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HOOTS
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Employees of the Facilities & Engineering and Housing & Dining departments started the High Order of Owls Tailgate Society, or HOOTS, as it is more commonly known, in 1999. HOOTS is the result of recommendations made by the Campus Involvement Focus Team, which was organized to improve the working culture at Rice. F & E employees were looking for way to reach out to the Rice Community in general and to the Housing & Dining staff in particular. The original idea was to hold social events such as tailgate parties to give employees of F&E and H&D, along with the Rice community, an opportunity to connect outside of their working environment. In 2002, part of the Facilities & Engineering department split into Project Management & Planning. All of the members of PM&P were retained as members of HOOTS.
Since then, HOOTS has not only sponsored many Tailgate Parties and one Dunking Contest, but has established the official Rice University F&E/H&D Gift Fund. People are able to donate to this fund through the Annual Gifts Campaign and general Rice donations. The fund provides assistance to the children of F&E and H&D employees who are full time students at Rice. From an initial contribution of $800.00 from HOOTS, the fund has raised close to $10,000.00! HOOTS is presently working to have the gift fund endowed. To reach this goal, the fund would have to grow to $25,000.00.