnight from the Rice University Police Department regarding an active investigation. According to the email, RUPD and the West University Place Police Department were pursuing a male suspect driving a stolen vehicle who then ran, barefoot, to evade police near the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen. The area is no longer being investigated.
WUPD Officer Katie Wilson said that the department gave chase after a residential security system on Bissonnet alerted them to a car theft.
“WUPD notified [RUPD] to be on the lookout for the suspect, but officers were unable to locate the individual,” Wilson wrote. “The stolen vehicle was recovered.”
RUPD Chief of Police Clemente Rodriguez said that although an alert was sent out, police do not believe that the suspect is still on campus.
The suspect led officers on a 2.41-mile pursuit through Houston, which ended in the 1800 block of Rice Boulevard when the vehicle crashed into a tree.
“Officers located the vehicle and attempted a highrisk traffic stop, but the driver refused to stop, initiating a pursuit,” Wilson wrote in an email to the Thresher. “The suspect led officers on a 2.41-mile pursuit through Houston, which ended in the 1800 block of Rice Boulevard when the vehicle crashed into a tree.”
“We issued an alert as there was a possibility the suspect may have continued fleeing on foot through the campus grounds,” Rodriguez wrote in an email to the Thresher. “A thorough search of the area was conducted, but the suspect was not located, and we believe he has since left the immediate vicinity.”
Katie Wilson WEST UNIVERSITY PLACE POLICE OFFICER
Chief justices sent messages in their college GroupMes prior to the alert warning students to avoid the area around the OEDK.
The alert also stated that RUPD will be conducting extra evening patrols around the area and advised students to be vigilant.
students they could not be on the roof and had them leave,” Rodriguez wrote in an email to the Thresher Jan. 30. “It’s important that we all stay safe and not put ourselves or others at risk, especially during extreme weather days.”
Kyler* said police waited until he and his friend had climbed off of the roof and into the building before stopping them.
Wilson said RUPD was alerted when the suspect left the vehicle and began to run.
“RUPD reminds everyone when walking on or around campus at night to be aware of your surroundings and try to walk with a friend or group if possible,” the alert read.
in danger.”
Despite RUPD’s intervention, many students said they felt safe during the event. Kyler said the roof was slippery but manageable.
Everyone was having fun, helping each other to make sure no one slipped. I didn’t think there were risks beyond falling on the ice.
*Sofia STUDENT ON THE ROOF
“They didn’t yell or tell us to stop,” Kyler said. “Once we were inside, they asked for our IDs. It felt like they were waiting for us to come down.”
Kyler said that students in the stairwell were also asked to provide their IDs.
Sofia* said the rooftop gathering was lighthearted and collaborative.
“Everyone was having fun, helping each other to make sure no one slipped,” Sofia wrote to the Thresher. “I didn’t think there were risks beyond falling on the ice.”
Will Rice College sophomore Shrusti Modi said she saw students throwing snowballs back and forth between the roof and the ground.
“It was packed up there, maybe 40 or more people,” Modi said. “The snow was soft, so I didn’t think anyone was
“Everyone was being careful,” Kyler said. “We were just enjoying a once-in-alifetime experience. You don’t get snow days like that in Houston.”
Modi said she later saw a drone video posted by Rice on social media that showed the snowball fight in the academic quad. The video also showed students on the roof of Lovett Hall.
Jones College sophomore Christian Diaz said he was concerned about the investigation but hoped administrators would consider the context of the event.
“I assumed if so many people were up there, it had to be okay,” Diaz said. “It wasn’t something I thought about in the moment.”
Modi said she could understand the administration’s safety concerns but did not expect the situation to escalate.
“I see why they might be upset, but it just seemed like students having fun,” Modi said.
No further updates have been provided regarding the investigation.
The Hoot hires, ready to fly
ABIGAIL CHIU THRESHER STAFF
The Hoot is preparing for re-opening after an unexpected period of closure.
Cristy Torres, assistant director of student-run businesses, said that the Hoot has been working to open up as soon as possible and is finishing its hiring and onboarding processes.
“From all our SRBs, the Hoot has always been the one that opens a bit later in the semester compared to our other SRBs due to their culture of waiting to reopen until they have completed their hiring and onboarding process, rather than opening with a temporary schedule,” Torres wrote in an email to the Thresher.
The Hoot declined to comment on the extended closure but posted an Instagram story saying an “influencer apology” would be released soon. No post has been made so far.
The Hoot is also developing a possible new relationship with Housing & Dining, Torres said.
“Housing & Dining has been a great resource for The Hoot since its founding,” Torres wrote. “We’re fortunate that this collaborative relationship has continued. We will have to wait and see what this possible new partnership with Housing & Dining looks like.”
The Hoot’s Jan. 29 Instagram post also confirmed this partnership.
“The truth is, we’re just finalizing some new changes with H&D and getting everything in order so we can open in full force and get back to serving the student body their favorite after-hours snacks,” the Jan. 29 post’s caption read.
“We will have to wait for [the Hoot] to open back up again to see what new and exciting changes await,” Torres wrote. “Once they are fully ready to open again, they will make the announcement through social media, so stay tuned.”
BELAW JOTWANI / THRESHER The Hoot encounters an unexpected period of closure.
Federal immigration policies draw ire, conversation
NOA BERZ SENIOR WRITER
Thousands of Houstonians marched down Sunset Blvd. on Sunday to protest President Donald Trump’s new immigration policies. Students like Rocio Vides, the daughter of two Salvadoran immigrants, joined the protesters in marching for immigration rights.
“There was a lot of camaraderie, a lot of music, a lot of joy,” Vides, a Wiess College freshman, said. “It was just an environment I felt very comfortable and safe in.”
The march, organized by immigrantled civil rights group Familias Inmigrantes y Estudiantes en la Lucha, took place one day before Rice’s Undocumented Student Task Force kicked off UndocuALLY Week for the first time since 2019. Planning for the week began last semester, before the 2024 presidential election, but co-director Paula Gamino said programming was shifted to focus primarily on President Trump’s new immigration policies.
“[We want to] let people know what their rights are,” Gamino, a Martel College sophomore, said. “A big part of why we want to put on this week-long event [is] to make sure that … we know what to do to protect our community.”
The week’s kick-off event on Monday featured posters with information for undocumented students and discussion boards for those interested in learning more about the relevant issues. Also present was USTF founder Ariana Engles ‘20, who started the task force as a freshman after the university officially began welcoming undocumented students in 2016.
“I started [USTF] as a way to try to make a difference on a topic I care greatly about in the community,” Engles said. “It’s eight years later, and unfortunately, the needle hasn’t really moved forward as far as immigration policy is concerned.”
Since his inauguration, Trump has signed a number of executive orders restricting immigrant rights in the U.S. and increasing border security measures. The Department of Homeland Security also released a statement
Jan. 21 which ended a policy barring Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents from protected areas like churches and schools.
In a campus-wide discussion held at the Rice Multicultural Center Jan. 31, diversity facilitators Kaz Nam and A’Zhariya Ellis examined Trump’s new policies and what they might mean for Rice students.
“It’s not that it’s just illegally, they’re taking away ways to [immigrate] legally,” Nam, a Lovett College sophomore, said. “I think it’s really unfair because America was built on immigrants.
“There’s a lot of concern that ICE, especially with the safe havens being revoked, that they’ll be able to come into schools [like Rice],” Nam continued.
According to a document sent out by Rice General Counsel Omar Syed, federal immigration agents can enter the Rice campus if they have a judicial warrant signed by a federal or state judge.
It’s
not the only ones who should have reason to worry,” Vides wrote in an email to the Thresher. “The increase in federal activity concerning the detention of immigrants poses the dangerous possibility of an influx of racial profiling and suspicion.
“My personal opinion, however, is that I doubt we will see ICE agents storming campus,” Vides continued.
Recently, a recruitment webinar for CBP was posted to Rice’s 12twenty page, the Center for Career Development’s job and internship database. Vides said the posting was poorly timed.
“I think it’s disrespectful to undocumented students, and frankly, I don’t think it’s appropriate,” Vides said. “I also understand that Rice has an obligation to send out opportunities to us regardless of where it may fall on the political spectrum.”
really heartwarming to see that so many students care about their peers, and are willing to step into that advocacy space.
Ariana Engles
UNDOCUMENTED STUDENT TASK FORCE FOUNDER, RICE ‘20
With the proper warrants, federal agents may enter residential colleges, dorm rooms and off-campus student apartments. With an administrative warrant issued by an immigration official, or with no warrant, agents must be granted permission to enter by Rice or other property holders.
ICE recently stated that they may request information from U.S. citizens during field work following several occurrences of Native Americans being questioned and detained by agents. Trump also signed executive orders calling for the enhanced vetting and surveillance of international students.
According to Vides, who is also internal outreach chair for the Rice FirstGeneration Legal Collective, all students should be prepared for encounters with law enforcement.
“Undocumented students are absolutely
TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDERS
Energy: Withdraws from Paris Climate Accord, declares national energy emergency, encourages fossil fuel usage
Birthright citizenship: Removes guaranteed citizenship for those born in the U.S.
Tariffs: Institutes tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China with a reduced tariff for Canadian energy; paused
DOGE: Creates Department of Government Efficiency, freezes civilian hiring, requires inperson executive branch
Landmarks: Renames the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and Denali to Mount McKinley
Military COVID-19 vaccines: Reinstates service members discharged for refusing to get the COVID vaccine
said. “Who’s doing that out there for people working in agriculture, people that are driving to work every day, people that are living in border towns?”
Engles said that she is encouraged by the continued student support for and allyship with undocumented students at Rice.
“I think that energy has carried through over the last few years,” Engles said. “It’s really heartwarming to see that so many students care about their peers, and are willing to step into that advocacy space.”
In 2016, former Rice president David Leebron sent out a message affirming his support for undocumented students and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Act, but Rubio-Gomez said she’s disappointed with the university’s response to the issues this time around.
Executive director Nicole van den Heuvel said that the CCD prioritizes the career goals of every student.
“The [CCD] supports all members of the Rice community — undergraduates, graduate students and alumni — in achieving their career goals,” van den Heuvel wrote in an email to the Thresher. “As a member of the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the CCD adheres to the Professional Standards for Colleges and University Career Services, ensuring that we collaborate with employers to support our students.”
USTF co-director Dayanh Rubio-Gomez said that many undocumented students may fear for their families who live unprotected and often lack informational or legal resources.
“We have the privilege to find these resources, but that is not the same for undocumented experiences elsewhere,” Rubio-Gomez, a Martel College senior,
“I would love a statement from Rice University saying ‘We recognize our undocumented students, we’re going to support them, and, most importantly, we’re going to protect them,’” Rubio-Gomez said. “Stuff like that really does make a difference.”
Engles said she hopes to see the same administrative support as when she was a student.
“[Leebron] was such a wonderful supporter of DACA, both at Rice and nationally,” Engles said. “I would hope to see the same from President DesRoches.”
President Reggie DesRoches expressed the university’s commitment to upholding research and scholarship in a message to the community Jan. 29 following Trump’s temporary federal funding freeze. Rice has not issued a statement addressing immigration issues or undocumented students since the inauguration, but the university administration reaffirmed that support for all students remains a priority.
“We are committed to providing our students, faculty and staff with the information and support they need as we better understand any impacts,” Syed wrote in an email to the Thresher. “We continue to analyze all recent federal developments and remain in regular contact with policymakers and federal offices.”
TikTok: Pauses TikTok ban for further deliberation
AI: Removes restrictions on development of artifical intelligence
Jan. 6: Pardons most perpetrators of January 6th attack on the Capitol
Gender: Bars trans people from the military, blocks gender affirming care for those under 19, asserts that there are two genders (male & female)
DEI: Ends federal DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) programs
Health: Withdraws United States from the World Health Organization
Federal spending: Orders a freeze on federal grants and loans; rescinded
Classified files: Releases files about the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
NOA BERZ / THRESHER
Sunday’s march down Sunset Blvd. saw thousands of attendees, including Rice students.
CHLOE CHAN / THRESHER
NOA BERZ / THRESHER Protesters showed up in opposition to President Trump’s recent increases in detainments and deportations of immigrants.
Rice investments t0 build in Rice Village, Third Ward
HONGTAO HU
THRESHER STAFF
What do a Third Ward affordable housing development and a luxury condominium have in common? They’re both part of Rice’s investment portfolio.
