“Bigger and better”: is back

Sex Week heats up campus

This Monday marked the beginning of two Sex Weeks at Rice, one hosted by the Student Association’s Student Health Services Committee and another by the club Sex Week Educational Awareness Team at Rice. Both weeks are devoted to increasing awareness within the Rice community about sexual health and wellness.

Alex Han and Christie Vieux started Rice’s first sex week last year as co-chairs of the SA Student Health Services Committee. According to Vieux, disagreements about the division of labor between Han and Vieux led to Han splitting off to begin a separate sex week as co-chair of SWEAT@Rice, along with fellow co-chair Maddie Salinas.

“As far as leaving the SA, I felt there was more opportunity to broaden representation on sexuality and gender identity, bring in physician perspectives and funding as a club organization,” Han, a Brown College junior, said.

Vieux said that SA leadership contacted the leaders of SWEAT@Rice in October last semester to clarify the miscommunication. After conversation with Student Engagement, the SA committee decided to continue with their plan to host a sex week alongside SWEAT’s.

SA Sex Week includes events such as BDSM 101, kinks trivia night and a health intimacy event with Vivianna Coles, a relationship and sex therapist featured on Married at First Sight. SWEAT@Rice is hosting similar events such as Anal 101 and sexual education with Baylor Teen Health Clinic, amongst others.

Salinas said that it was important for SWEAT@Rice to include diverse representation and perspective at events.

Black at Rice: Malaika Bergner fosters a found community

When Black Student Association President Malaika Bergner came to Rice, she and a group of other Black freshmen girls started eating lunch together.

“The stares we would get from people and the awkwardness were really hard to ignore,” Bergner, a Martel College senior, said. “Once we even got asked if we were in a BSA meeting by a random student, but the whole time it was just a bunch of Black people eating lunch and hanging out together.”

Bergner attributes this incident to Rice’s relatively low population of Black students.

“Compared to my high school, Rice has a lot fewer Black students, which I didn’t realize coming here,” Bergner said. “I personally was not used to being such a small minority.”

Bergner came to Rice from Chicago,

Sex at Rice by the numbers

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Africayé, the Rice African Student Association’s annual cultural showcase, is being held at the Shepherd School of Music’s Stude Concert Hall for the first time in history on Feb. 18, with doors opening at 4 p.m. Celebration of African culture is at the core of Africayé, from the overarching storyline to the food, music and fashion show. This year’s theme is Africayé! The Musical, with the aim of spotlighting the art, dance and music that come from African culture.

Aman Eujayl, RASA president, said that Africayé brings the community together as they work towards a common goal.

“Community is so integral to RASA,” Eujayl, a Baker College senior, said. “Often, we don’t really call it a club, we call it either family or community because that’s what we’re trying to build. The ultimate goal of RASA is to bring students of African descent together, to learn from each other, grow together, laugh together, celebrate each other.”

SEE AFRICAYÉ PAGE 8 which is approximately 29% Black to Houston’s 23%, according to the most recent U.S. Census. Her high school’s student body was 25% Black, whereas Rice’s is 12% Black.

“I felt like I couldn’t express my full Blackness because I didn’t have many Black students in [Martel],” Bergner said. “I felt really inauthentic and like I was performing an act. I still had fun as an underclassman. It was just like something was missing.”

To replace the parts of her college experience that she felt were lacking in racial representation, Bergner sought out environments where she could connect with more Black students.

“I am very conscious of the fact that I am often either the only Black person or one out of, like, three, so it pushed me to find classroom spaces where I wouldn’t be the only one,” Bergner said.

Five years later, Wayne Graham reflects on retirement, end of Rice tenure

DANIEL SCHRAGER SPORTS EDITOR

Wayne Graham lives in Austin now. A lifelong Houstonian, the former Rice baseball coach decided to move three hours east in 2020 after spending nearly each of the first 84 years of his life in the Bayou City. But according to Graham, who left the Owls after 27 seasons in 2018, he doesn’t miss his hometown.

“Not a bit,” Graham said. “I lived in Houston all my life … I don’t need any more of it.”

“My dad ushered at Rice,” Graham said. “He ushered in both stadiums, took me to all the games. That’s where I got hooked and always loved Rice. My favorite song growing up was ‘Rice’s Honor.’”

Wayne Graham FORMER RICE BASEBALL

Graham has seen the city change over the years. When he was growing up, his father would take him to wrestling matches at the Sam Houston Coliseum in downtown. The stadium was torn down 25 years ago, and it stopped hosting wrestling in 1987. Both high schools that he attended have since been renamed. One constant throughout his time in Houston, though, was Rice.

For Graham, who led the Owls to their only national title 20 years ago, his unimpeachable Texas credentials are one of many reasons he found to bring up his troubled relationship with Rice Athletic Director Joe Karlgaard, his boss during the last five years of his tenure.

“Basically, the two places I’ve lived in my life have been Houston and Austin,” Graham said. “I was a true Texan, a true Houstonian. It was amazing to me that Karlgaard would dare treat someone with my record, and that was that blue-blooded [of] a Texan, like that.”