The Rice Thresher, Vol. 96, No. 1, Ed. 1 Friday, August 22, 2008 Page: 8 of 32
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8 NEWS
the Rice Thresher
Friday, august 22,2008
Boue named first Asst. Athletics Director
for Student-Athlete Development
by Anna Wilde
Thresher Editorial Staff
In addition to the outward changes
to the Rice Athletic Department after
the hiring of Athletic Director Chris Del
Conte, most notably improvements to
Reckling Park and Autry Court, chang-
es are also occurring from within the
Athletic Department, as Suzanne Boue
(Wiess *91) has been named Assistant
Athletic Director for Student-Athlete
Development. This new position will
consolidate several tasks aimed toward
Rice student-athlete support previ-
ously accomplished by various athletic
department members.
"Pieces of what I'm doing have
been done in the Athletic Department
before, but all by people who have
an awful lot on their plate already,"
Boue said.
Boue, who studied human per-
formance and health sciences at Rice
and earned a degree in sport manage-
ment and sports medicine, received her
graduate degree in sport management
from the University of Massachusetts.
She started her career in sport manage-
ment at the athletic department at the
University of Michigan and moved to
Chicago to work with the Chicago Cubs.
While working with professional foot-
ball players for a sport management
company in Chicago, she heard about
one of Rice's newest positions from a
Rice alumna in the area.
"I actually wasn't looking for a job
at all, and sort of stumbled upon this
position," explained Boue.
After applying for the position,
Boue was appointed in July. She said
she looks forward to being a resource
for Rice's student-athletes in a variety
of ways, from moral support, to help-
ing students find an agent when pursu-
ing a professional athletic career after
college, to helping to establish contacts
for future careers outside of sports af-
ter athletes receive their degrees. Boue
said she plans to forge connections
with Rice student organizations and
campus resources such as the Wellness
Center, the Career Services Center, the
Community Involvement Center and
Leadership Rice. She said these con-
nections will not only help graduating
student-athletes with their future plans
after college, but also will help to inte-
grate incoming student-athletes into
the Rice community and sustain cur-
rent student-athletes in their academic,
athletic and extracurricular pursuits.
The schedules of students-athletes
are filled with practices so that they are
busy and often keep different hours
from their classmates - this is especial-
ly apparent during Orientation Week.
But Boue said she hopes to find ways to
build bridges between athletes and the
general student body.
"Our goals here mirror the goals of
[Rice] as a whole," she said. "We want
to get student athletes more involved
in things like O-Week. We're finding
ways to make some bridges between
the two groups, trying to get student-
athletes more involved in day-to-day
campus life."
Boue models her work after the spec-
ifications of the NCAA's Challenging
Athletes' Minds for Personal Success/
Life Skills Program, which has provid-
ed support and services for participat-
ing institutions since 1994. At Rice,
she hopes to place emphasis on three
of the five elements promoted through
the CHAMPS/Life Skills program: per-
sonal development, professional de-
velopment and community service.
In addition to establishing bridges
between the athletic department and
different campus organizations and
resources, Boue plans to work with the
Student-Athlete Advisory Committee at
Rice, a leadership organization com-
prised of representatives from each of
Rice's athletic teams. The inclusion of
former Rice student-athletes in advis-
ing current student-athletes will help
to introduce role models for students,
who may at time.-, feel overwhelmed by
the pressures of both athletics and aca-
demia, Boue said. She said her experi-
ences as an athletic trainer during her
years at Rice will also give her a unique
perspective when advising athletes.
Boue said her biggest challenge will
be addressing each athlete's needs.
"There are 350-plus student-
athletes at Rice and only one of me,"
Boue said.
However daunting a task this may
seem, Boue's future work with Rice's
student-athletes is already creating a
buzz of positive expectation.
"She should be very beneficial for
the Athletic Department and 1 have
high hopes for her and what she says
she'll be doing," Martel College soph-
omore and track athlete Bridget Ugoh
said.
Virtual tour added to
attract prospective students
by Catherine Bratic
Thresher Editorial Staff
While students were gone for the
summer, visitors flocked to Rice through
the latest addition to the Rice Web site:
a virtual tour of the university designed
to present the brighter sides of campus
to alumni and prospective students.
a
The tour is a good
introduction to Rice,
especially for those
who can't visit.
Sabrina Hassumani
Director of Administration
ff
The tour, which was put online July
11, features 360-degree views of 16 sites
at Rice and in the surrounding area,
from the Sallyport entrance at Lovett
Hall to the middle of a baseball game at
Reckling Park. The tour also features a
shot of Rice Village to give new students
a glimpse of life beyond the hedges.
Visitors can drag the image around to
get a complete picture of the sites.
"We hope that this will be a window
into Rice," Director of Administration
Sabrina Hassumani said.
The office of public affairs first
conceived the idea for the project a
year ago when it planned to create
a video tour of campus. A virtual
picture tour, however, was decided
upon because the format was more
interactive, Hassumani said. She said
the video tour is forthcoming, and
students can also expect additional
virtual tours in the future.
"Once classes are back in session,
we'd like to shoot some additional
images, as well as re-shoot many of
the campus locations like the quad
during a class change to give a more
complete impression of campus life,"
Director of University Relations Greg
Marshall said.
Photography company Virtually
There shot images of the sites over the
summer with a $6,000 budget. The 16
chosen sites were felt to be the most
iconic areas of Rice, Marshall said.
Each picture in the tour is accompa
nied by descriptive text which is meant
to highlight Rice's features as well as
its connection to the Houston commu-
nity. The Founder's Court image, for
example, contains links to the Houston
City Guide as well as to the Museum
District's Web page.
"We hope this will attract prospec-
tive students to come visit, and give a
good sense of what the campus looks
like to those who are not immediately
able to visit," Hassumani said. "We
wanted to get the message across that
Houston is a really cool place and Rice
has a really beautiful campus."
So far, the tour has proven to be
popular, Hassumani said. As of Aug. 1,
the virtual tour page was the most pop-
ular posted story on the www.rice.edu
Web site, earning three times as many-
views as any other story ever has. It was
ranked the number 11 most-visited page
on the Web site, Hassumani said.
Martel College freshman Jordan
Schermerhorn said the tour is conve-
nient for interested prospective stu-
dents, though she said the virtual imag-
es were misleading compared to what
she saw when she arrived on campus.
"The tour is a good introduction
to Rice, especially for those who can't
visit," Schermerhorn said. "They didn't
show the colleges or construction,
which are important, but overall it's a
thumbs-up."
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Chun, Lily & Farmer, Dylan. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 96, No. 1, Ed. 1 Friday, August 22, 2008, newspaper, August 22, 2008; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443209/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.