The Rice Thresher | Wednesday, November 30, 2016

VOLUME 101, ISSUE NO. 13 || WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2016 RICE UNIVERSITY WEEKLY NEWSPAPER

let’s talk about sex

Survey probes Rice students’ hookup practices and perceptions see News p. 2

help end cancer HPV vaccination free at Rice

see Ops p. 6

STUDENT-RUN SINCE 1916

RICETHRESHER.ORG

lumos!

cardinal sin

‘Fantastic Beasts’ revisits the Harry Potter universe

Stanford unleashes its wrath on Rice football in final game of the season

see A&E p. 10

see Sports p. 13

Amid political uncertainty, undocumented Rice student speaks out: ‘You’re seen as no one’ Yasna Haghdoost Editor in Chief

When Santiago Garcia was five years old, his parents came to the United States from Colombia on a travel visa. They had come to visit their cousins in Texas, and ultimately decided to stay for the sake of their children. Though the Garcia family’s visa has since expired, they have continued living in Texas as undocumented immigrants.

Garcia, a Will Rice College freshman, said his parents gave up a comfortable life in Colombia in order to provide opportunities for him and his younger sister here in the U.S. His father is currently a construction worker and his mother used to clean banks; both held university degrees and white-collar jobs in Colombia.

“I don’t really know how other people see [undocumented immigrants] as these criminals that come here to take advantage of a system,” Garcia said. “They’re really trying to do the best they can for their family. My parents realized that Colombia could not provide to their kids what the United States could provide. They decided to literally throw everything away,

make their lives hell for the next 18 years just so we could have better lives.”

Garcia said his father has held his current job for 10 years, but despite being overqualified, he is paid less than newer employees and works 10 hours a day, six days a week. He said since his parents do not speak English, he has had to shoulder extra responsibilities as a translator in their everyday lives, in addition to spending summers helping his parents out with their jobs.

“Once you come here and you’re undocumented, you’re pretty much seen as no one,” Garcia said.

Because Garcia is ineligible for federal grants and loans, his cost of attendance at Rice is covered in full by a financial aid package through the university. While he has feared deportation throughout his life for even the slightest infractions, Garcia said at Rice he feels safer.

“I’ve gotten this mentality of being very wary of the police for anything, really,” Garcia said. “That’s the way I’ve had to live here for most of my life, pretty much wary every day that something might go wrong and that my 0see DACA, page 4 illustration by jennifer fu

SA voting records show high pass rates, unconstitutional procedures Anita Alem & Emily Abdow Managing Editor & Assistant News Editor

Despite constitutional mandates requiring comprehensive Student Association voting records, a Thresher investigation showed issues with transparency and found voting procedures to be unconstitutional.

The SA has also approved greater than 95 percent of legislation introduced over the past three years, an aspect that SA President Griffin Thomas said he has been attempting to address with increased debate this year.

SA VOTING RECORD FOR LEGISLATION BY YEAR 22

21

PASS FAIL

Constitutional violations Unconstitutional voting by straw poll has occurred for all but three pieces of legislation under Thomas. In straw poll voting, SA voting members expressed support for or against legislation with a show of hands, but did not verbalize their vote. The SA secretary recorded only whether a piece of legislation passed or failed, but not how individual representatives chose to vote.

However, the SA Constitution states in section IV.A.3.d, “All votes on legislation shall be conducted by roll call” and a record of voting by

each member should be recorded and accessible online.” The Thresher notified the SA of its lack of compliance with the constitution with regards to voting procedure earlier this week.

Thomas said the SA was unaware the straw poll voting was unconstitutional, as the leadership had misinterpreted the constitution and instead followed procedure as outlined in the parliamentary handbook Robert’s Rules of Order, which the constitution states can be used in situations the constitution does not address.

9

TABELED INDEFINITELY

1

0

2014-15

96% pass rate

0see VOTING, page 4

0

0

2015-16

0

1

2016-17

84%

unanimous (of those we have records for)

Critical Thinking in Sexuality class moves forward with pilot launch Anna Ta

Thresher Staff

A pilot Critical Thinking in Sexuality course will be offered this spring semester and plans are in place to implement a mandatory fall semester program for freshmen starting next year, Student Association President Griffin Thomas announced at the SA Senate meeting Monday night.

Thomas said college governments and Students Transforming Rice into a Violence-Free Environment liaisons will disseminate more information in coming days, but said Dean of Undergraduates John Hutchinson and other high-level members of the administration support the move forward with the pilot and planned mandatory program. The mandatory program will not be an official course, and therefore will not require Faculty

Senate approval, Thomas said.

For the pilot, one or two Lifetime Physical Activity Program sections will be offered to all Rice students, though the sections are not yet available to add via Schedule Planner and Esther.

Allison Vogt, the director of sexual violence prevention and Title IX support, said the curriculum combines aspects of the originally proposed CTIS class and Project SAFE; the Title IX office will contract out social workers to teach the sections.

“My hope for the pilot program is to get a better understanding of how the program will actually work,” Thomas, a Lovett College senior, said. “We want to see how relevant it is to Rice students and how to make it more tailored to Rice. We want to make it really practical for them and have a real impact on campus community.”

Thomas said he and Hutchinson

did not want to display the course on Schedule Planner before notifying the SA Senate, saying that he was conscious of complaint that the CTIS process has at times moved too quickly.

This is a very significant step forward.

John Hutchinson Dean of Undergradutes “As we approached how to move forward, Dean Hutchinson and I were interested in going slowly and getting it right,” Thomas said. “This semester

we’re going to iron out some of the kinks and make sure that we had opportunity to roll it out to the student body.”

The class will be relatively small and based on discussion and activities, Thomas said, and will include a test at the beginning and the end to assess the program’s effectiveness as well as possible changes. According to Thomas, all students who complete the classwork will pass.

Next year’s program will be mandatory for incoming freshmen, but will not have credit hours attached.

Instead, those who do not complete the program will have registration holds placed on their Esther accounts. Under current plans, transfer students will not be required to complete this class, but Thomas said this could change.

The program will meet for five mandatory weeks for 50 minutes, in line with a recommendation on sexual

education from the Centers for Disease Control. In the second half of the semester, there will be an optional five week section that will cover more indepth information, Thomas said, such as sex trafficking and the sex industry.

Hutchinson said such an approach has been shown to be more effective.

“Research tells us that, by covering these topics in multiple points of contact over an extended period [as opposed to an hour and a half of Project SAFE], we will be more effective in our educational efforts on these subjects,” Hutchinson said.

Vogt emphasized the first part of the fall program is a workshop rather than a course.

“Calling it a class makes it seem like a course you sign up for and that you are then getting a full credit for,” Vogt said. “I don’t want anyone to get any 0see CTIS, page 5

NEWS

2

“HOOKUP”: any sort of sexual encounter from kissing or making out all the way up to sex outside of the confines of an exclusive romantic relationship Out of 580 Responses from Rice students....

Are you currently in an exclusive romantic relationship?

Thresher Staff

No 0

100

200

300

400

500

What is your ideal relationship status while a student at Rice?

Exclusive relationship

Single 0

100

200

Perceived vs actual hookup partners Number of respondents

‘All my friends hook up but me’ a myth, SOCI study finds Elizabeth Rasich

Yes

300

300

400

500

Do you think you have had more than, less than, or about the same number of hookups as the average Rice student?

More

200

Less Same

100

0 0

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

the Rice Thresher

0

1-3

4-6

7-9

10-12

13+

Number of hookup partners during time at Rice actual

estimated average

Respondents most commonly estimated that students have had 4-6 hookup partners.

200

80%

400

of respondents thought they were hooking up LESS than the average Rice student.

Alcohol consumption and class year were significant predictors of number of hookups, but not religion or financial aid status.

26% of seniors never hooked up with someone at Rice.

infographic by samantha ding

Rice students are lonely and looking for love. A group researching sex and romantic relationships at Rice for Research Methods (SOCI 381) expected many students to have no hookup experience but didn’t realize the extent to which they were correct. They were also surprised to find that the hookup culture at Rice is largely mythical: An overwhelming majority of study participants thought they were hooking up less than their peers, and most want to be in a long-term, committed relationship.

The group members, McMurtry College sophomore Simone Bergsrud, Hanszen College senior Lena Hall, Brown College senior Jasmine Isokpunwu, Duncan College senior Emily Jacobson, Hanszen junior Gillian Perkins and Hanszen senior Natalie Polacek, conducted an online survey as well as two focus groups of respondents. They asked respondents how many hookups they had experienced since they began their Rice career, as well as how many they believed the average Rice student had experienced, among other questions.

“We defined hookup as any sort of sexual encounter from kissing or making out all the way up to sex outside of the confines of an exclusive romantic relationship,” Jacobson said. “’I have never hooked up with anyone at Rice’ was by far the most common answer.”

59.6 percent of men and 58.5 percent of women, as well as three non-binary respondents, had never hooked up with anyone since matriculating at Rice. The majority of students have never had a sexual encounter outside of a relationship. However, among those who had hooked up during their time at Rice, their average number of partners was 5.83.

According to the focus groups, students who engaged in hookup culture were uninterested in the emotional and time commitment required by relationships.

“A lot of people said sex is necessary but romance and the social and psychological aspect of a relationship are not,” Perkins said.

“They said that they could get that from friendships,” Jacobson said.

According to the study, the college with the lowest average number of hookups was Jones College at 2.2, and the highest was Will Rice College at 5. Social sciences majors hooked up the most, and humanities majors the least.

Religiosity and financial aid status were not significant factors in determining the number of hookups students had in their Rice career.

“We weren’t trying so much to get at people’s sexual history or sexual experiences, but more how the hookup culture works and how people are participating in it,” Jacobson said.

The group also wanted to verify whether hookup culture was actually present at Rice. “[We wanted to find out] if it exists at all, or if it’s more mythological,” Perkins said.

80 percent of respondents said they believed they hooked up less than the average Rice student. The average number of hookups that students attribute to Rice students is 4.9, which was far above the actual number of hookups for the majority of respondents: 0. The average number of hookups for a Rice student was approximately 1.

“People think that they’re hooking up less than their friends and people think the average student is hooking up a lot more,” Hall said.

The research group said they thought a lot of perception about hookup culture is based on one’s friend group as well as the possibility that students tend to talk more about their hookup experiences than their lack thereof.

“I think it’s kind of like how when you watch the news, you think that the world is a horrible place because of all of the negative stuff,” Perkins said. “People don’t talk about like, ‘Oh, yeah, guess what? This week I didn’t hook up with anyone.’”

“Although it could be a result of the people I am around, it seems as though everyone is continuously tallying up their ‘hookups’ to compare their progress in college bingo,” Brown sophomore Emma May Anderson said.

63 percent of respondents were women and 37 percent were men. There was no statistical difference between men and women’s hookup tendencies, according to Hall.

“We didn’t get much difference by gender,” Hall said. “Even though we got more female respondents, they tended to answer the question in the same way.”

For example, approximately the same proportion of men and women said that men and women enjoy hooking up equally: 57.8

percent of men and 54.4 percent women.

To be confident the survey results could be generalized to the full undergraduate population, the group said they needed 350 responses; they received 581. However, the group acknowledged that the survey may not be fully reflective of the Rice population.

“We didn’t really consider how experiences of LGBTQ+ students may differ from those of heterosexual students,” Jacobson said. “About 85 percent of our respondents said that they preferred partners of the opposite sex. Only three respondents identified themselves as gender non-binary.”

In the two focus groups conducted after the online survey, students raised a point about three distinct social groups at Rice. They said that there was a group of people who never hooked up with anyone, another group in long-term relationships, and a final group who hooked up frequently.

