Rice University

William Marsh Rice University

File:Rice-University-seal.gif
Motto	Letters, Science, Art
Type	Private University
Established	1891
Endowment	US $4.1 billion
President	David W. Leebron
Academic staff	855
Undergraduates	2,886
Postgraduates	1,922
Location	Houston , TX , USA
Campus	Urban, 285 acres (1.2 km²)
Mascot	Sammy the Owl Rice Owls
Website	Rice.edu
Logo of Rice University Logo of Rice University

Lovett Hall

William Marsh Rice University, commonly called Rice University and opened in 1912 as The William Marsh Rice Institute for the Advancement of Letters, Science and Art, is a private, comprehensive research university located in Houston, Texas near the Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is particularly noted for its elite undergraduate division, as well as its strength in the applied sciences. The university has been a pioneer in the fields of nanotechnology , artificial heart research, structural chemical analysis, and space science.

Reputation

At the undergraduate level, Rice placed at 17th in the 2006 U.S. News & World Report rankings of doctoral granting institutions. Further, in the Princeton Review's 2007 rankings, Rice was ranked third for “Best Overall Academic Experience for Undergraduates” as well as among the top 20 schools where students “Never Stop Studying.” Hence the expression: "Rice students never leave the hedges," referring to the plantings that both surround the campus and line the academic quad. The same publication also placed it as first in the nation for “Best Quality of Life” and “Lots of Race / Class Interaction.”

Undergraduate admissions is highly selective [1] with only 22% of its applicants for the Class of 2009 being offered a place. Of the 727 who enrolled, 76% were in their high school's top 5% with 19% of the total class being valedictorians. Verbal SAT scores for this class were 660 and 760 for the 25th and 75th percentiles respectively, while SAT math scores were 670 and 780 at 25th and 75th percentiles. Approximately twenty percent of undergraduates are National Merit Scholars, and Rice has often enrolled the highest percentage in its freshman class among American universities. Rice has also recently ranked first for the percentage of its students receiving National Science Fellowships,

Comprehensively, the 2006 Academic Ranking of World Universities, popularized by The Economist and produced by Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Institute of Higher Education, ranked Rice amongst the top 100 institutions globally in terms of quality of scientific research leading towards numerous awards . Also, in the annual rankings by the The Times Higher Education Supplement, based on a subjective peer review by scholars, Rice finished amongst the top 150 schools internationally [2]. These rankings highlight the emphasis Rice places on its undergraduates, yet also signal the schools ability to maintain a reputable research environment at the graduate level. Indeed, Rice University possesses an endowment of $4.1 billion, fifth-highest per student among U.S. universities. Being relatively generous with these funds allows the university to charge lower tuition, room, and board than most other prestigious private universities, as indicated by its $23,782 tuition and $21,157 average freshman total need-based gift aid, leading it to be mentioned as a “Best Buy” school [3]

Students

All undergraduate students of Rice are members of the residential college system, and there are no fraternities or sororities. Rice's undergraduate enrollment currently is about 3,000, with a student-teacher ratio of about 5:1. Approximately two-thirds of the students major in two or more disciplines. Rice ranks first among NCAA Division I-A schools in the graduation rate of student-athletes. Seventy-seven percent of the students reside on campus, and intramural sport participation is the highest in the nation. Rice students are locally known for being somewhat geeky and highly insulated from the outside world; in a May 2005 Playboy magazine study, it was discovered that Rice students were among the least sexually active of mid-to-high tier private university students in the nation.

Campus

Rice University occupies a heavily-wooded 285 acre tract of land adjoining Hermann Park, Houston's most historically significant public green space, and the Houston Museum District. Also adjoining is the world's largest medical complex, the Texas Medical Center, and a neighborhood commercial center, Rice Village. Hermann Park includes the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the Houston Zoo, Miller Outdoor Theater and an 18-hole municipal golf course. Reliant Park, home of Reliant Stadium and the Astrodome, is two miles (3 km) south of the campus. Among the dozen or so museums in the Museum District is the Rice University Art Gallery, open during the school year. Easy access to downtown's theater and nightlife district and to Reliant Park is provided by the Houston METRORail system, with a station adjacent to the campus's main gate.

The seal of Rice University

Several interdisciplinary research institutes, schools and think tanks are located on the Rice campus, including the Rice Architecture School, Shepherd School of Music, James Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice Quantum Institute, the Rice Engineering Design and Development Institute, the Rice Design Alliance, the Computer and Information Technology Institute, the Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, and the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology.

