The Rice Thresher, Vol. 93, No. 24, Ed. 1 Friday, March 31, 2006 Page: 1 of 24
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the Rice
Vol. XCIII, Issue No. 24
SINCE 1916
Friday, March 31, 2006
MARSHALL ROBINSON/THRESHER
Chug! Chug! Chug!
!
Brown College senior David Vaucher chugs during the Brown College
vs. Jones College Mock Beer-Bike March 28. The event, which took
place in Brown College Commons, featured scooters instead of
bikes, with a chaotic race around three commons tables.
Jacks show college rivalries
by Beko Binder
THRESHER EDITORIAL STAFF
Most residential colleges have
cross-campus rivalries — the row-
dy cheering sections at Sid-Lovett
and Hanszen-Wiess intramural
games attest to that, as does the
varying severity of jacks pulled on
different colleges.
Beer-Bike preview inside. See Story,
Page 9.
This year, Hanszen College
hit Wiess College hard in the
beginning of the week, keeping
its jacks for other colleges closer
to Beer-Bike.
Hanszen disrupted Wiess stu-
dents' sleep Monday with blaring
horns and Hanson's 1998 pop
single, "MmmBop."
'The joke is that Wiess is a
prison, so we took all of our cars
and parked them outside Wiess,"
Hanszen Jack co-Coordinator
Brenton Cheeseman said. "We
held down our horns and set off
our car alarms, and we had big
spotlights we shined on Wiess."
In a jack repeated from last
year, Hanszen students filled
the Wiess laundry room with
crumpled newspaper.
After jacking Wiess Monday
and Tuesday, Hanszen jacked
every other college Wednesday
night in a series of pranks it
called "Operation Jack-Off." The
jacks included releasing floating
stink bombs at Jones and Brown
colleges, hanging a large poster
of Hanszen senior Jeremy Bass
at Lovett College and setting off
noisemakers in the Sid stairwells,
Cheeseman said.
Hanszen also littered sawdust
and newspaper strips throughout
the Will Rice College Commons
Wednesday. Will Rice retaliated
by doing the same to the Hanszen
Commons later that night. (See
photos, page 9.)
Sid Richardson College Jack
Coordinator Will Pryor said Sid's
off-campus students jacked their
own college.
"Students put wood-paneled
wallpaper on our doors in memo-
ry of our old doors because a lot of
people look down on the replace-
ment of those doors [with glass
doors] last semester," Pryor, a
freshman, said.
Sid also hit Will Rice Wednes-
day night when members of Sid
stopped up the drain on Will
Rice's sundeck and filled it with
water. The jack was one of several
major pranks Sid planned for the
latter part of Willy Week.
"We decided that since Will
Rice really has nothing going
for it, we would do them the
huge favor of building a pool,"
Pryor said.
Sid students also pulled an
BEER-MKE
SCHEDULE
Saturday, April 1
Parade
11 a.m.
Alumni race
1 p.m.
Women's race
2 p.m.
Men's race
3 p.m.
unofficial jack on Lovett College
Wednesday, when several Sid stu-
dents vomited around the Lovett
Commons entrance.
Brown pulled the biggest fake
jack of the year, pretending to
release gerbils inside Sid.
"We just left gerbil poop
everywhere and put up signs
[with pictures of gerbils] saying,
'Have you seen this?"' Brown Jack
Coordinator Terry Kennair, a
junior, said.
Brown was jacked twice
by unknown colleges. Brown
Chief Justice Omar Dimachkieh
said someone flooded the fifth-
and seventh-floor bathrooms at
Brown by covering drains and
leaving water running. He said
the water evaporated and the
incident caused no permanent
damage.
Brown College President Sara
Hampton said someone jacked
See JACKS, page 4
Diplomas to be mailed
after commencement
by Risa Gordon
THRESHER EDITORIAL STAFF
In a change from past years, graduates
will not receive diplomas at commence-
ment. Instead, the diplomas will be mailed
to graduates' permanent addresses by late
July, and they will receive a decorative tube
at the May ceremony.
Registrar David Tenney (Sid '87) said
the primary reason for the change is that
some students damage their diplomas after
the ceremony.
