The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 79, No. 7, Ed. 1 Friday, October 4, 1991 Page: 8 of 16
sixteen pages : ill. ; page 19 x 15 in.View a full description of this newspaper.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
• FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1991 THE RICE THRESHER
Hanszen
Who's Who at Rice
The Office of Student Activities is
now accepting nominations for out-
standing Rice students to appear in
the 1991-1992 edition of Who's Who
Among Students in American Uni-
versities and Colleges. Any person
assiciated with Rice University may
submit nominations for this presti-
gious recognition.
To be eligible for nomination, a
student must be a junior, senior, or
graduate student The Student Asso-
ciation Awards Committee will make
selections based on scholarship and
on participation and leadership in
academic and extracurricular activi-
ties.
Nomination forms may be picked
up from the Office of Student Activi-
ties, RMC Cloisters, and should be
returned to the office by Wednesday,
October 16.
Students who are nominated will
then be mailed a form requesting
more detailed information. The
Awards Committee will utilize the
information provided by this form
and the nomination form to assist in
making their selections.
Smalley and the
amazing buckyball
Professor Richard Smalley of Rice
has been at the center of the scien-
tific media's attention on account of
the recent discovery of a hollow,
soccer-ball-shaped molecule con-
taining 60 carbon atoms by a Rice
research team headed by Smalley.
This buckminsterfullerene mol-
ecule, called a "buckyball," has ap-
peared in numerous newspapers and
scientific magazines, and was most
recently featured in last week's issue
of Scientific American in a cover ar-
ticle written by Smalley and fellow
Rice chemistry professor Robert Curl.
Smalley's buckball "will also be
the star of a 50-minute television piece
filmed by the British Broadcasting
Company. The BBC spent two days
on campus doing a piece on the
buckyballs that will air as part of
BBC's "Horizons" series.
According to Smalley, the piece
has been purchased by "Nova" and
will probably appear on public tele-
vision sometime in the spring.
Homecoming
petitions due
Refrigerators, snakes and even
men can run for Rice Homecoming
Queen in this year's election, Elec-
tion Chair Patrick Good said. "We
are going back to the Rice tradition of
students choosing whom or what they
actually want as Homecoming
Queen."
The undergraduate female Queen
candidate with the most votes will
represent Rice at the Cotton Bowl
January 1,1992. The undergraduate
male King candidate with the most
votes will be her escort
Transportation and lodging are
provided by the athletic department,
Student Association President Mitra
Miller said.
Interested students can pick up a
petition from the Student Organiza-
tion Office beginning October 8. The
petition, complete with 25 Rice stu-
dent signatures, must be returned to
the office by 3 p.m. on October 18 for
nomination.
"You can gather signatures on a
candidate's behalf, then have the
candidate confirm the nomination.
But the candidate must sign the peti-
tion for it to be valid," Good said.
Campaigning can begin Oct 22.
Candidates must observe a $25 limit
on campaign costs, including donated
items.
Elections are October 29 in the
college commons during lunch and
dinner. Absentee voting is October
24,25 and 28 from 9 a.m to 3 p.m. in
the Student Organizations Office.
I FROM PAGE 1
the current alcohol policy is followed
in order to avoid future policy restric-
tions. Burnett, Stebbings, masters,
resident associates, presidents, so-
cial coordinators, chief justices, Uni-
versity Court justices, presidents of
the Student Association and the Rice
Program Council and representatives
from Student Affairs were invited to
attend. Hanszen's president, masters
and social coordinators all attended
the meeting.
Stebbings, Burnett and Wiess
master George Pharr spoke to the
group encouraging them to act re-
sponsibly and aggressively against
policy violations. However, Burnett
observed, "shortly after our big
meeting, we had a major violation."