A stone bench in Founder's Court

The campus itself is organized into a number of quadrangles, and features buildings designed in an eclectic Mediterranean style by Ralph Adams Cram of the Boston architectural firm of Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson. The Academic Quad is centered on the memorial statue of William Marsh Rice. It includes the Lovett Hall, the grand principal building of the university; Fondren Library; and buildings for physics, languages, architecture, arts and the humanities. The Engineering Quad is centered on a set of three sculptures by Michael Heizer collectively entitled "45/90/180" and includes buildings for the electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry and computer science departments. Undergraduates are randomly assigned to the college system. Nine residential colleges (Baker, Brown, Hanszen, Jones, Lovett, Martel, Sid Rich, Wiess, and Will Rice) act as self-governed social units. The 10th and 11th residential colleges, one of which will be called McMurtry College, are currently in the planning stages.

Each residential college has developed its own traditions, including Baker 13, and the Night of Decadence (also known as NOD). Due in part to the traditions of the college system, Seventeen magazine, read by many high school students, named Rice the "coolest college in the land" in its "Top 100 Coolest Colleges" issue (October 2002).

History

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Founder's Statue at Dedication, 1930

Rice University was founded by William Marsh Rice in 1891 and was originally named The William Marsh Rice Institute for the Advancement of Letters, Science, and Art.

Before the Rice Institute could be opened, there were challenges to be endured. William Marsh Rice, 84 and living alone in New York, was poisoned by his valet in 1900. On discovery that Rice's will had been changed to leave the bulk of his estate to a lawyer "friend," Albert T. Patrick, Mr. Rice's lawyers and the New York district attorney uncovered evidence proving Patrick had conspired with Rice's valet to prepare the false will, leading to Patrick's murder conviction in 1901. Legal challenges to William Rice's will continued through 1904, when the Rice Institute finally received a $4.6 million (about $95 million in 2005 dollars) funding endowment. By the time the Institute opened in 1912, its endowment had grown to almost $10 million, the seventh largest university endowment in the country at the time.

Edgar Odell Lovett of Princeton was selected as the first president of the Rice Institute. Lovett undertook extensive research before formalizing plans for the new Institute, including visits to 78 institutions of higher learning across the world in 1908 and 1909. The cornerstone was laid for the first campus building, now Lovett Hall, in 1911. In 1912, course work began. Rice was unusual for that time in admitting both male and female students. The first class consisted of 48 men and 29 women. The student body voted to adopt an Honor System in 1916; Rice's first commencement exercises were held the same year.

In 1930, the founder's memorial statue, a landmark to the campus, was dedicated. The residential college system was adopted in 1957, some twenty years after Yale University did the same.

Founder's Statue, September 2006

In 1959, the Rice Institute Computer went online. 1960 saw Rice Institute formally renamed Rice University. Rice donated much of its land to form NASA's Manned Space Flight Center (now called Johnson Space Center) in 1962, prompting President John F. Kennedy to make a speech at Rice Stadium announcing that the United States intended "to become the world's leading space-faring nation." The relationship of NASA with Rice University and the city of Houston has remained strong to the present day.

The original charter of Rice Institute dictated that the university admit and educate, tuition-free, "the white inhabitants of Houston, and the state of Texas." In 1963, the governing board of Rice University filed a lawsuit to allow Rice to modify its charter to admit students of all races and to charge tuition. Rice won its case, and charged tuition for the first time in 1965. In the same year, Rice launched a $33 million (about $200 million in 2005 dollars) development campaign. $43 million (about $215 million in 2005 dollars) was raised by its conclusion in 1970. In 1974, two new schools were founded at Rice, the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management and the Shepherd School of Music. The Brown Challenge, a fund-raising program designed to encourage annual gifts, launched in 1976, ending in 1996 having raised $185 million (about $225 million in 2005 dollars). The Rice School of Social Sciences was founded in 1979.

The Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations was held at Rice in 1990. In 1993, the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy was created. In 1997, the Edyth Bates Old Grand Organ and Recital Hall and the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, renamed in 2005 for the late Nobel Prize winner and Rice professor Richard E. Smalley, were dedicated at Rice. In 1999, the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology was created. The Rice Owls baseball team was ranked #1 in the nation for the first time in that year (1999), holding the top spot for eight weeks. In 2003, the Owls won their first national championship in baseball, which was the first for the university in any team sport, beating the University of Texas and Stanford University twice each en route to the title.

