The Rice Thresher | Wednesday, January 28, 2020

VOLUME 104, ISSUE NO. 16 | STUDENT-RUN SINCE 1916 | RICETHRESHER.ORG | WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

Moody Center’s ‘Radical Revisionists’ confronts colonial narratives

In Yinka Shonibare’s “Girl on Globe,” a headless child lurches backwards on a globe that depicts the areas most affected by climate change. channing wang / THRESHER

SANVITTI SAHDEV SENIOR WRITER

Last Friday, the Moody Center for the Arts came alive with visitors for the opening reception of “Radical Revisionists: Contemporary African Artists Confronting Past and Present.”

The new exhibit, on display from Jan. 24 to May 16, features artists from Africa and its diaspora who challenge Eurocentric

narratives of colonialism, migration and identity. According to Moody Executive Director Alison Weaver, “Radical Revisionists” was inspired by the October opening of Rice’s new Center for African and African American Studies as well as the theme of this year’s FotoFest Biennial, an international photographic arts festival based in Houston: “African Cosmologies — Photography, Time and the Other.”

“We focused on contemporary artists addressing the colonial past and post-colonial present and found artists interested in these issues from across the continent including South Africa, Senegal, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Cameroon,” Weaver said.

“Softening the Borders,” an interactive installation by Ghanaian artist Serge Attukwei Clottey, occupies the central gallery.

SEE RADICAL PAGE 8

NEWS

Wickerson to appoint interim parliamentarian SAMMI JOHNSON SENIOR WRITER

After the resignation of both the Student Association Parliamentarian Freddy Cavallaro and Deputy Parliamentarian Emma Donnelly and with elections around the corner, SA president Grace Wickerson has yet to appoint an interim parliamentarian for the remaining few weeks of the term.

The SA parliamentarian is appointed by the president and is expected to uphold the rules of the constitution and bylaws to make sure that SA members don’t commit any potential violations that could become University Court cases, Wickerson said.

“We’re focusing on a quick appointment, especially since our elections process begins Feb. 5,” Wickerson said. “That’s when

we start having to be aware of rules and regulations around campus, and that is enforced by the director of elections and the parliamentarian.”

According to Wickerson, a Brown College senior, Cavallaro stepped down from his position due to scheduling conflicts and personal reasons. Usually, the deputy parliamentarian would step in to fill the role for the remainder of the term. However, Wickerson said that Donnelly turned down the opportunity to become parliamentarian and stepped down from her deputy position as well due to scheduling conflicts, leaving both roles vacant.

Both Donnelly, a Duncan College sophomore, and Cavallaro, a Will Rice College senior, declined to comment for the Thresher.

Wickerson said that the appointment process for the parliamentarian is not described in the constitution, but the SA president typically appoints the position based on an application or interview process.

To choose an interim parliamentarian, Wickerson said they will not conduct interviews or require applications, but will instead look at past SA members who might be interested and already have an awareness of the SA’s documentation.

Wickerson said the parliamentarian is essential to run the SA elections held in the spring semester, as they serve on the election committee along with the director of elections.

With election petitions due Feb. 5, Wickerson will need to appoint an interim parliamentarian by next week at the latest.

NEWS

Rice Management Company defends Ion

RYND MORGAN NEWS EDITOR

Allison Thacker (Baker College ’96) and Ryan LeVasseur (Wiess College ’01, School of Architecture ’03) of the Rice Management Company gave a presentation to dissuade Student Association members from supporting Senate Resolution No. 8, a resolution advising that Rice and the Board of Trustees enter into a Community Benefits Agreement with the Houston Coalition for Equitable Development without Displacement at the SA Senate meeting Jan. 27.

Afterward, the sponsors of Senate Resolution No. 8 gave a presentation on the resolution. The sponsors decided against passing the resolution until after Feb. 4, which is when the HCEDD, a coalition of community groups in Houston, will meet to officially draft the CBA. A CBA is a legally binding, enforceable agreement that calls for a range of benefits to be produced by the development project.

The presentation from Rice Management Company outlined the plan for the Ion and the South Main Innovation District. According to the timeline given in the presentation, the Ion will finish construction by January 2021, and construction of the South Main Innovation District will be completed by 2030.

LeVasseur, managing director of direct real estate and director of the Ion project, said that not only did the HCEDD not have the authority to enter into a legally binding contract such as a CBA, but that the group, while representing a legitimate portion of the community, did not represent the entire community.

After the presentation, Nia Prince, one of the sponsors of the resolution, said she did not understand why LeVasseur said that the HCEDD did not have the authority to be a counter-party in a legally binding contract.

“Honestly, that really confused me. I did not understand why they said that because we have the research, literally cited right here in our resolution, to show that it’s possible to sign into a CBA with a coalition.

It’s a community benefits agreement, not a city benefits agreement. It can be done with coalitions,” Prince, a Sid Richardson College junior, said.

Mary Claire Neal, another sponsor of the resolution, added that the HCEDD has legal representation.

“The coalition currently has a legal team, Texas Appleseed from Austin. So there are lawyers working with us, and I think they know what’s possible in terms of enforceability,” Neal, a Jones College junior, said.

Thacker, the president and chief investment officer of Rice Management Company, said a lack of affordable housing and resulting displacement in the Third Ward is not a direct or immediate consequence of the Ion. “Displacement is happening right now, before the Ion,” Thacker said. “And so, this is a major issue that our city needs to grapple with, starting right now, starting 10 years ago. The Ion itself is not going to cause specific displacement this year.”

LeVasseur said that the issues the HCEDD represents do not encompass all of the issues that concern the community.

“In the very simple sense, this could be boiled down to: ‘Hey, did you hear Rice is displacing poor people?’ ‘No, I didn’t hear that.’ ‘Sign this. This will stop it.’ And it’s a broader issue, right? There are multiple issues at play here [and] right now, what is in this specific proposal with this specific language, does not address all of those issues properly,” LeVasseur said.

This story has been condensed for print.

Read the full story at ricethresher.org.

THE RICE THRESHER

2 • WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

NEWS

Houston Uighur Society speaks on detained Uighurs in China SERENE LEE THRESHER STAFF

Members of Houston Uighur Society spoke at Rice last Thursday on the recent events regarding the Uighur population in China. In their talk, the members presented on the internment of the Uighurs in Chinese “reeducation” camps that are being implemented allegedly to erase Uighur religious and cultural identity.

This alarmed me considering that cultural genocide is unfolding before our eyes.

Craig Considine SOCIOLOGY LECTURER Houston Uighur Society President Muzaffar Dolan and member Ali Wushur were invited to present their experiences with and understanding of the current events unfolding for the Uighur population in Xinjiang, China, according to sociology lecturer Craig Considine.

Considine said that this event was a collaboration between the independent study project Islamophobia Resistance Campaign and his “Muslims in American Society” class. Considine and members of the IRC invited the Houston Uighur Society to talk about the situation in China.

“I asked a few of my classes, ‘Who knows what is happening to the Uighur people in western China?’ and very few

hands went up,” Considine said. “This alarmed me considering that cultural genocide is unfolding before our eyes.”

Lauren Loh, a McMurtry College senior, said she the presentation gave her more clarity and insight to an issue that she knew very little about.

Sarah Smati, co-leader of the IRC, said that being Muslim herself made these events even more important to her.

“It affects me on a deeper level when I hear about how the Uighurs are being targeted specifically for their religion, with Islam being outcast as a mental illness in the Chinese media to justify the imprisonment of the Muslims,” Smati, a Sid Richardson College senior, said. “Even though they’re on the other side of the world, anything that impacts one Muslim impacts the entire Muslim community worldwide.”

These internment camps have origins in 2014, according to Considine. The United Nations said there are at least 1 million people allegedly detained in such camps; the Department of Defense reported that there may be 3 million people. The Chinese government denies the existence of these internment camps, instead claiming they are vocational training centers.

Inside the camps, there are reports of Uighurs allegedly being forced to renounce their Muslim religion, eat pork and drink alcohol, Considine said.

There are also reports of alleged organharvesting inside these camps, according to Wushur. As part of his presentation, Wushur played multiple videos showing individuals shackled and being led by police officers at train stations and other public locations.

“The sad story here is that the Chinese

CHANNING WANG / THRESHER

Ali Wushur, a member of the Houston Uighur Society, spoke about recent events concerning the Uighur population in China at an event last Thursday.

government is using these videos and saying ‘Look at how we take care of these terrorists,’” Wushur said.

Hanna Gratch, co-leader of the IRC, expressed how important it is to personally attend such events instead of reading about them on paper, as many have become so desensitized to news headlines that they feel distant from the problem.

“Real people with real experiences are speaking to us,” Gratch, a Hanszen College junior, said. “It is important for members of the Rice community to close that distance,

so they can understand both the reality of the situation and the ways they can get up and do something about it.”

Considine also called upon the Rice community to take action in response to the Uighurs’ current situation.

“Speak up and condemn this crime against humanity,” Considine said.

“Organize events on and off campus to shed light on the Uighur crisis [and] engage with the Uighur people themselves and make connections with your fellow human beings.”