The Manson Place for Parent Scholars in Houston’s Third Ward and the Chaucer Condominiums in Rice Village are expected to open in Fall 2025 and Summer 2027, respectively.
The Rice Real Estate Corporation recently provided financial support for Manson Place as part of the Ion District Community Benefit Agreement. The Ion District is a real estate initiative by Rice and the city of Houston meant to lift up economically disadvantaged areas by developing the Ion mixed-use building, affordable housing and other businesses, and was established in July 2019.
This agreement provides $4.5 million for affordable housing developers, a $5 million investment fund for minorities and women in tech and other equity initiatives. The city approved the pact over community organizations’ opposition in 2021.
The Manson Place plans to provide 76 affordable housing units to single parents attending college in Houston. According to Felicia Young, the regional coordinator of Family Scholars House, Third Ward was chosen because of its proximity to Houston colleges.
“When you think about where the most students are in terms of higher education, they really surround Third Ward,” Young said. “University of Houston is right across the street with 49,000 students. Texas Southern is two blocks away with 9,500 students. That’s almost 60,000 students within two blocks of us in either direction.”
Young also said that the Family Scholars House would be the most impactful in Third Ward because of the area’s average education level.
“The other part of Third Ward that was really important is when you think about the
folks who need you most; when you think about how many people don’t have access to higher education at this point, they only have a high school diploma or GED — Third Ward had some of the highest numbers in the city,” Young said.
While the Manson Place for Parent Scholars specifically aims at single-parent college students, the organization provides services for non-parents, as well. Young said that housing was a priority for their organization because single parents face unique challenges when working towards their degrees.
“If you have a child, you can’t bring that child to the dorm. So we want to make sure that folks have the opportunity to have their child as close to school as possible,” Young said.
The Family Scholars House began with this goal.
“There were still people who were bright
surplus of swipes.
Students donated 16,095 meal swipes to off-campus students this semester, almost double last spring’s 8,224 swipes, according to Student Association President Jae Kim.
According to Taylor Breashears, the associate director of Student Success Initiatives, Housing and Dining has increased how many swipes each student can donate swipes, so there were more applicants for swipes and donations this year. Breashears said the program has been growing each year despite some difficulties in coordinating the donations.
“I think it’s a successful program overall; there are some logistical challenges that make it tough. For example, we cannot distribute the swipes until they have been donated and that can make it hard for off-campus students who are struggling with food insecurity the first week of school,” Breshears wrote in an email to the Thresher. “Over the past few years, we have worked to quickly distribute the swipes as soon as possible. I’m so grateful that donations have increased over the past few years.”
“If we can make that happen, then I’m sure that max number of swipes [students can donate] will go down a little since students won’t have such an enormous amount,” Kim said.
Beth Leaver, senior executive director of H&D, said the department will pilot another donation period before spring break. Students could donate additional meal swipes for the remainder of the semester, and Tetra for students in need during the summer.
I’m happy that it looks like the meal circulation program has become institutionalized. It’ll just continue on.
Jae Kim STUDENT ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT
“Our vision is for the meal swipe donation program to continue reflecting our culture of care and support for students,” Leaver wrote in an email to the Thresher. “Since some students face challenges accessing consistent meal options during the summer, we hope Tetra donations will provide meaningful support. Long-term, we aim to leverage data analysis to improve distribution and ensure every swipe is utilized, enhancing the program’s efficiency and impact.”
and go-getters, but they still weren’t able to finish school,” Young said. “Whatever the case may be, they weren’t able to make ends meet, and they were having to choose between school and employment because employment pays the rent. And the problem was housing.
“How can we house the single parent, so that we can take something off their plate? How can it be more affordable to them, so that they’re not spending 50% of their income trying to be housed?” Young also said her intention was to integrate the Manson Place into the Third Ward’s community.
“When we came, I wanted to make sure that I became a part of that area. I started going to the events, and we are a proud member of the Third Ward Community Cloth [Cooperative],” Young said. “There’s a lot of great stuff happening in Third Ward … so it’s a great way for us all
Gordana Vickers CHAUCER SALES AGENT 8,224
to partner together.”
Rice Village is experiencing a development of its own. The land in Rice Village is owned by the Rice Management Company, with spaces rented to a variety of establishments.
The Chaucer is a luxury condominium developed by Randall and Natalie Davis, a father and daughter development team. It is under construction on 2360 Rice Boulevard, with 32 units ranging in price from $1.6 to $5.4 million.
According to Gordana Vickers, a sales agent for the Chaucer, Rice Village was chosen as a location due in part to its walkability.
“Rice Village is one of those unique neighborhoods in Houston that is really walkable, and is reminiscent of a neighborhood in New York, for instance,” Vickers said. “People can walk around, and they can go to their restaurants and stores, and what was missing was a nice place for them to live that they could own rather than rent.”
Vickers also said that many Rice alumni are moving to the location to stay close to their alma mater.
“Our first buyers were Rice graduates, and this particular couple both graduated from Rice and they used to bike home from the university,” Vickers said. “They were always wondering if there was ever going to be an opportunity for them to be close to their alma mater. And I can’t tell you how many people since then, how many Rice grads have come to the building — and they are buying out the corner of the building that faces the university.”
Young said that the Manson Place will cater to students at a lower price point.
“It’s going to be what folks would consider affordable housing, which means it would not be more than 30% of their income,” Young said. “We want folks to still be able to live and do all of the things, so it should not be more than 30% of their income, which is the guideline of what’s safest for folks.”
10,000 15,000 5,000
This year, the program provided swipes to 296 students, Breshears said.
Kim said the SA is also working with H&D to develop a meal plan with fewer swipes for on-campus students. According to Kim, students donate as many swipes as possible because the on-campus meal plan has a
Kim says he was pleased with the increased excitement around the program this year and hopes it will increase the program’s longevity.
“At Rice or really any other university, once [something] becomes institutionalized and it becomes kind of like a tradition, it becomes easier to maintain,” Kim said. “I’m happy that it looks like the meal circulation program has become institutionalized. It’ll just continue on.”
BELA JOTWANI / THRESHER
The Chaucer luxury condominium complex is under construction in Rice Village. The land in Rice Village is owned by the Rice Management Company.
VIOLA HSIA THRESHER STAFF
Help undocumented students close to home
President Donald Trump has signed a series of executive orders increasing border security measures and altering the daily lives of undocumented immigrants. The orders include expanding the use of immigration detention, bypassing immigration judges to fast-track deportations and auditing current federal programs that support allegedly removable immigrants.
Now is the chance for Rice community members to show their support –undocumented students could be right beside you, even if they might not make it known.
For undocumented students, their families and community members, these orders put them at risk of sudden deportation, detention and removal.
Now is the chance for Rice community members to show their support — undocumented students could be right beside you, even if they might not make it known.
If you don’t know where to start, start at Rice. Rice’s Undocumented Student Task Force was founded in 2017 and received extended funding from the Student Association in November 2024.
This year, USTF is bringing back its annual UndocuALLY Week with events highlighting resources for undocumented students. Go to a few events – supporting USTF’s events allows them to demand more resources.
UndocuALLY events kick off with a Know Your Rights training from civil rights organization Familias Inmigrantes y Estudiantes en la Lucha Houston in Farnsworth Pavilion from 3:30 - 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Head to Sid theatre for a viewing of “Under The Same Moon” at 7 p.m. on Thursday, which follows a mother immigrating to the United States in hope of a better life.
Join a vigil honoring the lives lost to cruel immigration policies in the Multicultural Center Courtyard on Friday from 7 - 9 p.m.
The Student Success Initiative and Center for Civic Leadership offices are hosting a celebration and community gathering at Miner’s Lounge on Saturday at 2 p.m. If the week’s looking a little busy, get informed. The task force works to bring resources to undocumented students. In the past, they have provided
free legal consultations.
Head to the UTSF’s Instagram to find a Linktree full of resources: frequently asked questions for undocumented students, legal resources and information for on-campus support. Posters by the Student Center bookstore offer steps on what to do if you are approached oncampus by federal agents.
Perhaps the most important part is to extend compassion. Every undocumented student’s situation is different. For every new administrative change, someone’s life is changing — plans are in disarray, crucial resources are disappearing and safe houses are becoming unsafe.
In this environment of uncertainty, offer empathy.
Perhaps the most important part is to extend compassion ... For every new administrative change, someone’s life is changing – plans are in disarray, crucial resources are disappearing and safe houses are becoming dangerous.
Much like Sunday’s protest in Hermann Park about Trump’s new immigration policies, there are opportunities to take a stand. Join others. Talk to your leaders. Hear people out. At a time when many peoples’ lives are on the verge of being upended completely, the next few weeks will offer an invaluable chance to support and listen to fellow community members — in whatever form that may take.
Owls on the run: Rice’s Houston Marathon history
WILL PATEL THRESHER STAFF
Since 1972, runners have laced up to take on the Houston Marathon in the brisk chill of a January morning. Among them ran Rice students, faculty and alumni weaving their own history into the race one stride at a time.
Jack Lippincott ’70 ran his first Houston Marathon in 1975, beginning his streak of 50 consecutive Houston Marathons. Lippincott said that the records mark his streak at 43 races because only times under six hours are considered official. Regardless, Lippincott has completed more consecutive Houston Marathons than any individual in the event’s history.
“I jogged around the campus a few times per week, the whole time I was [at Rice],” Lippincott wrote in an email to the Thresher. “My best time at the Houston Marathon was 2:36:40, back in 1979. It has been a gradual slowdown since then, but I still love doing it — whether in the front, middle or back of the pack.”
In addition to record-holding streaks, Rice has had numerous Houston Marathon top finishers. A January 1976 edition of the Thresher spotlights Jeff Wells ‘76 winning the race, with his roommate John Lodwick ’76 placing second.
“Wells averaged a sizzling 5:15 per mile en route to the fastest time ever recorded by a native Texan, as well as the fastest time ever run by anyone in the Southwest,” the article reads.
Other Rice winners include Marty Froelick ’81 in 1985 and Sean Wade ’89 in 2003.
Jon Warren ’88, head coach of the men’s track and field and cross country teams, finished 11th in the 1997 Houston Marathon.
“It was a day where it was raining [and] sleeting, windy as can be,” Warren wrote in an email to the Thresher. “There was ice on all the bridges … ice in our hair (it froze) and in the folds of our clothes.”
In addition to running, Warren said he has paced for elite runners and covered the race on local television. In 2012, he spectated when Houston hosted the Marathon Olympic Trials.
“It has been a wonderful and educational experience working with Channel 13 [as a race commentator],”
Warren wrote. “[At] the trials in 2012, the women’s and men’s races were both great, and the entire experience the city put on was impressive.”
In recent years, Rice runners have enjoyed success. Becky Firth ’12, an AllAmerican cross-country runner, placed third overall in 2017 as the top U.S. finisher and completed the 2020 halfmarathon in under 70 minutes.
“When I was at Rice, I volunteered at the marathon … in the elite hospitality room and drug testing,” Firth said. “Even though I’m from Dallas, having been in Houston for almost 10 years and coming into my own as a runner in Houston, I felt like it was my hometown race. I felt so much support from the people on the sidelines and the people organizing the race.”
This year, runners braved bitter winds to finish the marathon. President Reggie DesRoches completed his fourth Houston
Half Marathon.
“[The] race went really well, despite the cold and wind,” DesRoches wrote in an email to the Thresher. “This year was particularly meaningful because my three kids ran with us. The energy from the crowds, especially the support from the Rice community, made the experience even more special.”
For some graduating seniors, this year was their final chance to compete in the race as a Rice student. Sophianne Loh, a Sid Richardson College senior, ran her first marathon this year.
“This was my last chance to run the Houston Marathon,” Loh said. “So I was like, ‘Why not?’” I’ve run before in high school and had a good experience doing the half, so I just wanted to face the challenge and see if I could do it.”
Others commented on the marathon’s invigorating atmosphere. Claudia Sterling said the crowd’s enthusiasm energized her.
“My friends from Jones [College] came out and cheered and supported us,” Sterling, a Jones sophomore, said. “When I ran by, they had hot chocolate. So many people were around, so it was super energetic and a great time.”
Martel College junior Aman Chaudhary said the challenging weather brought runners closer together.
“Although the morale was down, I would say the companionship and the formed friendships throughout the way were probably the best part,” Chaudhary said. “Everyone’s struggling, and the pain isn’t getting better, but we’re all still trying to push through and make it to the end.”
