Rice University
Encyclopedia
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university
located on a heavily wooded 295 acres (1.2 km²) campus in Houston, Texas
, United States
. The university is situated near the Houston Museum District
and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center
.
Opened in 1912 after the murder of its namesake William Marsh Rice
, Rice has grown into a preeminent research university with an undergraduate focus. Its emphasis on undergraduate education is demonstrated by a 5:1 student-faculty ratio, among the lowest in the top American universities
including the Ivy League
. Rice alumni are prominent in every sector of society today. The university has produced 101 Fulbright Scholars, 20 Marshall Scholars, and 12 Rhodes Scholars. The university has a very high level of research activity for its size, with $115.3 million in sponsored research funding in 2011. Rice is noted for its applied science
programs in the fields of artificial heart
research, structural chemical analysis, signal processing, space science, and nanotechnology
. It was ranked 1st in the world in materials science
research by the Times Higher Education (THE) in 2010.
The university is organized into eleven residential colleges
and eight schools of academic study, including the Wiess School of Natural Sciences
, the George R. Brown School of Engineering
, and the School of Humanities
. Graduate programs are offered through the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, School of Architecture, Shepherd School of Music
, and Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies
. Rice students are bound by the strict Honor Code, which is enforced by a uniquely student-run Honor Council.
Rice competes in 14 NCAA Division I varsity sports and is a part of Conference USA
, often competing with its cross-town rival the University of Houston. Intramural and club sports are offered in a wide variety of activities such as Jiu Jitsu
, water polo
, and crew
. Rice athletes include Lance Berkman
, Harold Solomon
, Bubba Crosby
, Arsalan Kazemi
, along with three Olympians.
The history of Rice University began with the untimely demise of Massachusetts businessman William Marsh Rice
. Rice made his fortune in real estate, railroad development and cotton trading in the state of Texas
. In 1891, Rice decided to charter a free-tuition educational institute in Houston, bearing his name, to be created upon his death, earmarking most of his estate towards funding the project. On the morning of September 23, 1900, Rice was found dead by his valet, and presumed to have died in his sleep. Shortly thereafter, a suspiciously large check made out to Rice's New York City lawyer, signed by the late Rice, was noticed by a bank teller due to a misspelling in the recipient's name. The lawyer, Albert T. Patrick
, then announced that Rice had changed his will to leave the bulk of his fortune to Patrick, rather than to the creation of Rice's educational institute. A subsequent investigation led by the District Attorney of New York resulted in the arrests of Patrick and of Rice's butler and valet Charles F. Jones, who had been persuaded to administer chloroform
to Rice while he slept. Rice's friend and personal lawyer in Houston, James A. Baker, Sr.
, aided in the discovery of what turned out to be a fake will with a forged signature. Jones was not prosecuted since he cooperated with the district attorney, and testified against Patrick. Patrick was found guilty of conspiring to steal Rice's fortune and convicted of murder in 1901, although he was pardoned in 1912 due to conflicting medical testimony. Baker helped Rice's estate direct the fortune, worth $4.6 million in 1904 ($ million today), towards the founding of what was to be called the Rice Institute. The Board took control of the assets on April 29 of that year.
In 1907, the Board of Trustees selected the head of the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy at Princeton University
, Edgar Odell Lovett
, to head the Institute, which was still in the planning stages. He came recommended by Princeton's president, Woodrow Wilson
. In 1908, Lovett accepted the challenge, and was formally inaugurated as the Institute's first president on October 12, 1912. Lovett undertook extensive research before formalizing plans for the new Institute, including visits to 78 institutions of higher learning across the world on a long tour between 1908 and 1909. Lovett was impressed by such things as the aesthetic beauty of the uniformity of the architecture at the University of Pennsylvania
, a theme which was adopted by the Institute, as well as the residential college
system at Cambridge University in England
, which was added to the Institute several decades later. Lovett called for the establishment of a university "of the highest grade," "an institution of liberal and technical learning" devoted "quite as much investigation as to instruction." [We must] "keep the standards up and the numbers down," declared Lovett. "The most distinguished teachers must take their part in undergraduate teaching, and their spirit should dominate it all."
