VOLUME 109, ISSUE NO. 1 | STUDENT-RUN SINCE 1916 | RICETHRESHER.ORG | WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2024
Remembering Andrea Rodriguez Avila THRESHER SCREENSHOT FROM RICE’S TRANSFER STUDENT ASSOCIATION INSTAGRAM
RIYA MISRA / THRESHER A memorial garden in honor of Andrea Rodriguez Avila, Jones College junior, sits outside Huff House.
RIYA MISRA
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF On a spring night, Andrea Rodriguez Avila was wrapping up her Peer Academic Advisor training. Her close friend, Karen Martinez, wanted boba tea; it was nearing the end of the semester, and everything was “messy and unorganized,” she said. The two went to The Tea Nook on campus — Andrea had never been. “We talked the whole way there,” Martinez said, and all through their wait in the line. “I could talk to her about anything,” Martinez, a Jones College junior, said. Martinez had transferred to Rice in the fall, one semester before Andrea. “Whenever I was having trouble last semester, like deciding what I wanted to do for housing, we briefly discussed rooming together ... Her giving me that support meant a lot.” Originally from Nottingham, Maryland, a northeastern suburb of Baltimore, Andrea transferred to Rice at the beginning of the Spring 2024 semester. At the Community College of Baltimore County, where she attended before transferring, Andrea served as president of honor society Phi Theta Kappa, chaired the college-
wide student programming board and “She was just really brave and really was an active member of the college’s balanced in doing things. She was business club, student honors council self-assured. She knew what she was and multicultural student association. capable of.” By the end of her first semester At Johns Hopkins University, where she spent last summer at a Mellon at Rice, Andrea had already thrown Foundation-funded research herself into political science courses, fellowship, Andrea produced a in addition to having spent months as humanities research project titled “El an Honor Council representative and a Jones PAA. Her Cadejo: A Mirror fall was shaping of Mayan Roots up to be even and Religious more involved. Oppression,” Over the summer, according to her She was just really brave she joined the LinkedIn. and really balanced in Transfer Student Tr a nsf e rring doing things. She was selfAssociation as colleges was not its events chair an easy feat — assured. She knew what and the Hispanic especially when she was capable of. culture club it meant coming Karen Martinez Raíces Unidas as to a small, closeits social chair. knit university JONES COLLEGE JUNIOR On Monday, like Rice in the middle of the school year. Martinez Aug. 26, Andrea was on the Student said that she sought out Andrea early Association’s agenda for immediate on, bonding over what they shared: consideration to be appointed the SA’s a similar uprooting, a similar love for deputy parliamentarian. “She was super enthusiastic,” makeup and a similar penchant for SA president Jae Kim said. “She was procrastinating essays. “We would talk about what excited to get involved campus-wide transferring was like. She was not … She had lots of ideas on what she scared at all, really,” Martinez said. wanted to do with the SA and lots of
different areas of advocacy she was interested in.” Andrea had also just joined the Doerr Institute as a student ambassador. “[As] a transfer student, [Andrea] took charge of her leadership development immediately upon coming to Rice and wasted no time enrolling in programs and getting involved as a leader on campus,” Stephanie Taylor, Associate Director of Leader Development at the Doerr Institute for New Leaders, said in a statement to the Thresher. After interviewing Andrea for the Raíces Unidas position this summer, president Ana Rivera said she was struck by her ambition so soon in her time at Rice. “From the moment I spoke with her,” Rivera, a Baker College sophomore, said, “she was just ready to go and make her time at Rice the best she could in the next few years she had planned. She wanted to be there for the Rice community, for the students, in any way possible ... it tells her story of the person she was.” Reflecting on their friendship, Martinez echoes a similar sentiment: “She knew what she wanted and how to get it.”
RUPD, HPD investigating alleged murder-suicide at Jones College The suspect was a male, unaffiliated with Rice, found with a self-inflicted gunshot. Both were pronounced dead at Rice University Police Department is the scene. There was no sign of forced entry, and investigating an alleged murder-suicide on campus at Jones College, according to RUPD Chief Clemente Rodriguez said Avila a Rice Alert sent at 5:39 p.m. to the Rice had likely given him access to the building. Residential halls community. are only accessible The victim, to Rice students Rice junior Andrea through swiping a Rodriguez Avila, This is a speech that no university ID. was found shot at The suspect Jones, university president ever wants to and Avila had president Reginald make... tonight, we will a preexisting D e s R o c h e s wrap our arms around r o m a n t i c confirmed in a our students relationship, press conference. Rodriguez said. RUPD officials Reginald DesRoches RUPD found a arrived at the scene RICE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT note written by the at around 4:30 p.m. Aug. 26, DesRoches said, in response to suspect indicating the two had a “troubled a request for a welfare check from one of relationship.” Rodriguez did not comment further on the contents of the note. Avila’s family members.
RIYA MISRA & JULIANA LIGHTSEY
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF & A&E EDITOR
“This is a speech that no president ever wants to make,“ DesRoches said in his Aug. 26 press conference. “I want all of our students, our parents and the entire Rice community to know that the Rice campus is safe. There is no immediate threat, and tonight, we will wrap our arms around our students. As a parent of a past Rice student, I can only imagine how devastating this must be.” Students and faculty received a shelter-in-place notice, which lifted at 6:49 p.m. All classes and activities have been canceled for the remainder of the day, according to a 6:04 p.m. Rice Alert. The Houston Police Department responded to the scene. A Houston Fire Department ambulance and Houston Forensic Science crime scene van were parked outside Jones and Brown Colleges. This is a developing story and will be updated accordingly.
RIYA MISRA / THRESHER Rice University Police Department and Houston Police Department officers gather inside Jones College on Monday, Aug. 26.