School of Architecture

The Rice School of Architecture (RSA) is highly regarded as a test bed for theoretical, research-oriented architectural study. A 2006 ranking by Design Intelligence, "America's Best Architecture & Design Schools," placed the RSA undergraduate program at #3 (tied with Cal Poly SLO). The 2007 ranking placed Rice's undergraduate program at #2 in the nation, surpassed only by Cornell University's. The graduate program was ranked at #6 nationally. The overall program was ranked at #6 in terms of academic innovation. The study results were based on a wide-ranging survey of professional design practitioners from all regions of the United States.

College system

The residential college system is the focus of the undergraduate experience at Rice University. This takes the place of the typical American university on-campus housing organization of dorms, fraternities, and sororities. When students become undergraduates they are assigned to a residential college randomly (often simply referred to as 'college'), although "legacy" exceptions are made for students whose siblings or other close relatives have attended (or are attending) Rice.

Each college enjoys the diversity of the greater university with regard to majors, ethnicities, personalities, athletes, etc. Students remain a member of the college that they are assigned to for the duration of their undergraduate career. The vast majority of students prefer to live on campus for all four years, but shortage of spaces results in some students being forced to live off campus each year (though they remain members of the college and typically take their meals, or at least their lunches, there). Students are guaranteed on-campus housing for freshman year (as well as three of their first four years), and each college has its own system for determining allocation of the remaining spaces. Most colleges have some form of "room draw," in which people claim rooms in order of seniority. Each college has its own set of buildings, commons, and dining hall (or shares a "servery" with other colleges).

Students tend to develop extreme loyalty to their college and maintain friendly rivalry with other colleges, especially during events such as Beer Bike and O-Week. As a result of this organization the colleges are the central social structure of the undergraduate population at Rice. When asked where they are from, students often reply with their college rather than their hometown. Students social groups tend to, but not always, revolve around their college. This has been the most significant criticism of the college system: that it tends to create groups of friends within a college to the exclusion of people in the other colleges. Colleges keep their rivalries alive by performing "jacks," or pranks, on each other, especially during O-Week (Orientation Week) and "Willy Week," the week preceding Beer Bike.

There are currently nine residential colleges, with six (Baker, Hanszen, Lovett, Sid Rich, Wiess, and Will Rice) on the south side of campus and three (Brown, Jones, and Martel) on the north. Although each college is composed of a full cross-section of students at Rice, each college over time has developed its own personality and traditions to varying degrees. All colleges except Sid Richardson College ("Sid Rich") are organized around their own small quadrangle.

At Matriculation, Commencement, and other formal academic ceremonies, the colleges process in the order in which they were established.

South colleges

Baker, Will Rice, Hanszen, and Wiess are the original four colleges, created in 1957 on the grounds of what were then called the North, South, West, and Wiess residence halls.

Baker College, slightly smaller than the other eight colleges, is officially oldest and includes the original wood-paneled library, living quarters, and dining facility of the campus. It is named after Captain James A. Baker, William Marsh Rice's lawyer who uncovered the plot of Rice's butler. Baker was also the grandfather of James A. Baker III, Secretary of State to President George H.W. Bush and the namesake of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. Traditions at Baker College include its annual Shakespeare play and Shakespeare-themed Baker Feast, its annual jazz-themed party, Baker Blues, and an annual Freshman Camping Trip, in which the freshman class brings back the college's 25' tall Christmas tree.

Will Rice College is the second college, though its original dormitory building, originally called South Hall, is the oldest building on campus built as a residential hall. Will Rice prides itself on its individualism and tends to focus on its extensive winning history in the annual Beer Bike competition. Will Rice was named not after Rice's founder but after his nephew William Marsh Rice Jr., who was himself a contributor to the university.

Hanszen College was the third residence built at Rice. Hanszen is known for its family atmosphere and for being mysteriously protective of a knight sculpture known as the Guardian on the college grounds.

Wiess College, the fourth and westernmost college, was originally Wiess Hall, the first residence hall at Rice named after a person. Male and female members of Wiess College are known equally as Wiessmen and refer to their community as Team Wiess. Wiess has a reputation for being both especially cohesive and especially insular, with a more distinct or visible set of traditions than the other colleges and a tendency not to go along with trends embraced by the other colleges. In 2002, Wiess became the first college to move from one building to another, when a new college facility opened to replace Wiess Hall, which had deteriorated to the point of being nearly uninhabitable. Whereas the old Wiess was said (with some affection) to resemble a cheap motel, the new Wiess is often said to resemble a prison, with corrugated looking roofs, steel mesh railings, and narrow passages overlooked by balconies.

