The Rice Trasher | Saturday, April 1, 2017

VOLUME 1738, ISSUE NO. 69 | STUDENT-RUINED SINCE 1916 | RICEPURITYTEST.COM | SATURDAY, APRIL 1, 2017

CHEAP EATS

THE THRESHER IS BIASED

Houston’s best sandwiches under $50

“Uuuuuuuuuugggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”

see A&E p. 6

see Ops p. 5

POWDERPUFF ALLSTARS DEFEAT FOOTBALL TEAM Powderpuff QB to start for football team

see Sports p. 9

Admin enacts travel ban against Brown College students

Golden showers

Bathrooms at Rice to become student art spaces The Moody Center has made an innovative and generous first step towards increasing student art space on campus. “We finally decided to take a look at Rice’s only student gallery, Matchbox,” a Moody Center representative said. “It’s really an interesting space. We walked in and immediately thought: closet. That’s when the gears started turning. This is the logical next step.” Bathrooms at Rice are currently severely underutilized, serving only three purposes: pissing, shitting,

and crying. Now, they’ll also be places for people to grumble to themselves, “I could do that.” The project will take the best visual art produced in VADA classes and install it on the walls of bathroom stalls. Other future options for art installation in bathrooms could include toilet paper, toilet bowls, and eventually just throwing the pieces in the trash. In response to the initiative, some VADA students have expressed that they’re, like,

basically impossible to please. “I put 15 hours of work into this drawing and I don’t like the idea of it being constantly sprayed by toilet water and... God knows what else. But I guess it’s better that some people glance at my self-portrait while they’re — uh, you know — than that it never sees the light of day,” Wiess freshman VADA major Sreekumar Rai said as he browsed transfer applications. Others took problem with the fact that the Moody Center is currently the only building on

campus that isn’t being considered for the initiative. In response to student concerns about their art potentially being damaged, Alison Weaver said “C’mon guys, remember the party? You loved the party. We had Google Tilt Brush there!” Also in the works is an ~interdisciplinary~ Moody CenterDoerr Institute performance art piece in which actors dressed in business attire shake and scream about the benefits package and salary of their consulting job.

Pre-meds create emergency pre-med task force to pad pre-med resumes Will Rice College Senator Charity Melvin introduced a bill at Monday’s Student Association Senate meeting to charter the Emergency Aid to PreMedicine Education Task Force. Melvin, a sophomore, lamented feelings of isolation and abandonment being a pre-medical student at Rice, which she said the bill would address. “It’s hard being only 40 percent of the student body,” Melvin, who said she was deciding between dermatology and plastic surgery as a future specialty, said. “More than half the people I interact with on a daily basis are too self-centered to pursue a future sacrificing their lives for humanity.” According to Melvin, the task force would include 537 members, including one chair, three co-chairs, 15 subcommittee chairs, 35 subsubcommittee chairs, and 498 subsub-sub-committee chairs. “We really thought it was important for us all to have leadership opportunities as the future leaders of medicine,” Melvin said. “Followers are the ones who

hand us the scalpels — you know, architecture majors and the like.” In line with the goal of providing leadership opportunities, Melvin said a sub-sub-subcommittee of the task force would develop more impressive-sounding titles for each of the task force members. Melvin said such titles include the “liaison for liaising with all 49 sub-sub-sub committees” and the “head dietician for the 34th subcommittee” who is responsible for stealing cookies from North Servery. Melvin named several specific goals for the task force for the upcoming year: raising the average grade in General Chemistry to at least an A+, placing pre-meds in the leadership of every Rice organization, getting MCAT studying counted as credit hours, paying for pre-med resume generators, and locating volunteer opportunities with minimal effort-to-appearance ratios. After Melvin presented the bill at Senate, SA President and amateur soap carver Griffin Thomas opened the floor to debate, but most SA

members appeared to be on their phones, sleeping or getting a head start on the line for Tiff ’s Treats at the back of the room. “Hey, cookies only stay warm for so long,” Brown College President Santiago Avila said.

Followers are the ones who hand us the scalpels – you know, architecture majors and the like. Charity Melvin WRC SA Senator The bill passed unanimously, ending the 20 minute long SA meeting. Jones College freshman James Fung, who said he decided to be a doctor after traveling to Nicaragua

to work with one-armed children and also after researching career salaries online, said he was excited to hear about the creation of the task force. “The amount of resources available to pre-meds at Rice right now is abysmal,” he said. “Besides the Health Professions Advising Orientation, Health Professions Fair, individualized Office of Academic Advising attention and recommendations, Health Professions listserv, Medical Professionalism and Observership course and Vice Dean for Health Professions, we have absolutely nothing!” Martel College freshman and 521st sub-sub-sub committee member Cecelia Diem, said the task force will help her to cleanse her life of all things non-pre-med. “I love spending Saturday nights with my orgo textbooks,” Diem, who recently dropped her bioengineering major and switched to cognitive science, said. “My parents totally aren’t forcing me to study this.”

In response to multiple security concerns, Rice President David Leebron has placed a travel ban on students from Brown College, effective immediately. Brown students will not be permitted to swipe into on-campus facilities unless they acquire approval on a case-by-case basis. These measures will be in place until “we can figure out what the hell is going on,” Leebron said in a press conference. On the day of the ban, Brown students were turned away in droves from academic buildings and other residential colleges, causing many students to be stranded in the Academic Quadrangle. RUPD installed dozens of checkpoints around campus, and due to severe short-staffing, was forced to enlist Housing and Dining employees to check students’ identifications. Leebron said any Brown student unhappy with the ban could appeal the decision to Student Judicial Programs. However, students questioned the constitutionality of SJP proceedings after reports emerged that Brown students were denied legal counsel.

I am disappointed that the Trasher would stoop to the level of fake news. David Leebron Rice President For several years, the Leebron administration has expressed concerns over the many incidences of bike thefts, armed muggings and stalking that have originated at Brown. With this new travel ban, Leebron pledged to reduce crime on campus and secure Rice’s hedges. Brown sophomore Mohammad Al-ahsan said he felt the administration was neglecting the fact that nearly all Brown students are victims to crimes, not the perpetrators. “Our buildings are falling apart. Bricks fall off from towers, while our electricity and water is shut off on a regular basis,” Al-ahsan said. “Our standard of living is significantly lower compared to the rest of the university. We are the victims here, but Leebron is just preoccupied with appealing to his college-ist fan base.” Leebron slammed critics who claimed the travel ban constitutes discrimination. “Despite claims by the mainstream media, this ban is not discriminatory.” Leebron wrote in a statement. “I am disappointed that the Trasher would stoop to the level of fake news.” Next week, the Leebron administration is expected to announce plans for a barbed wire hedge around the campus’ borders.