A definitive ranking of Orientation Week themes
Rush season is upon us. For those of you who aren’t friends with your college’s coordinators, here is a ranked list of Orientation Week themes to help you start planning where to co-advise.
1. Duncan College: LassO-Week –Welcome to the Roodeo Duncan College’s O-Week coordinators gave us a masterclass in theme selection. This theme nods to Rice’s Texan roots and also to
Duncan’s mascot itself. It is also refreshingly original, ready to spark a number of Southern and desertinspired themes.
2. Martel College: TechnO-Week
Last year’s ‘Meowtel’ finally redeems themselves with this theme. The theme is fresh and inclusive. If the new students aren’t rave-goers, they’re probably engineers doing something tech-related.
3. Sid Richardson College: Disney
StudiO-Week – Where Your Dreams Come True
Everyone loves Disney, and while it’s not quite as unique as Duncan or Martel’s theme, Disney is popular for a reason. This theme also has a nearly infinite amount of pun and O-Week name ideas, which advisors will no doubt appreciate.
4. Jones College: UFO-Week
With UFO-Week, they went the wrong direction. Jones doesn’t need to further alienate this campus. Alienation aside, this name is fitting considering how bizarre and out of body O-Week can feel.
5. Hanszen College: Once Upon An O-Week
Hanszen College’s O-Week theme is a nod to fairy tales, and eschews the traditional O-Week theme formatting. Nevertheless, the theme still works, and because of the lack of a pun, the theme seems more sophisticated.
6. Will Rice College: A Long Time AgO-Week – Hyperdrive Into New Adventures
Will Rice also went for a more prosaic approach with this Star Wars inspired theme. Even with the tagline, the theme doesn’t feel very George Lucas. ‘A long time ago’ is just too universal a phrase.
7. Baker College: Monopoly GO-Week
This theme sounds awesome, until you realise that Monopoly Go is just
the mobile app. It’s worse when you consider that Pokemon Go week was also done recently.
8. Brown College: ChocO-Week –Brown is Sweet Choco-Week just doesn’t really work. Who shortens chocolate to choco? However, the reference to their college and color is clever. Take note, Wiess –Brown was able to include their tagline and still have a real theme.
9. Wiess College: Team Family Wiess Wiess’s insistence on always having the same theme would be endearing, if it didn’t seem so disingenuous. If you have to keep on telling people that you’re a family … maybe you aren’t?
10. Lovett College: NabiscO-Week –Chip Happens
This theme is truly a head scratcher. Nabisco is an American snack manufacturer owned by Mondelez International. It seems odd to name your O-Week after a corporation that I, for one, had never even heard of. One of their most famous products is the Oreo, so why didn’t they just settle with Oreo Week?
11. McMurtry College: Picasso-Week From the college that had to change their O-Week theme last year, McMurtry once again misses the mark with this theme. Pablo Picasso’s legacy has been tarnished by his widely documented abusive and misogynistic practices. Is this someone we should center?
HUGO GERBICH PAIS
A&E SENIOR WRITER
Two students ran in the Houston Marathon, photographed for a January 1994 edition of the Thresher.
COURTESY ZACHARY WOODLEY McMurtry College advisors hold signs welcoming new students on the first day of Orientation Week.
Meeroff often confided in a close friend, who trained at VerMeulen’s studio from 1995 to 2000. “I know she was always fighting him off,” he confirmed to the Thresher. “I remember her telling me one day that Bill [VerMeulen] told her that if she tries to come back to Rice to finish her master’s, he’ll make her life a living hell. I remember her telling me that like it was yesterday.”
A few months into the fall semester, Meeroff said VerMeulen insisted the pair visit the school’s counseling center. Meeroff wasn’t homesick — she had easily spent months away from home at summer camps — but she said both VerMeulen and the counselor insisted otherwise. “They kept trying to convince me to go home, and stay home.”
“People like that, they plant a seed and water it, and water it, and water it until it bears fruit. And you don’t realize how much it’s hurting you until you’re completely destroyed,” she said.
Then, in their second-to-last lesson of the year, Meeroff said VerMeulen told her she’d been kicked out of the studio. “You’ve been replaced,” are the words she remembered. “And then he said, ‘We’re gonna sit down and talk about what you can do for a living, because you’re never going to be a horn player.’”
Meeroff didn’t fight it. She left the Shepherd School of Music “a shell of (her) former self.”
She went home at the end of the spring semester in 1996, back to Florida. She took a job at a music camp in upstate New York that summer to help clear her head. At the end of the season, the orchestra conductor told her she was the most accurate horn player he’d ever heard. “It was a complete and total shock to me, because I believed that my career was over,” she said.
She completed her master’s at Florida Atlantic University and continued performing. In 2011, she founded the South Florida Chamber Ensemble, a music nonprofit that often partners with sexual abuse advocacy organizations. She took the group to Belgium for the 2019 International Horn Symposium. Meeroff knew VerMeulen would be there, and she wanted to see him. She needed closure. Then, climbing the stairs from the dressing room on her way to a concert, the two collided.
“He didn’t recognize me at all,” she said. “And that’s when it dawned on me. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, he’s done this to so many other people that he doesn’t remember.’”
‘Everyone knew that Rice knew’
A wave of #MeToo-esque reckonings rolled through the classical music world last year, prompted in part by a New York Magazine report published in April. The article detailed sexual assault and misconduct allegations against two members of the New York Philharmonic who were fired in 2018, then reinstated through union arbitration.
The uproar was swift: The Philharmonic commissioned an outside investigation into the organizational culture. More women came forward with additional allegations against both players, who were placed on leave then fired in November. The players have denied the allegations and sued the Philharmonic and players union. A federal judge recently dismissed a $100 million lawsuit filed by one of the players against the magazine.
Online discussion erupted in the insular industry. And more allegations emerged. Two musicians were removed from the Calgary Philharmonic. Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music announced it had removed one of its professors.
Then, in May 2024, Rice announced then63-year-old William VerMeulen’s retirement, effective immediately.
“Professor VerMeulen has been teaching at the Shepherd School since 1990, building one of the country’s most prominent horn studios — with numerous professional placements for his students, who are performing in many of the top ensembles around the world,” wrote Dean Matthew Loden in an email to music students and alumni, which the Thresher and The Barbed
Wire independently reviewed.
“Despite his teaching record, there have recently been serious allegations made against Professor VerMeulen, which we will continue to address.”
The email continued: “Rice is aware of private images that have recently resurfaced on social media. Rice is reviewing the allegations and is prepared to investigate any reports of misconduct.”
Many Shepherd students and faculty understood this to be a dismissal; many said it was long overdue for the self-proclaimed “horn guru.” Dozens of former students, colleagues and acquaintances of VerMeulen who spoke to the Thresher seem to agree on another thing: The allegations were far from recent.
“We knew,” said Corin Droullard, who earned his master’s in 2019 under VerMeulen. “Everyone knew there were dick pics floating around.
“Everyone knew that Rice knew. The administration has known for 30 years.”
In the eight months since VerMeulen’s retirement, 15 of his former students came forward to the Thresher with allegations of sexual misconduct in his studio. Four women told the Thresher that VerMeulen sexually solicited them or physically forced himself on them when they were current or recent students — describing experiences of unwanted touching, groping and kissing. One was so traumatized by her experience in the late 2000s that, after speaking with reporters for months, she decided she was not emotionally prepared to detail her story publicly — but consented to being anonymously included in a total of survivors, since she does not want any other women to experience what happened to her.
last summer and Rice is no longer affiliated with him in any capacity,” the statement continued. “Last November, the Safety and Trust Taskforce was launched with faculty and staff at the Shepherd School of Music to focus on student safety, wellbeing and culture at the school. Dean Matthew Loden laid out a multi-phased approach to explore and implement measures to ensure safety, emotional support and inclusive practices that respect all individuals. Rice is committed to maintaining a respectful and safe environment. Sexual harassment or misconduct will not be tolerated.”
Though he is no longer at the school, VerMeulen still teaches private lessons and workshops, according to his personal website, and he remains the principal horn player and an endowed chair at the Grammy Award-winning Houston Symphony, a role he’s held since 1990. Endowed chairs are common in major orchestras, where patrons, in exchange for a hefty donation, can have an orchestral chair named after them. The Houston Symphony, an historic and wellrespected arts organization in the nation’s fourth-largest city, asks for a $5 million donation to secure an endowed principal chair, meaning VerMeulen occupies one of the orchestra’s most coveted and highprofile seats.
People still fear the influence that [VerMeulen] has, even now. He’s risen from the ashes before.
Dominic Rotella SHEPHERD MASTER’S ’19
Eleven of those former students — who studied under VerMeulen as early as 1995, and as late as 2019 — said they witnessed sexualized jokes, overtures, innuendos and a broader culture of misogyny apparent in VerMeulen’s lessons. His studio, “the Crew,” became a microcosm of the larger brass world, those former students said: maledominated, crude and often cruel, especially toward female students.
Although Rice parted ways with VerMeulen after the private photos emerged on Facebook in 2024, several sources told the Thresher that they directly warned school administrators — starting with an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint and lawsuit in 1997, all the way up to 2022 — about allegations of the professor’s allegedly inappropriate behavior toward students.
The Thresher spoke with six working female horn players in the industry today who said their former professors had warned them to proceed with caution around VerMeulen, who is married, and that he had a reputation for being a “creep” or “womanizer.”
Another five horn players — who teach the instrument in addition to playing with orchestras, common among professional musicians — told the Thresher that they would not feel safe sending students to study in VerMeulen’s studio.
In total, 26 people — former Shepherd pupils, horn students, previous colleagues of VerMeulen and professional hornists — said VerMeulen’s reputation of sexual misbehavior was an open secret in the music world at large.
VerMeulen declined an interview request, and despite multiple attempts, his attorney declined to respond to a list of questions about the allegations reported throughout this article, saying that he did not want to lend legitimacy to the claims.
In response to a detailed list of questions about VerMeulen and Rice’s handling of allegations against him the university said, “Rice takes all concerns of harassment and misconduct seriously. We cannot disclose specific details of investigations due to privacy protections.”
“We can share the faculty member retired
“This matter has been brought to our attention,” the symphony said in a statement after VerMeulen’s departure from Rice, and again in response to questions from the Thresher and The Barbed Wire. “While we do not comment on individual personnel matters, as a fundamental principle we evaluate any allegations of misconduct and will take any actions we determine are necessary and appropriate to ensure that we are providing a safe environment for our musicians, staff, and the public.”
The symphony confirmed on Friday Jan. 31 that VerMeulen still holds his position as principal hornist.
The majority of sources for this story were named victims of VerMeulen’s alleged advances, but many of those who say they experienced what they described as his predatory behavior within the last 15 years spoke only on the condition of anonymity, out of fear of professional retaliation.
“People still fear the influence that he has, even now. He’s risen from the ashes before,” said Dominic Rotella, who studied with VerMeulen from 2017 to 2019 and is currently principal horn of the Richmond Symphony. “He’s still employed by the Houston Symphony, and so he’s still responsible for who gets to [substitute] with that orchestra. And what’s to say that a couple years from now the temperature gets dialed down a bit and some other university hires him?”
Several sources also expressed fear of a lawsuit by VerMeulen.
When the Thresher reached VerMeulen’s attorney, Steve Silverman, for comment about the allegations, he wrote back, “Should you print such an article, there may be unintended consequences for you and your paper.”
Silverman claimed that other news outlets in both Houston and Baltimore had been working on stories about VerMeulen or the private photos that led to his retirement. But Silverman claimed he had successfully convinced other news organizations to drop any articles before they reached publication, citing potential litigation.
The Thresher and The Barbed Wire were not able to independently verify those claims.
‘Collateral damage’
The very first time Carey Potts met William VerMeulen, she knew something was wrong. It was the spring of 1995 and she, like many young horn players at the time, wanted to join the Shepherd School of Music. VerMeulen, then five years into his tenure at Rice, had already started to establish his horn studio as a home for burgeoning talent.
But at the first audition, her gut said something didn’t feel right, she told the Thresher. He leered at her the whole time, gave her “creepy, ugly” looks. He told Potts that she reminded him of his first girlfriend, she said. She left that audition unsettled and declined a seat in VerMeulen’s horn studio, then took a year off music and got married.
But Potts, who had spent her entire young life playing the horn, didn’t know a world without music. So in 1996, she tried again and re-auditioned at Rice. She joined in the fall semester.
Within a year, she had filed a complaint against the school with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging that shortly after the start of her classes at Shepherd, “Mr. VerMeulen began making remarks to me of a sexual nature and comments that indicated my staying in the program was contingent on staying in his good graces.”