Many respondents complained that people were either in a long-term relationship or hooking up, and that casual dating was rare.

Hall said that the students in the focus group echoed the survey responses.

“There was this idea of getting into a relationship right at the beginning of college and then maintaining that relationship throughout the four years and not experience anything outside of it,” Hall said. “That relationship is central to their social life.”

This is exactly what most Rice students appear to want: 74 percent of respondents said their ideal relationship status would be “in an exclusive romantic relationship.” However, most of the students who would like to be in relationships are not.

A lot of people said sex is necessary but romance and the social aspect of a relationship are not.

Gillian Perkins Hanszen College junior So why can’t Rice students meet The One? In the focus group, students blamed academic pressures and time constraints for the disparity between the number of people who wanted to date and the number of people who were in relationships.

“People are pretty high-stress here, so I think that kind of lends itself to hookup culture,” one of the focus group participants said.

Students said they wouldn’t have the time to maintain an exclusive relationship and, while ideal, long-term romance was not practical for Rice’s workload. Jacobson also attributed the lack of romantic relationships to difficulties in meeting those willing to date.

“People feel that people who are interested in dating either casually or more seriously might come up against this hookup culture and have a hard time finding people who are interested in doing more than that,” Jacobsen said. “You’re not supposed to date in your college, but you’re not supposed to date in your major, so who are you dating? It can be hard to meet people at Rice, I think.”

“There are some people who desire to date who often find themselves limited by hook-up culture,” one focus group member said.

Anderson said that another contributing factor is that Rice students are too eager to jump into relationships.

“I think people want to be in a relationship too much for one to actually work,” Anderson said. “Most of the people at Rice were probably the nerdy kids who didn’t have much chance of dating anybody in high school and when they got here became overexcited and weren’t mature enough to handle the relationships they were looking for.”

The research group concluded that Rice students want, but are unable, to be in relationships.

“If there’s a large number of people who want other avenues to be able to engage in sexual and romantic life at Rice, and there’s not an opportunity for them to do so, then that can kind of signal a problem in Rice’s culture,” Hall said.

The group will present their findings on Wednesday, Nov. 30, at 11 a.m. in Sewall 307.

All Rice students and faculty are welcome to attend.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

the Rice Thresher

NEWS

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NEWS

0VOTING FROM PAGE 1 “This happened [as] a result of the detailed nature and length of our constitution and the parliamentary code the Senate adopted,” Thomas said. “It is difficult for us to abide by these hundreds of pages of codes in usual circumstances.”

At the SA meeting this week, Thomas said all proceeding votes will occur via roll call .

“I wanted to be transparent about [this error],” Thomas said. “That was a mix-up on [SA Parliamentarian] Annabelle [McIntire-Gavlick’s] and my behalf.”

Martel College senior AJ Barnes said he was concerned by the lack of voting records.

“Students have a right to know how their representative voted, since they are selected through an election and should be held accountable,” Barnes said. “Furthermore, it is concerning that the student governing body is in violation of the very constitution which they are charged with upholding and amending.”

Thomas said students with questions on voting records should ask their representatives directly.

This is not the first time the SA has conducted procedures unconstitutionally this year. Last month, Thomas announced a closed session at the end of a Senate meeting without first conducting a two-thirds vote in apparent violation of the SA Constitution. When the Thresher notified Thomas of the procedural error after that meeting, he again pointed to the length of the constitution as the reason for the mistake.

“The SA Constitution is 111 pages long and it is sometime difficult for us to make necessary immediate judgments,” Thomas said at the time.

“This is of course not to make an excuse for the oversight, but to say we understand the mistake and are making strides to correct it.”

McIntre-Gavlick, who chairs the Committee of Constitutional Revisions, said she plans to work on rewriting the Constitution with a few other people during winter break. The committee was formed in April and charged with reviewing and updating the constitution.

Voting record Although roll call voting is constitutionally mandated, SA voting records showed incomplete information on how representatives have voted persists over the past three years, especially for the 2015-16 administration of former SA President

0DACA FROM PAGE 1 parents will be forced to leave this country. I have told a few people like my [Orientation Week] group that I’m undocumented. In Rice I can put all that behind me and just be a normal student.”

Since coming to Rice, Garcia has also had access to health insurance for the first time, so he feels more comfortable participating in sports such as freshman flag football. Previously, his family had been unable to pay for health insurance.

“I’m very much more open to doing things that are risky, because if I had ever gotten hurt before this, I would have destroyed my family’s income,” Garcia said.

Election aftermath In the days following Donald Trump’s election victory, over 90 university presidents, including Rice President David Leebron, signed a letter addressed “to our country’s leaders” calling on the continuation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. DACA is an immigration policy instituted by the Obama administration in 2012 through an executive order, and it provides undocumented immigrants who entered the country as minors to apply for a renewable two-year period of deferred deportation and a work permit. Trump has called for ending DACA. “America needs talent — and these students, who have been raised and educated in the United States, are already part of our national community,” the letter stated. “They represent what is best about America, and as scholars and leaders they are essential to the future.”

the Rice Thresher Jazz Silva (Sid Rich ’16).

The investigation also found over the past three years, under Thomas, Silva and former SA President Ravi Sheth (Martel ’15), all legislation introduced in the SA had a 96 percent passing rate. Among the legislation for which specific voting records by representative exist, 84 percent of legislation was passed unanimously.

Two pieces of legislation, out of 54 introduced, have not passed. The first, requiring residential colleges to guarantee on-campus housing for Rice Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps members, failed by majority vote in spring 2014. The second bill, censuring the Faculty Senate following their approval of the Committee on Undergraduate Curriculum credit cap, was tabled indefinitely this year after SA members decided it could hinder a working relationship with administration.

During Silva’s term, all legislation passed, although the bill endorsing a mandatory Critical Thinking in Sexuality class elicited contentious debate and passed only narrowly.

Thomas said there may have been a shortage of debate on legislation in past years due to the short length of the meetings, typically ranging from 15 to 20 minutes. Former Jones College Senator Jovany Franco said he agreed with that sentiment.

“A lot of people just wanted to leave and they were like, ‘OK, let’s vote, let’s keep it short, like 20 minutes,’” Franco, a junior, said. “[Silva] definitely contributed to that by saying, ‘OK, it’s going to be a short meeting,’ so there’s debate but it wasn’t good, definitely not, except for [with CTIS].”

Silva said she disagreed with the idea that meeting length influences quality of debate.

“If students felt like there wasn’t enough time to deliberate during a single Senate meeting, they would continue to table the bill until they felt more comfortable voting,” Silva said of the legislation under her term as SA president.

Under his term, Thomas said he has been trying to have meetings last at least an hour in an effort to expand debate.

“By setting the expectation that meetings are gonna be an hour, we can sit here for an hour and stare at the ceiling or we can actually talk about issues,” Thomas said. “We’ve talked about issues more substantively but there is still a ways to go.”

Martel President Ly Nguyen said debate often occurs more within the college instead of at Senate, especially for controversial topics such as the approval of installing security cameras at residential colleges, which passed earlier this year.

“Inherently the discussion at the college level will be more robust than that which occurs at SA

meetings, and that’s okay as long as the opinions, comments and questions from those discussions are effectively communicated at SA meetings by college representatives,” Nguyen, a senior, said.

SA External Vice President Hannah Todd, a junior who formerly served as the SA senator for Wiess College, voted ‘yes’ on every bill last year.

Todd said she based her vote entirely on surveys she sent to the college regarding legislation.

However, Franco said basing voting off of constituents’ opinions on legislation can be problematic if constituents aren’t properly informed. He said he faced this issue with Jones when voting on CTIS last year, despite providing students with the text of the legislation. “[Jones students] were agreeing and disagreeing with things that weren’t true because they hadn’t read the legislation,” Franco said.

“They kind of just went with what they’d heard from other people. We thought since there was so much confusion and a lot of people were in support of the bill because of reasons that were not legitimate, we decided to vote against it.”

Franco said he also felt almost all SA bills passed primarily because students who propose legislation are often colleagues and friends.

“You knew a lot of the people and you understood the effort they put into the bill, and typically it’s very reasonable things they would ask for,” Franco said. “The choice was up to Jones, but deep inside, it’s difficult to shoot down somebody else’s work since we’re on the same level.”

McMurtry College President Madhuri Venkateswar said it tends to be hard to convince her to vote against legislation because she typically agrees with propsals’ intentions.

“I usually give legislation the benefit of the doubt,” Venkateswar said. “However, I have become more critical of university efforts through my time at Rice.”

However, Jones President Chris Sabbagh said bill passing requires people to agree to change the status quo, which is difficult without good reason.

Silva said she felt it is easier for a bill to pass than to fail, but valued having healthy debate.

“As a president, it was extremely hard to moderate the level of debate,” Silva said. “You can only moderate the quality of debates.”

Thomas said he recognized the importance of maintaining a robust discussion.

“We have to be very careful because if we’re known as an organization that just passes anything anyone introduces to us then our opinion and the opinion of the student body weighs less for the administration,” he said.

Garcia though, has tried to look past the uncertainty that a Trump presidency may hold for his DACA status.

“We can’t really let ourselves fear a lot, or spend time worrying about all this stuff because we still have to work, we still have to push through,” Garcia said. “All I can do for now on is to put some false hope into Donald Trump that maybe he was just jacking around most of the time and he’s not going to do exactly what he said he would do.”

By the night of the election, Garcia said he had “made peace” with the possibility of the outcome either way.

“When it happened, it happened,” Garcia said. “They were having a huge election watch [party] and I was just doing my homework. And it happened and I just kept on doing my homework.”

Despite his determination to move forward regardless of the election results, Garcia takes issue with rhetoric that paints undocumented immigrants as freeloaders taking advantage of the system. After all, Garcia said, his family faces daily hardships and pays taxes and he has to register for the draft, like all male American citizens.

“The majority of people who come here [as undocumented immigrants], they’re not having fun,” Garcia said. “If they could do it any other way they would. And people think that we come here, we live on welfare or something or are having the times of our lives. My dad is working 10 hours a day. They don’t come here to take advantage of anything.”

However, according to Garcia, the outpouring of support for undocumented immigrants was an unexpected result of the election.

“It surprised me because I thought the majority of people hated immigrants,” Garcia said. “Because that’s what I had seen from a lot

of the events that had happened. I had never heard these voices before, and the fact that they’re all coming out now with this support, that could definitely spark an actual movement.”

Updates to Rice’s DACA policy Two years ago, Garcia applied for DACA status, which allowed him to obtain a Social Security number, a state-issued photo ID and a driver’s permit. Nonetheless, Garcia applied to 21 universities his senior year of high school out of fear that he wouldn’t be accepted due to his undocumented status.

According to Leebron, an applicant’s undocumented status has no bearing on their admission to Rice.

“For us it does not affect their chances of admission, one way or another,” Leebron said.

In August, Rice announced that its admission and financial aid policy toward undocumented students would be expanded, effective next fall.

Leebron said Rice has moved to more explicitly affirm its treatment of DACA students equally as other students in the application process, as well as taking into account that DACA students don’t qualify for federal loans or grants by replacing those with Rice scholarships. According to Leebron, these changes were made in part due to discussions with the Students of Color Collective last spring.

“We all came to a common conclusion that we should move beyond that case-by-case and ad hoc policy [toward undocumented student applicants],” Leebron said. “We decided that we would treat them the same as American students who might be immigrant or nonimmigrant.”

Furthermore, Rice’s policy will now no longer be limited to those with DACA status: Any undocumented student who has been in the U.S.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

NEWS IN BRIEF National university association elects President Leebron as chair Hannah Todd, Thresher Staff Rice University President David Leebron was elected by the Association of American Universities to serve as chair of its board of directors at their semiannual membership meeting last month.