Wickerson’s campaign promises remain unfulfilled Campaign Promises Attempted: 1. Lowering cost burden of STI testing 2. Improve sustainability on campus 3. Increasing support for low-income and first-generation students 4. Increasing inclusion of minority students 5. Support policies to make SA inclusive for all students With the SA elections around the corner, News Editors Rishab Ramapriyan and Amy Qin looked back on SA President Grace Wickerson’s campaign promises and compared them with Student Association actions taken during their term. To read more about the rationale for deciding Wickerson’s attempted and neglected campaign promises, visit ricethresher.org and read the full coverage online.

Campaign Promises Neglected: 1. Weekend hours for on-campus health and wellbeing services 2. Accessibility of off-campus healthcare 3. Social issues seminar classes focusing on Houston 4. Improving process of taking time off for internships 5. Prioritizing non-tenure track faculty 6. Expanding opportunities for experiential learning 7. Improving process of obtaining research with Rice faculty 8. Developing five-year sustainability plan 9. Creating green teaching certificate program 10. Seeing through recommended improvements to the African Studies minor INFOGRAPHIC BY rishab ramapriyan, amy qin & Dan Helmeci

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020 • 3

Housing & Dining launches composting initiative at North Servery KELLY LIAO THRESHER STAFF In an attempt to increase campuswide sustainability, Housing & Dining has adopted a new composting initiative that includes a composting trial at the North Colleges Servery. Over the past two years, Rice has made multiple updates to the recycling system in order to try to meet a 40 percent recycling rate goal by 2020, according to Richard Johnson, director of the Administrative Center for Sustainability and Energy Management at Rice.

As part of a trial, H&D installed a food dehydration machine for food composting at the North Servery Jan. 16, according to Brad Thacker, the operations director for the North Colleges and West serveries.

“If I have two or three weeks of data, it should give me enough information that I can extrapolate it through the rest of the campus,” Thacker said. “Then I will do a cost analysis, looking for minimizing our financial costs and getting a great environmental win in social debt.”

Composting turns food scraps into organic materials through a natural process of decomposition. The results can help enrich soil and reduce the methane emission from landfills. H&D hopes to implement both pre-composting (waste from the kitchen) and post-composting (waste from the consumer, or students in this case).

By assessing the weight of the postconsumer compost after each meal, H&D hopes to collect data on the amount of post-consumer waste that North Servery produces. Based on the data, they will determine the size of the machine they need to purchase for other serveries, according to Thacker. Using a high temperature of 212 degrees for nine hours, the food waste loaded in the machine

is transformed into a coffee-groundslike fine powder, which can be used for gardening and fish feeding, according to Thacker.

While the machine has produced its first batch of pre-consumer compost last week, the post-consumer composting will be starting this week, according to Ashley Fitzpatrick, a sustainability intern who worked closely with Thacker on the initiative.

The composting trial this week also aims to help students learn the process of waste separation so that they can eliminate contamination, according to Fitzpatrick, a Martel College sophomore.

Taking directions from signage and student volunteers, students have to sort out the usual china, food waste, palm plates and trash after they finish their meals, said Fitzpatrick.

“Volunteers are there to help direct and educate people about waste separation, and they have the cheat sheets, which I sent out in emails that [show] where things go,” Fitzpatrick said. “There is also a QR code posted with frequently asked questions so if somebody is asking them questions that they don’t know the answer to, they can direct them to that.”

Fitzpatrick said her main concern about post-consumer composting is contamination since some students may not want to engage with waste separation.

Johnson said a task force consisting of several Facilities Engineering and Planning and H&D faculty examined every aspect of the campus trash and recycling system and compared it with several other universities, such as the University of Texas, Austin, Michigan State University and Washington University in St. Louis.

The task force’s analysis has already led to multiple modifications and initiatives, according to Johnson.

For example, by centralizing waste

courtesy richard johnson

A smart bin is currently being tested at the Gibbs Recreation and Wellness Center.

collection in the residential colleges, FE&P and H&D reduced the use of plastic liners, according to Johnson. Academic buildings have not started centralizing waste collection yet, but once they implement the practice, the number of plastic liners will dramatically decrease, according to Johnson.

“Each year, FE&P buys 825,000 plastic liners for trash cans,” Johnson said. “We think that by adopting the approach, we can cut this number in half.”

Johnson also hopes to save plastic liners through the introduction of a “smart bin,” powered by a small solar panel that provides electricity for sensors that can tell people when it needs to be emptied.

“Our grounds supervisor is able to look at a dashboard on either his laptop or his phone that tells him if a bin needs to be emptied,” Johnson said.

Johnson said they are currently testing a smart bin at the Gibbs Recreation and Wellness Center and hope to apply the technology to other locations as well as indoor centralized collection stations.

Fitzpatrick said similar to composting, one of the obstacles facing recycling adoption at Rice faces is a lack of student knowledge on how to properly sort the

waste.

Johnson said he hopes to improve students’ understanding of recycling through “more consistent signage with stronger branding.”

The Martel College EcoRep program hosts a Rice-specific recycling presentation to raise students’ awareness every year during its student-led Parliament, but it has its limitations, according to Karen Shore, a Martel College EcoRep. “Since it is difficult to reach a collegewide audience, we hope to push out more educational efforts and reach more people through social media, emails, presentations and events,” Shore, a Martel College junior, said.

Despite the challenge of obtaining regular and reliable reports of the university’s sustainability performance, Johnson expects the 40 percent benchmark to be met after all the initiatives are in effect.

“I’m confident we’ll be well above a 40 percent diversion rate, with hundreds of thousands of plastic liners saved every year and a lot of hard work by our staff redeployed to make the campus look even better,” Johnson said.

RGF

E NGINEERING COMPETITION 2020

RICE

STUDY

ABROAD

OFFICE

Summer Tuition Access Grant Degree-seeking Rice undergraduates who qualify for need-based aid during the academic year are eligible to receive a need-based grant to participate in summer study abroad programs through the Rice Study Abroad Office!

Wednesday, February 19 3-5pm • RMC - Grand Hall T-Shirts • Pizza • Door Prizes Amazon gift cards of $50 - $150 awarded to the top 3 teams

Grants awarded in the amount of up to $3000 or 50% summer program tuition (whichever amount is smaller). Limited to 15 eligible students.

Interested students should consult a study abroad advisor. Early planning and program applications are encouraged.

NEWS

4 • WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

Rice Coursera courses are now free for students HAJERA NAVEED FOR THE THRESHER At the beginning of this semester, Rice launched Coursera for Rice, which provides students, faculty and staff with full access to all Rice courses on Coursera for free. The effort is part of the Coursera for Campus program.

Before this semester, members of the Rice community would have had to pay to receive a certificate for the completion of a Rice Coursera course and have premium access to it. With this new initiative, anyone with a Rice NetID will have complete access to Rice courses on this platform for free.

Over the last several years, Rice faculty have partnered with Rice Online, which works to spread Rice education through an online platform, to create Coursera courses that are open to everyone. Among these is a Python course which currently has over 146,000 people enrolled. These classes can be audited for free, or one can purchase a premium version of the course that includes graded assessments and a certificate at completion.

Thomas Yeum, a freshman at Wiess College, said he heard about the Coursera courses over break and decided to enroll in the Front-End Web Development with React online course, not offered by Rice.

“Having the ability to take part in learning curriculum from all around the United States and the world for free was enlightening,” Yeum said. “I now have access to a level of education far more refined and organized than that on YouTube.”

Yeum said the Coursera courses are

beneficial because of their flexibility.

Rice students can fit these online courses alongside their regular classes during the school year or complete them during breaks.

“It’s most helpful because I can take this university-level course whenever I want wherever I want,” Yeum said. “And there are other people taking the course alongside me so we can ask questions to each other.”

With premium access, students can post in course discussion forums to communicate with other students taking the course.

Based on the Rice Coursera page, there are currently 14 courses and specializations published. As this program grows, students will have an increasing number of choices for courses.

John Hutchinson, who has been a professor at Rice for 37 years, teaches an online course that covers the same content as his General Chemistry I and II course.

As of now, there are over 47,000 people worldwide registered for Hutchinson’s online class. He began creating videos of lecture material in 2012 as a way to take part in the new approach to making educational materials available worldwide.

Alma Novotny, biochemistry and cell biology professor, has an Immunology course available on Coursera which is modeled to mirror her immunology course offered at Rice. She began creating online versions of courses in 2010, with a similar vision of making her content accessible to anyone who wished to learn it.

“When I started, I tried to duplicate what I was doing in lecture as much as possible,” Novotny said.

screenshot from coursera.org/rice

Rice’s Coursera page shows 14 courses and specializations as currently available. According to Rice Online, there are 410 Rice students participating in these courses.

Hutchinson also has his online course videos available on Canvas for Rice students taking general chemistry.

“The [online] content is all the same, but Rice students get the direct opportunity to interact with the professor one-on-one, such as in office hours or through appointments with me,” Hutchinson said. “Since each student enrolled in the online course is in a different place content-wise, I cannot really participate in their learning experience.”

Rice Online worked as a partner with Coursera and the Office of Information Technology to launch this program.

Rhonda Humbird, the digital education project manager at Rice Online, said that as the program grows, participation

should increase.