Potts subsequently sued Rice, claiming the school maintained “a policy of sexual harassment (hostile work environment and quid pro quo),” according to court records obtained by the Thresher. The civil lawsuit was filed Dec. 9, 1997 in federal court for the Southern District of Texas, and the school settled the case for an undisclosed amount. Potts agreed to speak with the Thresher about her experience at Rice and with VerMeulen but did not discuss the lawsuit or her EEOC complaint, the latter of which did not lead to further action. Reporters used records and interviews with additional sources to fill in the sequence of events.
From the moment she entered Rice, Potts said she felt indebted to VerMeulen for giving her another chance. As classes began, VerMeulen “proceeded to make sexually suggestive remarks and innuendos,” Potts alleged in her civil lawsuit. His “pressure caused her marriage to fail,” she continued in her civil lawsuit, “and she and her husband got divorced as a result.”
He began to invite her to lunch and to dinner, she wrote in her EEOC notice of charge of discrimination, and “his sexual innuendo, comments and sexual propositions escalated while he continuously reminded me of the tenuous nature of my involvement in the program and his ability to oust me from the school.”
“In order to be referred for playing jobs outside the school, recommendations for professional positions and commendations to the faculty and students at the Shepherd
1995 Carey Potts auditions for Rice’s graduate horn program, deferring her acceptance; Myrna Meeroff joins Shepherd in the fall.
1996
Meeroff is “replaced” and departs Rice’s horn studio; Potts joins Shepherd in the fall. In December, Potts meets Houston composer Paul English.
On Oct. 27, Potts files a complaint against Rice with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging that “Mr. VerMeulen began making remarks to me of a sexual nature and comments that indicated my staying in the program was contingent on staying in his good graces.”
On Dec. 7, Potts files a civil lawsuit against Rice, claiming the school maintained “a policy of sexual harassment (hostile work environment and quid pro quo),” according to court records obtained by the Thresher.
told the Thresher. “I was such a young, eager to please, easy to shame person back then, and I think he knew it.”
She relented to his advances and began a sexual relationship that lasted about two months.
By the end of the semester, Potts was saddled with health problems — “significant physical manifestations of her mental anguish,” as alleged in her civil suit — and she had sought help from Paul English, a Houstonbased composer and VerMeulen’s best friend at the time.
While away on vacation, VerMeulen had asked English to check in on Potts, who “broke down” and told English everything: “She felt like her whole career at Rice depended on that relationship,” English said in an interview with the Thresher.
“The definition of ‘rape’ back then for innocent white males like me was different,” English said. “Did he hold her down? Did he strap her to a table? Did he hold a gun to her head?”
“Not to my knowledge, but there are other kinds of rape,” he added. “One is ‘You’ll either do this or you won’t have your scholarship.’”
about Potts’ lawsuit, complaint or experience with school administrators.
Two days later, Kristina Crago — another student in the horn studio — was confused when her classmate, Carey Potts, gathered the group after a recital. Potts had been having “sexual relations” with their professor, she told the studio. She was going to sue Rice.
Crago was one grade below Potts. The two had barely spoken, but she had heard rumors about Potts’ relationship with VerMeulen.
“My first thought was, ‘This is horrible. I hate that this happened to her,’” Crago remembers.
Her next thought: “I’m five weeks into my master’s. What am I going to do with my degree?” It seemed almost guaranteed, she said, that Potts’ allegations would get him dismissed at Rice. When they didn’t, she said, “You go from, ‘Oh, good, we still have him [at Shepherd]. And then you’re like, ‘Wait a minute, will I be safe around him?’” VerMeulen was
That laissez-faire attitude allowed very prominent male teachers to create their own reality. And the administration went along with it, which is the case with Bill VerMeulen.
Julie Landsman
FORMER PRINCIPAL HORNIST AT THE METROPOLITAN OPERA ORCHESTRA
Before classes began for the spring 1997 semester, the three agreed that Potts and VerMeulen would maintain a professional student-teacher relationship and that they’d keep what happened to themselves.
Yet, as the semester progressed, VerMeulen became “irate and hostile,” retaliating against Potts, court records allege.
are references to evidence of inappropriate patterns of behavior consistent with violations of Rice’s sexual harassment policy at the time, including:
• a domineering, forceful style of teaching that included a “crew” concept that meant “socializing with him was a significant element” of the program, and disagreement with him could lead to the “group as a whole closing ranks” on the disagreeing individual
• use of “sexually-explicit similes and metaphors in classroom situations”
• “comments to female students that could be taken to imply sexual interest like ‘Oh, you’re a babe, you’re just the sort of girl I’d have been interested in myself 15 years ago.’”
• an undisputed case in which VerMeulen engaged in “flirtatious banter with clear sexual innuendos”
• another “former female student who, like Ms. Potts, claims she was sexually harrassed by Mr. VerMeulen.”
Yet, the committee justified each element: A domineering teaching style was “clearly viewed by many as the only way to train and produce absolutely first-rate, world-class
VerMeulen is suspended for an academic year, and does not return to Shepherd in the fall. His studio is temporarily run by two substitute hornists. 1998
Rice and Potts enter litigation, according to court records. On Sept. 1, both parties mutually filed to dismiss the case. The school settled for an undisclosed amount.
Mid-2000s
Hannah* joins Rice’s horn studio. She said her lessons were often marked by harsh criticism, overt sexualization and dirty jokes. Later, she alleges VerMeulen drunkenly kissed her during a studio party at his house.
Timeline continued on the opposite page.
“Among other things, he excluded her from participation in class programs, constantly criticized her, failed to provide her with proper instruction, made false and untrue remarks about her to classmates and others,” according to Potts’ civil suit.
Later, as Potts and English spent more time together, they began dating. On Oct. 2, 1997, Potts and English met with Catherine Keneally, Rice’s then-director of the school’s Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity, “to complain about Mr. VerMeulen’s sexual harassment and retaliation,” according to the lawsuit.
At the time, Rice’s sexual harassment policy — issued in 1981, then revised in 1989 and 1992 — defined sexual harassment as “unwelcome sexual advances, unwelcome requests for sexual favors, and other unwelcome verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature,” often when an individual’s education or employment status is conditional on “submission to such conduct.”
Potts and English said the meeting with Keneally was for informal advice. There, they said, Keneally pushed Potts to file a formal complaint. Potts pushed back.
“I’m like, ‘No, I really don’t want to do that,’” she said. Instead, Potts remembered asking if there was a way to get VerMeulen to back off quietly without it escalating. “But that didn’t happen.”
Potts had a meeting scheduled with thenShepherd Dean Michael Hammond the next day to seek his advice, which she said Keneally advised her to cancel. After choosing to keep the appointment anyway, Potts and English remembered arriving at Hammond’s office the next morning and the doors opening to reveal Keneally already inside, sitting opposite Hammond’s desk.
“Paul, I already know everything,” English remembered Hammond saying. English told Hammond that it was “impossible not to suspect that it was a damage control meeting,” according to records.
According to the lawsuit, “Ms. Keneally breached the confidentiality of Plaintiff’s complaints and informed the Dean of the Shepherd School, Michael Hammond, about her allegations. This information was then disseminated to Mr. VerMeulen who offered to resign, but was refused by Dean Hammond.”
Both Keneally and Hammond are deceased, and thus, could not be reached to verify the lawsuit’s claims. Rice’s statement above did not include answers to questions from the Thresher
prompted by another sexual harassment case between a male professor and female student, according to a New York Times article. The statement said, in part: “When the faculty member has professional jurisdiction over the student, sexual relationships (including sexual touching and sexual propositioning) violate professional ethics and could result in disciplinary action as described in the Sexual Harassment Policy.”
But the committee did not suggest disciplinary action for VerMeulen.
It categorized Potts’ allegations as an “affair” that was “more than likely” consensual and found that she “arrived at a distorted perspective of the affair after the relationship ended.” The report described Potts as an uncommitted student and horn player, angry, difficult to teach and with “unresolved problems in both her personal and professional life.”
English, who was interviewed by the committee, wrote a 46-page rebuttal to the report — calling it “poorly presented, factually incorrect, misleading and dangerously irresponsible” and filled with “smear tactics” — which he said he printed, bound and delivered to nearly a dozen administrators. He never received a response.
“The school protects the teacher because they have an investment in the teacher,” English told the Thresher. “The investment in the student is minimal.
“‘We can trash a few students, collateral damage,’” he added. “That’s basically their attitude.”
Throughout the ad hoc committee’s report
As for the other allegation of sexual harassment? “The testimony of this student is problematic,” the committee concluded. “She is known to have persistently mis-interpreted the non-sexual friendly behavior of a fellow male student, despite repeated protestations to the contrary by the young man in question.” (The committee did not include evidence of that assertion.)
The committee’s stance is all the more striking in light of one key detail: Though he initially denied it, VerMeulen admitted in a final interview that he’d had a “sexual relationship” with Potts and that his “behavior was a disgrace,” according to the report.
“I did everything exactly according to their rules,” Potts said. “I followed the steps exactly, and they failed me. And so I had to go then and find an attorney.” The committee’s response, she said, “felt like a witch hunt.”
One piece of evidence gathered by Potts and titled “What I know” detailed conversations Potts had with other witnesses, including Myrna Meeroff and another female student who, according to a copy obtained by the Thresher, said that she had experienced similar sexual solicitations, innuendos and intimidation.
VerMeulen’s alleged misconduct apparently hadn’t gone unnoticed by other members of the studio, either: Two men who studied in the studio that same year would often “work out a schedule” to attend Crago’s private lessons, she told The Barbed Wire. VerMeulen was still employing his open-door policy, which allowed any students to observe their peers’ lessons. She didn’t realize until they told her,
William VerMeulen joins Rice University to lead the Shepherd School of Music’s horn studio
1999 VerMeulen reassumes his position at Shepherd in the fall.
ILLUSTRATION
months later, but the two students had taken turns observing her lessons — quietly watching over her in fear that VerMeulen might soon “target” Crago.
“He made my skin crawl,” she told the Thresher.
Still, the committee concluded that the additional harassment complaints involved “the general teaching style of Mr. VerMeulen which cannot be viewed as a specific discrimination.”
VerMeulen returned to Shepherd in the fall of 1999.
‘They fear retribution’
“That laissez-faire attitude allowed very prominent male teachers to create their own reality. And the administration went along with it, which is the case with Bill VerMeulen,” said Julie Landsman, former principal horn player at the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and current faculty at University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. “They wanted to let Bill do his thing. He attracted students, and the administrators were all about attracting students and letting the teachers with power have as much power as they could take.”
IX’s mandate (is) that a school stop sexual harassment and prevent its reoccurrence.”
In an interview during which the Thresher provided Simon with the contours of the reporting for this story, the attorney said, “To the extent that there’s been a pattern and you’re seeing that pattern, why aren’t you addressing the pattern?”
According to other emails obtained by the Thresher, Rice retained an outside law firm after VerMeulen’s 2024 retirement to investigate the allegations against him. They contacted Potts with a list of questions about her time at Rice, emails show, and reached out to at least three other people with knowledge of VerMeulen’s alleged misconduct.
Neither Potts, nor the three other people, have heard from the university in months.
Rice would not comment on the existence or status of any pending investigations.
The Captain
Some call the French horn a weapon of war. The 12-foot-long child of the sonorous brass family is one of the loudest instruments in an orchestra. It demands a certain brawn
VerMeulen cultivated in his studio, often at the expense of his female students’ well-being, she told the Thresher.
In August of 2022, Landsman scheduled a phone call with Matthew Loden, Shepherd’s dean. Landsman and Loden had known each other for years, she said, meeting previously at a classical music festival and again at the Philadelphia Orchestra. At the time, Loden was new to the job at Rice — he was named in 2021 — and Landsman said she reached out to Loden on a related issue in VerMeulen’s horn studio.
Among the topics discussed was the “toxic” culture, which it seemed that Loden already knew about, said Landsman.
“Oh, yes, I’m aware that Bill has a history. He is on a short leash,” Landsman remembers Loden saying.
In a statement to The Barbed Wire, Loden confirmed that the two spoke on the phone about VerMeulen in 2022 but said he did not remember specific wording. “Because we take all allegations of misconduct seriously, I notified the Title IX office and they initiated a review process in accordance with our policies,” Loden said Monday. “At that time, we did not have sufficient information to take immediate or specific action.”
