Rice's Shanty Town
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OP-ED P. 3 AAE • p. |2 SPORTS P. 16 You might as well call Twitter cage match Let the tailgates begin OMG, ru so excited abt the # ofppl who txt while driving? All of the Thresher sections now have Twitter accounts. Was Rice's football season starts today at the University of Alabama Because we're not. Srsiy. this our best or worst move? Find out in our head-to-head. at Birmingham. Beat dem Blazers! thVolume XCVII, Issuee No. 3 RiceStudent-Ru n since 1916 Friday, September 4, 2009 Rice's shanty town: from riches to rags Levyleaves Makeshift shelters A • * provost post erected to raise BY JOCELYN WRIGHT poverty awareness THRESHER EDITORIAL STAFF Without Howard Hughes Provost BY JACLYN YOUNGBLOOD Eugene Levy's influence, Rice, as both THRESHER EDITORIAL STAFF a university and a campus, would be noticeably different. Levy's work with •V. AV' TWO dollars will not buy you a the Passport to Houston program, the latte from the Raymond and Susan Vision for the Second Century and Brochstein Pavilion, but it will be the Bioscience Research Collabora- the per-diem budget for a group of tive has shaped Rice into the institu- students next week who will mimic tion it is today. poverty firsthand. As such, his announcement Tues- In a simulation of Third World day that he will be stepping down at shanty towns, dozens of Rice stu- the end of this academic year marks V • • * dents will be encamped in make- . ' the end of a remarkable and pro- shift housing near Brochstein longed career, President David Lee- Pavilion next week. This past sum- bron said. mer, students from Engineers With- "[Levy] is a remarkable individ- out Borders and Rice MicroFinance ual of incredible depth, and he has tackled logistics for the $2 A Day served the university with uncom- Challenge, working with a number mon dedication," Leebron said. "I of administrative organizations: think we all owe him a deep debt of Housing and Dining, Rice Univer- appreciation." sity Police Department, Facilities Levy said he is stepping down Engineering and Planning and both because the timing is appropri- Vice President for Administration ate and so that he has more time to Kevin Kirby. spend on academic pursuits. "We've had the administration's "I'm looking forward to being able full support and they're really excit- to focus on the intellectual reasons I ed to see this event happen," EWB for which I embarked on this Ire in President Samantha Teltser said. the first place instead of guiltily steal- Former RMF President Josh Ozer ing minutes here and there, which said the event will serve both as a is what I've had to do in these last living museum to educate people years," Levy said. about poverty and as a fundraiser Since his arrival at Rice in 2001, for the student groups involved. Levy has been expanding the ability of the departments and schools to The Challenge take more independent and creative Teaming up to host the $2 A Day COURTESY JOSH OZER initiative, engaging the deans in Challenge, EWB and RMF are seek- more philanthropic fundraising and raising additional resources. ing to increase poverty awareness A set of model shanties allowed participants — such as Will Rice College junior Josh Ozer, Wiess College junior Jer- on campus, as about two billion Many of the programs Levy advo- emy Goodreau and Will Rice senior Samantha Teltser, above — to examine where they will be living for four days. people across the world live on less cated became part of Leebron's Vision than $2 per day. for the Second Century. Nearly 75 students will be liv- "[The V2C] is David's term, but ing in a temporary shanty town dreau and Brown College junior Matt mainly out of two-by-fours, some meals per day in the shanty town. there is nothing in there that I dis- in the Central Quad to simulate Stearns, devised the floor plans for plywood, and cardboard boxes. Because the students will not be agree with," Levy said. poverty in underdeveloped coun- the shanties. Two sizes of shanty will She said Southland Hardware and eating in the serveries during the Levy, who began his career as an tries. The students will move in be built — an eight-by-eight struc- Stahlman Lumber Company, both challenge, Teltser, a Will Rice Col- assistant professor of astronomy at Tuesday and stay until dinner on ture, which will hold four students, Houston businesses, donated supplies. lege senior, said H&D agreed to the University of Arizona but was Friday, a total of four days and and an eight-by-ten structure, which "These plans were developed