David McDonald

Posted on April 13, 2011 by sapres

Best man ever. I had a great talk with him today (for almost 2 hours!), and he had a lot to share about residential dining and other food services at Rice. David McDonald is the Director for Residential Dining, so he deals with everything and anything that is related to residential dining on campus. He even provided the initial down payment for Hoot to start its business!
First, meal plans: yes, this is probably one of the most commonly re-occurring topics around here at Rice, and we just can’t seem to understand exactly what is going on. So this is what I learned: Rice Dining cannot provide the high quality food that we have grown accustomed to at Rice if we offer reduced meal plans. This would be a BIG hit to the budget, and the quality of food would have to decrease dramatically to compensate for this.  Well, you might ask, why don’t we just pay for how much meals cost and be done with it? It turns out things are more complicated than that. Read more at the Housing and Dining page….

Meals at Rice = High Quality MEAL SERVICE – I think we should stop thinking of the meal plan as “19 meals a week,” but rather a fee that we pay to get high quality food at our colleges, along with expensive Associates’ Nights, annual picnics, and top quality chefs.

A farm may be coming soon to a grassy plot near you! David McDonald is trying to secure land and funding for a new project to grow a farm near Rice – wow! This would be a unique chance for students to be a part of a sustainable and exciting project, right here at Rice!  Who doesn’t want to eat fresh tomatoes?!

For more information about meal plans, nutrition education, composting, and Sammy’s, see the H&D page.

Also, I’m super bummed. Houston was bamboozled today: we DIDN’T get a space shuttle – and we are the home of the shuttle!!! Instead, guess what we got…seats! One pilot seat and one commander seat. Whoop.

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Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

Posted on April 12, 2011 by sapres

6:30 am – Wake up to go to Spinning Class at the Rec Center!
8:30 am – Eat delicious muffin at Baker College
9:25-12:00 pm – BIOE classes
12-2 pm – Lunch with Linda Thrane, VP of Public Affairs and Bill Courtney, Director of Marketing. Cohen House lunch with all of the execs!
2 pm – Found out that Houston got jipped. We don’t get a space shuttle, but instead we get….seats. Yes, a pilot seat and a commander seat. What a prize for JSC, the home of the shuttle!
2-3 pm – Talked to Kate Abad, the advisor to the SA. She is really an amazing mentor and Director of Student Activities.
3-5 pm – Chatted with David McDonald, Director of Residential Dining. Lots of story time and got to learn all about food-related things you care about! (See H&D tab)
5-7 pm – Worked at the BRC in Dr. West’s lab, feeding my cells and making hydrogels.
7 pm – Dinner with the Masters
10 pm – Hilarious Lovett CC. And we learned about fire alarms.

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Senate Meeting, 4-11-11

Posted on April 11, 2011 by sapres


Senate meeting today was great! We had a presentation from DCTF about the drinking culture survey results, and it was pretty interesting to hear what students had to say. The most important things that came out were the importance of communication with RUPD, EMS, the Wellness Center, RHAs, and Chief Justices. DCTF will prepare a final report with more details that will be sent out soon. Also, they would like to continue looking into the proposed next steps, which include setting up caregiver training at each of the colleges and alcohol/caregiver education at O-week. They have done a great job!

Also, we heard from Christine Cooper, the student manager of Coffeehouse. She had a great presentation about the upcoming Coffeehouse expansion into the RMC Kelley Lounge, and it was great to hear about the new ideas they have (take their survey to offer suggestions here: tinyurl.com/coffeehouse-expansionsurvey). Also, KTRU station managers Joey and Kevin briefly talked about their ideas for the $1 million in funds from the radio tower sale, and they basically want to have more concerts and events for students to participate in. They meet with President Leebron on Wednesday!

Great meeting: we took a shot at alcohol, Coffeehouse buzzed it up, and KTRU rocked the house. Last meeting of the semester is next Monday!!

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Monday, April 11th, 2011

Posted on April 11, 2011 by sapres

At the President’s Lunch (held with all the college and SA presidents weekly), we met with Dean Hutch and talked about the alcohol probation. Yes, more alcohol talk. A lot of the presidents want to understand what the next steps are, because we feel that many students are questioning us on what to do next. We talked with Dean Hutch about how things are going around campus, and we also discussed the Brown public party this past weekend. It turns out that there were a few EMS calls and some freshmen got citations. Some people were upset at RUPD because it appeared that they were directing people to go to the “EMS camp” set up at Brown, but it turns out that these were people that NEEDED help and it was sad that no students were taking the initiative to get help with EMS. Instead, RUPD was doing what was best for the students, and it’s unfortunate that we have slacked in our responsibility to take care of our friends, and instead RUPD has to do it for us.

Dean Hutch explained that he truly believes that our college systems work, and they can fix this alcohol problem we have been facing. It has worked for many years now, and this is just a “hiccup” to overcome.  He wants to see the colleges set up college courts and systems of self-governance so that alcohol policy violators (or “people who do stupid stuff”) can be punished by their own college and learn from their mistakes. Also, we need to put in education systems in place to make people aware and learn how to deal with alcohol, so this will be done for the upcoming O-Week.

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Welcome to the Student Association President Blog!

Posted on April 4, 2011 by gkl1

This is the place to hear about what goes on at Rice university, and this is a way I hope to share with you all the information I learn as SA President. From my perspective as a student, I want to help you feel as connected as possible to the Rice administration. I hope you enjoy the site!

-Georgia Lagoudas, Student Association President

Presidents Leebron and Georgia (Beer Bike 2011)

 

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