"For many students, once the com-
mencement ceremony is over, they're
packingtheir bags,"Tenney said. "What we
heard loud and clear from many of those
[graduates] is that they would prefer their
diplomas be mailed to their permanent ad-
dress so they get them safely."
Also, rolling the diplomas and putting
them in order in the few days before com-
mencement takes about 3,000 hours of
work, Tenney said. While the Registrar's
Office staff will still have to roll diplomas
See DIPLOMAS. page 5
ROSS TOMSON/THRESHER
Soul Night
Lovett College sophomore Dana Brown and Jones College junior Gary Anderson perform
at Black Student Associations s Soul Night March 25. Soul Night celebrates black
culture through music and dance performances.
SA introduces Web site for
written course evaluations
by David Brown
THRESHER EDITORIAL STAFF
The course evaluations the
Registrar's Office asks students to
fill out at the end of the semester
now have a competitor: the SA
Course Guide.
A recently completed Student
Association Web page — sa.rice.
edu/evals — allows students to
anonymously write reviews of their
classes and rate them on a live-star
scale. Any student with a user name
and password on the SA Web site
can view those evaluations.
Former SA President James
Lloyd, who initiated the project,
said the SA will be responsible for
screening the reviews for libelous
and offensive content. He said SA
IVesident AltheaTupper will deter-
mine who the screeners will be.
Lloyd said the guide will fill a
significant void.
"One of the most important
aspects of being at Rice is choos-
ing your classes," Lloyd said. "At
Rice, there hasn't been anything
to fill the need students have for
finding out which classes are good
to take."
Currently, students may view
averaged ratings of classes on the
Registrar's Office We>b site, but
only faculty members have access
to written comments. At the Jan.
23 SA meeting, Lloyd announced
his goal of making written course
evaluations available to students.
He said he preferred that students
be allowed to view the official
written evaluations, but that he
would pursue an SA-run system
if the Faculty Senate would not
approve giving students access to
the comments.
The method by which students
fill out official evaluations will
change this semester. All official
course evaluations this semester
will be filled out through ESTHER
rather than in classes. But the
Faculty Senate has not addressed
the matter of students' access to
the written comments.
"There appears to be no press-
ing interest in providing this ser-
vice to students," Lloyd said.
1 .ike the official evaluations, the
SA Course Guide offers a single
free-response form. However,
students are asked to rate classes
with a single mark, rather than in
multiple categories. Lloyd said he
wanted to start with a system that is
simple and can be used quickly.
"Students ultimately only want
to know is the course good? Is the
professor good? And should I take
the class?'" Lloyd said. "We want
a quick and easy system so that
students can help other stu-
dents."
See EVALUATIONS, page 9
INSIDE
Academic deadlines
Before beginning Beer-Bike
revelry, make sure you head
over to your major or divisional
adviser to obtain a registration
PIN. Today at 5 p.m. is the
deadline for dropping a class
and for designating a course
Pass/Fail.
Spring ahead
After you've exhausted your-
self at Beer Bike, don't forget to
turn your clocks ahead an hour.
Daylight savings time begins
Sunday at 2 a.m.
Spring Elections
Voting starts today at noon
for Honor Council and Univer-
sity Court at-large representa-
tives and Rice Student Volunteer
Program treasurer. Voting ends
Wednesday at 1 p.m. You can
vote at sa.rice.edu
OPINION Page 3
Diploma delay insults students
A&E Page 11
Thespians unite
SPORTS Page 15
Men's tennis on hot streak
Quote of the Week
"More importantly, they're people
who have a sense of community
and camaraderie with their fellow
college students and would like
to help them academically."
— Brian Gibson, on new fellows
programs. See story, Page 6.
Scoreboard
Baseball
Rice 11. Texas State 1
Men's Tennis
Rice 5, Texas Tech 2
Weekend Weather
Friday
Partly cloudv, 67 82 degrees
Saturday
Mostly sunny, 65-83 degrees
Sunday
Partly cloudy, 64-82 degrees
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Brown, David. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 93, No. 24, Ed. 1 Friday, March 31, 2006, newspaper, March 31, 2006; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443123/m1/1/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.