Lovett College was opened as an all-male college in 1968 after student riots of the 1960s, with an eye towards being riot-proof. Lovett, named after the first president of Rice, Edgar Odell Lovett, is sometimes referred to as "the toaster" after its rectangular facade and brutalist design.

Sid Richardson College, known as Sid Rich or simply Sid, is the tallest building on campus. Sid uses its height to advantage and uses "mors de super" (an extremely unidiomatic Latin rendering of "death from above") as its motto. Almost every Friday afternoon during the school year, Radio Free Sid (the name based on Radio Free Europe of the Cold War era) plays on large speakers from the topmost balcony. This music can be heard throughout the campus. Sid opened in 1971 in what was once part of Lovett College's parking lot, making Sid and Lovett sister colleges and arch-rivals.

North colleges

Jones College and Brown College are the two original north colleges.

Brown College, following a 2002 expansion, is the largest college based on number of members and residents.

The isolation of the two north colleges was reduced in 2002 by the opening of a third north college, Martel College. As a result of its recent formation, Martel has few traditions and is playfully mocked by the other colleges. However, it is becoming an integrated part of the Rice college system with some of the newest facilities on campus.

Co-education

For Rice's first four decades, on-campus housing was exclusively for men. Hence, all of the south colleges were originally all-male. Jones College was the first women's residence on the Rice campus, followed by Brown. According to legend, the women's colleges were purposefully situated at the opposite end of campus from the existing men's colleges as a way of preserving campus propriety. The path linking the north colleges to the center of campus is still known as "Virgin's Walk."

The colleges became co-ed in the following order: Baker and Hanszen in 197?, Will Rice in 1978, Lovett in 1980, Wiess and Jones in 1983, and Sid Rich and Brown in 1987.

Martel is the only college which has always been co-ed.

College events

Each residential college holds an event each semester called College Night, historically a formal or semiformal dinner. College Nights were originally intended as festive occasions that brought the entire college together, including faculty and community associates. By the 1980s, most of them had evolved into drunken spectacles. Wiess is currently the only college whose associates regularly attend College Night.

Graduate residences

Although graduate students may choose to join a college, their college membership does not include housing privileges, and thus it is extremely rare for graduate students to affiliate with a college. Most Rice graduate students live at the university-owned and operated Rice Graduate Apartments at 1515 Bissonnet (on the site of the former Southampton Apartment complex, demolished in 1997) or in private housing off campus. The complex is located near Houston's museum district and has convenient shuttle service to and from campus.

The previous "Grad House" -- converted from a motel -- was demolished and is now a fenced-in grassy field across from St. Luke's Hospital at the corner of South Main and University Blvd. It is the projected home of a new Collaborative Research Center, linking Rice and Texas Medical Center research.

Honor Code

Rice's honor code gives its students a great deal of freedom and flexibility, allowing such things as take-home exams and closed book exams to exist. The student swears to abide by the honor code by writing or signing the following words on his work: On my honor, I have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid on this assignment. Potential infractions are dealt with by an all-student Honor Council, elected by popular vote.

Traditions

Baker 13

Baker 13 is one of the most enduring student traditions at Rice University. At 10 p.m. on the 13th and 31st of every month (and the 26th of those months having fewer than thirty-one days), a group of students runs around the entire campus wearing nothing but shaving cream (possibly due to Houston's temperate climate during the school year) and protective footwear. Although the run usually attracts a small number of students, on Halloween and the last relevant day of the school year (generally April 26), the event usually has a fair turnout, regularly attracting over 100 students.

Occasionally, the Baker 13 run has taken place during the day, as was the case in one of the Beer Bike events that fell on the proper date. On this occasion, runers stormed the Beer Bike parade, only to have to quit, half way down, when the sweat started melting the shaving cream away.

The participants run to all residential colleges, often leaving shaving cream impressions by pressing their bodies on windows and doors. The results resemble the anthropometry paintings of Yves Klein. College members often throw water balloons on the runners. The runners usually shout the anti-cheer of the college they are running by and the Baker 13 cheer, "Join us! Join us!" Although the students are naked, the event is non-sexual, silly, and exuberant.

The run usually finishes at Valhalla, the graduate student pub on campus. In recent years runners have been given a complimentary soft-drink in lieu of free beer due to concerns about under-aged drinking. Sometimes the runners continue their run, joined by a Valhalla patron or two who decides to join in on the fun.

In 2002, as a precursor to the Winter Olympics held in Salt Lake City, the Olympic torch passed through Houston and Rice University. While it passed through the Rice campus, two Baker 13ers ran in front of it.

