Hundreds of Rice students, faculty and staff could be seen sporting special solar eclipse glasses and gazing into the sky at the central quad during the afternoon April 8 as much of the campus gathered to view the historic solar eclipse.
Despite cloudy weather, the Rice Program Council (RPC) hosted a viewing event where people could enjoy the rare occurrence together while also eating free Torchy’s tacos. RPC passed out safety glasses for viewing and picnic blankets and also offered button-making and cookie decoration stations in partnership with the Fondren Library. Rice Fun with Chemistry had a table offering eclipse glasses and giving out tips on how to safely view the eclipse.
“We wanted to bring the eclipse experience to students who weren’t able to travel to go see it,” said Nimah Shukkoor, RPC co-chair and sophomore chemistry and philosophy major. “And I’m glad we’re able to do that for everyone who wants to take part.”
No classes were held on Monday so students could take part in and observe this historic astronomical event and educational moment. The line into Brochstein Pavilion to get solar eclipse glasses stretched outside and nearly into Fondren before the viewing.
“Rice is such a fun, quirky place,” Shukkoor said. “Only Rice would give you a day off of school so that you can watch the eclipse. I’m just happy there were so many people on campus who wanted to come.”
Kat Rosner, a senior studying integrative biology, said it was nice to have the day off from class to be able to be able to soak in the moment.
“I’ve always been an astronomy nerd, so I think solar eclipses are really cool, and the fact that there’s so many people here that are excited to watch it is exciting to me,” Rosner said.
“Rice does things like this a lot. They really care about their students and the opportunities that we have to witness important things like this. I think it definitely speaks to the university.”