AAU, made up of 60 American and two Canadian universities, aims to advance university research and to maintain effective collaboration between research universities and the U.S. government. Leebron will serve a one-year term as chair.

“Rice’s membership reflects our recognition as one of the leading research universities in the United States,” Leebron said.

He said he would work with the AAU president, Mary Sue Coleman, the former president at the University of Michigan. “[We will] advocate for support of research universities and for recognition of what they have collectively contributed to the success of the American economy,” Leebron said.

Leebron said he sees this role as illustrative of both Rice’s performance as a research university and its reputation among other AAU members.

“Rice’s membership, and my election as chair, reflect both the very high achievement of Rice as a research university, and the high esteem in which it is held by other members of the AAU,” Leebron said. “Despite our small size — Rice is the third-smallest member of the AAU — we have achieved research prominence and excellence well beyond that size.”

Rice’s place in AAU and Leebron’s new position as chair benefit Rice in multiple ways, Leebron said.

“It will be of benefit to Rice both in terms of the additional recognition and visibility Rice receives as a result of its president being chair of the AAU,” Leebron said. “I will be able to utilize all that I learn as chair in working to further enhance Rice’s success as a pre-eminent research university.” for extended periods of time and graduated from a U.S. high school will be eligible.

A sanctuary campus?

Recently, a petition has circulated within the Rice community that calls for the university to declare itself a sanctuary campus. The petition, which was spearheaded by several faculty members from the English and anthropology departments, follows the heels of other universities nationwide calling for a sanctuary space designation as means to protect undocumented students.

The petition calls for a variety of measures directed at improving the livelihood of undocumented students at Rice, such as financial support, on-campus housing, mental health services, staff hires and academic freedom.

While Leebron reaffirmed his support for undocumented students at Rice in an email to the student body, he expressed some concerns with declaring Rice a sanctuary campus.

“First, Rice is subject to the law … and we should not suggest in any way that we are determined to violate applicable law,” Leebron wrote. “Second, such a designation could put our students at greater risk in two ways. It might suggest that the risks they face are reduced because of such a designation, when in fact ‘sanctuary’ status has virtually no effect on enforcement of the law.

Moreover, it might make our students more of a target of enforcement efforts.”

While Garcia said he was unsure whether the petition would actually come to fruition, he appreciated the gesture.

“The most important part is the fact that they’re saying these things,” Garcia said.

“They’re saying that we stand with y’all.”

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

the Rice Thresher

0CTIS FROM PAGE 1

jiayi lyu/thresher

A Multicultural Student Center will be opened in the basement of the Rice campus store next semester, according to Associate Dean of Undergraduates Matthew Taylor. Ultimately, a permanent center will be located on the first floor of the Rice Memorial Center or nearby.

Multicultural Student Center to launch this spring Lizzie Bjork

Thresher Staff

Since the Students of Color Collective proposed a Multicultural Student Center last spring, the administration has been working to make the project a reality.

The administration hopes to open a temporary center in the basement of the campus store in February 2017, according to Associate Dean of Undergraduates Matthew Taylor.

The opening will be followed by the creation of a task force including faculty, students, and staff to engage in a pre-design process, according to Provost Marie Lynn Miranda, who is leading the project along with President David Leebron, Vice President Kevin Kirby and Taylor.

“I want to emphasize that we are in very early stages at this point, although we do have an ambitious timeline for making the multicultural center a reality,” Miranda said.

During predesign, which lasts about four months, an architectural firm will facilitate conversations to elicit ideas and clarify how the physical center can support the needs illustrated by the Students of Color Collective.

After that, construction will take at least a year, depending on the design and scope of the project, Taylor said. The permanent center will likely be located on the first floor of the Rice Memorial Center or adjacent to it.

According to Taylor, the project had been considered since a survey conducted last year about student spaces revealed a desire for such a space. When the Students of Color Collective brought it up again, it became a priority.

Due to low visibility and structural issues, the temporary location is not ideal, Taylor said.

But the administration decided it would be better to fill the need for a multicultural center now rather than waiting until the permanent center is complete.

“You want to signal its importance to campus by where you put it,” Taylor said.

Unlike many peer institutions, Rice does not have a multicultural center, Catherine Clack, the associate dean of undergraduates and director of multicultural affairs, said. Since its inception in 1988, the Office of Multicultural Affairs had consisted of just one person until the Students of Color Collective requested an additional staff member. As a result, Jesse Hendrix moved from the Center for Civic Leadership to the Office of Multicultural Affairs in June.

Up to this point, Clack said she has not been directly involved with planning the Multicultural Student Center, although she would like to be.

“It’s not separate from this office, but it’s being done separately,” she said.

“It would be like saying, ‘Here, we’ve designed this new band hall for you’ without actually asking the director of university bands what they needed.”

Clack said she hopes that once the the temporary space has been established, the administration will involve her more in the plans for the permanent center.

“I’m pleased as punch they’re moving forward, but I wish they’d included us,” Clack said.

Miranda said the overall goal of the center will be to support and realize the full benefits of the multifaceted diversity of the student body, both undergraduates and graduates.

“We hope to support groups and organizations and to encourage interaction

among them,” Miranda said.

There is a feeling across campus that minority students do not have one centralized location, which leads to a feeling of division within an already small community, James Carter, a member of the Students of Color Collective, said.

“The Center stands to help alleviate some of this alienation and marginalization by creating a place to convene and call their own,” Carter, who is also the Chair of Diversity and Inclusion for the Student Association, said.

This [center] promotes more of that intergroup dialogue that we’ve always had.

Catherine Clack Director of Multicultural Affairs The permanent center will have a big conference room, a shared workspace that groups could reserve, smaller meeting rooms, moveable furniture and storage, according to Taylor.

According to its website, 10 organizations belong to the Council of Diversity and Inclusion, and these groups could use the Multicultural Student Center to hold meetings and events, Clack said. Given the political climate of the country, students belonging to marginalized groups need a place to go for support and a breathing space, Clack said.

“This [center] promotes more of that intergroup dialogue that we’ve always had,” Clack said.

In addition to improving visibility, the Multicultural Student Center would provide storage space, which is currently a huge issue for cultural organizations, to the point where they end up rebuying the materials for annual shows because they cannot find the materials they used the previous year, Clack said.

Vietnamese Student Association president Thu Nguyen said that since VSA has many props and costumes for the Lunar New Year show, they need a storage space on campus.

“We’ve had incidents where our props overflowed our locker space, and due to some miscommunication we lost them,” Nguyen said.

Although she said had not previously heard of the plan to build a multicultural student center, Nguyen said the center would make it easier for cultural clubs to collaborate.

“Though we currently share the student clubs office across Willy’s Pub, the space isn’t built for multiple boards to have meetings or do prep work for their events,” she said.

While details are still being discussed, Taylor said the broad consensus on the center’s importance gives him confidence.

“Even though we can’t know exactly what will result, we can be certain that the process and results will honor the values and practices that make Rice such a special place,” Taylor said. “To me, that means the involvement of many offices and voices and, above all, a partnership and sense of shared enterprise between students and administration.”

misinformation about what this is.”

According to Thomas, students will no longer take Project SAFE during Orientation Week, but will cover topics on consent, sexual assault, bystander prevention, domestic violence, healthy relationships and stalking during the mandatory five weeks of the program.

Vogt said the mandatory portion will focus on topics most relevant to the Rice experience.

“The curriculum itself has a lot of information about things people may experience on campus,” Vogt said. “The workshop will teach people how to recognize it as it’s happening, not only to themselves, but to others, and when they’re acting in that way. We are hoping that students learn that some behaviors they’ve been taught before are not necessarily okay here at Rice.”

A Critical Thinking in Sexuality course was originally proposed by former SA President Jazz Silva (Sid Rich ’16) in fall 2015 as a measure to combat sexual assault on campus. The SA Senate passed a bill creating a task force to develop the curriculum, which was then to be voted on again by the SA Senate and presented to Faculty Senate for approval of a course. However, delays led to the status of CTIS becoming uncertain until Monday’s announcement.

“There are no words to describe the joy and relief I’ve felt since hearing the news [of the pilot],” Silva said. “As a nation we’ve seen decades of assault, decades of protest and simultaneously decades of inaction. I’m so humbled to even be associated with a university that is willing to take action on this scale.”

According to Thomas, some students said last year they or their parents could have religious objections to some of the material covered by a mandatory sexuality course. Silva said some students objected in particular to the inclusion of contraception.

In order to address these objections, Vogt said the mandatory program will not cover contraceptives or pornography, though these may be included in the second, optional five weeks.

“We’re hoping that students with religious

NEWS

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objections see that we’re not teaching about how to have sex, what to do with contraceptives, or how to prevent [sexually transmitted infections],” Vogt said. “We’re not talking about sex, but how to prevent interpersonal violence. The second half will include information that goes a little deeper.”

Thomas said the fact that the program will not count for credit hours addresses concerns that a credit-bearing course could limit or disadvantage freshmen from taking other classes. Vogt said many sections of the program will be offered throughout the day so that any freshman should be able to fit it into their existing schedule.

“We are designing an innovative course with an ambitious goal,” Hutchinson said. “This takes a lot of time and a lot of conversation to gather ideas about what will be most effective. Our staff and the students with whom they have been collaborating have been working hard for a long period of time to design this program.”

We’re not talking about sex, but how to prevent interpersonal violence.

Allison Vogt Title IX Support Director Some other students, however, are still not sold on the course. Will Rice College junior Carey Wang said he is skeptical that it will work.

“I think it’s based on a really good idea and motivations,” Wang said. “However, I think it is a very difficult course to execute in a way that will be effective in a way that students will pay attention and learn from it.”

Thomas said Hutchinson has been a major ally in the development and implementation of the program. Hutchinson said he is excited to learn from the pilot program.

“This is a very significant step forward, and I am proud of the staff and students who are putting Rice at the leading edge of this type of programming,” Hutchinson said.

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Proposed CTIS class not a win, but a disappointment While the Critical Thinking in Sexuality class will finally be implemented (see p. 1), the curriculum for the mandatory five sessions features omissions that are simply wrong.

These mandatory sessions won’t include discussions about contraception and pornography to accommodate for students whose religious beliefs may be in conflict with these ideas. First, it is an insult to women to equate the moral weight of contraception use with that of pornography; contraception is a sexual health necessity used by 99 percent of women according to the Centers for Disease Control, while pornography is not. Director of Sexual Violence and Title IX Support Allison Vogt, who has been highly involved in the creation of the curriculum, stated students can learn about contraception on their own.

Students can learn about anything on their own. The whole impetus for this course was for students to learn about topics that are essential to the entire community’s health and safety that they would not necessarily seek out on their own. By Vogt’s logic, students can simply google the word “consent” or perhaps watch the “consent is like tea” video on YouTube.

In addition, Vogt said sex will not be discussed in the mandatory sessions; the topics in those sessions will include domestic violence, healthy relationships, consent and stalking as well as sexual assault recognition and prevention. It is utterly ridiculous to have mandatory sessions on sexuality that don’t discuss sex, as we cannot adequately address sexual transgressions without understanding the context in which they occur. If you don’t what healthy sex and sexuality are supposed to look like, how can you know when it goes wrong?

SA President Griffin Thomas said some students felt their parents would object to their receiving a Rice education if they were compelled to take a mandatory course that went against their religious values. Here, it is counterintuitive to the entire purpose of higher education that we would tailor the learning of adults to a few parents’ wishes.