“Since the beginning of the semester, we’ve seen enrollment continuously climb,” Humbird said. “The courses are not credit-bearing, so I expect that they will always be secondary to other Rice courses, but they could be really useful as supplementary material and resources for courses that are being offered for credit.”

According to Rice Online, as of Monday, Jan. 27 there are 410 students at Rice participating in Coursera for Rice, with a total of 446 unique enrollments.

Currently, Rice credit cannot be awarded for completing Coursera courses, but according to Humbird, it may be a possibility for the future.

Green Dorm Initiative: Toxic Tour brings students to polluted sites BRIAN LIN SENIOR WRITER On a “Toxic Tour” of Houston, led by the Houston Air Alliance, 15 students visited gas-flares, a polluted section of the Buffalo Bayou and a neighborhood encircled by refineries. The event was hosted by the Green Dorm Initiative and wound through the Second Ward, crossed Galena Park, touched the Buffalo Bayou, circled back toward the Fifth Ward and ended at Manchester.

Sam Holloway, a Brown College junior and one of the incoming campuswide head EcoReps, said he organized the Toxic Tour to extend the educational efforts of the GDI. “It’s really striking to go on the Air Alliance tour because you can see a visual representation of the pollution and how widely these things are spreading out,” Holloway said.

At the section of the Buffalo Bayou bordering Pasadena, the historical site of Mexican general Antonio López de Santa Anna’s capture, some visitors to the waterway were fishing; nearby, a sign cautions against eating fish caught in the bayou. Two years ago, the bayou was flooded with gasoline after the roofs of two floating-roof tanks capsized during Hurricane Harvey, according to Juan Flores, a coordinator for Air Alliance.

“I’ll talk to them, I’m like ‘Hey, are you guys eating the fish?’ and they’re like, ‘No we’re not,’ but I can see their cooler full of fish,” Flores said, sharing a past incident.

“I mean, to each their own. It’s up to them, but you should not eat this fish.”

On the border of Manchester, five

brian lin / THRESHER

“Flares happen whenever there’s a product that couldn’t mix. They burn it. It depends on what they are making that day. I mean, it could be a gasoline mix, it could be an oil mix,” Flores said.

miles east along the Bayou, one paved road separates the residential homes on the edge of the community from the industrial plants of the Valero Houston refinery. The facilities loom over the nearby Hartman Park playground on the border of the Manchester neighborhood, where 40 percent of its residents live in poverty as of 2017, according to Flores.

“In this community, they’re right in the middle of the [Valero] company,” Flores said. “This is one of the worst areas to live in because the pollution could sometimes be off the charts. This is Hartman Park.

I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t want to have my kids playing here.”

According to Flores, Valero has been slowly buying out residents who reside in the streets bordering its facilities, shrinking the neighborhood one crosswalk at a time. Within 20 to 30 years,

Flores said, most Manchester residents will be gone. One house, on the edge of a street bordering the plant, is wedged between Valero facilities on three sides because its owner refused to sell his home. At the time of publication, Valero could not be reached for comment.

“He doesn’t want to sell. He said he’d rather stay there until he dies,” Flores said. “There are refineries behind that house, behind that house you see little pipes going over the property. He’s the last guy standing [on the street].”

Houston’s Fifth Ward is home to the Englewood rail yard, where a Union Pacific plant has been soaking wooden beams in cancer-causing creosote as part of its rail-tie manufacturing process, according to Zoe Wool, an assistant professor at the department of anthropology. Although the plant is no

longer uses creosote, the accumulation of the chemical in the soil has likely contaminated the drinking water of nearby residents, according to Flores.

“You know, this lady came out and said ‘I have cancer. My husband died of cancer, not even a few months ago.

My neighbor right there has cancer. She has cancer,” Flores said. “She had these banana trees in the back. They were half dead.”

Proving that an area is a cancer cluster requires extensive documentation and evidence, Flores said. Last week Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed a higher level of several cancers in the affected area, a confirmation of what Flores says the community has suspected for over twenty years.

“There was a family there called the Washington family. And they’re all gone,” Flores said. “Most of them died of cancer.

We knew there was a cancer cluster there, but it took 20, 30 years [to be recognized].”

Shortly after the Soto Ready Mix concrete plant sprung up in the Acres Homes neighborhood, Air Alliance Houston began receiving reports of white concrete dust over their cars and brushes.

When the company sought to expand its operations to a neighboring street within the community, residents fervently protested the permit, Flores said.

“They called us, we got involved, we helped some other people involved and we protested the permit,” Flores said.

“And we put so much pressure on them that they had a hearing coming up ... and they just dropped it.”

This story has been condensed for print.

Read the full story at ricethresher.org

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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020 • 5

THE RICE THRESHER

OPINION STAFF EDITORIAL

ASK THE STAFF

What crossword clue would be used to describe you?

“My full name is an anagram for ‘an antichrist’” – Christina Tan, Editor-in-Chief

“I don’t even care how baristas spell it anymore” – Katelyn Landry, A&E Editor

“I share a name with Trump’s daughter. Sadly.”

– Ivanka Perez, Features Editor

“Hannah’s center”

– Anna Ta, Managing Editor

“Magic Mike”

– Channing Wang, Photo Editor

“Ion beat writer”

– Rynd Morgan, Assistant News Editor

“No, I am not from Georgia”

– Savannah Kuchar, Assistant News Editor

Keep SA campaign promises realistic

With the start of a new election season, there are only a few weeks remaining for the current Student Association Executive Council to meet goals set at the beginning of their terms. Given the Thresher Editorial Board’s previous endorsement of Grace Wickerson for SA president on the basis of promises they made at the time, we were particularly interested in progress made on those promises. Basing our research on publicly available SA records and our own coverage, we found that while strides in two areas — financial accessibility and support for underrepresented groups — were significant and laudable, many campaign promises fell to the wayside or were not raised at all after elections.

This is unsurprising, given that our editorial endorsing Wickerson for president cautioned against overly ambitious plans that would require buy-in over multiple years, as yearly changeovers often throw the future of those plans into doubt. In particular, interesting campaign promises for social issues seminars, campuswide sustainability with a focus on athletics facilities and opening weekend hours for the health center remain unaddressed in the public record. Potentially, these initiatives are in progress, stalled for various reasons or unable to be implemented. If so, their status

should be discussed publicly: Failures and attempts are as important as successes, as they help future generations of the SA build upon prior knowledge.

We also understand that there are only 24 hours in a day, and Wickerson and the rest of the SA have lives to lead. The work done this year has taken many strides in the right direction, from increasing financial accessibility through the portal and meal swipe donation program, to vocalizing support for underrepresented groups on campus and passing much-needed internal reform to increase student participation in the SA. Overall, this year has been especially tumultuous, and Wickerson has addressed campus concerns with patience and empathy.

The mismatch between expectations set by campaign promises and tangible results at the end of a term is not unique to Wickerson’s presidency. However, the wider the mismatch, the less reason the student body has to trust future promises made by SA candidates and their eventual teams. With a few weeks left, we ask that Wickerson addresses their campaign promises either through public documentation of attempts made or a plan for future SA members to execute them. And while turning in petitions on Wednesday, SA candidates should carefully consider the feasibility of their goals.

OPINION

In a world losing press freedom, Rice should support aspiring journalists The day before I landed in Rabat, Morocco last September for a semester abroad studying journalism, young Moroccan political reporter Hajar Raissouni was arrested for an alleged abortion and sex outside of marriage. Although Raissouni was ultimately pardoned by King Mohammed VI, the arrest was widely perceived as just one in a long line of instances of the Moroccan government employing civil laws (that are otherwise largely unenforced) to punish someone they don’t like.

And they’re not too keen on journalists.

Most of the world isn’t.

That includes the United States. While on constitutional paper our country claims to safeguard freedom of the press, our press freedom has declined every year since President Donald Trump was elected president. The First Amendment doesn’t paint the full picture, which is that we live in a country whose president calls the media an “enemy of the American people” and remains silent when Saudi Arabia insidiously assassinates one of our journalists.

But as rhetoric toward journalists and claims of “fake news” have grown increasingly hostile, something surprising has taken place. Across the country, collegiate journalism programs have seen significant jumps in applications. Here at the Thresher, we’ve seen increases in the numbers of writers in recent years, especially in our opinion section.

I believe Rice should follow the lead of

young people and make a career in media more accessible to students by offering journalism classes and doing more to support careers in reporting.

Although I’ve been doing journalism for years, last semester was my first time reporting for a class grade, through the School for International Training’s Field Studies in Journalism and New Media in Morocco program. I sat through lessons on how to write clearly and effectively, how to identify relevant story ideas, how to interview sensitively and what ethical considerations journalists should keep in mind. I read and discussed intelligent, exciting writing from journalists around the world. I heard from a number of Moroccan journalists about what it’s like to report in a country with limited press freedom. (Reporter and activist Omar Radi was among them — he was recently arrested after he criticized a judge in a tweet.)

These kinds of classes have a place in Rice’s School of Humanities. Lessons in writing in a clear and concise manner would complement the lessons in complex academic writing most humanities classes offer. Lessons in how to interview ethically would transfer to any research that involves talking to people. Discussions on press freedom and today’s best reporting would let students peek over those hedges we love to talk about but often struggle to actually break through.

