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TR A D I T I O N S | H A N SZE N C O L L EG E
UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM
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Of Neckties, Cranes and Gentlemen
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HEN HANSZEN COLLEGE OPENED IN 1957, it adopted the moniker “The Gentlemen’s College.” In keeping with the image, Hanszen residents were required to wear jackets and neckties to certain functions, including Sunday dinner and events with distinguished guests. These included the likes of movie star (and soon-to-be California Governor) Ronald Reagan, historian J. Frank Dobie and astronaut (and future Ohio Senator) John Glenn. By the 1960s, however, many Hanszen men began to express doubts about the “tie rule,” recalled Ron Sass, who became master of Hanszen in 1966. “Personally, I didn’t think a great deal about the tie rule one way or the other, but it did serve to focus anti-rule advocates on an issue that was not in any way destructive or disruptive.” But the tie debate did come to a head during Sass’ tenure. “[The students] organized and on one Sunday all of them came to dinner wearing ties, but nothing else,” Sass said. “I came in, along with my family, and sat down as if nothing was out of the ordinary. All of the students got more and more uncomfortable as the meal progressed.” Although awkward at best, the protest was effective — the tie rule was eventually dropped. Another Hanszen tradition arrived early on the morning of Feb. 15, 2001. Students were rousted from their beds as a 120-foot construction crane
being used to build the new Wiess College began to tilt ominously, threatening to topple onto Hanszen. “The Hanszenites were forced to leave their rooms, their belongings, their books, their real clothes, their contacts, their shoes and their dignity and remain safely out of the clutches of the manic crane until the disaster was abated,” wrote Erik Vanderlip ’02, president of Hanszen at the time. Unable to attend morning classes, they responded with a resourcefulness for which Hanszen prides itself. A keg of beer was fetched, music played and Crane Day was born. A backup crane was brought in to lower the unstable crane safely, and students were allowed back into their rooms by 2 p.m. that afternoon. But the men and women of Hanszen continue to honor the memory of their predecessors’ ordeal by staging a Crane Day party every February. —Franz Brotzen ’80
post it online for the MOOC. And animations, some from slideshows — my husband helped me to animate the process of gene rearrangement, one of the more difficult concepts in the course. My foamboard “antibody” is my favorite because it shows where you put together the information from two different parts of the gene, which nobody else’s antibody models do. I had to figure out how to do it myself, because I couldn’t find anyplace that had it. TECHNICAL ISSUES? I know that I couldn’t do this without the crew I have helping me. Often, most of them are Rice undergrads, and they’re very good. Without those guys and their technical knowledge, smarts and willingness to help out, this would not work. NOTES FROM FORMER STUDENTS I have a brag file. Those emails make my day. It’s really nice when somebody comes back and says they couldn’t have survived their med school classes without me. —Jana Olson
TA N Y I A J O H N S O N
Watch Novotny’s video introduction to RiceX: Fundamentals of Immunology here: ricemagazine.info/246.
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