VOLUME 107, ISSUE NO. 18 | STUDENT-RUN SINCE 1916 | RICETHRESHER.ORG | WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2023
“Bigger and better”:
SHREYA CHALLA
THRESHER STAFF
is back GENESIS HAHN / THRESHER
Sex Week heats up campus Sex at Rice by the numbers This Monday marked the beginning of two Sex Weeks at Rice, one hosted by the Student Association’s Student Health Services Committee and another by the club Sex Week Educational Awareness Team at Rice. Both weeks are devoted to increasing awareness within the Rice community about sexual health and wellness. Alex Han and Christie Vieux started Rice’s first sex week last year as co-chairs of the SA Student Health Services Committee. According to Vieux, disagreements about the division of labor between Han and Vieux led to Han splitting off to begin a separate sex week as co-chair of SWEAT@Rice, along with fellow co-chair Maddie Salinas. “As far as leaving the SA, I
RELIGION AND SEX 100%
SEE SEX WEEK PAGE 3
Black at Rice: Malaika Bergner fosters a found community SARAH KNOWLTON
which is approximately 29% Black to Houston’s 23%, according to the most recent U.S. Census. Her high school’s student body When Black Student Association was 25% Black, whereas Rice’s is 12% Black. “I felt like I couldn’t express my full President Malaika Bergner came to Rice, she and a group of other Black freshmen girls Blackness because I didn’t have many Black students in [Martel],” Bergner said. “I felt started eating lunch together. “The stares we would get from people really inauthentic and like I was performing and the awkwardness were really hard to an act. I still had fun as an underclassman. It ignore,” Bergner, a Martel College senior, was just like something was missing.” To replace said. “Once we even the parts of her got asked if we were college experience in a BSA meeting by that she felt were a random student, lacking in racial but the whole time it I felt like I couldn’t epresentation, was just a bunch of express my full Blackness rBergner sought Black people eating out environments lunch and hanging because [there weren’t] where she could out together.” many Black students connect with more B e r g n e r in [Martel]. I felt really Black students. attributes this inauthentic and like I was “I am very incident to Rice’s conscious of the relatively low performing an act. fact that I am often population of Black Malaika Bergner either the only Black students. BLACK STUDENT ASSOCIATION person or one out “Compared to of, like, three, so it my high school, Rice PRESIDENT pushed me to find has a lot fewer Black students, which I didn’t realize coming classroom spaces where I wouldn’t be the here,” Bergner said. “I personally was not only one,” Bergner said. used to being such a small minority.” Bergner came to Rice from Chicago, SEE BLACK AT RICE PAGE 7 ASST. FEATURES EDITOR
Africayé, the Rice African Student Association’s annual cultural showcase, is being held at the Shepherd School of Music’s Stude Concert Hall for the first time in history on Feb. 18, with doors opening at 4 p.m. Celebration of African culture is at the core of Africayé, from the overarching storyline to the food, music and fashion show. This year’s theme is Africayé! The Musical, with the aim of spotlighting the art, dance and music that come from African culture. Aman Eujayl, RASA president, said that Africayé brings the community together as they work towards a common goal. “Community is so integral to RASA,” Eujayl, a Baker College senior, said. “Often, we don’t really call it a club, we call it either family or community because that’s what we’re trying to build. The ultimate goal of RASA is to bring students of African descent together, to learn from each other, grow together, laugh together, celebrate each other.”
SEE AFRICAYÉ PAGE 8
10+ 6-10 4-6 1-3 0
NUMBER OF PARTNERS
NEWS EDITOR & THRESHER STAFF
felt there was more opportunity to broaden representation on sexuality and gender identity, bring in physician perspectives and funding as a club organization,” Han, a Brown College junior, said. Vieux said that SA leadership contacted the leaders of SWEAT@Rice in October last semester to clarify the miscommunication. After conversation with Student Engagement, the SA committee decided to continue with their plan to host a sex week alongside SWEAT’s. SA Sex Week includes events such as BDSM 101, kinks trivia night and a health intimacy event with Vivianna Coles, a relationship and sex therapist featured on Married at First Sight. SWEAT@Rice is hosting similar events such as Anal 101 and sexual education with Baylor Teen Health Clinic, amongst others. Salinas said that it was important for SWEAT@Rice to include diverse representation and perspective at events.
PERCENT OF RESPONDENTS
HAJERA NAVEED & CHLOE SINGER
SEE BASEBALL SEASON PREVIEW PAGES 10-11
TOP 5 REASONS TO USE DATING APPS
1 CASUAL BROWSING 2 CURIOSITY 3 TO BOOST SELF-ESTEEM 4 HOOKING UP 5 FINDING A RELATIONSHIP 1-3
75%
4-6
NUMBER OF SEXUAL PARTNERS IN THE LAST YEAR
50% 25%
6-10 10+
NONE 0%
NOT AT ALL
VERY
How religious would you consider yourself?
PRAYAG GORDY, ROBERT HEETER / THRESHER
SEE PAGE 6 FOR MORE DATA
Five years later, Wayne Graham reflects on retirement, end of Rice tenure DANIEL SCHRAGER
“My dad ushered at Rice,” Graham said. “He ushered in both stadiums, took me to all the games. That’s where Wayne Graham lives in Austin now. I got hooked and always loved Rice. My A lifelong Houstonian, the former Rice favorite song growing up was ‘Rice’s baseball coach decided to move three Honor.’” For Graham, who led the Owls to hours east in 2020 after spending nearly each of the first 84 years of his life in the their only national title 20 years ago, his Bayou City. But according to Graham, who unimpeachable Texas credentials are one of many reasons left the Owls after he found to bring 27 seasons in 2018, up his troubled he doesn’t miss his relationship with hometown. Rice Athletic “Not a bit,” I lived in Houston all my Director Joe Graham said. “I life … I don’t need any Karlgaard, his lived in Houston more of it. boss during the all my life … I don’t last five years of need any more of Wayne Graham his tenure. it.” FORMER RICE BASEBALL COACH “ B a s i c a l l y, Graham has seen the city change over the years. When the two places I’ve lived in my life have he was growing up, his father would take been Houston and Austin,” Graham said. him to wrestling matches at the Sam “I was a true Texan, a true Houstonian. It Houston Coliseum in downtown. The was amazing to me that Karlgaard would stadium was torn down 25 years ago, and dare treat someone with my record, and it stopped hosting wrestling in 1987. Both that was that blue-blooded [of] a Texan, high schools that he attended have since like that.” been renamed. One constant throughout his time in Houston, though, was Rice. SEE WAYNE GRAHAM PAGE 11 SPORTS EDITOR