Centennial video series: The history of new-student orientation at Rice

Jeff Falk
713-348-6775
jfalk@rice.edu  

Centennial video series: The history of new-student orientation at Rice
Rice University’s weekly centennial videos run through Oct. 12 

HOUSTON – (Aug. 9, 2012) – Orientation Week, or O-Week, kicks off at Rice University Sunday, Aug. 12. It is a unique weeklong orientation that will prepare new students, the members of the Class of 2016, for their life at Rice.

O-Week is an experience like no other, and many students look back on O-Week as one of the most formative experiences at Rice, organizers say. Working with Centennial Historian Melissa Kean, video producer Brandon Martin takes a look at the story behind this rite of passage.

For more information about O-Week at Rice, visit http://firstyear.rice.edu. For more information on Rice’s history, visit Kean’s blog at www.ricehistorycorner.com.

O-Week at Rice has a storied history.

To help celebrate the university’s centennial Oct. 12, Rice University is producing weekly videos exploring the school’s unique history.

The video, available on YouTube at http://youtu.be/Kcn9ar7Y69Q, is also available to media in high quality and without music for editing purposes. For higher-quality video, contact Jeff Falk, associate director of national media relations at Rice, at jfalk@rice.edu or 713-348-6775. 

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To see other stories in the centennial video series, go to http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL60D6D71E71B66B3D&feature=plcp.

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is known for its “unconventional wisdom.” With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 4 for “best value” among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. To read “What they’re saying about Rice,” go to www.rice.edu/nationalmedia/Rice.pdf.