I left my neighborhood for a little while today and went over to campus to see what was what. I’m really glad I did because in thirty years at Rice I’ve never really seen anything like it. It always quiets down over breaks of course, but this was something else entirely. I spent about an hour and a half walking around the colleges and the central part of campus and I don’t think I saw more than a dozen people, almost all of them either FE&P employees or Campus Police. There were a couple of dog walkers, a family on bicycles, and I could see that there was a little bit of activity in some of the lab buildings. It was so desolate that I nearly had the wits scared out of me when a couple of college magisters turned a corner and surprised me.
It was particularly bleak around the colleges, with frightening signs posted all around and evidences of hasty departures:
Hand sanitizer. I used it even though I didn’t touch anything. It’s good luck!
For some reason all the outdoor chairs are piled in groups and tied up. It looks striking:
Totally empty Cohen House lot:
More to come.
Bonus: Sad!
I assume the chairs and tables are tied up to prevent anyone from using them during the quarantine period.
I don’t think things will ever be the same.
Any information on the 1918 pandemic? I could have missed a post
Or the polio crisis, 1954-56. Photos, admin restrictions, campus life?
This is the first I’ve heard about that.
A search of the Thresher archives turns up very little about polio.
There are mentions in ’46, as the Thresher campaigned to clean up Harris Gully, using mention of diseases that might be associated with it.
A graduate researcher was working on a test for viruses.
And the proceeds from several sporting events – a basketball game vs TCU, and the freshman football game vs UT – were going to be donated to hospitals and charities that treated polio.