‘Rice in a Box’ commemorates campus culture
New student archive project gets students involved in Centennial Celebration

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News staff

With Rice’s Centennial Celebration less than two years away, students are finding ways to make their mark throughout the university’s next centennial and at class reunions for years to come. The Student Association (SA) has begun the student archive project, “Rice in a Box,” to collect and store the history of student life at Rice through photographs, T-shirts, programs and other memorabilia.

With Rice’s freshman class the largest it’s ever been and both of the new residential colleges — Duncan and McMurtry — up and running, the SA determined it was time to get started collecting today’s campus culture for Rice students of tomorrow.

	The idea is to have residential colleges, student clubs, athletic teams and organizations contribute objects that reflect important events, initiatives and happenings among them. The items will be boxed and stored in the off-campus Fondren Library storage facility. Like a time capsule, those boxes might then be opened at class reunions and during other university milestones.

“‘Rice in a Box’ will act as the beginning of a documentation of the second century of Rice,” said Selim Sheikh, SA president. “It can lay the foundation for the next centennial by telling Rice history from the student perspective.”

The idea is to have residential colleges, student clubs, athletic teams and organizations contribute objects that reflect important events, initiatives and happenings among them. The items will be boxed and stored in the off-campus Fondren Library storage facility. Like a time capsule, those boxes might then be opened at class reunions and during other university milestones.

“This school year we’re beginning to figure out how this project will
evolve and carry on in the future,” Sheikh said. “We would like to see
this continue beyond the next century in Rice’s future. The SA feels
this could be our contribution to preserving the history of the
university.”

Unlike a time capsule, “Rice in a Box” isn’t a one-time project. The Student Association has created a student archive committee to establish procedures and guidelines for making the project sustainable. It will begin work in January.

The committee comprises members of the SA and representatives from each college and the Graduate Student Association and Melissa Kean, the Rice centennial historian, as an ex-officio member. It is headed by Georgia Lagoudas, SA secretary, and Louise Bentsen, Duncan College senator, with help from Sheikh; John Boles, the William Pettus Hobby Professor of History; and Linda Thrane, vice president for public affairs.

“This project has meaning beyond our time here at Rice,” said Lagoudas, a Lovett College senior. “The objects and photos we collect will last for many years to come. Future alumni will be able to come back during their reunions and remember their activities at Rice.”

“I’m a history major,” Bentsen said. “I believe that history matters and that things should be documented and archived for posterity, and I think this student archive project can do that for the Rice community.”

“Rice in a Box” will facilitate cohesiveness across all student groups. The organizers hope “Rice in a Box” will also bridge the gap between groups on campus and become an intercollegiate activity that will bring Rice together as a whole.

“The student archive project can serve as a step in integrating the colleges, clubs and organizations in a way that no one has done before,” Bentsen said. “Everyone will have a chance to see what other colleges and clubs have been doing and discover new things.”

At the end of each academic year, before the box is “closed,” the SA will host an event where students can come together to remember and learn about all that happened that year.

“We want to offer support in creating a common way for all student clubs and organizations to record their history, projects and accomplishments,” Lagoudas said. “So at the end of the year, we hope the entire student body will celebrate the collection and be excited about this unique project.”

Lagoudas, Bentsen and Sheikh said the Centennial Campaign and Celebration have already set the tone for the project and encouraged students to get involved. They said “Rice in a Box” means so much to them because it offers students another way to directly be involved in the Centennial Celebration and allows them to establish a new tradition of reflection and history.

“The centennial is an important time because we can reflect on how much Rice has changed over the past 100 years and how it will continue to evolve and develop going into the second century,” Bentsen said.