From the publisher

It’s hard to graduate. Really hard. We’ve spent four years trying our hardest to maximize our involvement in campus life: neglecting homework to organize an event, attending Student Association meetings, listening to speakers at the Baker Institute. We do all these things week after week and then a humid Saturday morning shows up and it’s over.

To us, this is the greatest irony of the college experience. O-Week propaganda repeatedly extols the virtues of the involved student: they have more fun, more meaningful experiences, more friends. And we don’t doubt it—in fact, we believe it.

But no one ever tells you the hardest part is cutting those ties four years in the future.

It’s essential rhetoric, we suppose. If they don’t encourage new students to get involved, then they won’t. And it’s not like we expect people to act based on what they will feel four years on down the road. That’s not conducive to new experiences and certainly not to risk-taking.

So, just like every other Rice student, we sipped on that rhetoric for four years. In fact, maybe too indulgent to know better, we, along with Alice Townes, founded the Rice Standard.

We can say confidently that—a little over a year and nine issues later—the magazine has far surpassed anything we set out to accomplish. More writers, better content, and a future at its brightest point make it the perfect—and worst—time to say our goodbye.

Most of the recent changes to the layout and content have been driven by the Standard’s new Publisher, Matt Schumann. As John can attest, the Publisher’s role is only possible through the help of a talented and ambitious right-hand man. Brian Reinhart will take over for Matt as Editor of the Standard, organizing the mid-month madness into a coherent issue and tapping the enormous writing talent at Rice. Another veteran, Sarah Mitchell, will continue her role as Executive Editor, focusing her talent on developing the Standard into a more robust—and hopefully more colorful—publication.

An updated masthead will appear in the August issue. From the Publisher to new Associate Editors, the Standard retains an incredible staff that has more than executed our vision. We are both incredibly excited to see what the next year holds for the magazine. It is in good and capable hands.