Willy

 

A gathering place for the MOB’s Gratuitous Friday Scream; the center of a giant cake and ice cream social during the annual celebration of the founder’s birthday; site of campus vigils of protest and support; part of your class project; a quiet place to sit and study; a campus icon in the center of the academic quad, often decorated to reflect the season or the theme of an upcoming university event; “Willy’s statue,” the memorial to university founder William Marsh Rice, is all of these and more.  Willy’s position at the center of the academic quad makes him the focus of campus life and, memorably, the target of Rice’s most famous undergraduate prank.