A number of professors at Rice have begun to implement these lessons into their

curricula. English lecturer Ian Schimmel teaches a class on podcasting, the visual and dramatic arts department offers Documentary Production and numerous humanities classes have final video or articlelike projects that resemble journalism. Dean of Humanities Kathleen Canning told me in an email that she’d like to see Rice make courses such as arts criticism, technology criticism and business criticism “part of a long-term plan if student interest and faculty availability is sufficient.”

This student is tremendously interested.

Given the opportunity, I have reason to believe many others would be too. That reason sits right before your eyes: Our student newspaper is excellent. In 2019, the Princeton Review named the Thresher the second best college newspaper in the country.

The College Media Association has named us the best newspaper at a four-year, under 5,000 student college three times in the last four years and we’ve won four Newspaper Pacemaker Finalist Awards, most recently in 2018. A student newspaper of our caliber merits more institutional support.

I know the addition of journalism classes is a tall order, one that would take numerous years and resources to implement. But more institutional support for students exploring a career in journalism is not a huge ask, especially in Houston. We’re a city filled to the brim with fantastic media organizations, like the Houston Chronicle, Houstonia Magazine and Houston Public Media, but you wouldn’t

know it from scrolling through Handshake.

While all these organizations offer internship programs, none of them are accessible through the search engine. There won’t be a single media employer at February’s career expo. The university’s failure to connect students with Houston’s incredible news outlets is a wasted opportunity.

Students come to Rice to find opportunities, academic and otherwise, that help them discover who they want to be in the world. Rice exists to contribute “to the betterment of our world” and produce “leaders across the spectrum of endeavor,” according to our mission statement. In our university’s current state, journalism is lacking from that spectrum of endeavour.

Classes in reporting and institutional support of journalism opportunities are steps our university should take to fill that dearth.

Press freedom is under attack all over the world. We should support the students who want to use ours while we have it.

ELLA FELDMAN

FEATURES EDITOR BAKER COLLEGE JUNIOR

STAFF Christina Tan* Editor-in-Chief Anna Ta* Managing Editor NEWS Rishab Ramapriyan* Editor Amy Qin* Editor Rynd Morgan Asst. Editor Savannah Kuchar Asst. Editor FEATURES Ivanka Perez* Editor Ella Feldman* Editor ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT Katelyn Landry* Editor & Designer OPINIONS Elizabeth Hergert* Editor

SPORTS Michael Byrnes Editor Madison Buzzard* Editor BACKPAGE Simona Matovic* Editor & Designer PHOTO Channing Wang Editor COPY Vi Burgess Editor Bhavya Gopinath Editor Phillip Jaffe Editor ONLINE Ryan Green Web Editor Priyansh Lunia Video Editor

DESIGN Tina Liu* Director Dalia Gulca A&E Designer Joseph Hsu Features Designer Katherine Hui Sports Designer Anna Chung Ops Designer Dan Helmeci News Designer Yifei Zhang Illustrator Chloe Xu Illustrator BUSINESS OPERATIONS Karoline Sun Business Manager Lindsay Josephs Advertising Manager Mai Ton Social Media/Marketing Manager Jackson Stiles Distribution Manager *Editorial Board member

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THE RICE THRESHER

6 • WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

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Rice students, alumni channel creativity

BY GRACE STEWART through YouTube

Englebretson tackles misconceptions with new Braille research RACHEL CARLTON SENIOR WRITER

Although Robert Englebretson has been reading Braille since he was 5 years old, it didn’t occur to him to research Braille until he was selected to serve on a committee to study Braille in 2005.

“I joke that it was at my fingertips this whole time and I never noticed it as a possible area of research,” Englebretson, an associate professor of linguistics, said.

The Institute of Education Sciences recently granted Englebretson $1.4 million to explore how the teaching of Braille can affect how students learn and read it. Partnering with the psychology department’s Simon Fischer-Baum and Cay Holbrook, a professor of education from the University of British Columbia, Englebretson is examining how people read and write Braille and what that reveals about its cognitive and perceptual underpinnings.

Englebretson hopes his project will help correct misconceptions about Braille.

“I have often heard … [that] Braille enables blind people to read print,” Englebretson said. “It doesn’t. It enables blind people to read. This perspective on Braille assumes that people are decoding it from print or recoding it back to print, and that’s not what readers are actually doing.”

This assumption can affect how Braille is taught. Englebretson says Braille teachers, who are typically sighted, tend to read Braille by eye and undergo limited training on Braille in their teacher preparation programs. “[Braille teachers] approach Braille very differently from how ... a Braille reader would approach it,” Englebretson said. “That, [our team] believes, leads to mismatches between what Braille readers actually do and what the teaching community thinks that they do.”

The collaboration between Fischer-Baum and Englebretson unites two historically

disparate fields, reading sciences and special education, Englebretson said.

“It’s a chance to bridge these different fields and to create more synergy,” Englebretson said.

In 2005, Englebretson was selected to serve on a committee for the International Council on English Braille that sought to make the International Phonetic Alphabet, a set of symbols that is used to represent speech sounds for all of the world’s languages, accessible in Braille. Just last year, the Braille Authority of North America honored Englebretson for his work.

“The award is 11 years after the fact,” Englebretson said. “They were scraping the bottom of the barrel.”

Englebretson said the Braille version of IPA was severely outdated before he and the rest of the committee got to work.

“There were a lot of symbols that didn’t have Braille representations,” Englebretson said. “Any of us doing linguistics in Braille had to innovate a lot of our own symbols.”

By updating the Braille IPA, Englebretson intended to make linguistics, speech sciences and other fields of study accessible for blind students and professionals. He said that access to Braille levels the playing field for people like the three Braille-reading students who attended Rice between 2001 and 2010.

“If these students didn’t have access to Braille in their fields when they were students here, they would have had a much more difficult time in their work,” Englebretson said. “These students were able to do the same kinds of amazing things that ... Rice students generally do.”

Englebretson reflected on what it was like to teach one of those students.

“The student who now works for the FBI took both LING 200 and 300 with me in 2007 and 2008, and it was so much fun for me to be able to hand out all the handouts in Braille to the student at the same time as everyone got

the print handouts,” Englebretson said. “I’m Englebretson said. “I’ve seen a lot of the only faculty member who could produce development in the last 20 years in terms Braille for that student with the handouts of students being open to diversity and directly and give them to her. She seemed to students wanting to see everyone be successful in who they are. I think I’ve have a lot of fun with those classes.”

This spring, along with the Braille definitely seen that in terms of attitudes project, Englebretson is teaching a course toward disability … towards LGBT people … called “Research on Braille.” The first [and] in attitudes about gender.”

Englebretson said that if he wasn’t time he taught the course, there were five students. That number has now risen teaching students, he would probably be to 20 — a huge enrollment for an upper- cynical and discouraged in the current level course in the linguistics department, political environment.

“Maybe I’m just meeting more students,” according to Englebretson.

“It’s the only course like it in the world,” Englebretson said. “But I think that people Englebretson said. “If you take courses at have become a lot more all-encompassing a university about Braille, they’re usually and embracing and it’s really great to see.” in the special-ed teacher preparation programs.”

With all of the contributions that Englebretson has made and is making to the study of Braille, he said he views his work as a type of social justice.

“Empowering people to have access to writing and literature and things in their field, I think really is sort of a social justice issue,” Englebretson said.

And, according to Englebretson, the current generation of Rice students is more aware and more willing to embrace diversity Robert Englebretson, associate professor in the linguistics than in the past. department, is currently conducting research to improve Braille “I really like teaching for Braille readers. this generation photo courtesy jeff fitlow of students,”

2 Down: The paper’s pair of puzzle people GRACE KNEIDEL FOR THE THRESHER

Rice students are great at finding ways to avoid doing their homework. But there are only so many shows available to watch — and rewatch — on Netflix.

Luckily, McMurtry College seniors Grant Lu and Sam Rossum have discovered their ideal form of procrastination: writing crosswords when they should be writing papers.

When Rossum noticed that the Thresher printed student crosswords, Rossum gave it a try, submitting the first crossword he had ever written to the Thresher. Rossum said he started submitting his work to the Thresher in the fall of 2018 and describes his experience writing crosswords as “guiltfree procrastination.” Last semester, after trying Rossum’s crosswords, Lu decided he would try writing them himself.

Lu and Rossum both said they begin constructing their crosswords by coming up with themes, which range from national holidays and public parties to random words they hear in their daily lives. They said the next step is to come up with additional words to fit the theme, which can take some time and patience.

“I have a notes folder open right now and all it says in there is ‘soup,’” Rossum said. “I think there might be something with that.” Lu replied, “I think there’s a lot with soup.”

Lu and Rossum said they enjoy the liberties that come along with writing crosswords for the Thresher. Since this is their hobby, not their life’s work, there’s less pressure to be perfect; as a result, they often take shortcuts, like including random strings of vowels and two letter words

to make their theme ideas work. Unlike crosswords at other newspapers, such as The New York Times or The Washington Post, the Thresher’s puzzles don’t currently include shape restrictions.

“If you’re writing for The New York Times, everything has to be symmetrical and pretty, but I feel like you can get a little grimy for the purposes of a good theme,” Rossum said. “[Our policy is] function over form,” Lu added.

