I have no idea what’s going on here. There’s no date or any other identification. The only thing I think I recognize is a young Ric Stoll at the table but as charming as he is I’m not sure even he could draw a crowd like this. Does anyone know who was the main attraction? Can anyone give me a date? Were any of you there??
I am pretty sure this is the commons of Baker College. The event was a panel of Rice faculty (including me) to discuss the soon-to-happen 1991 Gulf War. So I’m guessing it was late fall 1990.
So you really did draw that crowd!
This is after my time, but it is a great photo! Given Ric’s description of the event, I can understand why it would inspire a large turnout.
The person on the right holding the mic MIGHT be Jen Saunders (Will Rice ’91). Given the event it would not surprise me that she was there.
Jen Sanders, that is.
Could the couple at the table with Ric be the Dunbars, who were masters of Baker around that time? I’m out of town and can’t check my list of college masters.
A very similar photo appeared on page 6 of the Jan 18, 1991, Thresher (http://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/67984/thr19910118.pdf?sequence=1) with the caption, “Students perch high to glimpse panelists Abedi, Richards. Stoll, and Nyamu at the Tuesday night meeting.” (So the meeting would have been on January 15, 1991.)
Leezie Kim’s article begins: “A crowd of more than 450 students, faculty, alumni, and other Houston residents packed into Baker Commons for a forum about the Middle East held on the eve of the United Nations deadline for Iraq to pull out of Kuwait.
” ‘Not bad for a university known for political apathy,’ said forum moderator Jennifer Sanders, a Will Rice senior, in reference to the attendance.”
In addition to Prof. Stoll, the full names/titles of the other panelists are given in the article as: Mehdi Abedi, anthropology professor; Diana Richards, professor of political science; and Beneva Nyamu, Houston peace activist.
The previous edition of the Thresher (Jan. 11, 1991: https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/67983/thr19910111.pdf?sequence=1) has a full-page article on Rice perspectives on the Gulf situation (page 4) written by Ann Zitterkopf. It says that Sanders and graduate student Kathi Fletcher organized the Jan. 15 forum.