Night of Decadence

Every year around Halloween, Wiess College throws a party called Night of Decadence (commonly referred to simply as "NOD"). The party started in the 1970s and quickly became a legendary event at Rice and in Houston, drawing young alumni and students from other universities in addition to Rice students. After a few years as simply Night of Decadence, the College began adopting a theme for each year's party. In the 1970s and 1980s, many of the themes were historical and/or apocalyptic in nature (e.g. The Fall of Rome, Caligula, Armageddon, Animal Farm, The Trojan War). By the 1990s the themes were generally sexual puns, often based on movie titles (e.g. James Bondage, Lust in Space), with sexually themed decorations.

Instead of traditional costumes, students dress as degenerately (or as minimally) as possible. Pregnant nuns and drag dress are some of the tamer outfits. Although there are always several people creatively attired in Saran Wrap or fishnet stockings and pasties, a typical costume is boxer shorts for men, and bra and panties for women.

Because of its overtly sexual context, NOD eventually became a polarizing event on the Rice campus. Alternative events on campus included Night of Innocence (offered since at least the 1980s) and Night of Praise. NOD remains one of the most popular parties on campus, though the decorations have become more conservative in recent years.

For a more detailed history of NOD, please see the article on Wiess College.

Beer-Bike

Beer-Bike, a Rice tradition since 1957, is a combination intramural bicycle race and drinking competition. All nine of the residential colleges plus the graduate school participate with a men's, women's, and alumni (co-ed) team. Each leg of the race is a sort of relay in which a team's "chugger" must chug 24 ounces for the men's division and 12 ounces for women before the team's "rider" may begin to ride. In conjunction with the increase of the Texas legal drinking age to 21 in 1986 the rules were amended to permit underage chuggers to chug water instead of beer. Over the years underage chuggers increasingly exercised this option. In recent races even some students of legal drinking age have begun to chug water, and on some teams beer chugging may have disappeared altogether. An excellent male chugger can finish a 24-ounce container in about three seconds (beer or water); colleges place great pride in the skill of their chug teams (many holding chug practices every Thursday night for the entire year), though the vast majority of separation between teams is due to the cycling component. Ten riders and ten chuggers make up a team. Elaborate rules include details such as a prohibition of "bulky or wet clothing articles designed to absorb beer/water or prevent spilled beer/water from being seen" and regulations for chug can design. Prior to the race, the colleges parade the wrong way along the one-way campus inner loop while participating in one of the largest water balloon fights in the world, with more than 1,000 students hurling in excess of 100,000 balloons in an hour's time. Preparations for the waterfight and jacks begin at least a month in advance.

Jacks

"Jack" is the Rice term for a prank, often an elaborate one. A simple jack might be replacing "you are here" campus map with a map of an amusement park. A well-known jack in the 1980s was "stacking" a commons, in which students went to the commons of another college late at night and stacked all the tables and chairs on top of each other, forcing the residents to disassemble the stack when they came down for meals the next day. During O-Week and Willy Week, large-scale jacks are often organized by one college toward another college. In order to prevent a destructive escalation, Rice student organizations from time to time have attempted to impose rules or guidelines on jacks.

The most notorious and legendary jack in Rice history was the turning of William Marsh Rice's statue in the Academic Quadrangle in April 1988. After several months of detailed planning, a group of Wiessmen succeeded in lifting the bronze statue (using a hoist mounted on an A-frame), rotating it 180 degrees, and setting it back down undamaged on its stone pedestal. . The university went ahead and hired a contractor to turn Willy's statue back to its original position. While the students apparatus cost only a couple of hundred dollars, the contractor used a hydraulic crane, charging several thousands of dollars, and managing to bend one of the pins in the process. The culprits were fined the cost of the job. They raised more than enough funds by selling t-shirts printed with the blue prints of the a-frame structure. This jack instantly gained national publicity for Rice. Today the turning of the statue stands out as the epitome of a successful jack: creative, elaborate, highly visible, and harmless. In later years, legends evolved that the students were protesting a planned tuition increase or that the stunt symbolized the Founder turning his back on the administration in Lovett Hall. In fact, the prank was merely that--a prank.

Willy Week

Willy Week is at term coined in the 1990s to refer to the week preceding Beer-Bike, a time of general energy and excitement on campus. Jacks are especially common during Willy Week; some examples in the past include removing showerheads and encasing the Hanszen guardian.