Before VerMeulen’s retirement, the Thresher and The Barbed Wire found that Rice and its Title IX office were informed through the complaint and lawsuit in 1997, a Title IX case in the late 2010s, and through Loden — via Landsman — in 2022.
Attorney Cari Simon, who has represented sexual assault survivors in university and K-12 settings, told the Thresher that “Title
Emblazoned across the door in capitalized cobalt letters: “The Few. The Proud. The Employed.”
For many aspiring musicians, a career path is clear: Start young. Train hard, and for many years. Audition at a studio to receive even more training. Then, audition for coveted — and ultracompetitive — orchestra seats. For this path, it seemed like VerMeulen’s studio was the place to be. He had a unique formula for winning orchestral auditions, according to a former student from the ’90s: a training program that taught students how to play under extreme pressure, how to hide their weaknesses and display their strengths.
At Rice, “he was the (brass) program, in so many ways,” said Corin Droullard, who earned his master’s in 2019 under VerMeulen.
VerMeulen’s studio housed his “Crew,” the nickname he developed for his studio members. Immer crewdom, he would often write on his Facebook. Always the crew. Over time, this rhetoric gave way to a studio so tightknit it bordered on cult-ish, six former students say. Steering the ship: the “Captain,” a title VerMeulen embraced with enthusiasm. It was on posters for his recital; it was engraved into his whiskey bottles.
“It was a boys’ club, sort of a Bill fanboy environment in the studio,” Droullard said. “There’s this sort of like demigod figure who walks in and commands the respect of the room … It’s interesting talking to people afterwards, because I thought that everyone bought in. I thought they were all on board [with] this ‘Bill effect.’
“He didn’t feel like a professor,” said Droullard. “There was this otherness.”
Many grew loyal to VerMeulen, and for good reason. He delivered on his promises to advance their careers. In an Houston audition described in a 2015 article in The Horn Call, the partition separating the candidates from the hiring committee dropped to reveal that all five finalists were VerMeulen’s students. VerMeulen “recused himself because he was so invested in each candidate’s success.”
VerMeulen’s defenders dismissed critiques of his style as jealousy. “It should be noted that VerMeulen has his detractors despite (or because of!) his success,” The Horn Call published that same year. “There are those who intimate that his teaching is borderline cultism, tantamount to brainwashing. I asked him about these allegations and he good-humoredly acknowledged that he was certainly aware of them. No, he laughed, he does not call students at 4 am and demand they play Shostakovich!”
professional job, principal horn at the Honolulu Symphony. The principal slots, or the section leaders of each instrument, are some of the most coveted positions in an orchestra, earned through years of ceaseless training and stiff competition. By all accounts, VerMeulen seemed somewhat of a young prodigy: Peers his age were still training in their undergraduate studios.
The Shepherd School of Music, established in 1974, was still recruiting new talent to prove itself as a nationally-ranked music school by the late ’80s and early ’90s. Then came VerMeulen, barely 30 years old and already with plenty of accolades under his belt.
The school protects the teacher because they have an investment in the teacher. The investment in the student is minimal.
Even now, VerMeulen remains a beloved figure to some in the industry. In a May 2024 story, classical music site Slipped Disc portrayed VerMeulen as a victim of revenge porn. And a recent graduate of Shepherd’s horn studio said VerMeulen was an incredible instructor who paved the path for every student who has graduated in recent years. For her part, Meeroff estimates that over half the industry still remains supportive of him. Several former students expressed apprehension about speaking to the Thresher on the record, saying they were conflicted about their former professor because he had given them so much.
Paul English HOUSTON COMPOSER
“I show my resume, and I don’t have to take auditions to get into recording gigs and [substitute] lists,” Droullard said. “Rice is an insanely powerful tool, and it 100 percent made me a better musician.”
Timeline continued from the opposite page.
2010 Rebekah Daley joins Rice’s horn studio — at this point, she called VerMeulen’s reputation for sexual misbehavior one of industry’s “poorly kept secrets.”
“People would say, ‘What the fuck are you doing, going to Rice and studying with him?’”
The Thresher and The Barbed Wire independently reviewed over 20 hours of recorded lessons from the mid2000s, up until 2010.
2017 VerMeulen allegedly enters into a relationship with a then-graduate student at Shepherd, who wasn’t a horn player.
Rice institutes a new policy prohibiting sexual or romantic relationships between graduate students and teachers with “direct or indirect professional or supervisory responsibility.”
2022 Hornist Julie Landsman calls Shepherd dean Matthew Loden to discuss, among other related topics, the “toxic” culture of Shepherd’s horn studio. Loden says he alerted Rice’s Title IX office after that call, but the office “did not have sufficient information to take immediate or specific action.”
Hired in 1990, he spent the next 34 years at Rice drawing auditions from bright-eyed horn players across the country. His students won coveted orchestra roles, and his success rates were high — 90% according to The Horn Call. Over time, his reputation started to precede him: Dominic Rotella, principal horn of the Richmond Symphony, recalls knowing VerMeulen as a “hot shot teacher” before they met in the summer of 2005. The door to VerMeulen’s studio was covered in yellow index cards, each detailing employment offers that his students had received over the decades. By 2021, he had amassed 515 offers, according to a post VerMeulen made on Facebook that year.
VerMeulen’s page on the Houston Symphony website claims he is “one of today’s superstars of the international brass scene” and is “one of the most influential horn teachers of all time,” whose students have received 250 positions of employment at orchestras in New York, Boston, Montreal, Toronto, Los Angeles, Chicago and Israel.
Still, one former student, who trained at Shepherd’s horn studio in the ’90s, remembered his professor as a volatile man, often marked by a temper, a deep conviction in his own talents, and a self-assurance so strong he was almost capable of “creating his own reality.” In the studio, Rotella — the principal horn of the Richmond Symphony — describes a tenuous balance between VerMeulen’s adept talents
2024 In April, A wave of #MeToo-esque reckonings rolled through the classical music world last year, prompted in part by a New York Magazine report detailing detailed sexual assault and misconduct allegations against two members of the New York Philharmonic, who were fired in 2018, then reinstated through union arbitration.
In May, VerMeulen abruptly retires from his post at Rice. Loden sends an email to music students and alumni, saying “Rice is aware of private images that have recently resurfaced on social media. Rice is reviewing the allegations and is prepared to investigate any reports of misconduct.”
ILLUSTRATION BY THE BARBED WIRE
and “boorish” personality. Two current Shepherd professors, one former colleague, and one former student all describe him as an outright “bully.”
Nine horn players who studied with VerMeulen said cruelty was a cornerstone of his instruction. “The music industry can be tough love,” said one former student. “Bill was definitely the toughest.”
“He sort of appears to have self-styled himself as the ‘horn guru,’” said violinist Lara St. John. St. John is also a gender equity activist and describes herself as an “unofficial spokesperson of this music #MeToo movement.” Though St. John never attended Shepherd or studied with VerMeulen, she said his reputation of alleged sexual misconduct was widely known across the horn world.
“People bought into that [horn guru attitude], it seems,” St. John said. “And what’s really disgusting is, so did Rice. So did the Shepherd School.”
‘He was the victim’
The first movement of Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 features a horn solo, which is often taught in VerMeulen’s studio. The solo starts off unassuming, just a whisper — pianissimo, very softly — as the pace briskens, unfolding into a soaring crescendo. Stringendo, the sheet music instructs: Tempo should quicken to a climax.
Rebekah Daley joined Shepherd in 2010. In his lessons with her, VerMeulen described these bars as the build-up to an orgasm, Daley told the Thresher. A passage with dulcet tones: vaginal lubrication, he said. Articulating a short, staccato note through the instrument’s mouthpiece: “spitting a cunt hair” out of your teeth. “Any way that he could fit sex in, he would,” Daley said.
The grievance committee detailed VerMeulen’s penchant for using sexual metaphors in class in its 1998 report, even using the Brahms example specifically, noting that it “probably has genuine music validity and apparently is a well-known interpretation of the piece.” Another example the committee learned about — comparing lip and mouth positions while playing the horn to a “blow job” — “obviously has no validity,” the committee wrote.
after the former student played a verse. Several months later, he was discussing his finances mid-lesson — “I mean, I make a ton of money” — before saying to her: “I take you [students] out all the time. I haven’t taken you out in a while.” In another, he asks the student about the meaning of a German title of a musical piece — which translates to “maiden in the bridal chamber” — and says: “Before or after the wedding? I’m just trying to get my motivation.”
Later, in an interview with the Thresher, the student said re-listening to the audio made her “uncomfortable.” In the moment, she remembered deflecting the conversation to talk about his family.
“I wanted to start recording my lessons because if anything made me uncomfortable, I wanted to be recording,” she said, “in order to have that protection.”
In another recorded lesson from 2010, the student is audibly stifling tears after an hour of sharp reviews. “You know I think you’re wonderful, right?” VerMeulen asks, saying he will take her to lunch “to be nice.”
Hannah*, who spoke to the Thresher on the condition of anonymity out of fear of professional retaliation, joined Rice’s horn studio in the late 2000s for her master’s degree. She remembers the “vaginal lubrication” metaphor used often, and vividly, in her lessons. VerMeulen’s harsh criticism — “forceful and domineering,” as the 1997 report said — was often intertwined with overt sexualization and dirty jokes.
She said many horn students, both Rice and Houston-based, would often sit in on her lessons, in line with VerMeulen’s open door policy. After one such lesson ended, she remembered being pulled aside by a local freelancer who had observed her session.
“The man asked me, like, ‘Are you okay? That was the filthiest lesson I’ve ever witnessed.’”
Hannah doesn’t remember what VerMeulen had said to her that day.
“It was just normal. The only thing that stuck with me was that this freelancer asked me about it after, because it kind of broke the spell for me,” she said.
I saw it as part of a larger pattern, rather than just this drunken moment.
Hannah*
SHEPHERD MASTER’S 2000S
Though the committee found at least one student had been embarrassed by VerMeulen’s “sexually-explicit language,” it also said that “it was clear to us that Mr. VerMeulen has been undergoing a learning process, recognizing that language and conversation styles appropriate for his professional orchestra friends are not appropriate for the classroom.”
Yet, for decades afterwards, the Thresher found that at least eight students continued to witness inappropriate, explicitly sexual metaphors employed in his instruction.
The Thresher and The Barbed Wire reviewed more than 20 hours of one-on-one lessons recorded by a former student in the late 2000s through 2010.
In early 2017, VerMeulen — then 56 years old — was in a relationship with a graduate student and the original recipient of the private photos mentioned in Rice’s announcement of his retirement. She wasn’t a horn player and didn’t study directly under VerMeulen. But her close friend, Lindsay*, confirmed to the Thresher that the relationship started when she was a graduate student at the Shepherd School. Lindsay spoke to the Thresher about her experience with VerMeulen on the condition of anonymity out of fear of professional retaliation.
“He absolutely abused his position of power,” she said, “and I think that he knowingly engaged in an inappropriate relationship.”
A few months after that relationship ended, in 2017, VerMeulen was visiting Lindsay’s school to teach masterclasses. The two got coffee and, despite her
told the Thresher. “He seemed to feel, in a lot of ways, that he was the victim.”
Lindsay said he spoke disparagingly about the #MeToo movement, which had just started to reach its zenith: “He felt the whole thing had been blown out of proportion because of the #MeToo movement. Not because it was an inappropriate relationship, but because of the culture that was happening.”
Thirty minutes later, she returned to campus with one thought in her mind: This is the worst person I know.
VerMeulen’s attorney claimed that a Title IX investigation by Rice over the photos yielded no findings of wrongdoing by VerMeulen. (Rice would not comment on specific Title IX investigations related to VerMeulen during his tenure.)
Rice did not have an official policy prohibiting studentteacher sexual relationships in 2017.
It wasn’t until two years later, in September 2019, when Rice instituted a new policy that sexual or romantic relationships between graduate students and teachers with “direct or indirect professional or supervisory responsibility” are prohibited. For undergraduate students, relationships “are prohibited, regardless of current or future professional responsibility over such students.”
remembered. Adults were scarce at these parties, Daley said.
“There was a lot of alcohol, a lot of underage drinking in his presence,” said Jeffrey Rogers, who attended Shepherd for his undergraduate degree from 1994-1999. “We used to get completely wasted and he’d make us play through pieces.”