How do we expect there to be any critical thinking if students are not presented with ideas and opinions that may differ from their own? The notion that students ought not to engage with potentially contentious topics is ludicrous, and an insult to our intellectual fortitude. We are not snowflakes. In any case, personal opposition to something is very different than learning about it. Especially in the case of contraception education, a lack of knowledge has direct negative consequences for other people and society as a whole.

The point of CTIS was to remedy failures to our education system prior to university. Rice likes to think of itself as a bastion of higher thinking, but we are brought down by the same false logic and prejudices that plague our society in dealing with the pressing issues of sexual health and safety.

Help end cancer with HPV vaccination In his speech at Rice a few months ago, Vice President Joe Biden said our generation will see such radical changes in our lifetime that we can end cancer as we know it. Although we may be tempted to write off this responsibility to scientists and researchers, Rice students themselves have access to a vaccine right now that can help bring an end to up to seven different types of cancer.

The human papillomavirus vaccine is available at the Student Health Center and, beginning this semester, is entirely reimbursable under Rice’s student health insurance.

Rice students are fortunate to have easy and free access to the catch-up HPV vaccine.

The human papillomavirus is the most common sexually transmitted infection, so common that almost all sexually active people will become infected with at least one type of HPV. Condoms do not offer protection against the infection, and HPV can even be transmitted through the shared use of sex toys. HPV has been linked to about 60 percent or more of vaginal,

Despite its location in the fourth-largest city in the United States, the Rice campus manages to host a treasure trove of underutilized natural spaces. While 96 percent of the 58 people we surveyed have seen the Harris Gully Natural Area, only about 34 percent of students knew the area’s name. When asked their opinions on the area, students gave fairly polarizing responses.

We got about as many positive comments (“I love it when it has the sunflowers and bluebonnets”) as we did negative (“It’s weedy and kind of gross looking”). Despite the participants’ opinions on the aesthetics of the area, the majority of Rice students don’t know why we chose to preserve the Harris Gully Natural Area.

When it rains on campus, several students will jokingly acknowledge the Harris Gully Natural Area as “Swamp Rice” or call it a lake. Though this reserve may look like a body of water during rainy weather, it is really a pocket prairie in the middle of campus. According to Richard Johnson, a professor in the ecology and evolutionary biology department, the Harris Gully Natural Area serves as a detention basin. Not only does the reserve help with water retention on campus, it also provides a glimpse into the history of the campus as well as the larger Houston area. The name of the

Anita Alem* Managing Editor Juan Saldana Business Manager news Drew Keller* Editor Amber Tong* Editor Emily Abdow Asst. Editor

opinions Mitch Mackowiak* Editor sports Andrew Grottkau Editor arts & entertainment Lenna Mendoza Editor design Justin Park Director Samantha Ding News Designer Katrina Cherk Sports Designer Christina Tan A&E Designer Jennifer Fu Illustrator photo Sirui Zhou Editor

Anita Alem is the Thresher

managing editor and a Martel College senior

reserve says it all. The grassy area students pass by quite frequently was once a gully filled with water. Today, prairies are considered one of the most endangered ecosystems in the United States, and Rice should be considered fortunate to have retained a pocket-sized prairie ecosystem right on campus.

If students were more aware of this natural reserve we could define the future potential of the area. Preserving the prairie ecosystem could be beneficial to the university as it would allow students to use this area as an educational environment, whether through ecology and evolutionary biology labs, civil engineering assignments or art projects. From the results of the survey conducted, we noticed several students showed personal interest in using this area, ranging from recreation to bettering student health. As Johnson puts it, “This generation of students has realized the value of our environment and has a good understanding in regards to the positive impact that green spaces have on people living in urban areas.” Whether as a frisbee golf field, picnic area or just a place for some casual reading, if students could use this reserve to relieve some stress, the Harris Gully Natural Area would prove as a great resource to not only the

students, but also to the university.

Rice students deserve a place to better connect with nature. While the beauty of campus cannot be understated, one can sit or study wholly surrounded by wildlife in very few places. The Harris Gully Natural Area is not a manicured lawn or park, it is an area of underappreciated natural beauty. As long as it flies under the radar, a great disservice is being done to the students of Rice.

Rachel Lambert is a Wiess College junior, Michael Nguyen is a Wiess freshman, Shreeya Patel is a Wiess senior, Monica Charletta is a Will Rice College senior and Matteo Constantini is a Wiess senior

HAVE OPINIONS? OF COURSE YOU DO. Submit op-eds and letters to the editor at thresher@rice.edu.

Columnists welcome! Inquire at mxm1@rice.edu.

In last week’s Nov. 16 issue, the story “Hopes and Fears: students react to Trump,” should have referred to Patrick Kowalski as a sophomore.

Yasna Haghdoost* Editor in Chief

policy implemented this fall, the Student Health Center’s vaccination rate increased from four shots given last semester to 18 so far this semester.

Rice students can only be a part of this step in cancer prevention if they are educated on HPV and its vaccine. If you are interested in learning more or have more questions about coverage, I encourage you to attend the upcoming Baker Institute for Public Policy breakfast panel on HPV this Friday, which will feature experts from the Center for Disease Control, MD Anderson and Texas State Health Services.

Rice’s culture of care includes considering the impact of our actions on the rest of the community.

Obtaining the HPV vaccine is aligned with this responsibility, as it provides peace of mind not only to you but also your sexual partner. All it takes is a few trips to Student Health Services, and you can rest assured knowing you are caring for your community and doing your part in ending cancer.

Celebrate Rice’s overlooked pocket prairie

Correction

STAFF

vulval, penile and oropharyngeal cancers. For cervical, anal and rectal cancer, this number goes up to 90 percent. Other types of HPV cause genital warts. There is no cure.

The HPV vaccine has existed for 10 years, but in the United States, less than half of women and only about a quarter of men are vaccinated. Part of the challenge of vaccination is logistical because the vaccine requires a series of shots six month apart, but politicization of the STI, unfounded questioning of the vaccination’s safety and lack of awareness have also kept vaccination rates low.

Several Rice students I have spoken with said their parents had refused the vaccine, uncomfortable with the idea of their child contracting a sexually transmitted infection. If you were not vaccinated as a preteen, it is likely that one of these factors came into play.

You still have the opportunity to guard yourself against this infection and against cancer. Rice students are fortunate to have easy and, for those with Aetna student health insurance, free access to the catch-up HPV vaccine for men and women up to age 26, although this fact is not well-known.

Given the serial nature of the vaccine and its time sensitivity, the best time to get this catch-up vaccine is right now on this campus. It is unlikely that the vaccine will be so exceedingly convenient for you to access later in life, and the longer you are unvaccinated, the greater your risk of contracting HPV. Some have already started taking advantage of this opportunity. Under the new reimbursement

copy Jasmine Lin Editor Julianne Wey Editor backpage Riley Robertson Editor business operations Shannon Klein Ads Manager Sean Kelley Distribution Manager online Charlie Paul Editor Alex Kim Editor *Editorial Board member

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

Letters to the Editor must be received by 5 p.m. the Friday prior to publication and must be signed, including college and year if the writer is a Rice student. The Thresher reserves the rights to edit letters for content and length and to place letters on its website.

Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the Thresher editorial staff. All other opinion pieces represent solely the opinion of the piece’s author.

Editorial and business offices are located on the second floor of the Ley Student Center: 6100 Main St., MS-524 Houston, TX 77005-1892 Phone (713) 348-4801 Email: thresher@rice.edu Website: www.ricethresher.org The Thresher is a member of the ACP, TIPA and CMBAM © Copyright 2016

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Letter to the Editor: Watch what you say I had the pleasure of visiting the Rice campus for the first time last week. I was impressed by everything I saw and heard, including the beautiful setting and architecture, and the bright, engaging students. However, I was concerned about a comment attributed to Hugh Grier, a Rice sophomore, in an article on the front page of the Nov. 16 issue of the Rice Thresher. Grier was quoted as saying Hillary Clinton is a “lying, cheating bought-out criminal” who “knowingly broke the law and openly lied to the American public” and “there are people are in prison for doing what she did.”

I was stunned by these comments because they were not what I would expect of a Rice student destined to be a productive member of society, a future scholar or a scientist. If I could speak to Mr. Grier, I would ask him three questions.

1) What evidence do you have of these claims? What are your sources? I have seen similar comments from Clinton’s political opponent, but nothing from any objective source to make me draw those same conclusions. I have seen a series of efforts

by Republican congressional committees to conduct investigation after investigation

with the hope of finding some wrongdoing, but they found nothing that suggested she lied, cheated or broke any law. In fact, she may be the most vetted politician in our history, and the only one to come out clean after such a thorough investigation.

2) How would you feel if someone said these things about your mother? Clinton is a person, a mother, a wife, a daughter. It is fine to disagree with someone on policy issues, it is also fine to not like their personality, but do we gain anything by calling people names?

3) What is a prospective employer going to think about a student who makes inflammatory statements in public with no evidence to support them? Is he going to draw similar unfounded conclusions in the research he conducts for work? Is he going to make inflammatory comments about his coworkers or leadership? Is this someone who can be trusted to represent the organization in a professional way?

Respectfully, Michael P. O’Donnell, MBA, MPH, PhD Editor in Chief, American Journal of Health Promotion

Life requires no resume We’ve all likely been through the rat race: four years of stressing over tiny percentages in the gradebook, a few points on the SAT and the summer job or internship that would look best on a college application. I liked high school, but would have liked it more if I’d lived more in the moment instead of focusing so much on college.

While I don’t regret prioritizing my resume and transcript during high school, I do regret that this mentality has persisted throughout my first semester at Rice.

Time and time again, I’ll hear other freshman stressing out about summer internships, the need to bolster their resume before graduation, medical school, etc. I realize other students, including other freshmen, might have a plan their careers, and some of these fields are very competitive. I know many students see their Rice education as the next stepping stone on their path, a vital tool in getting where they want to go.

College is and should be so much more than the next step on a path. It brings not only a dramatic change in scenery, but also a crossroads. We have the opportunity to wander a little ways up a trail, explore the path, then wander down a different path instead. When it comes to finding a career, four years is plenty of time.

According to a Clark University poll, half of recent college graduates lack a clear goal, and 53 percent are unemployed, underemployed or making less than $30,000 per year. In contrast, 78 percent of 2015 Rice graduates are employed full-time or enrolled in graduate school, according to data from the Center for Career Development.

Statistically, we Rice students are very likely

OP-ED

the Rice Thresher

to get accepted to graduate school or to find a career — so we can afford to relax a little bit.

Because, Rice is an expensive school, there is often a concrete financial expectation to prepare for a career. Even so, we have excellent career resources and an incredible network to tap, both of which should decrease the pressure that students feel to plan and prepare for their career.

Rice students are amazingly talented and incredibly driven, which is one of my favorite things about our school. But, sometimes, when students are intent upon barreling down their chosen career path, I question the accuracy of our navigation.

After all, 50 percent of college students change their majors after declaring them, according to NBC. U.S. Department of Labor Statistics indicate that 65 percent of school children are preparing for jobs that do not yet exist, which makes it a little harder to score that “perfect internship.”

Instead, we have the opportunity to explore, to try out something that sounds interesting and see where it leads. So I want to remind all of us, including myself, that life doesn’t require a resume. Take a deep breath, live in the moment and enjoy it.

Lizzie Bjork is a Duncan

College freshman

ASK THE STAFF Ask Merri and Webster What’s on your end of I’m supposed to be having fun as a senior, but I’m a pretty boring person. What should be on my bucket list?