While they find writing crosswords to be a generally enjoyable process, Lu and Rossum said that sometimes it can be frustrating. Lu said that fitting words to a grid toward the end of creating a crossword can be a painstaking process. Rossum agreed, saying that he sometimes writes himself into a corner.

Lu and Rossum don’t just write crosswords — they also spend a lot of time solving them. Lu said he does The New York Times’ mini crossword and The Atlantic’s mini crossword every day and also likes The Washington Post’s Sunday crossword.

“You can compete with your friends every day. You can see who solves fastest,” Lu said of the crossword apps. “[Sam and I are] friends on the app — and in real life, of course. That goes without saying.”

In his time writing and solving crosswords, Lu said he has learned one thing: It helps to be familiar with the crossword writer’s style.

“Different people tend to use different kinds of clues,” Lu said. Or, as Rossum put it, “Know your enemy.”

Fans of the Thresher’s crosswords can take advantage of this strategy, too. Lu said his crossword clues tend to focus on subjects that he’s familiar with such as literature, art and science. He said Rossum’s crosswords are generally more focused on movies and

Thresher crossword writers Grant Lu (left) and Sam Rossum (right) sit outside Fondren Library Photo courtesy grant lu & sam rossum and complete a Thresher crossword puzzle together.

music. Rossum also added that Lu could be considered a fruit expert.

“Grant knows a lot more about unconventional fruits,” Rossum said. “I can’t fathom the fruits that Grant knows.”

According to Rossum, noticing vowels can be another helpful trick for solving crosswords. He said experienced solvers become familiar with certain vowel patterns and added that some even learn French since the language has so many vowels in their words. Lu said that writing crosswords has taught him obscure words with lots of vowels.

“Crossword puzzle people, they really love the French language,” Rossum said, then added sarcastically, “I learned one [French] word. It’s really made a huge difference.”

Despite their knack for writing

crosswords, neither writer has plans to keep writing crosswords after graduating.

Rossum said he plans to attend law school, while Lu will be working as a consultant.

“I think my crossword submission days will end with my Rice days,” Lu said. He joked that Rossum should make law-themed crosswords for his future law review.

Lu and Rossum said they haven’t planned for anyone to take over their role next year, but the two have clearly enjoyed their time writing crosswords at Rice and noted that it’s easy to learn.

Looking back, Lu said that he loved Rossum’s crossword clue “It means ‘I love you’ in dinosaur.” The two laughed, remembering the answer: “Rawr.”

At the end of the interview, Lu turned to Rossum and said, “Maybe you’ve revived campus crossword enthusiasm.”

FEATURES

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020 • 7

Black at Rice: Selase Buatsi finds her voice IVANKA PEREZ

FEATURES EDITOR

When Selase Buatsi was a kid, she was just like every other kid her age — constantly fighting her parents. As a young girl, Buatsi argued with her parents so often that they told her she’d make a great lawyer. A decade later, Buatsi is now president of Rice’s PreLaw Society.

Buatsi decided she wanted to become a lawyer at a young age.

“I’m pretty sure I [decided] while we were watching a ‘Judge Judy’ episode,” Buatsi, a Martel College senior, said. “My mom would always say, ‘Who made you your sister’s attorney?’”

But in other ways, Buatsi was different from many of the kids she grew up around.

Born in Ghana, she moved when she was 2 years old to Irving, Texas, a city that she said was fairly diverse. Her school environment was friendly, and she took English as a Second Language classes.

“Sometimes the kids would make fun of me for saying things differently, but it was fifth grade — I didn’t take anything personally,” Buatsi said. “I didn’t care if I mispronounced words sometimes or said things differently.”

But when Buatsi moved to Coppell, Texas as a fifth grader with her family, things changed. Although her parents hoped the highly rated school district would benefit Buatsi and her siblings, she was unprepared for the prejudice she would face.

“I just was not ready for that shock at all,” Buatsi said. “I would come to school with my hair in braids or something, and people would ask questions and stare and I didn’t know how to process that. Then I’d come to school with my normal hair, and people would ask to touch it because [they thought] it looked like a cloud or something.”

Even though Buatsi decided she wanted to be a lawyer in middle school, not everyone thought she was capable. Although Buatsi was a track athlete, competing in long jumps and 500-meter races, and a student in the gifted and talented program at her school, she said that many people at her school doubted her capabilities because of her race.

Her family was always supportive of her, but the students and teachers around her were less so. At her high school, she had an apathetic college counselor, and multiple students who told her she was only accepted to certain schools because she was Black.

CHANNING WANG / THRESHER

Martel College senior Selase Buatsi sits at a table in the Central Quad. Buatsi is currently president of Rice’s Pre-Law Society for the second year in a row, and hopes to pursue law school after taking a gap year.

“Someone I didn’t really know told me that I only got accepted [to the University of Texas, Austin] because they needed Black people,” Buatsi said.

People should recognize that the Black experience is not uniform ... There’s not a certain way you need to talk, dress or look like.

Selase Buatsi MARTEL COLLEGE SENIOR For Buatsi, the final straw came when she was sitting in a class a few rows in front of some of her classmates, who were saying dismissive and vulgar things about affirmative action.

“Honestly, it was an unreal experience for me because the type of things they were saying were so horrible,” Buatsi said. “I felt like I was in a movie and I was supposed to get up and say something dramatic and stand up for myself, but I was the only Black person in

the room, so instead of drawing any attention, I just went to the bathroom and made sure I could hold myself together before going back to class.”

It took Buatsi time to realize that no matter how hard she worked, she couldn’t change her classmates’ opinions of her.

“I was taking a lot of extra, upper-level classes and then track was hard — we had to practice twice a day during the season — and then after killing myself on the track, I would crawl to the locker room and change and go to work,” Buatsi said. “People didn’t see any of that, and even if they did, all they needed was my Blackness.”

Because of these negative experiences, Buatsi said she was hesitant to take on any leadership roles in the future.

“I think that experience made me want to live a more quiet, smaller life because I didn’t want anyone giving me their opinion,” Buatsi said.

At Rice, Buatsi has had the chance to interact with other Black Americans and learn about their experiences — an opportunity she missed growing up in a Ghanaian family and attending mostly White schools.

“Before coming to Rice, aside from my family, I really didn’t interact with Black people, so I felt kind of alien to Blackness,

separated from it,” Buatsi said. “My family is African. In the Black community, there’s kind of a separation.”

Although Buatsi’s parents cooked Ghanaian food and spoke Ewe, a language of Ghana, at home, Buatsi didn’t feel fully African. When she first came to Rice, Buatsi said she didn’t feel like she fit in with either the Black or African communities.

“I felt like I wasn’t African enough to be African American, and I wasn’t Black enough to be Black American,” Buatsi said. “I felt like I couldn’t be around those people for too long because if I stayed too long, they would notice I didn’t quite fit.”

But through her experience at Rice, Buatsi said she has become more accepting of her identity, dancing as part of the Rice African Student Association dance team and taking classes to learn more about the history of Black identity in America.

“People should recognize that the Black experience is not uniform,” Buatsi said.

“We’re not all the same. There’s not a certain way you need to talk, dress or look like.”

As she continues to learn more about the Black identity, Buatsi said she has learned to become more self-confident, a trait she lost during her high school years.

“Being at Rice has been an opportunity for me to build [my confidence] back up,” Buatsi said. “The foundation is stronger now.”

After spending years dreaming of being a lawyer, Buatsi has found opportunities pertaining to law at Rice. Despite her earlier hesitance to take on leadership roles, Buatsi is not only president of the Pre-Law Society, but has also participated in the law practicum course twice, doing internships at the Texas Innocence Project and the district attorney’s office in Fort Bend County. This semester, she’s channeling her passion for law into empowering young Black men in the Fifth Ward with the Urban Enrichment Institute.

Buatsi hopes to take a gap year to stay in Houston and find a job before attending law school. Although she said she knows law students often leave law school with a different vision for their future than they started with, she currently hopes to pursue criminal law.

“I strongly feel like I want to be helping people,” Buatsi said. “Criminal justice is something I’m very interested in.”

Editor’s Note: This is an installment of Black at Rice, a features series intended to highlight and celebrate Black voices on and off campus.

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Crossword by Sam Rossum Thresher Staff

ACROSS 1) Mom-and-pop grp.

4) X in a dentist’s office, e.g.

7) O’s, as to X’s 9) “Bob’s Burgers” daughter 10) Go down with the ship 12) Skit-ish Python?

13) Big bargain from a laundromat 15) Marzipan nuts 16) “All My (E)xes Live in ____” 17) Gobi and Mojave, e.g.

19) It sees over seas 21) Stable locks 22) “Turner & ____”, buddy cop film 24) Like 17-acrosses 25) Renaissance strings 26) Popular cooking spray 27) Oodles

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Answers will be posted on ricethresher.org and on the Thresher Facebook page.

Bolded clues and colored squares correspond to the theme.

DOWN 1) Third degree, often 2) Filet mignon, when accompanying lobster 3) Ancient market 4) Some brie bits 5) Pangolin snacks 6) “Huzzah!”

8) Sweated it out 9) Funghi that’s to die for 11) Mugatu, to Zoolander 12) Burger King or Dairy Queen, e.g.