Notable On-campus establishments

Coffeehouse

The Rice Coffeehouse began at Hanszen College, where students would serve coffee in the college's Weenie Loft, a study room in the old section's fourth floor. The coffee shop grew in popularity and expanded into the basement under Hanszen's new section so that it could more comfortably accommodate more students, where it was known as Bread and Pomegranates. Due to flooding in the basement, the Hanszen coffee shop was disbanded, but the basement kept the old name, B&P. Eventually, its absence created a demand that gave rise to current installation. Thus, in October 1989, Hanszen senior Charlotte Robinson chaired a committee to investigate establishing a coffee house a few nights a week as an alternative to Willy's Pub. On December 3, 1990, Coffeehouse first opened in Sammy's Private Dining Room and the Ray Courtyard.

In January 1993, Coffeehouse added baked goods, expanded hours and applied for official club status. During this time, it moved to its current permanent location in the Rice Memorial Center. Since then, there have been several planned expasions. In September 2003, the Coffeehouse paid $4,000 to architecture firm Vaughn & Clarkson to design three schemes for possible renovations and in August 2005 the Coffeehouse completed a partial redesign.

The Coffeehouse is known for being entirely student run and, since November 2005, serving fair trade Katz's coffee. It also distributes free coffee before closing during the week, one of the most popular times to visit. The Coffeehouse often serves as a popular hangout, as most of the workers (or Keepers of the Coffee, as they are known) are students. These student workers give it a laid back attitude. Thresher staffers can often be found there, since an advertising deal between the two institutions grants them discounted coffee.

Plans for a Diedrich Coffee to be located in the planned Fondren Library Kiosk, have spurred controversy on campus, especially since the Coffeehouse was not given a chance to bid on the space. Many students are afraid that this plan could replace the beloved student-run Coffeeshop with a corporate caffeine provider, ruining the fun atmosphere the Coffeehouse creates.

Valhalla

Valhalla is a non-profit, graduate student pub located under Keck Hall, known for its eclectic clientele and cheap drinks. Valhalla is still staffed by graduate students who volunteer for a one-hour shift once per week. It was founded by Thomas Nichols in 1970, a graduate student in physical chemistry at the time. He envisioned Valhalla as a glue that would hold together the Graduate Student Association. For the first several years the chairman of the GSA would automatically be the manager of Valhalla. Architecture graduate student Vic Gelsomino helped with architectural drawings.

Nichols and materials science graduate student Kurt Alex coined the pub "Valhalla" when listening to Wagner's Das Rheingold, Scene II, during the pub's construction. The scene describes two giants from Norse mythology, Fasolt and Fafner, building the great hall Valhalla as a home for the gods.

Initially the lounge had no beer license. Graduate students kept private six-packs stored in a refrigerator. They were required to record the beers they brought in a notebook. The system had its flaws. "Sometimes sophisticated customers have been irate when their Coors has been drunk by a Budweiser drinker," it was noted in a GSA memorandum to the dean of students, requesting a beer and wine license. By the spring of 1971, Valhalla was up and running with regular evening hours.

Over the years, Valhalla has mostly been used by graduate students, but other adult members of the Rice community also feel at home. It's the kind of place where one can see a space physicist schmoozing with a groundskeeper. In the past Valhalla went through periods of having more "outsiders" than it wanted, but not in recent years.

In 2004, the Houston Press rated Valhalla the "Best Place to Meet Single Women," given its beer under a dollar and smart, single women.

Willy's Pub

Willy's Pub is Rice's undergraduate pub located in the basement of the Rice Memorial Center. It opened on April 11, 1975, with Rice President Norman Hackerman pouring the first beer. The name was chosen by students in tribute to the university's founder, William Marsh Rice. According to the Rice Thresher, 1700 people were in attendance the opening night. The Pub (as it was affectionately known) quickly became an immensely popular campus institution. In its heyday, the Pub was open Monday through Saturday during the academic year. On its opening night of each semester and on many Thursdays, the Pub would reach or exceed its official capacity, with the line of students waiting to get in extending up the stairwell to the first floor. By the early 1980s, according to legend, the Pub was the second largest consumer of draft beer in Harris County, behind only the Houston Astrodome.

With such tremendous popularity, the Pub ran a financial healthy surplus through the mid-1980s. Profits began to fall when Texas raised its drinking age to 21 in September 1986. The Pub eliminated weekend hours some time in the in the early 1990s. By 1994 the Pub was in serious financial trouble and in danger of closing down completely. Rice President Malcolm Gillis, a supporter of the Pub, waived or reduced some of the Pub's maintenances fees in order to keep it afloat.