Merri: Sit down and make a list of things on campus or in Houston you’ve always wanted to see, visit or learn more about — this can be as simple as the zoo. Go restaurant hopping, go on a food crawl, treat yo’self and in the process, go on a fun adventure! Maybe check out the Instagram hot spots and let yourself be a little basic. Just carve out some time to enjoy them by yourself or with friends. Here’s some ideas to get you started: 1. Go skydiving.

2. Go on a senior trip.

3. Have a roast with your friends (up for interpretation).

4. Explore ALL of the Galleria.

5. Focus on your studies (if you want).

6. Take some COLL courses.

7. Drop it like it’s hot.

And finally, don’t worry too much about being boring as a senior. College is a time of exploration, but so is life after graduation!

Webster: Have you taken the purity test lately? If not, you have a bucket list right there. ;) I overcommitted myself this semester (for my own well-being), but am interested in everything I’m doing. How do I decide which commitment to drop for next semester?

Merri: Diversity of activities is probably one of the most important things to consider when looking at your palette of commitments; if some of your commitments are doing the same things for you (for example, if you are an editor for multiple publications on campus), consider dropping one of them so you can focus on the other. Even if you’re saddled with diverse interests, I would think about what diverse kinds of work and activities you’re doing in each commitment. Rather than having four different research positions and internships, you’ll get a more wholesome experiance if you have a mix of activities that lets you learn a lot, be creative, be active, and have fun. The decision will ultimately be up to you, but let diversity and balance guide your considerations.

Webster: TOUGH IT OUT. Google Calendar it.

Manage your time. Don’t take 20 hours of classes (seriously, no one needs that crap in their life, except maybe CHBEs, RIP). Schedule in your 20-minute power naps. Be efficient, caffeinate, stay passionate and be energetic. I think you got this, I have faith in you.

But I mean ... If it’s far enough in advance (the semester is coming to an end, hallelujah), perhaps you can work things out with a couple commitments. But, unless your health is seriously declining, please do not be that person who drops out last minute. You don’t want to cause stress for others, or disregard the team, or burn any bridges. Rice is a small school, y’know? It’s pretty hard to avoid people who aren’t total recluses.

“Ask Merri and Webster” is an advice column authored by two Thresher editorial staff members. Readers can email their inquiries to thresher@rice.edu.

semester bucket list?

“I plead the fifth.”

– Yasna Haghdoost, Editor in Chief

“1. Climb willy’s statue 2. Pass classes 3. Catch a squirrel.”

– Jennifer Fu, Illustrator

“1. Quit the Thresher! JK. It’s been a blast, goodbye everyone!”

– Justin Park, Art Director

“1. Start napping 2. Never stop napping.”

– Charlie Paul, Web Editor

“1. Get a full night of sleep at least once.”

– Andrew Grottkau, Sports Editor

“1. Fondren Sixth 2. Berlin Wall 3. Sid basement 4. McMurtry Innovation Kitchen 5. Empty pool inside Tudor.”

– Juan Saldana, Business Manager

“1. Win capitalism 2. Raise my GPA 3. Try out a new eyebrow shape.”

– Anita Alem, Managing Editor

“1. Gain 15 pounds at study breaks.”

– Emily Abdow, Assistant News Editor

“1. Go to Uchi 2. Pass COMP 130.”

– Julianne Wey, Copy Editor

“1. Break my other arm #noarmsnofinals.”

– Drew Keller, News Editor

“bucketlist[0] = ‘find fall semester bucket list’ bucketlist[1] = ‘peruse end of semester bucket lists’ bucketlist[2] = ‘make winter break bucket list’.”

– Amber Tong, News Editor

“1. Listen to live jazz 2. Cook a meal for someone else 3. Bake bread 4. Learn a little more about medieval constellation mapping.”

– Mitch Mackowiak, Opinions Editor

“1. Have a good sleep 2. Have some good food.”

– Sirui Zhou, Photo Editor

Ask Merri and Webster

“1. Pass my classes 2. Wear heels on Fondren Sixth without getting glared at.”

– Christina Tan, A&E Designer

“1. Come up with a good ‘Ask the Staff’ response.”

– Riley Robertson, Backpage Editor

“1. Leave the Thresher office on Tuesday at 6:45 p.m. Period.

That’s it.”

– Jasmine Lin, Copy Editor

“1. Move all my crying to the shower (faster clean-up).” cartoon by jennifer fu and riley robertson

Talking turkey.

– Lenna Mendoza, A&E Editor

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courtesy e!news

Houston Cinema Arts Festival recap Maddie Flavin, Thresher Staff

1. To experi-

ence ‘La La Land’ is to fly among the stars

Apparently, two things don’t seem to be cool or make money in today’s Hollywood: originality and musicals. In our current

THE WEEKLY SCENE The editors’ picks for this week’s best events. Time to explore the wonderful world of Houston.

IMAX 3-D, superhero-centric, rebooteverything world, those qualities feel like a bittersweet memory from a golden past.

Yet, somehow, an original musical with star power that feels akin to classic Hollywood has landed, and it has become this season’s most hotly anticipated film. Starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in their third creative collaboration, “La La Land,” from “Whiplash” writer and director Damien Chazelle, is cinematic pixie dust with toetapping, heart-singing magic at its fingertips.

Sebastian is a stubborn traditionalist jazz pianist who dreams of opening his own jazz club but can’t find people who share his passion. Mia is a college dropout from small-town Nevada facing constant rejection while working a survival job at a coffee shop on the Warner Brothers lot. Star-crossed in

HIDENTITIES Argentine-born and Houston-native video artist Pablo Gimenez-Zapiola combines live-feed video, text and other media in a multi-projection installation that explores personal identity. The one-night event will take place on Dec. 10 from 7-10 p.m.. Entry is free.

Aurora Picture Show 2442 Bartlett St. aurorapictureshow.org

their struggles, their blossoming relationship makes their lives more colorful while inspiring them to keep their hopes alive. But the day will come when compromises must be made between young love and lifelong dreams.

The chemistry between Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, sparked in 2011’s “Crazy Stupid Love” and augmented in 2013’s “Gangster Squad,” shoots off the scales in “La La Land,” beyond measure. When they’re talking, and especially when they’re dancing, their dynamic shatters the fourth wall with pleasure. It’s an infectious love of life, a perspective that it wants to share. Individually and collectively, the performances of Gosling and Stone combine starry-eyed optimism and hard-hitting realism, saluting the beautiful dreamers out there while acknowledging

GOOD COP, BUD COP Professional comedians Geoff Tate and Emma Arnold team up for a comedy tour, the Houston stop hosted by The Secret Group.

Tickets are $8-$12. Doors open at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 13.

The Secret Group 2101 Polk Street thesecretgrouphtx.com

their journeys’ more grueling aspects.

Though on the Hollywood A-list, it becomes strikingly clear that both Gosling and Stone still remember their own hard-knock days of trying to make it in the business. For them and their director, this is a deeply personal film about purpose and pursuit. Though this is only his second film, Chazelle shows no signs of the dreaded sophomore slump, his writing coming entirely from the heart and his years of realizing such an impossible dream evident. It has quickly become his artistic brand and, here, it’s a life-saving adrenaline injection to the veins in a world trying to find some starlight in the dark night.

With old-school logos and title cards, Chazelle makes clear his intention of honoring early Hollywood musicals. The use 0see LAND, page 9

THE LITTLE MERMAID

THE SURFACE OF THINGS

The Players Theatre Company will put on the Disney musical “The Little Mermaid.” The show runs for three weekends, from Dec. 2-18 with 8 p.m. showtimes on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. matinees on Sunday. Tickets are $22.

This exhibition brings together a varied group of photographers whose work pursues and questions objects, how they appear and what lies beneath the surface. The exhibit will be on view until Jan. 16.

Admission is free.

The Owen Theatre 225 Metcalf Street owentheatre.com

Houston Center for Photography 1441 W Alabama hcponline.org

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

0LAND FROM PAGE 8 of a Technicolor film palette, the popular coloring medium back in the classic Hollywood heyday, gives the breathtaking images the feel of a picture come to life off the page. The joyous moments come across as radiant, but so do the achingly painful ones. Editor Tom Cross keeps the more grounded beats contemporary while letting cinematographer Linus Sandgren cut loose with the musical numbers, using minuteslong unbroken takes that keep heads on a constant swivel of festivity. A paradox emerges, as reality contains elements of dreams, and what was previously confined to the world of dreams explodes into the real world. Composer Justin Hurwitz produces an emotionally diverse range of refreshingly original music, both a score and songs. He starts the show with the deliriously buoyant, traffic jam-set “Another Day of Sun,” and includes a somberly hopeful but still catchy song, “City of Stars.”

‘La La Land’ casts a seductive spell on the eyes and the heart, its twinkling sparkles remain on bodies, pillows and in memories the morning after.

As much as dreams can drive us crazy, without them we’d have no drive. “La La Land” casts a seductive spell on the eyes and the heart, its twinkling sparkles remain on bodies, pillows and in memories the morning after.

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2. Natalie Portman honors the Kennedy legacy in ‘Jackie’ There are days that permanently alter the course of history. Nov. 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was brutally assassinated, was one of them. It was an older generation’s 9/11, the kind of infamy where people remember where they were when they first heard about it. Kennedy’s violent demise left behind a grieving nation and a 34-year-old widow with two young children.

In a spectacular English-language cinematic debut, Chilean director Pablo Larrain, and Academy Award-winning actress Natalie Portman focus on that grieving widow, first lady Jackie Kennedy, in the aftermath of such a painful cultural trauma.

One week after John F. Kennedy’s funeral, Life magazine journalist Theodore H. White travels to Port Hyannis, Massachusetts, to interview the former first lady. Though the assassination’s gory details remain raw in everyone’s mind, Jackie Kennedy, as she prefers to be called now, opens up on her own terms about that fateful day and the days afterward, when the public had its eyes on her. As she plans the funeral arrangements, protects her children and confides in her closest allies, she knows every one of her actions would determine her late husband’s legacy.

In a spectacularly strong performance that might earn her a second Oscar, Natalie Portman grippingly conveys the pressure cooker-level turmoil that Jackie Kennedy was under, internally and externally. While the media captured that haunting image of the first lady wearing black and a veil at the funeral, Portman and company reveal that, behind the scenes, Jackie Kennedy, tormented by the memory of that bullet’s carnage, fought hard to give JFK a sendoff for the ages. Using an incisively wellrounded script by Noah Oppeneheim, with its perfect balance of Jackie Kennedy’s sophistically poised public image and fiery

3. Larrain’s ‘Neruda’ injects the

biopic genre with unpredictability A legend of Latin American literature, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was also a fierce political activist. Long before his mysteryshrouded death in 1973, his ideals often clashed with those of his government, at one time forcing him into exile. In the “antibiopic” “Neruda,” writer and director Pablo Larrain combines the facts of one such clash with the fiction of a detective story, creating an unconventional cat-and-mouse game about the stories we create for ourselves.

In 1948, the Chilean government illegalizes communism and publishes an arrest warrant for Pablo Neruda, national literary treasure and senator. Assigned to the task of capturing the poet is Oscar Peluchoneau, a police detective addicted to the thrill of the chase and hungry to take leading man status in his life. With Peluchoneau always one step behind his prize, the question becomes when the inevitable collision between the two will occur as Neruda’s allies smuggle him closer to the border.

Luis Gnecco as Neruda and Gael Garcia Bernal as Peluchoneau make for worthy opponents, despite minimal onscreen contact. Gnecco ensures that his performance honors the real man’s creative genius and concern for his homeland’s struggling masses, for whom his passionate poetry became a voice. He also paints Neruda as a stubborn man who frequently gets a kick out of taunting the other team.