Three weeks after opening, a spectacular international academic festival was held in celebration, bringing Rice to the attention of the entire academic world. Four years later, at the first commencement ceremony, 35 bachelor's degrees and one master's degree were awarded. That year, the student body voted to adopt the Honor System, which still exists today. The first doctorate was conferred in 1918.
During World War II
, Rice Institute was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
The Founder's Memorial Statue, a bronze statue of a seated William Marsh Rice, holding the original plans for the campus, was dedicated in 1930, and installed in the central academic quad, facing Lovett Hall. The residential college
system proposed by President Lovett was adopted in 1958, with the East Hall residence becoming Baker College
, South Hall residence becoming Will Rice College, West Hall becoming Hanszen College, and the temporary Wiess Hall becoming Wiess College.
In 1959, the Rice Institute Computer
went online. 1960 saw Rice Institute formally renamed William Marsh Rice University. Rice acted as a temporary intermediary in the transfer of land between Humble Oil and Refining Company and NASA
, for the creation of NASA
's Manned Spacecraft Center (now called Johnson Space Center) in 1962. President John F. Kennedy
then made a speech at Rice Stadium
reiterating that the United States intended to reach the moon before the end of the decade of the 1960s, and "to become the world's leading space-faring nation". The relationship of NASA
with Rice University and the city of Houston has remained strong .
The original charter of Rice Institute dictated that the university admit and educate, tuition-free, "the white inhabitants of Houston, and the state of Texas". In 1963, the governing board of Rice University filed a lawsuit to allow the university to modify its charter to admit students of all races and to charge tuition. In 1964, Rice officially amended the university charter to desegregate its graduate and undergraduate divisions. The Trustees of Rice University prevailed in a lawsuit to void the racial language in the trust in 1966.. Rice began charging tuition for the first time in 1965. In the same year, Rice launched a $33 million ($ million) development campaign. $43 million ($ million) was raised by its conclusion in 1970. In 1974, two new schools were founded at Rice, the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management
and the Shepherd School of Music
. The Brown Foundation Challenge, a fund-raising program designed to encourage annual gifts, was launched in 1976 and ended in 1996 having raised $185 million ($ million). The Rice School of Social Sciences was founded in 1979.
On-campus housing was exclusively for men for the first forty years. Jones College was the first women's residence on the Rice campus, followed by Brown College. According to legend, the women's colleges were purposefully situated at the opposite end of campus from the existing men's colleges as a way of preserving campus propriety, which was greatly valued by Edgar Odell Lovett, who did not even allow benches to be installed on campus, fearing that they "might lead to co-fraternization of the sexes". The path linking the north colleges to the center of campus was given the tongue-in-cheek name of "Virgin's Walk". Individual colleges became coeducational between 1973 and 1987, with the single-sex floors of colleges that had them becoming co-ed in 2006. By then, several new residential colleges had been built on campus to handle the university's growth, including Lovett College, Sid Richardson College, and Martel College.
was held at Rice in 1990. In 1993, the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy
was created. In 1997, the Edythe Bates Old Grand Organ and Recital Hall and the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, renamed in 2005 for the late Nobel Prize winner and Rice professor Richard E. Smalley, were dedicated at Rice. In 1999, the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology was created. The Rice Owls baseball
team was ranked #1 in the nation for the first time in that year (1999), holding the top spot for eight weeks.
In 2003, the Owls won their first national championship in baseball, which was the first for the university in any team sport, beating Southwest Missouri State in the opening game and then the University of Texas and Stanford University twice each en route to the title. In 2008, President David Leebron
issued a ten point plan titled "Vision for the Second Century" outlining plans to increase research funding, strengthen existing programs, and increase collaboration. The plan has brought about another wave of campus constructions, including the erection the newly renamed Bioscience Research Collaborative building (intended to foster collaboration with the adjacent Texas Medical Center
), a new recreational center and renovated basketball stadium
, and the addition of two new residential colleges, Duncan College and McMurtry College.