“In hindsight, the thing that sticks in my mind the most is that the level of drunkenness was extreme,” said Hannah, who studied with VerMeulen in the late 2000s. She departed the studio after winning a shortlived job in an orchestra several cities away, though would sometimes return to Houston — common for many of VerMeulen’s former students — to take private lessons before important auditions.
People would say, ‘What the fuck are you doing, going to Rice and studying with him?’
Rebekah Daley
During one such visit, Hannah found herself in Houston just in time for a notorious crew party. Toward the end of the night, she said VerMeulen drunkenly pulled her aside. He often got “extraordinarily drunk, as drunk as (the students) did,” she remembers.
SHEPHERD MASTER’S ’12
Hannah’s memory is blurry from the alcohol, she said — she, too, had partaken in VerMeulen’s remarkably strong punch — but she remembered two things: He kissed her. It was unwanted.
He kissed her. It was unwanted.
When Rebekah Daley joined Shepherd in 2010, she had heard rumors about VerMeulen’s history of sleeping with students and was familiar with VerMeulen’s reputation for sexual misbehavior — calling it one of the industry’s “poorly kept secrets.”
“People would say, ‘What the fuck are you doing, going to Rice and studying with him?’” But at the end of the day, VerMeulen was good at what he did. His career spanned decades and continents; his students won coveted spots in orchestras. So Daley walked into his studio, braced for what may come.
“It was known that [VerMeulen] broke as many as he made,” Corin Droullard contends. “I had heard, ‘If you’re a girl, don’t go to Rice.’”
Sarah*, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of professional retaliation, said the thought of auditioning at Shepherd never crossed her mind as a young musician. Around 2005, her high school teacher had steered her away from the horn studio — and she believed it was because of VerMeulen’s reputation with female students.
“When this sort of behavior is considered acceptable by an institution, it hurts women. It hurts our chances at success in these really small ways that add up,” she said. “I was successful without Bill’s tutelage. But I always wonder, if I had been a student, what would it have afforded me?”
Daley, who stayed long enough to finish her degree, tried her best to grit her way through. VerMeulen’s lessons, she said, were draped in sexual overtones; his gaze, when not on his music, was often fixated
“You could just tell when he was attracted to students,” Daley said. “It was very obvious, like when he was seeing them
When she was 22 years old, her drink of choice was a Belgian tripel. VerMeulen often bought them for her, she said, just before his semi-frequent “crew parties” at
“He did these grooming behaviors (that) are so effective,” Daley said. “This is a very, very busy man. And he made a special trip, to a special store, just to get me the beer
Most of the horn studio attended the parties, eight former students told the Thresher. Crew parties were often incomplete without the communal Captain’s punch, a brew of VerMeulen’s own making. It was typically a giant picnic cooler filled with a few types of rum and juice; “it really sneaks up on you,” one former student
“I just was like, ‘Ew, gross. What the fuck was that?’” she said. She didn’t speak of that night for years afterward, she told the Thresher. Not until she started hearing about other allegations against him,
“It didn’t bother me until I heard all of this other stuff coming out,” she said, “and then I saw it as part of a larger pattern, rather than just this drunken moment.”
Rachel*, who studied with VerMeulen in the late 2000s — and similarly requested anonymity, fearing professional retribution — said her time at Shepherd was similarly marked by overly sexual jokes and flirtatious remarks, leaving her uncomfortable and often frozen. “I love a woman with a good bottom,” she remembered him commenting in group chamber coaching, chuckling at the double entendre; she had just played a deep, low note at the bottom of her range.
At least four or five times, she remembers VerMeulen complimenting her body, saying she looked great in a bikini. Sometimes it was during private lessons, other times at his house during the studio’s crew parties, where he often encouraged students to use his hot tub, she said. She additionally remembers him being “discouraging” of her relationships at the time.
She didn’t know it at the moment, she said, but looking back, she said she has since realized his jokes and comments were an invitation to have “some sort of a flirtatious, romantic, sexual relationship with him.”
“He gradually throws in little comments that are too sexual to see how you’ll tolerate it,” she added. “They just keep getting more and more and more sexual and more inappropriate until you’re just in a pot of boiling water, and you don’t realize it.”
Rebekah Daley’s time at Shepherd was draining, she remembered. Too much of her energy — energy that she believes should have been spent honing her instrument — was instead directed toward protecting herself.
“I think it would be really interesting to go to school and assume that the teacher is there trying to teach you, and trying to do his best by you,” Daley said. “But I always knew that that was not going to be the reality for me.”
Daley has kept close contact with several of her peers from Shepherd, many of whom grappled with similar behavior in VerMeulen’s studio. “I think that no one has a lot of trust in Rice.”
“And what about you?” the Thresher asked.
“Absolutely not. None.”
This story was fact checked by Leslie Rangel. Copy editing by Brian Gaar. Editing by Cara Kelly and Olivia Messer. Additional support by The Barbed Wire’s art team and by
Candace Henry and Billy Begala.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
community.”
Unlike Riyaaz, many of the dance teams at Rice do not formally compete.
They may not win points for the ever-desired President’s Cup of Rice’s intramural sports, but the dance community at Rice puts in hours refining their craft and preparing for showcases, cultural performances and competitions.
Dance groups range from casual to intensive, with some focusing on cultural dance. Rice Riyaaz, a Bollywood fusion group, competes across the nation in two circuits known as Legends and Bollywood America.
Team member Naisha Mekala said the breadth of styles that Riyaaz members study sets them apart from other dance teams.
Members spend seven hours practicing each week, and even more in the spring prior to competition season.
“We learn a variety of dance styles like hip-hop, bollywood, bhangra, South Indian, contemporary and classical Indian dance. We combine all of these styles in our competition sets,” Mekala, a Lovett College sophomore, said. “ It’s really fun to create a set that is fun and creative while also forming our own
Rice Dance Theatre is one of these — instead of practicing for a final competition, RDT holds a showcase each semester with student-choreographed performances of up to twenty-eight pieces.
Avery Janenda, RDT’s president, said that the main reason dancers join RDT is the opportunity to perform at an advanced level.
“Since Rice doesn’t have a dance program, I think that we’re one of the more serious dance clubs on campus,” Janenda, a McMurtry College junior, said. “Dancers who audition – [there’s] usually a lot of dancers who were competitive in high school, and are interested in pursuing it on a higher level without going into a profession, because most of our dancers are not looking to become professional dancers.”
The group of 40 dancers can commit as much time to the organization as they are motivated to – though the group requires three hours of practice a week, some choose to put up to 10 hours a week into training.
Rice Dance Theatre hires local dance teachers twice a week in a variety of styles, though mostly in the contemporary genre. Instead of relying solely on school support or alumni donations to fund these lessons, most of the money is made by the dancers themselves.
“It’s just kind of been built up over the years. We try not to lose any money throughout the year,” Janenda said. “We make a lot of money during our showcase, selling tickets for students and for parents who want to come in out of town – then a lot of our money goes towards paying our teachers. So, we try to have a net zero from the end of the semester.”
Another dance team on campus is the official Rice Owls Dance Team, which is heavily affiliated with Rice’s athletics program and has the benefit of two official coaches.
Currently, the team cheers at Rice football and basketball games. The close association with Rice athletics is a significant draw for some members of the team, says team member Mishel Dhanani.
“I’m a really big sports girl and I do want to go into the NFL for NFL
cheerleading. The seed was actually planted by my coach when she asked me [if] I ever wanted to go professional,” Dhanani, a Sid Richardson College sophomore, said. “I chose the Rice [Owls] Dance team because I’d always been a cheerleader in high school, so I just love doing football. I love watching the sport and I’m very passionate, and I also like supporting our players.”
However, the team also hovers in the uncertain space between being a club team and gaining official status as Rice athletes, according to Dhanani.
“Logistically, in a way, we are part of Rice, so we do get directions from them. We actually got heavily incorporated into basketball games [this year], and that’s when we started feeling like, ‘Oh, we’re real athletes,’ because in the years past, we’ve been treated just like a club,” Dhanani said. “We are at every game, we’re at every single event, but I don’t know if they might switch us to being full athletes. I would say we’re like halfathletes right now.”
On the positive side, this means no intensive early-morning training sessions, but it also means that the dance team gets no off-seasons – they are always either performing or training for auditions.
Currently, RODT is preparing for the spring showcase.
Though the team is not technically competitive, they are working towards qualifying for the Universal Dance Association national competitions, which features high school and collegiate cheerleadings and dance events.
Though all the dance teams have different goals, whether it be official competitions, showcases or personal achievement, the motivations of the individual dancers may boil down to the same thing.
“I am so thankful that I did make it because I have lifelong friends. It gives me something to do, keeps me occupied, and I love being busy,” Dhanani said. “Any athletic team has their downs and ups, but I think this is a really good opportunity, at least for me, and I know a lot of the girls on the team, we do it for
COURTESY NAISHA MEKALA
Rice Riyaaz, a student Bollywood fusion dance team, poses for their annual team picture.
Chinese Student Association celebrates Year of the Snake
Lions, dragons and K-pop dances, oh my! The Rice Chinese Students Association held its annual Lunar New Year Gala Feb. 1, ringing in the Year of the Snake with performances, food and vibrant cultural festivities.
This year’s showcase drew around 500 attendees, according to CSA co-internal vice president Sarah Zeng — a number that reflects the gala’s consistently high demand.
“I’m most excited to see all the guests enjoy the event,” Zeng, a Lovett College junior, said. “That’s who we’re throwing it for every year, so being able to serve the community and share our culture with Rice students — whether they’re familiar with it or want that ‘home away from home’ vibe — is really meaningful.”
This year’s gala showcased a wide array of student groups — including Rice Dance Theatre, Basyk, Kasama and the Vietnamese Student Association — as well as the nonRice-affiliated North American Youth
According to CSA co-president Amy He, preparations for this year’s gala began as early as September 2024. She said that efforts centered on creating an immersive experience for attendees through various new additions and improved logistics.
“We’ve learned a lot of lessons from hosting [the gala] in previous years,” He, a Sid Richardson College senior, said. “We’re taking the improvements we’ve made to plan for this year … figuring out different ways we can store our food so it doesn’t get cold or … solutions for other problems we ran into in the past.”
Co-internal vice president Hanna Zhang said this year’s CSA board wanted to elevate the gala experience beyond last year’s event.
“I think this year, we definitely tried to increase the amount of stuff that’s involved,” Zhang, a Duncan College junior, said. “We bought a ton of decor for the lobby, we’re giving out little red envelopes [hongbao] with chocolate inside and we also invited an outside orchestra … We’re hoping the audience will really enjoy all these elements
of Chinese culture coming together.”
Among the night’s acts was the Rice Lions’ lion dance, complete with acrobatics, elevated tables and audience interactions. The team has made a tradition of performing at the gala each time it’s been held in person in recent years.
Rice Lions’ Co-President Khoi Nguyen said the Lions look forward to sharing this tradition with the Rice community — especially those seeing a lion dance for the first time.
“We’ve been performing at the CSA LNY Gala ever since they started again after COVID, and I’m pretty sure the club also performed before COVID,” Nguyen, a Duncan senior, said. “Being able to share our culture and lion dancing with people who may have never seen it before is really exciting.”
Karen Zhang, the other Rice Lions’ co-president, said the group’s hard work culminated in adding an elevated table routine this year. Performers leapt up and down from table platforms during the dance.
“Our club revived two years ago, so the most experience that any of our members have is two years,” Zhang, a Baker College senior, said. “This year, we’ve finally gotten enough skill to perform an elevated tables routine, which is really exciting. I’m super proud of my team for coming this far in our skill set.”
Alongside Rice Lions’ acrobatic display, the gala featured a range of other performances highlighting different facets of Asian culture.
Acts included a fan dance by the Vietnamese Student Association, a separate dragon dance by the Rice Taiwanese Association, modern K-pop numbers by Basyk and Rice Dance Theatre and, for the first time, live music by the North American Youth Chinese Orchestra.
“I think one of my favorite parts was the Chinese Youth Orchestra,” Zeng said. “We don’t usually have external guests like that … It was cool to bring a bit of traditional Chinese culture in, and it was great to see them well-received by the crowd.”
Many students said seeing friends perform on the big stage was a highlight of the evening.
“I am most excited to see some of my friends perform,” Matt Banschbach, a Sid Richardson senior, said.
Sid Richardson junior Olivia Jin agreed and said she most enjoyed how cultural showcases bring people together.
“I think seeing my friends perform is gonna be really exciting,” Jin said. “I think [the Lunar New Year gala] really introduces people to a huge part of Asian culture … It’s kind of unifying because we have people representing all of these different cultures, and we get to really learn more about each other.”