“This has to become a wild hunt,” Neruda tells his friends as he plays hot potato from one safe house to the next and refuses to stay confined indoors. As the fictional Peluchoneau, Bernal is a mixture of softspoken, conflicted, suave and slightly incompetent. He achieves the difficult task of promoting allegiance toward the detective driven crazy by his sidelines position and desiring that the detective remain unsatisfied in his mad manhunt. As much as Peluchoneau wants to catch Neruda, Bernal always gives off the sense that the detective doesn’t really want capture his target because that would mean the end of the adventure. Mercedes Moran initially

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appears to be little more than marital moral support as Neruda’s wife, a Paris-educated Argentinean painter named Delia del Carril.

But, in one sharply written and stunningly delivered dialogue scene, she shows off del Carril’s hidden power, and it’s not something she’ll let any man tamper with or question.

Guillermo Calderon’s script plays like a page-turner, as the narrator’s voice generates curiosity about what comes next. This works to great effect in the film as, initially, we do not know who the narrator is. “A fabulous chase is about to begin,” the narrator says, at the film’s opening. Voiceover tends to easily become an lazy trope but, in the context of this film, its frequent usage not only maintains the fascination but also provides a window into the narrator’s feelings of jealous inadequacy.

With biopics, certain genre rules must followed and the audience often already knows the end of the story. But, in blurring the lines between history and invention, “Neruda” uses elements of a true story to forge a genre-bending original story that demonstrates the limitless extents of a writer’s imagination.

courtesy variety

private self, Portman shows how gutsy Jackie was for her time. Jackie Kennedy took charge in telling her husband’s story and went to great lengths to ensure that a beautiful portrait be constructed. In capturing Jackie’s iconic physicality, from her voice to her walk, Portman conveys the extent of her research on such a powerhouse first lady. In the iconic Jackie wardrobe, she looks like a queen, fitting for a first lady who coined the term “Camelot” for her family’s time in the White House.

Cinematographer Stephane Fontaine shoots the film with an almost classic Hollywood Technicolor palette. Whether bright or drab, all the colors stand out, creating the nostalgic feel of both a time gone by and a beautiful fairy tale that never got a happily ever after. Mica Levi’s strings-

oriented score somberly sets the mood from the get-go, giving the feel of how trajectorychanging a moment that November day was, an impact still felt over 50 years later. The score also utilizes two songs from the 1960 “Camelot” cast recording, a dear favorite of the couple. The bittersweet inclusion pushes home the feeling that a class of style like the Kennedys can never be returned to or reproduced.

“There won’t be another Camelot,” Jackie Kennedy tells White during their interview.

“Not another Camelot.”

The Kennedys’ White House stay lasted only two years, 10 months and two days. But, with those words, “Jackie” picks up the pieces and writes the story of a dazzling but cruelly destroyed kingdom for future generations, for whom it’s just a story in a book.

courtesy daily mail

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Wednesday, November 30, 2016

the Rice Thresher

‘Arrival’: A Blockbuster with meaning Michael VerMeulen Thresher Staff

If you’ve been to the movies recently, you probably saw a big-budget fantasy/sci-fi adventure, a family-oriented animation or a cheap horror film. Mostly, these movies provide surface-level entertainment and escapism without challenging their audiences. With some exceptions, like “Mad Max: Fury Road” or “Zootopia,” big studio movies have ditched intelligence in favor of the lowest common denominator.

Enter “Arrival,” the new science-fiction picture from acclaimed director Denis Villeneuve.

Arguably the finest movie released in 2016, “Arrival” delves into questions of communication, unity and life with incredible depth while delivering a fascinating story that keeps the viewer at the edge of their seat. In the film, linguist Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) must work with the United States government in order to find out how to communicate with extraterrestrials who have arrived in 12 UFOs across Earth for unknown reasons. Alongside theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) and a team of fellow linguists, Louise makes progress in interpreting the aliens’ language.

I will not give any more details on the plot of this film, as this is a movie best experienced with as little prior knowledge about it as possible.

Audiences will not be able to predict where the story is heading, unlike other alien-centered films, like this summer’s “Independence Day: Resurgence.” Movies like “Resurgence” are the exact antithesis of “Arrival,” throwing out all logic and subtlety in favor of one-dimensional characters, loud explosions and half-baked nostalgia. Audiences know that humans will save the day in the “Independence Day” sequel just like they did in the original, and they know that the aliens won’t be treated as intelligent beings but as malicious cannon fodder for their “heroes” to attack in ridiculous action sequences.

“Arrival” barely has any action sequences during its two-hour runtime, instead focusing on conversations between Louise and the mysterious

extraterrestrials, as well as Louise’s attempts at further understanding them. The movie wisely takes its time during these scenes, allowing the characters to work through their dilemmas with stunning realism and for the storytelling to be fully realized without the rushes or gaps that often accompany Hollywood blockbusters.

‘Arrival’ delves into questions of communication, unity and life with incredible depth.

By moving at its slow and steady pace, “Arrival” makes time to insert important themes and messages into its tale that are increasingly relevant to current events. Throughout the film, Louise and the United States government cooperate with the other nations who have UFOs in their airspace in order to advance the world’s comprehension of the extraterrestrials. Tensions arise in these efforts just as international collaborations do in real life, and unforeseen complications bring about great tension to the entire operation. Following this, the film’s climax relays morals about the importance of harmony among peoples as well as the necessity to understand those who are different than us. These morals are such a timely response to America’s present political climate that it blew me away. They demonstrate a hopefulness and empathy that seems extinct in modern times.

They should be shared with everyone.

“Arrival” is an absolute must-see motion picture, one of the best sci-fi films in years and maybe the greatest overall film released in 2016 up to this point. Big Hollywood studios rarely release multimillion-dollar features of any tangible significance, and for them to give us one with as high a quality and as relevant a message as “Arrival” is truly astounding.

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‘Fantastic Beasts’ creates a Potter universe that feels eerily akin to our own Maddie Flavin Thresher Staff

In the summer of 2011, audiences prepared to say their final goodbyes to Harry Potter, the cultural phenomenon that shaped a generation’s values. But, in today’s rebootdriven cinema-scape, we know that franchises are never finished for good. Five years after the groundbreaking original franchise’s final chapter, fans get to return to that wondrously magical world in the spinoff prequel “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.” Introducing an entirely new cast of characters that expands one of the most captivating universes ever conceived, the film, penned by J.K. Rowling herself, brings back the imagination-igniting spirit of her original stories, copositioning it with disturbingly relevant themes of identity repression and fear of the unknown.

[‘Fantastic Beasts’ is] a surprisingly timely, politically tinged narrative that never THE RICHARDS GROUP TRG JOB #:forgets its past while SBU-16-0050 looking ahead.

CLIENT: SMU

TITLE: In 1926, British Master’s College Printarrives in Scamander

magizoologist Newt Manhattan, carrying PUB:no ordinary briefcase. With its contents, a Ricediverse Thresher ecosystem of magical creatures, Newt INSERTION: hopes to spread awareness of these previously November 2016 undiscovered species, all of whom he cares TRIM: for as though they were his own children.

4.98" x 8" But his visit to America comes at a dangerous COLOR: CMYK time, as the country’s wizarding community LINEstruggles SCREEN: to flourish clandestinely while SNAP/85 Muggle fundamentalists blame magic for a FORseries QUESTIONS of mysteriously terrifying occurrences.

CALL: When Muggle Jacob Kowalski accesses Newt’s Kathleen Pendergast briefcase, the cargo’s subsequent escape requires 214.891. 2918 Newt, along with Jacob and witch sisters Queenie and Tina Goldstein, to find them before enemies from both sides start a culture war.

As the actor to whom the Potter universe torch has been passed, Eddie Redmayne

takes his duties seriously enough for a smooth transition to this new adventure. The Academy Award winner depicts Newt as a shy yet fiercely intelligent scientist who knows how it feels to be the misunderstood outsider. This explains Newt’s deep love for the creatures of his life’s work and suspends disbelief, critical at a time when audiences know too well how the CGI game works. Katherine Waterston, as demoted Magical Congress worker Tina Goldstein, exemplifies Rowling’s knack for writing complex women. Seeking redemption for the misdeed that left her deskbound, Tina rediscovers her inner power through Newt’s passion and drive. She’s not a sidekick — she’s her own leading lady. Alison Sudol is as bubbly as champagne as the joyous Queenie, a gorgeous mind reader. Dan Fogler plays Jacob Kowalski, who is swept up in the remarkable adventure by happenstance and becomes the audience surrogate, as he acclimates to a new world that he feels increasingly gravitated toward. The supporting ensemble, from Samantha Morton as the gratingly narrow-minded Mary Lou to Ezra Miller’s dangerously repressed Credence, are equally captivating in their performances.

Underneath the surface, Rowling’s “Potter” always grappled with major societal issues, and this carries over into “Fantastic Beasts.”

It’s clear from the film’s earliest scene, as flashes of news stories with headlines such as “Anti-wizard sentiment increases,” that this fictional world has hard-hitting statements to make about our real world. The actions and rhetoric of Mary Lou and her cronies feel eerily akin to those of the Westboro Baptist Church.

Just like the TSA have a threat level scale at the airports so does the Magical Congress, where Tina works. The fear of discovery and the stifling covertness on the part of the wizarding world becomes palpable too. In Newt’s world, identity repression becomes a real monster that wreaks devastating damage on the city. It’s a dangerously tangible metaphor for our times that keeps repeating itself over and over again.

They say that if you’re going to rehash a story, you have to have a good reason for it.

“Fantastic Beasts” may be another byproduct of our never-ending-story media world, but it’s a surprisingly timely, politically tinged narrative that never forgets its past while looking ahead to the possibilities of the uncertain future.

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A string quartet performs at the first of three Moody Center pop-up shows which will lead up to the spring launch of the Moody Center for the Arts.

11/7/16 3:07 PM

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

CANE ROSSO SERVES UP UNIQUE PIZZAS Lauren Heller Thresher Staff

Cane Rosso, a Dallas-based pizza chain, has opened two locations in Houston, the first coming to the Heights this past summer and the second coming to Montrose in late October.

Given that the Montrose outpost is literally less than 10 minutes away from campus, I decided to give it a try.

For those of you who haven’t been to a location in Dallas or Austin, I’ll give a brief description of its concept. Cane Rosso serves wood-fired Neapolitan pizzas in a special oven that the restaurant ships in from Italy. This requires a special technique: Each pizza is flashcooked in the oven at a scalding temperature of 900 degrees for only 70 seconds.

Once the piping hot pizza arrives to your table, the server will explain that because the

Thresher Staff

There is perhaps no better time to review Little Liberty, located in Rice Village, than in the wake of the recent presidential election.

A member of the family of Liberty Kitchen restaurants, Little Liberty bills itself as the odd sibling out with its lunch-focused menu. As opposed to its older Liberty Kitchen siblings, Little Liberty doesn’t have extremely rich and complex seafood dishes, but rather errs on the side of lighter salads and sandwiches. Still, lobster, oysters and other seafood are prominently featured among Little Liberty’s offerings.

The dining environment is certainly worth experiencing. From the slightly distressed metal dining chairs to the Texas-themed wallpaper (and by Texasthemed, I mean cowboys and oil derricks), you are certainly immersed in what I can only describe as your Aunt Mabel’s annual garage sale. However, all jokes aside, it is a very nice place to dine. As soon as you step in, you are swept away from the urbanized nature of Houston and find yourself in Small Town, USA, where everybody knows your name and the waiter will have heard about your latest farming equipment purchase before you’ve had a chance to tell anyone.

Therefore, if you decide to come here, it is best to do so with a small group of close friends or family. It is a cozy place no doubt, and just writing about it makes me nostalgic and teary-eyed.