Beginning in late 2008, the university considered a merger with Baylor College of Medicine
, though the merger was ultimately rejected in 2010. Select Rice undergraduates are currently guaranteed admission to Baylor College of Medicine upon graduation as part of the Rice/Baylor Medical Scholars program. According to History Professor John Boles' recent book University Builder: Edgar Odell Lovett and the Founding of the Rice Institute, the first president's original vision for the university included hopes for future medical and law schools.
Rice's campus is a heavily-wooded 285 acres (1.2 km²) tract of land located close to the city of West University Place
, in the museum district of Houston
.
Five streets demarcate the campus: Greenbriar Street, Rice Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard, Main Street, and University Boulevard. For most of its history, all of Rice's buildings have been contained within this "outer loop". In recent years, new facilities have been built close to campus, but the bulk of administrative, academic, and residential buildings are still located within the original pentagonal plot of land. The new Collaborative Research Center, all graduate student housing, the Greenbriar building, and the Wiess President's House are located off-campus.
Rice prides itself on the amount of green space available on campus; there are only about 50 buildings spread between the main entrance at its easternmost corner, and the parking lots and Rice Stadium
at the West end. The Lynn R. Lowrey Arboretum
, consisting of more than 4000 trees and shrubs (giving birth to the legend that Rice has a tree for every student), is spread throughout the campus.
The university's first president, Edgar Odell Lovett
, intended for the campus to have a uniform architecture style to improve its aesthetic appeal. To that end, nearly every building on campus is noticeably Byzantine
in style, with sand and pink-colored bricks, large archways and columns being a common theme among many campus buildings. Noteworthy exceptions include the glass-walled Brochstein Pavilion, Lovett College with its Brutalist-style concrete gratings, and the eclectic-Mediterranean Duncan Hall.
Lovett Hall, named for Rice’s visionary first president, is the university’s most iconic campus building. Through its Sallyport arch, new students symbolically enter the university during matriculation and depart as graduates at commencement. Duncan Hall, Rice’s computational engineering building, was designed to encourage collaboration between the four different departments situated there. The building’s colorful Martel Foyer, drawn from many world cultures, was designed by the architect to symbolically express this collaborative purpose.
The campus is organized in a number of quadrangle
s. The Academic Quad, anchored by a statue of founder William Marsh Rice
, includes Ralph Adams Cram
's masterpiece, the asymmetrical Lovett Hall, the original administrative building; Fondren Library; Herzstein Hall, the physics building and home to the largest amphitheater on campus; Sewall Hall for the social sciences and arts; Rayzor Hall for the languages; and Anderson Hall of the Architecture department. The Humanities Building, winner of several architectural awards, is immediately adjacent to the main quad. Further west lies a quad surrounded by McNair Hall of the Jones Business School, the Baker Institute
, and Alice Pratt Brown Hall of the Shepherd School of Music
. These two quads are surrounded by the university's main access road, a one-way loop referred to as the "inner loop". In the Engineering Quad, a trinity of sculptures by Michael Heizer
, collectively entitled 45 Degrees, 90 Degrees, 180 Degrees, are flanked by Abercrombie Laboratory, the Cox Building, and the Mechanical Laboratory, housing the Electrical, Mechanical, and Earth Science/Civil Engineering departments, respectively. Duncan Hall is the latest addition to this quad, providing new offices for the Computer Science, Computational and Applied Math, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Statistics departments.