In the early morning hours of April 6, 1995, less than a week shy of its 20th anniversary, the Pub was destroyed in a fire set by a disgruntled Rice student. The fire destroyed everything in the basement of the RMC, causing an estimated $2 million in total damage. A speedy renovation project allowed the basement to reopen in August 1995 with a new Pub. The following month, Rice Campus Police, acting on an anonymous tip, arrested student Alberto Youngblood '97 on suspicion of arson. Youngblood was convicted in Federal court in Houston in January 1996.

The new Willy's Pub is larger, brighter, and cleaner than the old Pub, but perhaps for those very reasons, is considered by many alumni to be lacking in character. One subtle change that coincided with the re-opening is that the professional staff of the Student Center began a concerted effort to refer to the place as "Willy's" rather than simply "the Pub." Another, less subtle change is that the Pub no longer serves beer in the afternoons, so that students who want to relax after afternoon classes are on their own.

In 2006, Willy's Pub became the number one distributor in the State of Texas of Mickey's Fine Malt Liquer.

Run by students, for students, Willy's features lunchtime Quizno's subs and Uno's pizza. After 5 p.m., Willy's offers bottled and draft beer for those 21 and over. While Pub Nights on Thursdays promise a big fun-filled crowd, the quieter daytime hours allow patrons to relax in front of the big-screen TV, study, or make use of the ping pong, pool table or wireless Internet. Willy's also hosts weekly events like Wednesday trivia nights, Monday drum circle nights, as well as the much esteemed dance club, Club Willy, twice a semester.

Campus Media

Rice has a weekly student-run newspaper (The Rice Thresher), radio station (KTRU-FM), and campus-wide television network (RTV5). All three are based out of the RMC student center.

The Rice Thresher

The Rice Thresher is published every Friday and can be found around campus and at Kahn's Deli in the Rice Village. It has a small, but dedicated, staff and is known for its dry coverage of campus news, open submission opinion page, and satirical Backpage. It has won several awards at Associated Collegiate Press conferences.

KTRU

KTRU (pronounced "kay-true") is the student-run, 50,000 watt radio station. Though most DJs are students, anyone is allowed to apply. It is known for playing genres and artists of music and sound unavailable on other radio stations in Houston, and often, the US. This sometimes occurs at the expense of more popular, though available music, such as their lack of Beatles albums. The station takes requests over the phone or online. In 2006, KTRU won Houston Press' Best Radio Station in Houston.[4]

RTV5

RTV5 is a student run television network available as channel 5 on campus. RTV5 was created initially as Rice Broadcast Television in 1997. RBT began to broadcast the following year in 1998, and aired its first live show across campus in 1999. RBT has always held their office in Mudd lab, though their live broadcasts were initially held in the Duncan Hall conference room. RBT experienced much growth and exposure over the years with successful programs like "Drinking with Phil", a weekly news show, a variety show known as "The Meg and Maggie Show", and extensive live coverage in December 2002 of the shut down of KTRU by the administration.

In spring 2001, the Rice undergraduate community voted in the general elections to support RBT as a blanket tax organization, effectively providing a yearly income of $10,000 to purchase new equipment and provide the campus with a variety of new programming. In the spring of 2005, RBT members decided the station need a new image and a new name: Rice Television 5.

One of the station's most popular shows is the 24 hour show, where a camera and couch placed in the RMC stay on air for 24 hours. One is held in fall and another in spring, usually during a prospective students' weekend. The show's concept was introduced by Travis Johnson and Gavin Parks in the 2001-2002 school year.

RTV5 has a video on demand site at rtv5.rice.edu, where students can select what shows the network airs.

Athletics

File:Rice-Owls.gif

Rice Owls

Rice football
16 September 2006

Rice participates in NCAA Division I athletics and is part of Conference USA. Rice was a member of the Western Athletic Conference before joining Conference USA on July 1, 2005. Rice is the second smallest school, measured by undergraduate enrollment, competing in NCAA D-IA football, just above the University of Tulsa's 2,756 and far below the largest, Arizona State University with 48,955.