While the decor and atmosphere of Little Liberty can have such an emotional effect on even the hardest of hearts, there are other aspects of the restaurant that can make you equally weepy — namely, the food. Conceptually, it would seem as if Little Liberty would have hit one out of the park with its menu. The Coastal Mac and Cheese offers a medley of shrimp, fried oysters and bacon and is topped with scallions.

Patrons can also order a customized poke bowl featuring a choice of tuna, snapper, salmon, rare beef or vegetables for the main component. I opted for one of their “Serious Sandwiches” and chose the Tuna Salad Melt a la BLTesque.

I know what you’re thinking, What does that even mean? How can something be “BLTesque”? Well, this was the precise question that drew me to this dish. It consisted of tuna salad served with a few leaves of greens and sliced heirloom tomato on an English muffin. On the side was a salad and a serving of bacon jam. As I said in my Bernie’s Burger Bus review, I consider

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Cane Rosso Price range: $$ Website: canerosso.com MONTROSE Address: 4306 Yoakum Blvd.

Phone number: (713) 337-1155 THE HEIGHTS Address: 1835 N. Shepherd Dr. Phone number: (713) 868-0071 lauren heller/thresher

Above: Che Cazzo Left: Prosciutto e Rucola pizza pie has a really thin crust on the bottom (not the edges though), it is meant to be eaten with a fork and knife. While my group initially tried this manner of eating, we ultimately decided that the plebeian method of eating with our hands would suffice.

While I have been describing Cane Rosso as a pizza joint, it actually has a broad menu that includes sandwiches and pastas. Some of the starters were also quite tempting, like the homemade burrata with crostini or deep-fried artichokes, but my group opted to order a few pizzas and save room for dessert instead.

There are 23 pizzas to choose from with a wide range of flavors that include different meats, cheeses and veggies. However, don’t expect to find the usual ham and pineapple pizza at this place. We decided to order the Luana, Prosciutto e Rucola and Che Cazzo.

Little Liberty falls flat Franklin Shen

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not toasting the bun of any sandwich or burger one of the greatest sins a chef can make. After partaking in one bite of my Tuna Salad Melt, I concluded that the chef at Little Liberty needs to repent — ASAP. For starters, it doesn’t take a genius to know that a tuna salad is wet. It’s supposed to be like that.

No problem with a wet tuna salad. However, once you put something wet on any form of bread, the bread acts like a sponge and will easily soak the moisture from the main protein. That is why you should always toast the bun. Toasting the bun buys you a bit of time before the bread gets soggy and offers you another unique texture to enjoy in a bite.

An English muffin is especially susceptible to getting soggy, which was certainly the case with my Tuna Salad Melt.

Furthermore, the dish did not feel inspired at all. Each layer — the muffin, the tomato, the greens and the tuna salad — felt like they were just layered onto each other instead of making one cohesive dish. It was as if my sandwich was made on an assembly line rather than by an artisan.

Service was disappointing as well.

One member of my group ordered Fried Chicken Sliders but got one chicken tender instead. One. Not even a toy to go alongside it.

And so, we come to price. A sandwich at Little Liberty will cost you somewhere in the range of $12.50-$16.50, while the Coastal Mac and Cheese is priced starting at $16.

Add lobster or pork carnitas however, and you’ll be looking at a $20-$32 meal. It is not on the cheap side. The poke is well-priced at $12, however. Well, until you realize it’s an appetizer.

Service was disappointing as well. One member of my group ordered Fried Chicken Sliders but got one chicken tender instead.

One. Not even a toy to go alongside it.

The one saving grace, and what a saving grace it was, was the bacon jam. Oh, I was in heaven! I started by spooning some onto bites of sandwich and by the end of my meal I found myself licking the little side container clean. The smoke! The sweetness!

The Luana pizza comes with sausage, hot soppressata (described as pepperoni’s cool older brother), mushrooms, san marzano tomatoes and housemade mozzarella. The Prosciutto e Rucola is not a red sauce pizza but rather comes with prosciutto crudo, arugula with lemon dressing, housemade mozzarella, shaved parmesan cheese, garlic and olive oil.

The Che Cazzo’s menu description is simply “trust your pizzaiolo … always spicy,” which intrigued us enough to order it.

The Luana and Che Cazzo ended up having the same toppings except for the Che Cazzo’s extra kick of red pepper flakes and Calabrian chilies that provided the perfect punch in every bite without being too spicy. All pizzas came with generous portions of toppings and a doughy rim of crust. The Prosciutto e Rucola pizza contrasted well with the other two pizzas due to its lack of sauce and light garnishes. We

each ended up arguing that we chose the best of the bunch.

Unfortunately, after the delicious pizzas, the dessert was a disappointment. We were torn between the s’mores calzone and the Italian donuts, but we ultimately decided on the s’mores calzone, which was pizza dough stuffed with chocolate and marshmallows, topped with powdered sugar. While all of the components were tasty, the pizza dough was overwhelming. To put it simply, the dough was too doughy. If you’re in the mood for dessert, take a chance on one of the other menu items or go somewhere else.

Overall, Cane Rosso has a vibe closer to a casual Italian restaurant than neighborhood pizza place, with plenty of options to fit anyone’s preferences. Given that it is so close to campus, I would recommend this spot for a Saturday night outside of Rice Village.

The inherent baconiness! I’m craving it even now. If Little Liberty sold that bacon jam by the jar, my Volkswagen would be packed from the trunk to the passenger side footwell. I would recommend going just for that bacon jam, even considering the faults with my dish and the service.

If Little Liberty focused only on their

menu of sandwiches and seafood (which is quite limited for a sit-down restaurant), then I would steer clear. Perhaps go once to experience the warm, cozy small-town ambiance and the amazing bacon jam, but only if someone else offers to pay. My conclusion? If this is what liberty tastes like, someone please give me death.

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Senior Chelsey Harris goes for the kill during Rice’s quarterfinal sweep over Marshall University in the Conference USA Tournament. The Owls defeated the University of Southern Mississippi in the semifinals before falling in five sets to Western Kentucky University in the championship game.

raymond tjhia/thresher

Volleyball falls one set short of conference title Andrew Grottkau Sports Editor

Rice volleyball opened the Conference USA Tournament as the host and the sixth seed, an underdog in its first match against Marshall University. After a hard-fought run through the bracket, the team’s season came to an end with a five-set loss to No. 20 Western Kentucky University in the Conference USA championship game.

The Owls began the tournament with a matchup against third-seeded Marshall, a team they swept during the regular season.

Rice repeated that feat by sweeping the Herd again (26-24, 25-23, 25-20) to advance to the tournament’s semifinals. Senior Chelsey Harris led the team with 21 kills and junior Madison McDaniel added 39 assists and 12 digs.

In the semifinals, Rice faced off against the No. 2 seed, the University of Southern Mississippi. Earlier this year, the Golden Eagles rallied from a two-set deficit to beat the Owls in five sets. For a while, it appeared that Southern Miss would do it again. After the Owls won the first two sets of the match, the Golden Eagles

rallied back. Conference USA freshman of the year Catherine Repsher and senior Stephany Purdue helped Southern Miss win sets three and four to set up a deciding fifth set. The fifth set, however, went to the Owls this time. Rice won the set 15-5 to wrap up the win and advance to the championship game.

The title game was a rematch of the 2014 Conference USA championship, which Western Kentucky won in five sets. The winner would advance to the NCAA Tournament to represent the conference. The Owls were the lowest seed to ever advance to the conference title match, and the Hilltoppers were ranked No. 20 in the country. For the first two sets, Western Kentucky lived up to its ranking. The Hilltoppers rallied from a 20-15 deficit to win the first set, and they held a lead for the duration of the second set in a 25-20 victory.

According to head coach Genny Volpe, the Owls could easily have given up when down two sets. “[The team] could have taken the easy route and caved, but they didn’t,” Volpe said. “They came out of the locker room with a new sense of

purpose and had the attitude of this not being their last game.”

I’m an extremely proud coach today. They left it all out on the floor, every single one of them.

Genny Volpe Volleyball Head Coach Buoyed by the support of the home crowd, Rice rallied to win the third and fourth sets. The Owls hit .500 in the third set to win 25-19 and took the fourth set by the same score. With the match tied at two sets apiece, the championship went to a deciding set. Unfortunately for the Owls,

they could not carry momentum from the third and fourth sets into the final set. The Hilltoppers never trailed in a 15-7 fifth-set victory to win their third straight conference championship.

McDaniel recorded a double-double for the 21st time this season in the loss, and Harris led the Owls with 20 kills in her final collegiate match.

According to Volpe, the loss was difficult but not disappointing.

“I’m an extremely proud coach today,” Volpe said. “They left it all out on the floor, every single one of them. Every player on the bench was ready to go and everyone on the court was giving it their all. The way this team evolved this year has made me extremely proud.”

The match was the final one for six Rice seniors. Seniors Andi Bawcum, Harris, Madi Holman, Leah Mikesky, Meghan Patterson and Miranda Rogers will graduate this year. Current juniors Portia Okafor, McDaniel and Shelby Livingstone will take over as the team’s senior leaders next season. The Owls will be looking to make a return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2009.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

SPORTS

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13

From the Editor’s Desk to the Sports Section My first foray into football

courtesy the stanford daily

Stanford University sophomore linebacker Casey Toohill rushes Rice freshman quarterback Jackson Tyner during the Cardinal’s 41-17 drubbing of Rice on Saturday night. Tyner threw for 68 yards and junior running back Christian McCaffrey scored two touchdowns for Stanford.

Football drops final game; Bailiff to return Andrew Grottkau Sports Editor

In a chilly rain in front of a sparse Stanford Stadium crowd, the Rice football team finished off a 3-9 season with a 41-17 loss to No. 24 Stanford University Saturday night. The loss ushers in an offseason that will spark numerous decisions regarding the coaching staff, though head coach David Bailiff will return to the Owls next year.

Stanford scored on its first possession when junior quarterback Keller Chryst broke free on a 62-yard run. The Cardinals would never relinquish that lead. After field goals on its next two drives, Stanford led 13-0 at the end of the first quarter.

In the second quarter, a short Rice punt and a 33-yard return by junior running back Christian McCaffrey set the Cardinal up at the Rice 23-yard line. On the very next play, McCaffrey caught a 23-yard touchdown pass from Chryst to put the Cardinal up 20-0. At that point in the game, McCaffrey, a Heisman Trophy finalist last year, had 129 total yards individually while Rice as a team had just 42 yards of offense.

According to Bailiff, McCaffrey has elite talent.

“I’ve coached for 33 years and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone who’s capable of what he’s doing with the ball in his hands whether he’s a running back or a receiver,” Bailiff said.

On its next drive, Rice finally got its offense moving and added a field goal just before the half. Any hope for a second half comeback quickly vanished when McCaffrey scored his second touchdown of the game on a 19-yard run. The teams each scored two more touchdowns, with senior running back Jowan Davis scoring both times for Rice. The loss snapped the Owls’ two-game winning streak.

Bailiff said despite the losses, he has been impressed with the hard work his team has put in this season.

“I was really pleased with the effort this football team played with,” Bailiff said.

“It was a tough season for us. We didn’t accomplish what we set out to but I’m really proud of this team.”

Rice has now failed to appear in a bowl game for two straight years. After a streak of three straight bowl appearances from 2012 to 2014, the Owls are just 8-16 over the past two seasons. The Owls’ recent struggles have

caused many Rice supporters to call for Bailiff to be fired. Despite those calls, Rice athletic director Joe Karlgaard announced that the head coach would return next season.

