Freshman Year at Rice

Pat Sullivan and I arrived at Wiess College in September 1964 for Freshman week. At the time there were four men’s colleges (Baker, Hansen, Wiess and Will Rice) and one women’s college (Jones). I think this 4:1 ratio indicated the gender bias of the times. Freshman week was a ‘get to know you’ time with some serious stuff and some fun and games - we actually attended a Colt ’45 baseball game (the Colt ’45’s morphed into the Houston Astros when the Astrodome was completed.) There was some mild hazing, e. g. sitting on a block of ice in our skivvies as it was slid across a tennis court.

This is a photo of Wiess College that I found on the internet. The room Pat and I shared was behind the volleyball net. The building was demolished in 2003.

I had been a large fish in a small pond at French - I became a small fish in a big pond at Rice. There were no dummies at Rice. About half of my class of ’68 were either valedictorian or salutatorian of their high schools. Many of my colleagues had gone to more competitive high schools and had already had a year of calculus.

Pat and I roomed together in room 120 and we became good friends with Tim Lucas (yep, uncle Tim) and Dan Crane.

The room was not air conditioned so we had a fan in the window.

At this point Rice’s class schedule was arranged so that there were Mon-Wed-Fri classes and Tue-Thur-Sat classes. To the best of my memory I had Chemistry, Physics and Math on MWF and History (8 AM) and English on TTS. Chem Lab and Physics Lab were three hours sessions on a couple of afternoons each week. Physical Training was a couple of afternoons a week. I was also a Marching Owl Band volunteer and we met from 4:30 ’til 6 two or three afternoons a week. A pretty full schedule.

The classes were serious, fast paced, challenging and interesting.

I had breezed through high school and never really learned how to study. This deficit showed up in how hard I had to work to keep up at Rice.

I had not had a PE experience in either Junior High or High School because of my being in the band and I was really put off by the idea of doing PE.

PT101 at Rice was a whole new experience. It was not all push ups and laps like in Junior High. Rice had the belief that to be a whole person one had to do physical stuff as well as mental stuff. The PT101 curriculum was a string of sporting experiences to show us what the various sports provided. We experienced, volleyball, volleywallball, tennis, basketball, softball, swimming, archery, golf, shooting, weight training, and the list goes on. It was far better than I expected.

The American History teacher was Dr. Masterson. He taught at 8AM on TTS in the Physics Amphitheater. He was a stickler for punctuality - the doors were locked at 8:05 - and attendance - three unexcused absences led to a 5 (on the Rice grading system an F). This was bad enough on T and T but awful on Saturday morning. It limited Friday night revelry.

There was a tremendous amount of reading in the History and English classes - soporific reading.

Since this was the first schooling away from home for many of us, Rice decided to have an interim grade report during the first semester to be sent to our parents. They came out in late November, hence the moniker - Turkey Grades. I actually did ok on my Turkey Grades, but that did not necessarily hold up for my entire time there.

Living in the college included three meals a day during the week. And Breakfast and Lunch on Saturday and Sunday - we had to fend for ourselves for the evening meals on weekends.

Each table had a pair of freshmen who were assigned to serve the evening meal. I rotated through this duty with some measure of disdain. There seemed to be a rush to get from the band hall to the serving line on band days.

I was in the Marching Owl Band (precursor to the MOB) in the fall semester and the concert band in the spring semester.