Rice University's campus is located in Houston's Museum District and surrounded by greenery, adjacent to Hermann Park, Rice Village, and the
Texas Medical Center. Hermann Park features many attractions, including the
Houston Museum of Natural Science,
Miller Outdoor Theatre, and a municipal golf course. The
Houston METRORail system provides access to downtown's theatre and nightlife district and Reliant Park, with a station located adjacent to the university's main gate. In 2008, Rice University joined the Zipcar program, providing two vehicles to offer more transportation options for students who do not have access to a vehicle.
Residential colleges In 1957, Rice University implemented a
residential college system, which was proposed by the university's first president,
Edgar Odell Lovett. The system was inspired by existing systems in place in England and at several other universities in the United States. The existing residences known as East, South, West, and Wiess Halls became Baker, Will Rice, Hanszen, and Wiess Colleges, respectively.
List of residential colleges Below is a list of residential colleges in order of founding: Students generally remain members of the college that they are assigned to for the duration of their undergraduate careers, even if they move off-campus at any point. Students are guaranteed on-campus housing for freshman year and two of the next three years; each college has its own system for determining allocation of the remaining spaces, collectively known as "Room Jacking". Students develop strong loyalties to their college and maintain friendly rivalry with other colleges, especially during events such as
Beer Bike and
O-Week. Colleges keep their rivalries alive by performing "jacks," or pranks, on each other, especially during O-Week and
Beer Bike Week. During Matriculation, Commencement, and other formal academic ceremonies, the colleges process in the order in which they were established.
Baker 13 Baker 13 is a tradition in which students run around campus wearing nothing but shoes and
shaving cream at 10 p.m. on the 13th and the 31st of every month, as well as the 26th on months with fewer than 31 days. The event, long sponsored by
Baker College, usually attracts a small number of students, but
Halloween night and the first and last relevant days of the school year both attract large numbers of revelers. Coffeehouse baristas are referred to as K.O.C.s, or Keepers of the Coffee. Rice Coffeehouse has also adopted an unofficial mascot, the squirrel, which can be found on T-shirts, mugs, and bumper stickers stuck on laptops across campus. The logo pays tribute to Rice's squirrel population, claimed by students to be unusually plump and frighteningly tame.
The Pub at Rice Formerly known as Willy's Pub, The Pub at Rice is Rice's student-run pub located in the basement of the Rice Memorial Center. It opened on April 11, 1975, with Rice President Norman Hackerman pouring the first beer. The original name was chosen by students in tribute to the university's founder,
William Marsh Rice. After the drinking age in Texas was raised in 1986, the pub entered a period of financial difficulties and in April 1995, was destroyed in a fire. The space was gutted but renovated and remains open.
Rice Bikes Rice Bikes is a full-service on-campus bicycle sale, rental, and repair shop. It originated in the basement of
Sid Richardson College in February 2011. In 2012, Rice Bikes officially became the university's third student-run business. Rice Bikes merged with a student-run bicycle rental business in 2013, and operations moved to the Rice Memorial Center in 2014. In 2017, the business moved to the garage of the Rice Housing and Dining department's headquarters.
Student-run media Rice has a weekly
student newspaper (
The Rice Thresher), a yearbook (
The Campanile),
college radio station (
KTRU Rice Radio), and now defunct, campus-wide
student television station (RTV5). They are based out of the RMC student center. In addition, Rice hosts several student magazines dedicated to a range of different topics; the spring semester of 2008 saw the founding of two magazines, a literary sex journal called
Open and an undergraduate science research magazine entitled
Catalyst.
The Rice Thresher Associated Collegiate Press and Texas Intercollegiate Press Association. The Rice
Campanile was first published in 1916, celebrating Rice's first graduating class. It has published continuously since then, publishing two volumes in 1944 since the university had two graduating classes due to World War II. The website was created sometime in the early to mid-2000s.
KTRU Rice Radio is the student-run radio station. It plays genres and artists of music and sound unavailable on other radio stations in Houston, and often, the US. The station takes requests over the phone or online. In 2000 and 2006, KTRU won Houston Press' Best Radio Station in Houston. RTV5 is a student-run television network available as channel 5 on campus. RTV5 was created initially as Rice Broadcast Television in 1997; RBT began to broadcast the following year in 1998, and aired its first live show across campus in 1999. It experienced much growth and exposure over the years with successful programs like "Drinking with Phil”, “The Meg & Maggie Show”, which was a variety and call-in show, a weekly news show, and extensive live coverage in December 2000 of the shut down of KTRU by the administration. In spring 2001, the Rice undergraduate community voted in the general elections to support RBT as a blanket tax organization, effectively providing a yearly income of $10,000 to purchase new equipment and provide the campus with a variety of new programming. In the spring of 2005, RBT members decided the station needed a new image and a new name: Rice Television 5. One of RTV5's most popular shows was the 24-hour show, where a camera and couch placed in the RMC stayed on air for 24 hours. One such show is held in fall and another in spring, usually during a weekend allocated for visits by prospective students. RTV5 has a video on demand site at rtv5.rice.edu. The station went off the air in 2014 and changed its name to Rice Video Productions. In 2015 the group's funding was threatened, but ultimately maintained. In 2016 the small student staff requested to no longer be a blanket-tax organization.
The Rice Review, also known as R2, is a yearly student-run literary journal at Rice University that publishes prose, poetry, and creative nonfiction written by undergraduate students, as well as interviews. The journal was founded in 2004 by creative writing professor and author
Justin Cronin.
The Rice Standard was an independent, student-run variety magazine modeled after such publications as
The New Yorker and ''Harper's
. Prior to fall 2009, it was regularly published three times a semester with a wide array of content, running from analyses of current events and philosophical pieces to personal essays, short fiction and poetry. In August 2009, the Standard'' transitioned to a completely online format with the launch of their redesigned website, ricestandard.org. The first website of its kind on Rice's campus, the
Standard featured blog-style content written by and for Rice students.
The Rice Standard had around 20 regular contributors, and the site features new content every day (including holidays). ==Athletics==