Karlgaard said he has lofty expectations for the coach and the team next season.

“While we are all disappointed with the results, there is a plan to turn things around under his leadership next season and I have made the expectations for 2017 very clear to [Bailiff ],” Karlgaard said. “We expect to be competitive in every game and to compete for conference championships.”

We didn’t accomplish what we set out to but I’m really proud of this team.

David Bailiff Football Head Coach

In his 10 years at Rice, Bailiff has compiled a record of 56-69. Despite the losing record, he has led the Owls to four bowl games and won three of them. The three bowl wins are more than any Rice coach other than Jess Nealy, who coached the Owls from 1940 to 1966 and led Rice to a win in the Orange Bowl and two wins in the Cotton Bowl. Bailiff ’s teams have won the 2008 Texas Bowl, the 2012 Armed Forces Bowl and the 2014 Hawai’i Bowl.

Rice will now turn its attention to next season. Current freshman quarterbacks Jackson Tyner and J.T. Granato will likely compete for the starting job next season after senior quarterback Tyler Stehling’s graduation. Tyner led Rice to a 44-24 victory over the University of Texas, El Paso last weekend before going just 10-37 for 68 yards in the loss to Stanford. Granato has appeared for stretches to relieve Stehling throughout this season.

Rice will open next season with a rematch against Stanford, this time at home in Rice Stadium. The game is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 2.

For the past six months since I’ve gotten my MacBook fixed, the default login logo above my username has been a stock photo of a football. Somehow, even though I use my laptop almost every day, I didn’t notice this football staring back at me until Thresher News Editor Drew Keller pointed it out last Saturday. This just goes to show how little my mind registers anything football related.

Prior to last week, I had never watched a single football game. I didn’t know what a touchdown or a play was, what a quarterback was supposed to do or really anything about how this multibillion-dollar industry centered around brain damage operated.

I decided to change all that by attending my very first football game last weekend. Fittingly, it was the last football game of the Rice Owls’ 2016 season played against Stanford University in my hometown of Palo Alto. To prepare, our Business Manager Juan Saldana sat down with me the week prior to watch a football game on TV; he patiently explained the mechanisms behind this glorified orgy of men piling on top of each other while other people watch.

The weather conditions on game day were far from ideal, but I was thankfully spared from the rainy cold as I watched the game from the comfort of the press box, complete with a dinner buffet. Oh, to be the media elite.

And so the game commenced. While most people could probably already foresee Stanford’s victory, a small part of me was rooting for a Rice upset of Trump-ish proportions. No such upset occurred, and Hillary Clinton (who symbolizes Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey if the universe is functioning properly) preserved the status quo. My newfound, thorough understanding of the game leads me to conclude that the Rice football team needs to catch better and run faster. Coach Bailiff, are you taking notes?

The halftime show inexplicably began with a group of small children playing flag football, presumably because they’re a bunch of fucking snowflakes who can’t handle the real deal.

Stunningly competent journalists that we are, Drew and I missed the rest of the halftime show, as we were otherwise preoccupied with sneaking into the Stanford alumni VIP lounge in search of David Leebron. I mean, it’s not like anything newsworthy ever happens at a halftime show, and we figured our president was more likely to be schmoozing with Rich White People than kicking it with the plebes in the rainy stands. Alas, there was no Leebz to be found, and we were promptly kicked out of the VIP box. I suspect it was Drew’s Rice hat and T-shirt that gave us away. Well, there goes his salary.

Despite my cynicism, I emerged from my first experience of attending a football game with tremendous respect for the athletes who put in so much time and devotion into improving their craft. The sadness in coach Bailiff ’s eyes in the postgame media conference almost broke my heart. He looked like a large, depressed teddy bear, and I genuinely wanted to give him a hug.

Though I have a better understanding of how the game works (now I know what a touchdown is!), I don’t think I’ll ever subscribe to the hype, as it were. Sportsball is just not my thing, and football, which falls under the broader umbrella of sportsball in my athletically disinclined mind, is no exception. So, it should be no surprise that later the same evening I watched reruns of “Downton Abbey” because at the end of the day, if I’m going to watch veiled displays of homoeroticism, I’d prefer they be set in postEdwardian Britain. Go Owls!

Yasna Haghdoost

is the Thresher Editor in Chief and a Will Rice College senior

14 SPORTS

the Rice Thresher

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Rice Rising: Basketball teams off to hot starts to season Andrew Grottkau Sports Editor

Women’s basketball Rice women’s basketball is off to a 3-2 start, its best start since the 2011-12 season.

The Owls have three double-digit wins including a 26-point blowout of Houston Baptist University. Their two losses have come to major conference foes Louisiana State University and Oklahoma State University, the first in a 66-55 loss and the second in a 65-51 loss. Junior guard Shani Rainey leads the team with 16 points per game and 5.8 rebounds per game. Senior guard Maya Hawkins is tops on the team with 22 assists in five games. The team is outscoring its opponents by five points per game and is allowing just 58 points per game. The Owls will look to improve on their hot start this weekend on the road in San Antonio against the University of the Incarnate Word.

Men’s basketball The men’s basketball team had lofty expectations coming into the season. Thus far, it is exceeding them. After its 87-79 victory over the University of the Incarnate Word last week, the Owls improved to 5-1 on the season. The road victory gave the Owls a 3-0 start in away games, the first time the Owls have won their first three road games since 1953. As a team, Rice is shooting 38 percent from 3-point range and 48 percent overall. Its opponents are shooting just 40 percent from the field. Sophomore guard Marcus Evans is building on his strong freshman campaign and continuing to lead the team in scoring with 21.2 points per game, which currently ranks 40th in the country. Junior forward Egor Koulechov is the team leader in rebounds with 8.5 per game thanks in part to a 35 point, 13 rebound performance in the win over Incarnate Word. The Owls face their toughest test so far this season in a road game at Big 12 foe Texas Tech University this weekend.

sean chu/thresher

Left: senior forward Jasmine Goodwine takes a jump shot in a recent home game at Tudor Fieldhouse. Right: junior forward Egor Koulechov goes up for a layup during Rice’s home opener against Texas Southern University. The women’s team is 3-2 and the men’s team is 5-1 so far this year.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

SPORTS

the Rice Thresher

Semester in Review Andrew Grottkau Sports Editor

As the semester comes to a close, we look back on Rice Athletics’ fall season. The five Owls teams to complete their seasons this semester combined for one conference championship and one championship game appearance.

Football

Overall 3-9

Football began its season with six straight losses, falling out of contention for a bowl game early in the season.

The defense struggled throughout the season and ranked last in the nation in yards per play, allowing an average of 7.43 yards per snap. The team also ranked 93rd in the nation in points per game. For the second year in a row, the team missed a bowl game. Despite the difficult season, the team finished 3-3 in its final six games including two conference victories.

Overall 20-11

Volleyball came a few points short of qualifying for their first NCAA Tournament since 2009 in a close Conference USA championship match loss to Western Kentucky University. The Owls earned their third straight 20-win season, finishing 20-11 after upset wins over Marshall University and Southern Mississippi University in the conference tournament. Seniors Chelsey Harris and Leah Mikesky led the team with 3.57 and 3.12 kills per set, respectively, and junior Madison McDaniel added a teamhigh 10.67 assists per set.

courtesy rice athletics

Rice baseball beat Cuban professional team Artemisa 4-0 in its lone exhibition game in Cuba.

Above, Artemisa players pose with Rice junior pitcher Dane Myers and make the ‘Owls’ sign.

Baseball suspends Cuba games after Castro’s death Andrew Grottkau Sports Editor

Rice baseball opened its trip to Cuba with a shutout victory over professional team Artemisa. Less than 24 hours later, their plans drastically changed. Late Friday night, news broke that former Cuban leader Fidel Castro had died at age 90. The team, which embarked on a trip to the island nation last week, has suspended all of its scheduled games against teams from the Cuban Baseball Federation for the remainder of its journey.

Our goal is to be respectful of everybody’s opinions and feelings and that’s what we’re doing.

Wayne Graham Baseball Head Coach

Castro led Cuba from 1959 to 2006. During that time, he installed a socialist government and resisted attempts by the United States to compromise his power. Notably, his nation fought off the attempted Bay of Pigs Invasion and sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis when it allowed the Soviet Union to place nuclear missiles on the island. However, he was also accused of numerous human rights violations and oversaw a failing Cuban economy.

According to a press release from the baseball team, the games were canceled out of respect for Cuba’s mourning period. The mourning period will last until Dec. 4, the day of Castro’s state funeral, which is also the day the Owls leave the country. John Sullivan, Rice’s assistant director of athletic communications,

said the team is making sure to be considerate to the Cuban people.

“The people, like the staff at our hotel, here are now way more somber for losing their longtime leader,” Sullivan said. “We’re trying to be very, very respectful of that.”

The somber attitude of the Cuban people stands in direct contrast to the raucous celebrations that erupted in Miami following Castro’s death. There, Cuban Americans flooded the streets, banging pots and pans and singing the Cuban national anthem in celebration of the death of a person notorious for creating poor living conditions for the Cuban people and imprisoning or executing his enemies.

According to head coach Wayne Graham, the mood in Cuba is far different.

“It’s a somber time, and we’re sorry for them,” Graham said. “He was certainly one of the more influential leaders of the 20th century. Our goal is to be respectful of everybody’s opinions and feelings, and that’s what we’re doing.”

The team began its trip last Wednesday and held a practice on Thanksgiving Day to prepare for the next day’s game against Cuban Baseball Federation team Artemisa. The Owls, playing with jerseys reading “Los Buhos,” won 4-0 behind six shutout innings from junior pitcher Dane Myers and three innings from freshman pitcher Addison Moss. Senior left fielder Dayne Wunderlich and sophomore shortstop Ford Proctor each added three hits for the Owls.

Graham said he was pleasantly surprised

by Rice’s performance.

“It’s hard to believe that we played as well as we did,” Graham said. “We had no errors, the pitching was great and we hit the ball harder than the four runs we scored. It was a very pleasing outing.”

Unfortunately, it was the only game the Owls played in Cuba. Although the team is done with its baseball activities, it is continuing with the cultural aspects of the tour. The players are in a week-long class while abroad and are taking tours of historical sites and cultural centers of the nation. The trip will continue until the Owls return home on Dec. 4.

Volleyball

Soccer

Overall 11-5-2

After a 4-4-2 start to the season and a 1-2 start in Conference USA, the soccer team faced an uphill battle to compete for the conference title. From that point on, however, the team began a seven game winning streak and earned the second seed in the conference tournament. Although they came into the tournament playing well, the Owls lost in the quarterfinals to bring an end to their season. This year was the third straight year the Owls reached 10 wins.

Women’s Cross Country The women’s cross country team earned Rice’s only Conference USA championship of the fall. Five Rice runners finished in the top 15 of the race led by senior Cali Roper’s fifth place finish. In the NCAA South Central Regionals, the team finished third, just missing out on qualifying for nationals.

The third place finish was the team’s best finish since 2010. Senior Katie Jensen and sophomore Abigail Cartwright qualified for nationals individually due to their performances.

Men’s Cross Country The men’s cross country team finished fifth at the Conference USA championships, led by a 23rd place finish by junior Marco Ruiz. At the NCAA South Central Regional, the team finished seventh out of 20 teams. Ruiz finished 20th in the regionals to earn All-Region honors to lead three Owls who finished in the top 50.

The seventh-place finish was the best for the Owls since 2013, when they finished fifth.

15

16 BACKPAGE

the Rice Thresher

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

The Backpage is satire and written by Riley Robertson. This week, Simon Chan contributed. For comments or questions, please email thirsty@rice.edu.

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