The Rice baseball team won the 2003 College World Series, defeating Stanford two games to one in the championship series, including a 14-2 rout in the final game. Because of the academic quality of the two finalists, the championship series earned nicknames such as the "RBIs and SATs Series." The victory made Rice University the smallest school in 51 years to win a national championship at the highest collegiate level of the sport. This is Rice's only national championship in a team sport. The Rice baseball team has played on campus at Reckling Park since the 2000 season and is by far the school's top athletic program. (The baseball team has won 12 consecutive conference championships in three different conferences – the final championship of the defunct Southwest Conference, all 10 championships while a member of the Western Athletic Conference, and the championship in its first year as a member of Conference USA.) More recently, Rice's baseball team finished third in the 2006 College World Series. Baseball all-star Lance Berkman is a Rice baseball alumnus. In 2004, Rice became the first school ever to have three players selected in the first eight picks of the MLB draft when Philip Humber, Jeff Niemann and Wade Townsend were selected third, fourth and eighth, respectively.

The on-campus football facility, Rice Stadium, seats 72,000 (more than the total number of alumni) and was the site of Super Bowl VIII and a speech by John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1962 in which he challenged the nation to send a man to the moon by the end of the decade. In addition to football, Rice Stadium also serves as the performance venue for the university's Marching Owl Band, or "MOB." Despite its name, the MOB is a scatter band which focuses on performing humorous skits and routines rather than traditional formation marching. Prior to the dissolution of the Southwest Conference, some of the most entertaining half-time shows to watch were during Rice vs. Texas A&M games, if only for the sheer contrast of the pure military precision of the Aggie Band versus the irreverent wackiness of the MOB.

In 2006, the football team qualified for its first bowl game since 1961, ending the second-longest bowl drought in the country at the time. On December 22, 2006, Rice played in the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl in New Orleans, Louisiana, against the Sun Belt Conference champion, Troy. The Owls lost 41-17. The bowl appearance came after Rice had a 14-game losing streak from 2004-05 and went 1-10 in 2005. The streak followed an internally authorized 2003 McKinsey report that stated football, alone, was responsible for a $4 million deficit in 2002. Tensions remain high between the athletic department and faculty, as a few professors who chose to voice their opinion were in favor of abandoning the football program. Hired in January 2006, new head coach Todd Graham is leading the "Rice Renaissance," the revival of the Owl football program. Many new additions to Rice Stadium and the development of the team lead many to believe Rice football is on the rise. Sophomore wide receiver Jarrett Dillard (as of November 25, 2006) leads all Division I-A wide receivers in touchdowns (20) and holds the longest current streak of games with at least one touchdown reception (15), which is the second longest in NCAA history. He is sixth in the nation in receptions (82) and ninth in the nation in total yardage (1,177).

Rice has been very successful in women's sports, sending its women's volleyball, soccer and basketball teams to their respective NCAA tournaments in 2004-05. In addition to Rice Stadium and Reckling Park, on-campus facilities include Autry Court (basketball, volleyball); the Rice Track/Soccer Stadium (track and field, soccer) and the Jake Hess Tennis Stadium (tennis).

Rice's mascot is an owl named Sammy. In previous decades, the university kept several live owls on campus in front of Lovett College, but this has been discontinued.

Rice also has a 14-member coed cheerleading squad and an all-female dance team, both of which perform at football and basketball games throughout the year.

Joint programs

The Rice School

The university and Houston Independent School District jointly established The Rice School (La Escuela Rice), a kindergarten through 8th grade public magnet school in Houston. [5] The school opened in August 1994.

Trivia

• In 1915, Rice University hired William James Sidis as a professor of mathematics. He was 17 years old at the time. The November 1, 1916 issue of the [Rice Thresher] cited a story from the Philadelphia Record in which Sidis, having left Rice, was quoted as stating that he did not like the women at Rice: "They flirt too much. It was very annoying. But I am happy to say that article 32 of my constitution, which prohibits kissing or familiarity with girls, is still unblemished."

Points of interest

• Lynn R. Lowrey Arboretum

See also

• Connexions - an open-content library of course materials developed by Rice University
• List of Rice University people - a list of famous alumni and others associated with Rice University
• Shepherd School of Music - the prestigious and highly-ranked school of music at Rice University.

External links

• Rice University
• Official Rice athletics site
• MOB (Marching Owl Band) Official site
• Rice Thresher (student newspaper)
• Beer-Bike
• History of The Rice University Computer, aka the R1
• Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology
• Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology
• KTRU Rice Radio
• Valhalla
• Willy's Pub
• Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship
• Rice On-Campus Environmental Organizations
• Rice Owls Sports Message Boards
• 'The Parliament' Rice Sports Forum

Related articles

• Newsweek, August 21-28, 2006: "25 New Ivies"
• "US News & World Report: America's Best Colleges 2007"
• "US News & World Report: America's Best Colleges 2006"
• "Reduce College Sticker Shock" USA TODAY
• "Rice University Computer Scientists find flaw in Google" New York Times