Roughly three-quarters of Rice's undergraduate population lives on campus. Housing is divided among eleven residential colleges, which form an integral part of student life at the University (see Residential colleges of Rice University
.) The colleges are named for university historical figures and benefactors, and while there is wide variation in their appearance, facilities, and dates of founding, are an important source of identity for Rice students, functioning as dining halls, residence halls, sports teams, among other roles. Rice does not have or endorse a Greek system, with the residential college system taking its place. Five colleges, McMurtry, Duncan, Martel, Jones, and Brown are located on the north side of campus, across from the "South Colleges", Baker, Will Rice, Lovett, Hanszen, Sid Richardson, and Wiess, on the other side of the Academic Quadrangle. Of the eleven colleges, Baker is the oldest, originally built in 1912, and the twin Duncan and McMurtry colleges are the newest, and opened for the first time for the 2009-10 school year. Will Rice, Baker, and Lovett colleges are undergoing renovation to expand their dining facilities as well as the number of rooms available for students.
The on-campus football facility, Rice Stadium
, opened in 1950 with a capacity of 70,000 seats. After improvements in 2006, the stadium is currently configured to seat 47,000 for football but can readily be reconfigured to its original capacity of 70,000, more than the total number of Rice alumni, living and deceased. The stadium was the site of Super Bowl VIII
and a speech by John F. Kennedy
on September 12, 1962 in which he challenged the nation to send a man to the moon by the end of the decade. The recently renovated Tudor Fieldhouse, formerly known as Autry Court, is home to the basketball and volleyball teams. Other stadia include the Rice Track/Soccer Stadium
and the Jake Hess Tennis Stadium. A new Rec Center is being built on campus, which will house the intramural sports offices and provide an outdoor pool, training and exercise facilities for all Rice students, while athletics training will solely be held at Tudor Fieldhouse and the Rice Football Stadium.
The university and Houston Independent School District
jointly established The Rice School
, a kindergarten
through 8th grade public magnet school in Houston. The school opened in August 1994. Through Cy-Fair ISD Rice University offers a credit course based summer school for grades 8 through 12. They also have skills based classes during the summer in the Rice Summer School.
Rice University is chartered as a non-profit organization and is owned and governed by a privately appointed board of trustees. The board consists of a maximum of 25 voting members who serve four year terms and is currently chaired by James W. Crownover. The trustees serve without compensation and a simple majority of trustees must reside in Texas, including at least 4 within the greater Houston area. The board of trustees delegates its power by appointing a President to serve as the chief executive of the university. David W. Leebron was appointed President in 2004 and succeeded Malcom Gillis who served since 1993. The provost, six vice presidents, and other university officials report to the President. The President is advised by a University Council composed of the Provost, eight members of the Faculty Council, two staff members, one graduate student, and two undergraduate students. The President presides over a Faculty Council which has the authority to alter curricular requirements, establish new degree programs, and approve candidates for degrees. Rice University possesses an endowment
of $4.1 billion (as of 2011).
Rice's undergraduate students benefit from a centralized admissions process, which admits new students to the university as a whole, rather than a specific school (the schools of Music and Architecture are decentralized). Students are encouraged to select the major path that best suits their desires; a student can later decide that they would rather pursue study in another field, or continue their current coursework and add a second or third major. These transitions are designed to be simple at Rice, with students not required to decide on a specific major until their sophomore year of study.
Rice's academics are organized into six schools which offer courses of study at the graduate and undergraduate level, with two more being primarily focused on graduate education, while offering select opportunities for undergraduate students. Rice offers 360 degrees in over 60 departments. There are 40 undergraduate degree programs, 51 masters programs, and 29 doctoral programs.
Undergraduate tuition for the 2011-2012 school year is $34,900. $651 is charged for fees, and Rice projects an $800 budget for books and $1550 for personal expenses. Rice students are charged $12,270 for room and board. Per year, the total cost of a Rice University education is $50,171.
Faculty members of each of the departments elect chairs to represent the department to each School's dean and the deans report to the Provost who serves as the chief officer for academic affairs.
Rice is a medium-sized, highly residential research university. The majority of enrollments are in the full-time, four-year undergraduate program emphasizing arts & sciences and professions. There is a high graduate coexistence with the comprehensive graduate program and a very high level of research activity. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
as well as the professional accreditation agencies for engineering, management, and architecture.