CSA’s leadership said they hope offering a platform for these diverse groups encourages cross-cultural collaboration and fosters a sense of solidarity within Rice’s Asian community.
“I think the Lunar New Year showcase has always been a way for the Asian community at Rice to celebrate and showcase their cultural heritage,” He said. “A lot of different groups perform work they do throughout the year … It’s a big opportunity for us to come together and learn more about each other’s backgrounds.”
Zeng also said the event’s success hinged on both months of behind-thescenes work and the enthusiastic support of the Rice community.
“Being able to serve people in that way and share our culture … That’s the part I’m most excited for,” Zeng said.
MFAH’s art-inspired fashion show lights up the runway
CHARLIE CRUZ THRESHER STAFF
Asian art and contemporary fashion collided at the 2025 Museum of Fine Arts Houston’s Fashion Fusion show Jan. 30, drawing both admiration and critique from event attendees.
In collaboration with Houston Community College’s award-winning fashion design program, the event challenged students and alumni to craft original garments inspired by the museum’s Arts of Asia collection. With the runway framed by the museum’s grand galleries, designers incorporated motifs and aesthetics from Chinese porcelain, Indian textiles, Japanese nature prints and Korean ceramics.
HCC professor Alex Chapman said the event was a creative deep dive for his students.
“It’s a privilege to have this relationship with the MFAH,” Chapman said. “Our students can express themselves and channel the cultural significance of the art they’re inspired by.”
Among the pieces showcased at the MFAH’s Fashion Fusion show were designs that demonstrated both artistic intricacy and cultural homage.
Estefania Espindola’s “Golden Core” dazzled with opulent gold accents and a structured, voluminous skirt, evoking the refined craftsmanship of Korean celadon pottery. Maria Dyevre’s “A Dream of Nature” featured a green palette with delicate pressed flowers, inspired by
Japanese nature aesthetics and traditional screens and creating a dreamlike harmony between organic and artistic forms. Kuteka Hill’s “Dragon Sky” reimagined Chinese mythological dragons with flowing, cloudlike textures in cool blues and whites, capturing a celestial, otherworldly presence on the runway.
These designs, along with others, highlighted the transformative power of fashion as a medium for artistic and cultural expression.
Though the designs earned praise, some attendees raised concerns about representation. Michelle Lin, an event attendee, expressed disappointment over the absence of diversity among the models.
“There were very few Asian models,” Lin said. “The designers worked hard, but there was this ‘quirky Asian girl’ stereotype with the hair and makeup that felt disconnected from authentic representation.”
Despite these critiques, the designers were proud of their accomplishments. Many described the creative process as both challenging and rewarding. Dyevre, whose design emphasized the importance of drawing from a broad range of artistic influences.
“Fashion is for anyone who wants to learn about it,” Dyevre said. “It’s also all about the references you surround yourself with. Music, literature, movies, art — if you immerse yourself in those, you can’t go wrong.”
Dyevre said the project deepened her admiration for Japanese art.
“I love how they express nature’s beauty
and fragility,” Dyevre said. “That really spoke to me during this creative process.”
Andrea Neal, whose vibrant design “First Night of Fiesta” drew cheers from the audience, spoke about overcoming stage fright.
“At first, I was intimidated by the challenge of transforming ancient art into fashion,” Neal said. “But in the end, it was so much fun. It felt natural — like I was right where I needed to be.”
Neal’s advice for aspiring designers was straightforward.
“Practice,” Neal said. “Find what inspires you and have fun with it.”
The evening’s top honor went to Hill for her design, “Dragon Sky.” Accepting the Best in Show award, Hill expressed
her gratitude.
“This experience has been incredible,” Hill said. “Collaborating with the MFAH has opened new creative possibilities for me.”
First-place winners, including Hill, earned scholarships to the Glassell School of Art, emphasizing the event’s commitment to fostering emerging creative talent through educational support.
Emily Stein, MFAH’s senior director of development, said that the event reinforced fashion’s status as a serious, researchdriven art form.
“It’s not just about clothes,” Stein said. “It’s about storytelling, identity, and cultural connection. This show lets the public see that fashion is a powerful creative force.”
Chinese Orchestra.
KATHERINE HUI / THRESHER Rice Dance Theatre performed at the Lunar New Year Gala Feb. 1.
CHARLIE CRUZ / THRESHER Models pose after the Museum of Fine Arts Houston’s fashion show Jan. 30.
ARMAN SAXENA A&E EDITOR
Student-run “Sleepy Cyborg” brings abstract art to life
KRISTAL
HANSON THRESHER STAFF
Tucked away in the basement of Sewall Hall is a small 10-by-12foot gallery, with an extension in the sculpture courtyard nicknamed “the pit.” “Sleepy Cyborg,” a gallery initially started in 2009 under the name “Matchbox,” is run entirely by students, allowing student artists to experiment, curate and showcase their work outside of more formal programs.
This exhibition, “Stretchy, Soapy, Scintillating, Sharp”, marks a revival for Sleepy Cyborg. Thanks to a team of five curators – all of whom are senior Visual and Dramatic Arts majors – the gallery is back in motion, after largely spending last year inactive.
Alice Bian, a Brown College senior, led the curation effort with Jenny Liu, a Sid Richardson College senior. According to Bian, while the art department provides funding, everything else – the vision, the execution and the artistic direction – is purely student-driven.
“It’s special because it’s all studentrun, and it’s very much a student initiative,” Bian said.
Beyond reviving the space, “Stretchy, Soapy, Scintillating, Sharp” takes on an artistic challenge: repositioning abstract art to make it more immediate, intimate and accessible.
“The show is trying to gather people at Rice that are doing abstract art and then put them in conversation with one another,” Bian said.
Curating within the constraints of
such a small space forces a certain kind of precision, according to Bian.
“It does challenge us to pick and choose pieces because there is not as much of a space,” Bian said.
Bian said that every piece had to be deliberately selected, and its placement had to be carefully considered. The
Sharp” feels more like stepping into a movie set than a traditional gallery.
Large double doors lead in from the pit. Immediately, a sculpture that almost looks like it has legs hangs on the left side of the entrance. On the right, a small box TV sits on a table in front of a bench, its screen buzzing
team leaned into the idea of a hotel lobby and played with the tension between something designed to be seen and something meant to be ignored.
Walking into the “Sleepy Cyborg” space for “Stretchy, Soapy, Scintillating,
with fluid graphics.
Above the bench, a sculpture incorporating wood and rope sits against the wall, draping onto the bench, playing into the show’s emphasis on materiality. Brown paper
wallpaper with blue fish wraps around the space, further reinforcing the sensory focus.
One of the largest pieces in the show belongs to Ellie Jung, a junior from Sid Richardson who is studying cognitive science and VADA. Jung said she found Sleepy Cyborg through an Instagram post and, realizing her piece fit the show’s theme, decided to submit her piece: a massive five-foot collage.
“I try to do bodily abstractions of different things,” Jung said. “So I used painted paper towels, I used a print that I photocopied, and I used duct tape [to create] these abstract textures.”
Jung’s piece resists a neat, contained reading, which she said is precisely why she embraces abstraction.
“I started off painting very realistically, and I actually got very frustrated because I think I get bored really easily,” Jung said. “Once I realized that art could be a place for me to explore and not be so contained, I was like, wait, I do like art.”
“Stretchy, Soapy, Scintillating, Sharp” leans into that idea of exploration through abstraction, resisting a singular interpretation. Inside the gallery, stockings filled with pebbles hang from one wall, while architectural sculptures sit on the floor. Each piece is there to “activate different sensory experiences,” Bian said.
The next “Sleepy Cyborg” show, set for late February, will be a collaboration with the Black Art Collective. While details are still being developed, the partnership continues Sleepy Cyborg’s role as a gallery and a platform for students’ artistic voices.
Review: ‘Nickel Boys’ is an intimate masterpiece
ARMAN SAXENA A&E EDITOR
Oscar season might have crowned Brady Corbet as the new “great American director” for his ambitiously sprawling “The Brutalist,” but with Nickel Boys — his adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel — RaMell Ross stuns us all, staking a bold claim as a visionary, essential voice in American filmmaking.
This is the same Ross who brought lyricism and humanity to his documentary “Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” and “Nickel Boys” proves that his impressionistic, empathetic style can cross over into narrative filmmaking without losing any of its haunting potency.
Quite the opposite, in fact: Ross’s signature humanism shines even brighter here.
Set primarily in the early 1960s, “Nickel Boys” chronicles Elwood (Ethan Herisse), a wideeyed Black teenager whose dreams of college and civic progress collide headfirst with the brutal reality of Jim Crow Florida. Hitchhiking one day on what should have been his way to a brighter future, Elwood lands in Nickel Academy — a hellish reform school where “rehabilitation” barely masks the cruelty and forced labor inflicted upon the Black boys trapped there. There he meets Turner (Brandon Wilson), whose hard-won cynicism fuels his belief that the system will forever be rigged against them.
Their tenuous friendship forms the beating heart of Ross’ film, a delicate interplay of hope, despair and the yearning for a future that might validate both perspectives. The biggest revelation of “Nickel Boys” is how Ross manages to merge raw emotional storytelling with the lyrical documentary flourishes that made Hale County so unforgettable.
Shot entirely through a dynamic firstperson perspective, “Nickel Boys” grants the audience an intimacy rarely felt in narrative film. Whether we’re peering
up from a cramped bus seat alongside Elwood, glimpsing the reflection of an iron in a sunlit kitchen or leaning over Turner’s shoulder as he trudges through the Nickel Academy’s yard at night, every frame is breathtakingly alive.
Ross coaxes viewers to inhabit his characters’ anxieties and hopes, creating a personal immediacy that’s both beautiful and jarring — we’re never allowed a comfortable distance from what these boys endure.
This visual intimacy extends seamlessly to the film’s humane, character-driven center.
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor’s Hattie is a standout, her love and deep reservoir of regret palpable with just a single, long-held look. Her scenes, however brief, encapsulate the film’s ability to weld raw tenderness and seething injustice together, often in the same moment.
Ethan Herisse’s soulful take on Elwood captures both the wonder and naivete of a teen who still believes in Dr. King’s dream, while Brandon Wilson injects Turner with enough warmth under his cynicism to suggest the possibility of hard-earned transformation.
The camera’s unwavering closeness makes every performance feel intimate, and that emotional tether lingers long after the credits roll. From a technical standpoint, “Nickel Boys” stands as one of the year’s most exquisitely crafted films.
The editing laces together daydreams, flashbacks and glimpses of the outside world — its civil rights marches, its NASA rocket launches — into a tapestry of American promise contrasted against the hidden atrocities at Nickel Academy.
Jomo Fray’s cinematography can pivot from quiet, observational stillness to rapturous, expressionistic passages that evoke the best of Ross’s documentary roots. Adding yet another layer to the film’s sensory tapestry is the score by Scott Alario and Alex Somers, a lush and occasionally glitchy soundscape that pulses with sorrow,
resilience and the faint hum of possibility.
As profoundly moving as “Nickel Boys” is, it also raises a timely critique of America’s cherished narrative of progress. By weaving glimpses of the 1960s civil rights movement together with Nickel’s entrenched violence, Ross underscores the gap between what the country celebrates as forward motion and the everyday brutalities that remain hidden or dismissed.
One of the film’s most haunting questions is how far we’ve really come when so many of the same systems persist under new names and softened veneers. Elwood believes that radical progress is inevitable; Turner sees only new manifestations of old injustices. Neither is entirely wrong and this tension — as relevant today as it was in 1962 — lends “Nickel Boys” a disarming urgency.
Amid that urgency, Ross insists on capturing moments of quiet grace that elevate this film beyond mere condemnation of systemic violence.
There are fleeting shots of children at play, a young couple capturing their love in a Photo Booth, the hush of Christmas lights in a welcoming home. These glimpses of life are heartbreakingly precious, underscoring that hope and beauty persist even in places hellbent on destroying them.
“Nickel Boys” never preaches, but rather sees, records and ultimately affirms that the everyday joys of marginalized communities are as essential to understanding the world as any major historical event.
This article has been cut off for print. Read more at ricethresher.org.
