Back issues of the Rice Thresher now available in Rice Digital Scholarship Archive

BY AMANDA FOCKE
Special to Rice News

Fondren Library has digitized back issues of the Rice Thresher from 1958 to 1967 and made them available online in Rice’s digital repository at http://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/27631. Readers can access full issues or individual articles in PDF format, as well as search the full text of the collection.

The late 1950s and through the mid-1960s represent a vibrant period on the Rice campus. The residential college system had just taken shape, and graduate research increased significantly. Rice Institute changed its charter to admit students without regard to race or color and to enable charging tuition for the first time, which in turn made it possible to secure research grants and other key funding. The curriculum was expanded from its science-and-engineering focus to include more humanities subjects. Rayzor and Anderson halls graced the Academic Quad. Two U.S. presidents spoke at Rice; in 1960, Dwight D. Eisenhower gave a nonpolitical speech, and in 1962, John F. Kennedy spoke at Rice Stadium about the space race.

Since 1916, the Rice Thresher has been the official student newspaper of the university. It is published every Friday during the school year, except during examination periods and holidays. The Rice Thresher provides online access to current issues as well as a partial archive of issues from the 1990s and 2000s at http://www.ricethresher.org.

Other Rice publications that are available freely online include the General Announcements starting from 1912, Rice presidential inauguration speeches and general histories of the university. See them online in a variety of formats at the Internet Archive, http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=riceuniversity.

–Amanda Focke is assistant head of special collections at Fondren Library.