All the recent chatter about the current “don’t walk through the Sallyport” tradition had me thinking over break about how the students spent so much time there at various points in Rice’s history. I knew I’d read something about this somewhere and after poking around in some things I have in my office at home I found it.
What I was looking for was in a 1954 report that was prepared at Rice and given out to the members of the Rice Associates. (This group seems to have been brought to Rice by President Houston, who had experience with a similar organized group of campus supporters at Cal Tech.)
Most of what’s in here is mundane (although often quite useful) material: enrollment figures, revenues and expenses over time, number of books in the library, a potted history of the origins of the institution, and so on. A few of the sections, though, are bit more unusual. The one I’m interested in today is called “Centers of Student Life” and it carefully explains something unexpected: where the students hung out and how their hang out spots have moved around over the 40 or so years of Rice’s existence. Honestly, I don’t know why they included this at all but since it’s impossible to summarize without losing the flavor of the thing, here it is:
I’m not sure I have any conclusion other than it’s relatively easy to get people to move themselves around.
Bonus: “Whoever you are, you are awesome!”
A sharp-eyed colleague noticed this yesterday. It was, sadly, melted.