for provide rice and beans each day. quickly promoted to head of the de- three nights. will hold six students. up to IOO participants," White said. To bolster the community feeling of partment, said he has spent most of The shanty town will be a col- Elena White, a Martel College "The number of shanties we build the shanty town, she said students his career balancing his executive re- lection of individual shanties. The sophomore and president of Owl will depend on the final number of will take turns serving the meals sponsibilities wifh his desire to focus and cleaning up after each other. construction committee, co-chaired MicroFinance, a subdivision of participants we have." on intellectual pursuits. by Wiess College junior Jeremy Goo- RMF, said the shanties will be built The participants will eat three O see SHANTY, page 5 "What made the balance posi- tive for me is the ability to shape the agendas of universities that I've been associated with and to engender new ESTHER problems stunt registration process initiatives and programs to shape the environments in ways that sup- BY SABRINA TOPPA last six digits of a student's Rice reload the log-in page before they speculated that the large size of the ported and nurtured education and FOR THE THRESHER ID. The first group registered at 8 completed registration. incoming class precipitated the sys- research," Levy said. a.m. and the second at 8:30 a.m. Students such as Duncan tem problems. One of the biggest academic proj- ESTHER may not be the self- However, both groups encoun- College freshman Rachel Green "There were so many people that ects Levy helped head was the BRC, aware joint project of a con- tered difficulty registering when a thought it was inconvenient to have the servers could not log in people which opened this fall. Levy, a New spiracy between the government bottleneck in one of the system pro- only two staggered groups for Rice's properly," Riepe said. "I logged in York native, proposed what became and Rice administration, but it cesses caused requests to cluster largest entering class. at 8:35 a.m. like I was supposed the BRC in 2001. At the time, he nevertheless came to a screech- and impede the flow of oncoming "Maybe we should have had to, and I didn't get any classes said it would allow Rice to be at the ing halt on the Friday of Orienta- requests. For students, this mani- more than two groups, or a server until 10 a.m. And that was only forefront of biological research, an tion Week when the system slowed fested as dropped connections and upgrade," Green said. "Half the when I began to enter my classes area in which Rice previously had down so much it prevented some time-out errors. freshmen class was registering at one by one instead of all at once. a relatively small presence as an in- students from being able to register For freshmen who could log- 8 a.m. and we only got 30 minutes. It took me more than 10 times to stitution. He said working with out- for classes at all. in on the first attempt, remaining I couldn't register for COMM 103, log into ESTHER." standing research and educational To accommodate the largest logged in before ESTHER timed even the 8 a.m. one, and that was However, both the Regis- institutions focused on biology and class in Rice's history, the Office of out proved difficult. Many re- my last resort." trar and Information Technol- biomedical sciences would increase the Registrar designated two reg- ported that their session prema- Many students, including Wi- ogy Administrative Systems Rice's impact in the field. istration time slots based on the turely expired, causing ESTHER to ess College freshman Celeste Riepe, 0 see ESTHER, page 7 O see PROVOST, page n Last day to add classes Keepin'you cool Take a break INDEX Opinion 2 If you didn't shop around for classes, On Thursday, The Rice Gallery welcomes Get drunk Sunday night and don't worry about a News you're plumb out of luck. Today is the last Wayne White's exhibit BIG LECTRIC FAN Monday morning hangover. There are no classes 4 Arts & Entertainment 12 day to add a class for the fall semester. If TO KEEP ME COOL WHILE I SLEEP. The on Monday because of Labor Day, a university Sports 15 you want to add after this deadline, you'll exhibit features a 15-foot sculpture of holiday. Sleep in, don't do any work and watch Calendar 23 have to petition the Committee on Exami- country legend George Jones' head. It will the construction of the shanty town in the Backpage 24 nations and Standing. Scary. run through Oct. 18. Central Quad. %iVv ,'• 0',\,< $r :v *- : • *. i.#, .