AMAZONMGM STUDIOS
AIDEN LI / THRESHER
Seniors named semifinalists in NFL’s sports analytics competition
ANA RIVERA THRESHER STAFF
The NFL Big Data Bowl attracts thousands of participants annually. Sponsored by the NFL, the competition provides player tracking data and challenges participants to develop insights to inform real-world football decisionmaking. This year’s competition focused on pre-snap movement — how players move before the ball is snapped and its impact on gameplay. The competition took place virtually from Oct. 10, 2024 to Jan. 1, 2025.
Jonah Lubin and Charlie Wells, both Hanszen College seniors, were named semifinalists in this year’s competition. Lubin, who studies sport analytics and sport management with a concentration in sport law, and Wells, who studies computer science and math, worked together to analyze how pre-snap motion affects how open receivers are.
Their project sought to determine whether a receiver’s ability to get open was a result of skill or influenced by presnap movement.
“The objective was to quantify how much pre-snap movement helps receivers gain separation,” Lubin said. “We wanted to see if certain players were excelling on their own or if they were benefiting disproportionately from play design.”
Lubin and Wells analyzed player tracking data from the first eight weeks of the 2022 NFL season. This dataset, composed of millions of rows of data, provided movement information for every player on the field at every moment.
Lubin, who has experience in data science and football analytics, used machine learning models in R and RStudio, to predict receiver openness.
In particular, Lubin used gradient boosting techniques, which combine insights from multiple models to create a better prediction.
motion hadn’t occurred and then compare that to real-game scenarios.”
Initially, the team pursued a different hypothesis — predicting the likelihood that a player would receive the ball on a given play and the expected yardage gain. However, after testing, they determined the approach lacked statistical significance and refocused their efforts.
“We had already spent weeks on our first idea before realizing the data wasn’t supporting our hypothesis in a meaningful way,” Lubin said. “Shifting directions wasn’t easy, but ultimately, it was necessary to produce something insightful.”
After months of work, Lubin and Wells’ project placed in the top 10 out of thousands of submissions, earning them semifinalist recognition.
“It was rewarding to see our project recognized among some of the best in the competition,” Lubin said. “We spent so much time refining our approach that just making the semifinals felt like validation of the effort.”
While this was their first time competing, some of the researchers they competed against have been doing this competition for years. One of those researchers was Quang Nguyen, an experienced competitor known for his strong analytical approach and deep understanding of football data.
“Seeing our names listed alongside researchers from some of the top analytics programs and professionals in the industry was surreal,” Wells said. “It reinforced that the work we did was rigorous and meaningful.”
Their success drew attention from NFL professionals, Lubin said.
Seeing our names listed alongside researchers from some of the top analytics programs and professionals in the industry was surreal.
Charlie Wells
“Our model estimated a receiver’s openness by looking at their movement relative to defenders just before and after the snap,” Lubin said. “By isolating the impact of motion, we could see whether a receiver was actually skilled at getting open or if pre-snap movement was inflating their effectiveness.”
HANSZEN COLLEGE SENIOR
Wells handled data preparation and transformation using Python. His work included projecting player movements into the future and computing how far apart receivers and defenders were.
“Raw tracking data doesn’t immediately tell you which players benefited from motion,” Wells explained. “We had to build models that would predict where defenders would be if
“I’ve received messages from people working in NFL analytics departments who were interested in what we did,” Lubin said. “It’s been encouraging to know that real decisionmakers found value in our approach.”
Lubin and Wells said their complementary skill sets played a crucial role in their project’s success. Lubin focused on the football and statistical aspects, while Wells concentrated on data engineering and model implementation.
“We never had any major conflicts,” Lubin said. “Charlie has a strong technical background, and I have more experience in football analytics, so we each trusted the other to handle their part.”
Wells said he had similar feelings about combining their football and data analytics knowledge.
“Jonah understands the game at a deep level, and that helped ensure our analysis wasn’t just technically sound but
also relevant,” Wells said. “There’s a big difference between running a model and actually producing something that makes sense in a football context.”
Beyond the competition, both Lubin and Wells saw this experience as a significant learning opportunity.
“It reinforced the importance of adaptability,” Lubin said. “If an idea isn’t working, you have to be willing to step back and rethink your approach.”
The NFL Big Data Bowl continues to be a major platform for aspiring analysts, providing opportunities to engage with real-world data and develop practical insights.
NFL team.
“This competition reaffirmed my interest in football analytics,” Lubin said. “Ideally, I want to apply this kind of research in a professional setting.”
Wells, meanwhile, has accepted a position as a software engineer at Epic, a healthcare technology company.
This wasn’t just a school project. It was a real-world test of whether we could analyze data in a way that NFL teams would actually care about.
Jonah Lubin
HANSZEN COLLEGE SENIOR
For Lubin and Wells, the competition was not only an academic exercise but also an experience that sharpened their skills and connected them with industry professionals.
“This wasn’t just a school project,” Lubin said. “It was a real-world test of whether we could analyze data in a way that NFL teams would actually care about.”
Lubin plans to pursue a career in sports analytics, hoping to work with an
“While I’m not going into sports analytics, this project showed me how much I enjoy tackling complex data problems,” he said. “That’s something I’ll take into my work in any field.” For students interested in sports analytics, Lubin and Wells believe competitions like the Big Data Bowl are invaluable.
“If you want to work in this field, you need to get hands-on with data,” Lubin said.
As the sports analytics industry continues to grow, insights gained from projects like Lubin and Wells’ could shape how teams evaluate players and strategies.
“There’s no better way to learn than by diving in,” Wells said. “This experience pushed us and it gave us something meaningful to show for our efforts.”
Baseball’s Fan Fest ushers in upcoming season
EVIE VU THRESHER STAFF
Rice supporters flocked to Reckling Park for Fan Fest Feb. 2, an event hosted by Rice Athletics to ring in the spring baseball season.
Outside the field, fans enjoyed bouncy houses and food trucks. Inside the park, sponsored tents gave away products like protein chips and energy drinks. Festivities began at 11 a.m. with a question-andanswer session with coaches.
Head coach José Cruz Jr. reflected on the personnel changes over the offseason. He said the team suffered significant losses due tso experienced players transferring out of Rice but also gained several valuable transfers and impact freshmen.
Cruz said he anticipates the new depth in their roster and the strength in relief pitchers will lead to a great season.
Cruz then introduced the rest of his coaching staff, citing their versatility as
the “Swiss army knives” of the team. The lineup concluded with volunteer coach Lance Berkman, a new addition to the staff and Cruz’s former teammate with the Owls and Houston Astros.
After the Q&A, the players signed posters for young fans. They then split into two teams and faced off in a friendly scrimmage, though the men wearing white pinstripes took home the win.
The event promoted the upcoming season, which starts Feb. 14 in Ponce at the
Puerto Rico Challenge. The tournament, founded to promote Division I baseball to Puerto Rican youth, includes competitive teams from around the country. Rice will play Villanova, Michigan and Virginia over the weekend.
Cruz said that given his Puerto Rican heritage, he suspects the Owls will have a lot of cheering fans in Ponce.
Upon their return to Houston, Rice baseball will face Sam Houston on Feb. 18 at 6:30 p.m. at home.
COURTESY CHARLIE WELLS
Hanszen College seniors Charlie Wells (left) and Jonah Lubin (right) competed in the NFL Big Data Bowl this year.
Sports Mini #11
Scores & what’s next
Scores from Jan. 29 to Feb. 4
Women’s Basketball vs. University of Tulsa
Jan. 29 - Rice 64, Tulsa 45
Women’s Tennis vs. University of Arizona
Jan. 31 - Rice 4, Arizona 1
Women’s Swimming & Diving at University of Houston
Jan. 31 - Rice 111, Houston 182
Women’s Basketball at Florida Atlantic University
Feb. 1 - Rice 61, FAU 66
Women’s Tennis vs. Texas Christian University
Feb. 1 - Rice 2, TCU 4
Men’s Basketball vs. #19 University of Memphis
Feb. 2 - Rice 83, Memphis 86
Men’s Tennis at Baylor University
Feb. 2 - Rice 1, Baylor 6
What’s next from Feb. 5 to 11
Women’s Tennis vs. University of Houston
Feb. 5, 5 p.m. - Home on PlaySight
Men’s Basketball at East Carolina University
Feb. 5, 6 p.m. - Away on ESPN+
Women’s Basketball vs. Tulane University
Feb. 5, 7 p.m. - Home on ESPN+
Men’s Tennis vs. Louisiana State University
Feb. 7, 5 p.m. - Home on PlaySight
Men’s Track & Field at Charlie Thomas Invitational
Feb. 7-8 - Away in College Station, Texas
Women’s Track & Field at Charlie Thomas Invitational
Feb. 7-8 - Away in College Station, Texas
Women’s Swimming & Diving at First Chance Meet
Feb. 8 - Away in Houston, Texas
Men’s Basketball at University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Feb. 8, 2:30 p.m. - Away on ESPN+
Men’s Golf at Bentwater Intercollegiate
Feb. 10-11 - Away in Montgomery, Texas
Men’s Basketball vs. University of North Texas
Feb. 11, 8 p.m. - Home on ESPNU
Carrie Bradshaw’s man Pop sensation Chappell Like some beers at Pub Achy Famous “exam” affiliated with the university, Abbr. DOWN
“We’re so back.”
HONG LIN TSAI / THRESHER
BAKER WILL RICE HANSZEN WIESS JONES
O-Week Themes 2025
Head, Shoulders, Knees, and TOes-Week: All Hands In
The human body is nothing without all of its constituent parts. By the end of HSKT-Week, Bakerites will have intimate knowledge of each others’ bodies. The Baker O-Week dance will draw heavily from the “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes,” which the kiddos will be sure to enjoy.
Gulf of America-Week: Coast to Success
Originally intended as Gulf of MexicO-Week to celebrate the rich Latin American culture that has shaped Texas today but unfortunately renamed due to unforeseeable circumstances, activities will include Rodeo in the Quad and Tex-Mex dining!
ts pmo-week: I Can’t Lie, Be For Real Right Now!
Hanszen is the perfect place for New Students well-versed in brainrot and, as the home college of the Student Association Parliamentarian, nonchalant paternalism. ts pmo-week will arm New Students with online skills like developing opinions too quickly and making clapback slideshows with their Canva Pro subscriptions.
Team Family Wiess: Fight Totalitarianism
Though Wiess’s mascot is the pig, they certainly know how to resist the evil fascist ones. That includes all the residential colleges pressuring them to conform to pick an O-Week theme that ends with O, and apparently the Student Association for something disturbingly authoritarian. Note: This section was reviewed by the Thresher Editor-in-Chief.
Remember the AlamO-Week: Come and Take Opportunity
Jones College is setting the tone of their winning ways with this year’s theme, reminding students to not be losers like the Texan rebels. Jonesians will be required to take a week-end quiz on Texas history, and failing students will be forced to join an intense training regime for Beer Bike. Don’t mess with Texas!
CardiO-Week: Chase New Experiences
To prepare new Brownies for the amount of walking they’ll be doing in their 4 years, they will be performing fun, heart-pumping exercises promptly at 6 AM every day of CardiO-Week, like Zumba™. Have fun running to Tudor!
Heavy FlOw-Week: Werk It, Diva Cup!
Lovett College stands with everybody who experiences periods and feels their pain. Lovetteers will grow to be the most hardened and empathetic students on campus after a week of period cramp simulators, tampon insertions, and penalties for sneezing. And that’s on period!
iPhone 16 PrO-Week: The World at your Fingertips
In a campaign to revamp college culture, the Sid Coords hope to nurture an appreciation for the modernity and many obscure features of their building among incoming Sidizens. Group names might include “Mark Zuckerberg? I Hardly Know Herberg!” and “ChatGPTeen Titans.”
FOMO-Week: Too Busy Learning
Better to rip off the bandage quickly, right? To amply prepare Martel New Students for four years of residential college envy, FOMO-Week is absolutely loaded with fun activities and traditions that Martelians will want to be invited to. Instead, they will receive summaries each morning about activities each of the other colleges are doing.
VenmO-Week: Money Is Everything
To prepare students for Rice’s “Venmo economy,” Students will be encouraged to send each other small amounts of money after social interactions. Advisors will be trained for the uncomfortable doorjam scenario where a student claims to only have Zelle.
Truman ShO-Week: Keep Calm and Jim Carrey On
As the old saying goes, the best way to learn is by surprise. New Students will have no idea they’ve left their homes in suburbia and been on Rice campus for an entire week until the day classes begin.
The Backpage is the satire section of the Thresher, written this week by Andrew Kim, Will Howley, Charlie Maxson, and Max Scholl and designed by Lauren Yu. For