14) Some fishy bagel toppings (var.)

17) Daisy Dukes fabric 18) Gush 19) Medic or legal prefix 20) ____-plasm: ghost goop 21) Where X marks the spot 23) She-clucker

THE RICE THRESHER

8 • WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT KOREAN CULTURE NIGHT SPOTLIGHTS TALENT

KATHERINE HUI / THRESHER

Brown College senior Hyemin Kim, Lovett College junior Stephanie Kwak and Wiess College junior Kyumin Han perform as part of the traditional Korean percussion ensemble Woori Samulnori for Korean Culture Night, a celebration of Rice’s Korean and Korean American community. The event was hosted in the Rice Memorial Center last Saturday. Visitors enjoyed a catered dinner before watching musical performances

by Woori Samulnori, solo student musicians and masked singers who participated in a contest inspired by the “King of the Masked Singer,” a popular South Korean singing competition television show.

FROM PAGE 1

RADICAL

With chairs haphazardly suspended in midair by strings, adorned with clothes and mosaics of stamps, the installation conveys a sense of disorientation and displacement.

The surrounding walls glow with Clottey’s “yellow brick road” leading home — a series of yellow canvases plastered with passport pages, with work gloves beneath them.

The most notable part of the installation was a performance by the artist himself.

Without introduction, Clottey moved silently through the installation, vigorously mopping and scrubbing the floor on his hands and knees. Meanwhile, well-dressed actors holding wine glasses played the part of aloof museum-goers.

The artist’s thoughtful questioning of the roles played by class and nationality in accessing art incorporated the audience as part of the exhibit. As an installation that aims to explore the anxieties of belonging in foreign environments, “Softening the Borders” forced those engaging with the body of work to examine their own positionality.

Clottey’s invitation for reflection prefaced the exhibits in the Brown Foundation Gallery, which include a vivid and evocative body of photography, sculpture and mixed media. According to the introductory text, the artworks shatter a uniform understanding of a colonial past and postcolonial present. Instead, they

explore diverse subjects such as migration another South African photographer who and displacement, representation and manipulates everyday materials, Robin identity, consumerism and materialism Rhode.

Rhode, the Moody’s spring season and the exploitation of land, resources and artist-in-residence, innovatively combines people. photography with The gallery public art. In a itself has been sequence of visceral transformed by photographs, a vibrant red, green figure contorts his and yellow partition The [exhibit creates] body in front of a walls that break the a space that not only growing number of room up into smaller ships drawn on a sections.

Upon confronts dominant white background. entering, large photo Western narratives The abundant use prints by Senegalese surrounding colonialism, of yellow parallels artist Omar Victor but also urges its Clottey’s installation, Diop flank the drawing out corridor on either audience to examine similar themes of side, embracing the their own positions migration and active continuing theme of within post-colonial participation with the rich colors. His series art. recreates portraits structures of power.

One of the most of famous figures of African descent while incorporating arresting sights in the gallery is a life-size contemporary sports iconography to pull model of a child falling backwards off a globe, grasping at something unseen. The globe them into the present.

The next series of photographs sharply is covered by an infrared heat map which contrasts with Diop’s spectacular direction indicates areas of the world most heavily of color. South African artist Zanele Muholi’s impacted by climate change. The work, Yinka piercing black and white self-portraits Shonibare’s “Girl on Globe,” is a poignant exaggerate skin tone as a reclamation expression of the anxiety surrounding the of blackness. The self-portraits are present state of climate emergency.

Yet another installation confronts ornamented with everyday tools, echoing Clottey’s exploration of class and labor, the damaging effects of pollution and as well as putting Muholi in dialogue with consumerism on the environment. “Plastic

Tree” by Pascale Marthine Tayou juxtaposes protruding branches knotted with brightlycolored plastic shopping bags against a bright red wall. The attractive colors of the installation provide a compelling metaphor for the destructive allure of excessive consumption.

The exhibition features multimedia artist Mary Sibande’s immersive virtual reality installation, “A Crescendo of Ecstasy.”

Consisting of hanging fetal-shaped creatures and a mask molded on the artist’s face, the virtual reality experience allows viewers to enter an alternate land where tendrils shift over a woman’s body. According to the introductory text, it imagines a world unbound by the histories of female servitude.

“Radical Revisionists” is saturated in dazzling colors and clear-eyed activism. The exhibit succeeds in resisting the erasure and homogenization of marginalized histories by embracing Afrocentric perspectives on contemporary issues. The unique and deeply personal voices of the exhibiting artists complement and converse with one another, creating a space that not only confronts dominant Western narratives surrounding colonialism, but also urges its audience to examine their own positions within postcolonial structures of power.

“Radical Revisionists” will be on view until May 16, 2020. The Moody Center is open 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

The exhibition spaces are free and open to the public.

THE WEEKLY SCENE

UNPLUGGED

ICE CREAM FOR BREAKFAST DAY

STUFF-A-PLUSH

MARIAM GHANI ARTIST TALK

The Muslim Student Association Lone Star Council, in partnership with the University of Houston’s and Rice’s Muslim student associations, will host a poetry slam and open mic night this Saturday, Feb. 1, from 6 - 9 p.m. Tickets are $7 online and $10 at the door. This event is open to everyone 18+.

If you missed the grand opening of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams in Houston Heights last month, stop by this Saturday, Feb. 1 from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. to enjoy coffee ice cream floats and the new Skillet Cinnamon Roll flavor.

All proceeds will benefit DoSomething.org, a digital youth social justice platform.

Destress and relive your childhood Build-A-Bear fantasies this Thursday, Jan. 30 at 9 p.m. with Stuff-A-Plush, your opportunity to make a cuddly companion, presented by Owls After Dark. This event is free and open to the public while supplies last.

This Wednesday, Jan. 29 starting at 6:30 p.m., Afghan American artist Mariam Ghani will host a lecture and screening of her documentary “What We Left Unfinished,” an exploration of film censorship in Communist-era Afghanistan. This event is free and open to the public.

Farnsworth Pavilion

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams 375 W 19th St.

Rice Memorial Center Grand Hall

Dudley Recital Hall the University of Houston 4800 Calhoun Road

ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020 • 9

HOUSTON IRANIAN FILM FESTIVAL TO CONCLUDE AT RICE From top to bottom: Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami; “Homework” (1989) d. Abbas Kiarostami; “Tribute to Teachers” (1977) d.

Abbas Kiarostami.

photos courtesy museum of fine arts houston

Katelyn Landry, A&E Editor Co-founded by Rice Cinema and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Houston Iranian Film Festival will return to campus this weekend to conclude its 27th annual iteration with a celebration of Abbas Kiarostami, one of Iran’s most monumental filmmakers.

In addition to screening Iran’s 2020 entry for the Academy Awards in the category of Best International Film “Finding Farideh” and other acclaimed new Iranian releases, this year’s festival features a retrospective of Kiarostami, a legendary director not only within Iran but on the international stage of contemporary global cinema. Both the retrospective and festival as a whole will conclude this weekend at Rice Cinema with screenings of Kiarostami’s 1989 documentary “Homework” as well as collection of six short films.

The festival was established in 1993 through a partnership between Rice Cinema and the MFAH’s film department.

Former Rice professor Hamid Naficy, who now teaches at Northwestern University and remains a leading authority of Iranian and Middle Eastern cinema scholarship, reached out to MFAH film and video curator Marian Luntz in the early 1990s to bring Iranian film to Houston at a critical turning point in the nation’s history.

“At that moment, we were [about] a decade beyond the Islamic Revolution, which happened in 1979, and cinema changed after that,” Luntz said. “For many of the first years of the festival, the subject matter of the films dealt with the

Iran-Iraq War which had just happened and dealt with adjustments in Iran after the revolution.”

This year, the festival made its annual return on the heels of major world headlines regarding high tension between the U.S. and Iran following President Donald Trump’s ordered assassination of Gen. Qassim Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Following massive national protests mourning the commander, Iran launched a retaliatory attack on two U.S. military bases in Iraq that rattled the American public with fear of a potential war.

Luntz didn’t notice any significant changes in festival attendance or audience reactions in correlation with the escalating international tensions. Still, the events sparked conversations among those involved with the festival according to Rice Cinema Director Charles Dove.

“We were somewhat concerned because at a certain point it really did look like there was gonna be [a war],” Dove said. “And I hate to say it but this is not the first time since I’ve been working in this festival that it looked like there was going to be war. ” Despite the far-reaching and ongoing history of political tension between the U.S. and Iran, the Houston Iranian Film Festival continues to flourish and expose the city of Houston to Iranian culture and its stake in contemporary world cinema.

This story has been condensed for print.

Read the full story at ricethresher.org

Randall McCabe’s “Works on Paper” captures the simple complexity of nature CHRISTINA TAN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Rather than start at the entrance, visitors to artist Randall McCabe’s “Works on Paper 2009-2019” should consider beginning near the men’s bathroom. Next to it hangs the earliest iteration of a shape that appears all over the first floor of the Rice Media Center — a prickly pear cactus.

Nature and its infinite forms serve as an endlessly fascinating subject matter to McCabe, who began working with the cactus shape in 1989, as seen in the graphite drawing by the restroom. Sharp lines and finely penciled detail form a representative image of the cactus.

