<p>What's the general political feel around campus? Assuming it's less liberal than northeast colleges but is it predominantly conservative?</p>
<p>Well I would say the atmosphere is pretty apathetic in general (being a science/engineering centric school and all). Among those that do care, I would say it is about 60% liberal (pretty moderate for a university I would say). This is just a rough estimate of course.</p>
<p>i thought that, being houston, it would be more liberal.</p>
<p>I’d say it’s liberal for a school in Texas, but it’s more conservative compared to schools up east. But I feel like most people are pretty apathetic. I didn’t even know about the mayoral race until the day of when a selected few were trying to get people to vote.</p>
<p>Apathetic? That’s almost worse than overly conservative (for me, at least)</p>
<p>Wait, what’s the general student body like? Is there a general student body? I mean in terms of affluence, preppiness, snobbishness etc (sorry to switch topics but I’m an international so I can’t visit). So basically, the social atmosphere</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/rice-university/832435-social-life.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/rice-university/832435-social-life.html</a></p>
<p>yes, I would say that Rice is pretty apathetic(politically).</p>
<p>Seriously?! I’ve never felt that Rice was politically apathetic. Maybe it’s just the crowd I hang with but tons of people I know were really interested in the Houston mayoral race and the Texas governer’s race. One of my dumbass friends is from Virginia but has made it his sole mission to help get Rick Perry re-elected…whatever. He doesn’t know **** but at least that’s conservative rather than apathetic, haha. The current Houston mayor (Bill White) has a good shot at winning the governor’s office in 2010 so a lot of people are interested in that. I would say that Rice is slightly more liberal than conservative; lots of students come down and find that while they may have been considered moderate or conservative in their hometowns (northeast, northwest, whatever), they’re liberals in Texas. For what it’s worth, Martel started blaring the “yes we can” song from the speakers after the '08 election while people ran around popping champagne. So maybe it’s not that we outnumber conservatives, just that we’re louder…ha.</p>
<p>I have a lot of friends who’s parents are involved in government internationally, so while Rice students may not be apathetic about politics, it may be true that there’s less interest in American politics.</p>
<p>I would say Rice students are generally politically apathetic on a group level, but I’ve had many political conversations with my friends. </p>
<p>It’s hard to stereotype Rice students but I would say most students are smart, nice, happy, energetic, and involved in Rice/residential college life.</p>
<p>Rice students in general don’t place a lot of value on superficiality, materialism, and tangible signs of wealth (cars, clothes, etc.)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say that Rice is so much politically apathetic as it is moderate. I don’t mean that the school is balanced on the political spectrum (it sways pretty strongly left), but that there aren’t that many extremists. It doesn’t mean that Rice students don’t care; it just means that you’re less likely to incite us into some sort of furor over any sort of political issue, because we’re more likely to agre with at least some of your points. I’m not saying that we have some sort of hive mind towards the center, but that we are very pragmatic in our political ideals, regardless of what kind of policy we favor. For example, I consider myself ideologically socialist, but I’m too much of a pragmatist to believe that pure socialism can be applied to the US government.</p>
<p>So, yes, perhaps we seem apathetic on a group level, as college316 said, but that’s only because very few of us are political extremists. Pragmatism and moderatism do not equal apathy.</p>
<p>The faculty and students at Rice are more tolerant of opposing views than their counterparts at most of Rice’s peer institutions. Rice students do not heckle invited speakers, regardless of their political views (and faculty do not encourage students to do so). Although some might call this political apathy, others would recognize it as a level of academic freedom that is lacking at many universities.</p>