According to Burnett and
Crawford, Tequila Night' will spark
debate over the effectiveness of the
existing policy, but will not mandate
a reaction in itself. "At the end of each
semester and again at the end of the
year, all of us involved with the policy
and its enforcement will meet and
discuss what happened. This one
event will not be enough to necessi-
tate the university's creating a dry
campus," said Burnett
Acknowledging that the alcohol
policy is under constant review, some
still find no solace in the
administration's promise to merely
consider the issue at the next review.
The freshman's father, who re-
ceived calls from several concerned
administrators following the incident
expressed appreciation of the atten-
tion, but he felt a measure of disbelief.
"All [the callers from Rice seemed]
to indicate [the alcohol policy] was
building up to this, and they regret
something like this had to happen [to
the freshman]. My response to this
is "Why did they let this happen?"
Waldman shared this frustration.
Despite being Hanszen master for
four years, he said he was not aware
of Tequila Nights' in the past On the
night of the dinner announcement,
The 1991-92 President's Lecture Series
Roger Rosenblatt
Editor-at-Large, Life Magazine
Free Speech is Nonsense
Dr. Rosenblatt received his Ph.D. in English and American literature from Harvard
University, where he taught literature and creative writing from 1968 to 1973, prior to his
career in journalism. Rosenblatt was a Fulbright Scholar in Dublin, Ireland, in 1965. From
1973 to 1975 he was Director of Education at the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Among Rosenblatt's many journalistic honors are two George Polk Awards, awards from the
Overseas Press Club and the American Bar Association, a citation from Washington
Magazine as Best Columnist in Washington, and the George Foster Peabody Award for essays
on the MacNeiVLehrer Newshour, to which Rosenblatt has been a regular contributor since
1983.
Rosenblatt's books are: Black Fiction, Witness: The World Since Hiroshima, and
Children of War, published in seven languages and winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book
Prize. In 1992, Random House will publish his book on abortion in America, as well as a
collection of his writings.
Wednesday, October 16, 1991
8:00 p.m.
Rice University Memorial Center Grand Hall
Admission: No Charge
Rice students admitted by ticket beginning at 7:00 p.m. No seating guaranteed for students
after 7:45 p.m. Seating then open to general public.
Seating is limited for general public. Tickets at the door. First come, first served. No photos
during the lecture please. This lecture is sponsored by Rice University as part of the
President's Lecture Series for 1991-92.
Waldman was working in Anderson
Hall.
Pressure to Drink
The hosts of the party were not
pressuring anyone to drink, said the
freshman. According to the co-host,
"Few people drank a lot. Some
danced. Some didnt drink at all."
The host added that no one was
forced to take shots. "They were told,
'If you want a shot, you take it'"
However, two of the freshman's
friends who attended the event but
did not drink had a different perspec-
tive. According to one friend who
was alarmed by one party-goer con-
suming 18 shots in 12 minutes, the
co-host admitted to pouring all 18 of
those shots for that freshman. In ad-
dition, the co-host allegedly became
very defensive, denying responsibil-
ity to act as the drinker's "mother,"
according to the freshman's friend.
Another friend,who accompanied
the freshman to the party on the
second visit allegedly witnessed both
the host and co-host serving shots
and asking freshmen if they wanted
to participate in the contest The
friend stated that the freshmen did
not serve themselves and that hosts
did not exert pressure. The only
pressure came from other freshmen
who were drinking, according to this
source.
A scoreboard displayed on top of
the bar reading Tonight's leaders,"
according to the co-host kept track
of how many shots the heaviest
drinkers had consumed.
Friends of the hospitalized fresh-
man criticized the scoreboard for
promoting a competitive spirit among
the drinkers, rather than a social one.
Many drinkers, captured by the spirit
of the game, lost track of their own
consumption rates.
"In the sense of decorum, you
don't feed alcohol and keep records:
11, 12, 13, 14, etc.," said Waldman.
"You don't have college leaders
keeping these records."
The co-host said a second tab was
kept on all drinkers in order to ensure
freshmen did not exceed their limit
However, the co-host added thatsince
no one person ran the bar for any
substantial length of time, the tab
was forgotten. As a result, unless a
drinker was one of "Tonight's lead-
ers," no one knew exactly how much
he or she had consumed.
