Coming from a family of Rice alum, I've always had an insight into Rice culture. Rice holds many great traditions, such as Beer Bike, O-Week and Night of Decadence. Of these great traditions, one in particular has received much attention over the past year: Cheer Battle.
Cheer Battle occurs during O-Week. The premise of it is that the new incoming students dress up in the colors of their residential college and learn cheers for their college and anti-cheers for the other colleges. They run around campus shouting these cheers at other colleges as a way to garner college spirit and camaraderie. All of the colleges then trek to Tudor Fieldhouse and stop chanting their respective college cheers, transitioning to Rice cheers only at the Rice Rally. This transition is explained in a way that means, "Inside of Rice, you can be loyal to your college, but together, we are loyal to Rice University."
Some of these cheers are on the tamer side, but the same cannot be said for most the anti-cheers. In the past, some students have had issues concerning the insensitivity and vulgarity of some of the anti-cheers.
It was explicitly told to the incoming students that we weren't to take these cheers personally; they were not saying the anti-cheers to us, but to the college itself. It can be a little tricky not to take the insults personally, because many of the students identify strongly with their respective college by the time Cheer Battle comes around.
Cheer Battle was one of the only events in O-Week that I truly felt tied me to my college and the people in it. So imagine my surprise when Dean Hutchinson announced that First Year Programs and the Rice administration had decided to cancel Cheer Battle. Here at Rice, it is frequently emphasized that students have power on campus; we lead our own colleges, clubs, programs and associations. Many students felt as though students did not have any say in the cancellation of Cheer Battle. Dean Hutch claimed it was because the university administration does not want Rice to be represented by vulgar cheers, but I digress. These cheers are not used outside of Rice, simply for the fact that no one would understand the references made.
I believe that the purpose of Cheer Battle was to strengthen ties with your college in relation to the other colleges. In more psychological terms, Cheer Battle focused on mob mentality, polarization and conformity. However, I think Cheer Battle is a university-wide event that fosters college spirit, and by taking away Cheer Battle, Dean Hutch, FYP and the overall administration risk decreasing the amount of collective college spirit.