McCabe said the shape has stuck with him for over 16 years.

“This form has always been central to my imagery, this irregular ovoid, and there’s a lot of ways to express it,” McCabe said. “When it finally ended up as a prickly pear cactus, it was really like the proverbial thunderbolt in my head.”

On the walls of the Media Center, the cactus takes on increasingly abstract forms, with no piece the exact same as its neighbor. The 50 pieces displayed on the first floor form a body of work titled “Drawings from the Equinox” and are a selection from hundreds of others, according to McCabe.

“When I first started doing these, I didn’t really understand what they meant to me, so I was just drawing and drawing and drawing,” McCabe said. “And then I kept distilling the imagery down until it became this simplified form.”

The repetitive nature of “Drawings from the Equinox” shows conceptual growth over time, inviting and awarding closer inspection. Around the corner from the 1989 graphite drawing, black and white watercolor cacti bloom, and a series

christina tan / THRESHER

Two pieces from artist Randall McCabe’s “Drawings from the Equinox” hang in the main gallery of the Rice Media Center. The curated selection of artwork spans over three decades of McCabe’s work, although most of the pieces are from 2019.

of eight nearly-identical 9-by-11 inch drawings made in various media, ranging from ink to charcoal, hang on another wall of the gallery.

McCabe began working on “Drawings of the Equinox” while working at Rice during his 22-year-long career as the visual and dramatic arts studio manager, but over half of the pieces in the exhibit were produced after his retirement in 2019.

“All artists, musicians, poets — they gotta have a day job. So for years, after I got my education in the arts, I painted houses, tended bars, waited tables — did whatever I had to do,” McCabe said.

“Works on Paper” feels like McCabe has come full circle. However, the simplicity of McCabe’s final works belies his methodical and painstaking process. McCabe said he first photographs his plants and then brings prints of those photographs into the studio. After hundreds of drawings, McCabe picks his favorites and transfers them onto larger canvases, experimenting with media along the way.

“There’s probably, at this point, maybe only a dozen that I keep coming back [to] … And I’ll draw the same plant over and over and over again,” McCabe said.

“And it’s different every time, needless

to say, because I’m not concerned with verisimilitude.”

Along the way, McCabe preserves telltale signs of his process, such as light sketches of graphite grids present in every piece. McCabe said this preservation is intentional and stems from McCabe’s own fascination with process.

I never felt like I needed motivation to do something. This stuff is a part of me.

Randall McCabe ARTIST “Since I was a student, I’ve been a big fan of process in art,” McCabe said. “I like to see, in an art object, how it was done.”

Visitors can take a deeper dive into process with studies from McCabe’s “The Scroll” project, a 170-foot long continuous drawing. The scroll itself, last exhibited at Lawndale Art Center in 2012, does not make an appearance in “Works on Paper,”

but four studies from the project adorn the entrance to the exhibit. According to McCabe, “The Scroll” inspired “Lightning Storm,” a spinoff series of mostly watercolor pieces that depict pixelated images of volatile storm clouds. Thirteen pieces from “Lightning Storm” hang on the walls of the Media Center’s second floor. “[The scroll] eventually became a landscape, and that landscape became atmospheric, and then clouds showed up and a lightning storm developed as I was 150 feet [in],” McCabe said. “The image of the lightning storm was really good, I thought, so I stopped work on the scroll and decided that this imagery was worth a suite of discrete watercolors.”

McCabe, who hung his first solo show in 1995, has no plans to stop making art, a fact that is immediately evident through the persistence seen in his pieces.

“I never wake up in the morning or go into the studio worrying about whether I’ll have anything to paint that day … I never felt like I needed motivation to do something.

This stuff is a part of me,” McCabe said.

“Works on Paper 2009-2019” will be on view at the Rice Media Center Gallery through Feb. 10. The center is open weekdays from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

THE RICE THRESHER

10 • WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

SPORTS

ERICA OGWUMIKE: SHOOTING BASKETS AND VIDEO

courtesy rice athletics

Rice forward Erica Ogwumike dribbles the ball up the floor after Rice gains possession, analyzing the opposition to find an open teammate. Ogwumike is well chronicled as a star in Conference USA: Last season, Ogwumike was named C-USA Player of the Year and C-USA Female Athlete of the Year. This season, Ogwumike has excelled for Rice, scoring 17.5 points per game.

IVANKA PEREZ FEATURES EDITOR

When she’s not shooting hoops on the basketball court, you can find Rice forward Erica Ogwumike shooting YouTube videos in her room. Although she graduated with her bachelor’s degree from Rice in December, finishing one semester early, Ogwumike continues to play for the Rice women’s basketball team. Having already been accepted into medical school, Ogwumike has decided to share the lessons she’s learned and capture her experiences in a memorable way — through YouTube.

Since December, Ogwumike has been documenting the pivotal moments of her life on her YouTube channel, vlogging about her medical school interviews and showing viewers a day in the life of a Division 1 athlete.

“People asked me for the longest [time] to start something just to share what I’m doing, how I got to where I’m at and [give] advice because there aren’t a lot of pre-med studentathletes out there,” Ogwumike said.

Ogwumike first joined a basketball team in fifth grade, after tagging along to her three older sisters’ basketball practices after school.

Ogwumike said it wasn’t until her sophomore year of high school that she realized she wanted to follow her sisters’ footsteps again by pursuing college basketball.

“My older sisters were playing basketball in college, so I saw how you could use basketball as an awesome opportunity to get a great education and [use it] as a platform for change,” Ogwumike said.

After high school, Ogwumike headed off to Malibu, California to attend Pepperdine University, and played on the women’s basketball team with her older sister, Olivia. After one year, both sisters decided to transfer to Rice and continue playing college basketball.

But even with the support of her sister, Ogwumike said she still found herself needing to adjust to Rice.

“The amount of time studying and trying to improve your craft, which is your sport, is increased to another level as well as your academic load, so it took a while to get adjusted to,” Ogwumike said.

After two years of playing on the team, Ogwumike said she’s grateful for the opportunity to witness the team’s trajectory.

“The growth that I’ve witnessed in our program over the past [two] years surpassed any of my dreams and goals, and I am just happy to be one small part in that,” Ogwumike said. “This program is truly amazing [and head coach Tina] Langley is truly amazing.”

Being part of a college basketball team allowed her to grow in more ways than

one. Throughout the years, Ogwumike said she learned time management, resilience, communication and teamwork.

“I just love the teamwork aspect of working together to achieve a collective goal,” Ogwumike said.

According to Ogwumike, the physical aspect of college athletics has also been important to her.

“You have to be in shape in every aspect of fitness — it involves running, jumping, changing directions, strength, et cetera,” Ogwumike said. “I like the versatility of [fitness].”

Ogwumike said she appreciates versatility in all aspects of her life, which influenced her choice of a future career. She said she loves how flexible a doctor’s role is, and how doctors can impact patients in all aspects of their lives.

“Medicine is interwoven into many aspects such as academia, policy, law, media and more,” Ogwumike said. “I have so many interests that I know I can cater to all while being a physician and working towards something so altruistic each day: helping people reach their optimal level of health.”

As she describes in her video “How I Got Into Med School,” Ogwumike’s decision to pursue medicine was gradual.

“I never had this [“a-ha”] moment — it was just over time, I became more exposed

to medicine, physicians [and] health care and I began to see myself in this profession,” Ogwumike said. “No one in my family is in medicine, so it has been a shot in the dark, but I gradually learned through the great resources at Rice and the Texas Medical Center that it’s what I want to pursue.”

Ogwumike talks about her experiences as a pre-med on YouTube to help other users find answers to their questions. On her channel, Ogwumike has posted two videos dedicated to her medical school interviews, hoping her experiences will help students applying to medical school.

“At some point, I decided that it would be cool to share the knowledge and info I’ve gotten along my journey,” Ogwumike said.

“If my channel could help someone like me in the past, it would be worth it.”

Although Ogwumike began her channel to provide resources for high school students hoping to balance pre-med and college athlete commitments, it soon developed into a way for her to capture special moments in her life.

“This channel has made [me] aware of living in the moment,” Ogwumike said. “As I go back and watch a video, I realize that there are so many great moments in my life that I easily forget about it. This channel has been a great way for me to [cherish] those memories.”

SWIMMING READIES TO FACE UH AND LSU AFTER STRONG START TO SEASON MICHAEL BYRNES SPORTS EDITOR

Rice swimming will look to keep its successful season afloat this weekend with a double-dual meet against the University of Houston and Louisiana State University. This year, the Owls have a 5-1 record in dual meets, losing only to No. 11 Texas A&M University.

Since returning from winter break, Rice has a spotless 2-0 record, notching convincing wins over the University of North Texas and Southern Methodist University.

Junior Nicole Limberg and sophomore Marta Cano-Minarro led the way for Rice during the two victories. Cano-Minarro won the 100-yard freestyle in both meets while adding a first-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle against SMU. Limberg registered victories in both the 100-yard and 200-yard breaststroke events against SMU. For her efforts, Limberg was named the Conference USA Swimmer of the Week for the week of Jan. 15, the first such award in her Rice career. According to Limberg, her renewed focus on swimming this season was a catalyst for her strong performances.