Nonetheless, some students were
turned away due to bartenders' fears
of excessive drinking. The co-host
and friends of the freshmen all recall
some students being turned away
after four to six shots. The freshman
remembered seeing one woman
turned away at four, but she was
allowed to continue to eight after
protest
Education as a Reaction
The freshman's father said,
"We'rereally allalittleguilty. I should
have coached [the freshman] better.
I'm angry at the system for not hav-
ing a more sane approach to dealing
with the tensions of college and social
life. Why didn't someone do some-
thing? It looks like...friends would
have said, 'You're drinking too
much.'"
The freshman, the freshman's fa-
ther, Stebbings, Burnett, Crawford,
and Waldman all agree that alcohol
awareness education must increase
in the future. Last year's exiting col-
lege presidents informed Stebbings
that this year's presidents planned to
initiate an educational program in
each college; however, these plans
were never executed. "We experi-
enced a breakdown in our efforts to
provide an educational seminar for
our freshman," said Stebbings. This
breakdown will not occur next year."
Earlier this fall, the University did
distribute information concerning the
effects of alcohol use and abuse to
each undergraduate and graduate's
mailbox. However, future education
will be "more imaginative and more
instructive," said Stebbings.
The hospitalized freshman sup-
ports education. Having never drunk
before, the freshman said the incident
may not have occurred if there was
more alcohol education. The fresh-
man does not feel misled or abused
by the hosts of the party, but did
assert "it could be handled better in
the future."
The freshman's father agreed that
education may have prevented the
incident The freshman's "ignorance
of never having been around it and
not being street-wise about it" is the
result of the lack of education on all
levels, said the father.
The hosts of the party and the
college president called a college-
wide meeting October 2 to discuss
what Hanszen should do to prevent
future disasters. The Tequila Night'
incident was not discussed. Rather,
the discu ssion leaders asked students
to look out for each other. The dis-
cussion leaders repeated several
times that no one was to "point fin-
gers" at the culprit (s) of the Tequila
Night' incident They continued by
saying the future was to be exam
ined—not the past An open discus-
sion followed.
"We wanted to get people more
aware and worried about [alcohol
abuse]," said the host "[The Te-
quila Night' incident] proved to us
that all the smoke about alcohol be-
ing a dangerous subject is not just
smoke."
RPC Business
The Rice Program Council met Sunday night September 29,1991 in
the Baker outer commons. The following business was discussed.
A theme for Esperanza was decided upon by the formals committee.
The dance, which will take place at Inova in Greenway Plaza on
November 2, will take place under the theme "Glass Menagerie."
Students are encouraged to submit an entry to their RPC representative
for the Eperanza theme poster contest by October 13. The winner will
receive two complemetary tickets to the dance.
A campus tailgating party is being considered by the Socials Com-
mittee. The party would take place before all home games in the
stadium parking lot
Electric i will be performing at the pub on October 30.
Timbuk3,who will be performing in Hamman Hall on October 11, will
be sponsored in part by the RPC. Money will be donated to subsidize
the price of tickets for students.
Student reserve tickets for the PSresidental Lecture Series will be
printed by the RPC. Anyone interested in attaining a ticket should
contact his or her RPC representative.
A campus-wide raffle will be sponsored by the RPC. Prizes are asyet
undetermined. Tickets will probably be sold during home football
games and the raffle will take place sometime before the end of the
semester.
Beer Bike chair position is open. Anyone seeking this office should
contact Stan Hsue at 630-8111 or Conley Wake at 630-8180.
The RPC will hold their next meeting Wednesday, October 9 at 10:00
p.m. in the Lovett lower commons. Anyone interested should attend.
—iCompiled by JiU Salomon
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Zitterkopf, Ann & Howe, Harlan. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 79, No. 7, Ed. 1 Friday, October 4, 1991, newspaper, October 4, 1991; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245792/m1/8/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.