“I struggled my sophomore year balancing swimming with the rigorous academics [at Rice],” Limberg said. “[But] with words of support from my teammates and [better class management], I have been able to swim a lot faster this season and rekindle my love for swimming from a new perspective.”

Rice’s attention now turns to this weekend’s pair of matchups. Houston and LSU come into the matchups with very strong programs of their own, with LSU ranked No. 17 in the country, and UH receiving two top-25 votes in the most recent coaches’ poll.

Houston’s team is led by senior Peyton Kondis, who has the sixth-best 100-yard breaststroke time in the country this season.

When competing against Kondis, Limberg, the Owls’ top breaststroke swimmer, said her focus remains on her own race.

“I have seen [Kondis] race for the past two years and she is an incredible swimmer, but I trust the work that I have put in practice,” Limberg said. “In the end, I will continue to ... race the best that I can, and focus on the things that I can control.”

Rice’s top freestyle swimmers, including Cano-Minarro and senior Kate Nezelek,

who holds the top 100-yard freestyle time in C-USA this year, will also face off against top competition from the Cougars. UH junior Mykenzie Leehy has posted a top30 nationwide time in both the 100-yard and 200-yard freestyle this year, and senior Zarena Brown was the 2018-19 American Athletic Conference champion in the 100yard, 200-yard and 500-yard freestyle races.

As usual, Rice will come into both meets with an advantage in the butterfly events.

Junior Brittany Bui holds the top C-USA times this year in both the 100-yard and 200-yard butterfly races, with her top 200 fly time this year more than a second quicker than that of any swimmer from UH or LSU. According to Bui, a combination of dedication and technique allows her to succeed at the butterfly.

“My underwater dolphin kicks are the main reason my butterfly is good, because I spend [the] majority of my races underwater compared to other swimmers,” Bui said.

“I think my success definitely comes from really pushing myself at practices and being diligent with the details, and being open to changes in my stroke.”

Against LSU, the Owls will have to contend with Tiger freshman Niamh Robinson, whose top 200-yard breaststroke time this year set an LSU program record and ranks her No. 12 in the country. Junior Cassie Kalisz will also pose a stiff challenge in the backstroke.

But one of LSU’s top athletes doesn’t even compete in swimming events: Sophomore diver Aimee Wilson qualified for the NCAA Championships last year in both the onemeter and three-meter springboard events, and was named to the 2019 All-SEC Second Team in a highly competitive conference.

Rice’s team, of course, features no divers, and consequently loses out on potential points in all meets that include diving scores.

But according to head coach Seth Huston, the Owls don’t let that disadvantage affect their mentality.

“We don’t expend energy on what we cannot control,” Huston said. “Diving points are scored and we just have to swim very well to have any chance to overcome that deficit. It makes for a great challenge.”

Rice will be put to the test against UH and LSU on Friday at 5 p.m. at UH’s Campus Recreation and Wellness Center.

SPORTS

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020 • 11

Basketball set to host UNT BEN BAKER-KATZ THRESHER STAFF

After a tough weekend that saw the team lose against two Conference USA opponents, Rice men’s basketball will aim to even its season series against the University of North Texas on Saturday afternoon at Tudor Fieldhouse. According to head coach Scott Pera, UNT — which is ranked No. 1 in C-USA — will pose a difficult challenge for the Owls.

“It’s a very balanced league, and we’re knocking on the door,” Pera said. “We have to focus on our attention to detail to come out on top in these remaining games.

[North Texas] is one of the best teams in the league.”

The Owls suffered two close losses this past weekend. The first, against the University of Texas, El Paso, came down to the final minute when redshirt junior guard Josh Parrish converted a layup, trimming the Miner lead to just four. But UTEP held on for the win, holding the Owls without a field goal for the remainder of the game.

Senior guard Ako Adams scored 17 points for the Owls and became the 37th player in Rice history to score 1,000 career points. But the Owls shot just 36 percent from the field, and 29 percent from three.

According to Adams, the Owls were not totally comfortable shooting jump shots.

“It’s just confidence,” Adams said.

“Players, including myself, will miss a couple of shots and lose confidence; it’s hard to win like that. We just have to stay confident, no matter how many shots you miss or what’s going on the offense or defensive end.”

In their next game, the Owls lost a close game to the University of Texas, San Antonio. With just six seconds left and the game tied, Adams missed a jump shot that UTSA guard Erik Czumbel grabbed off

the rim, drove the length of the court and sank the final layup with just one second remaining. Pera said the team was not in top form defensively against UTSA. “We played really well defensively [against UTEP], maybe the effort we put in there wore us down a little bit,” Pera said.

“I think confidence plays a role in it too.

But we have really good shooters, and we have to stay confident and positive, and we can get going a little bit as we did against UTSA.” With that loss, Rice fell to 9-13 on the year and 1-8 in C-USA. But Parrish said the Owls know what to expect in their upcoming game against UNT after losing their last contest against the Mean Green.

“Our last game against North Texas taught us that they’re a good team, but just like any team in our league, they’re very beatable,” Parrish said. “We had some mistakes that put us at a deficit early.

For this next game, we’re going to try to compete from the tip with that same focus and intensity, and just try to keep the game close.”

According to Adams, the Owls know what they must do to be successful against UNT. “[North Texas] is going to defend, play hard, play scrappy and rebound,” Adams said. “We have to pay more attention to details like boxing out, being in gaps and knowing personnel. If we get those things down, I think we have a great chance to win.”

Pera said he and the team aren’t treating the rest of the season any differently just because of Rice’s C-USA record.

“We’re just worried about the team in front of us,” Pera said. “No one is hanging their head, no one is discouraged. We’re frustrated, but we’re fighting hard, and we can’t wait to play again.”

The Owls get back on the court this Saturday against UNT with a 2 p.m. tipoff inside Tudor Fieldhouse.

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courtesy rice athletics

Junior guard Josh Parrish and freshman guard Quincy Olivari celebrate a successful play for Rice. Both Parrish (6.6 points per game) and Olivari (5.7) have contributed scoring this season.

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BACKPAGE

12 • WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

Superb Owl Watch Party Guide We’re not big on sports here at the Backpage, but apparently this week is #superbowlsunday.

And, apparently, on this day, a lot of people opt to host a #superbowlwatchparty. We don’t understand why so many Americans are interested in watching our Superb Owls once a year — we think they’re interesting every day! But if you’re planning to watch Rice students in the wild this #superbowlsunday, we have the best way to go about this special type of unconventional birding.

Proper tools

You don’t need binoculars to spot Superb Owls — they’re all around you. With that being said, there are a couple of types of eyewear that might be helpful if you’re diving into the environment of Rice students on Sunday: • You have a really good chance of finding a Superb Owl in a lab on any given day, so it’s a good idea to have a pair of goggles on you just in case.

• Tracking a flock of Superb Owls is easy with the right technology. The app that avid Superb Owl watchers have found most useful is Facebook — following Owls’ mating habits on Rice Missed Encounters, trading practices on Rice Students Selling Stuff and planning of gatherings in various groups has been proven to be super effective. But, with all of that online eye strain, you might want to consider investing in blue-lightblocking glasses.

Location, location, location

Finding Superb Owls on Sundays is a little bit trickier than during the week because they’re not constrained to typical class schedules. With that being said, most Rice students follow a typical migration schedule to wrap up the weekend.

• Morning: A Superb Owl may try to be productive in the morning, but the serveries won’t have any fuel for them until 11:30 a.m. Because of this, Owls will be scattered and difficult to locate before this time.

• Afternoon: The afternoon grind forces a lot of Superb Owls into common spaces on campus to work on problem sets and group projects. The Sunday Scaries begin to set in and you’ll find busy birds across college commons, Brochstein Pavilion and a dangerously overpopulated Coffeehouse.

• Evening: The feeding times of Superb Owls will seem strange to Rice outsiders. At 5 o’clock exactly, they flock to dinner. You can expect to find relatively stagnant groups of Owls for the next hour or so, before an intense panic sends them rushing to do homework and scheduling their weeks. They will be difficult to spot during this dynamic period.

• Night: If you remember your elementary school science classes, you know that owls are first and foremost nocturnal. Head to Fondy past 10 p.m. to find Superb Owls desperately finishing their assignments due by class time Monday.

Subspecies identification

Apparently, people are particularly looking forward to watching “the 49ers” and “the Chiefs” on #superbowlsunday. At first, we weren’t sure what these classifications of Superb Owl meant, but we think we’ve figured it out.

• The 49ers: 49 percent of Superb Owls come from U.S. states and territories other than Texas. You can spot them by their distinctive calls, especially the common noises, “Whataburger is overrated” and “What is Buc-ee’s?”

• The Chiefs: Chief, in this case, simply means leader. A subset of Superb Owls will decide to take on a career of leadership roles in their college government over the course of their time at Rice. So, look out for the New Student Representative, turned committee head, turned coord of any kind, turned vice president or chief justice or president — these are the Chiefs.

The Backpage is satire, written and designed by Simona “sportball” Matovic. If you noticed that she made the Super Bowl roman numerals out of birds, or for comments or questions, please email JamesJoyceLovesFarts@rice.edu.

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