Each of Rice's departments is organized into one of three distribution groups, and students whose major lies within the scope of one group must take at least 12 credit hours of approved distribution classes in each of the other two groups, as well as completing two physical education courses as part of the LPAP (Lifetime Physical Activity Program) requirement. For students who do not pass the university's writing test (administered during the summer before matriculation), a writing class, COMM 103, becomes a requirement.
The majority of Rice's undergraduate degree programs grant B.S. or B.A. degrees. Rice has recently begun to offer minors in areas such as business
, energy and water sustainability, and global health.
Rice enrolled 3,001 undergraduates, 897 post-graduate, and 1,247 doctoral students and awarded 1,448 degrees in 2007. Women make up 48% of the undergraduate body and 35% of the professional and post-graduate student body. 51% of undergraduates and 49% of post-graduates hail from Texas but the student body also represented all 50 states, the District of Columbia, two U.S. Territories, and 83 foreign countries.
12,393 applications for undergraduate admission were received for the class of 2014 (Fall 2010), 2,639 were admitted (21%), and 949 enrolled (36%). In the class of 2014, 72% of ranked freshmen graduated in the top 5% of their high school class, and the inter-quartile range for SAT
was 650-750 for reading and 690-790 for math. 97% of freshmen re-enrolled the subsequent year and 77% of students graduate in 4 years and 90% graduate in 6 years.
With tuition of $33,120 for the 2010-2011 school year, Rice awarded $55.8 million in financial aid and 2,139 (71.2%) of undergraduates received some sort of aid.
programs in the fields of nanotechnology
, artificial heart
research, structural chemical analysis, and space science, being ranked 1st in the world in materials science
research by the Times Higher Education (THE) in 2010.
, and 99th internationally (54th nationally) by the Academic Ranking of World Universities
. Rice University was ranked 115th in 2011 by QS World University Rankings
. Forbes Magazine ranked Rice University 25th nationally among both liberal arts colleges and universities in 2010. The Princeton Review ranked Rice 1st for "Best Quality of Life" and "Happiest Students" in its 2012 edition and one of the top 50 best value private colleges in its 2011 edition. Rice was ranked 25th among national universities by The Washington Monthly
in 2010, and 41st among research universities by the Center for Measuring University Performance in 2007. In 2011, for the fourth year in a row, Kiplinger's Personal Finance
magazine has ranked Rice 4th for best value in private colleges. Consumer's Digest ranked Rice 3rd on the list of top 5 values in private colleges in its June 2011 issue. Fiske Guide to Colleges ranked Rice as one of the top 25 private "best buy" schools in its 2012 edition.
Situated on nearly 300 acres (1.2 km²) in the heart of Houston’s Museum District and across the street from the city’s Hermann Park, Rice is a green and leafy refuge – an oasis of learning convenient to the amenities of the nation’s fourth-largest city. Rice's campus adjoins Hermann Park
, the Texas Medical Center
, and a neighborhood commercial center called Rice Village
. Hermann Park includes the Houston Museum of Natural Science
, the Houston Zoo
, Miller Outdoor Theatre
and an 18-hole municipal golf course. Reliant Park
, home of Reliant Stadium
and the Astrodome, is two miles (3 km) south of the campus. Among the dozen or so museums in the Museum District
is the Rice University Art Gallery, open during the school year. Easy access to downtown's theater and nightlife district and to Reliant Park is provided by the Houston METRORail
system, with a station adjacent to the campus's main gate. The campus recently joined the Zipcar
program with two vehicles to increase the transportation options for students and staff that need that currently don't utilize a vehicle.
system, as proposed by the university's first president, Edgar Odell Lovett
. The system was inspired by existing systems in place at Cambridge
and Oxford
in England. The existing residences known as East, South, West, and Wiess Halls became Baker, Will Rice, Hanszen, and Wiess Colleges, respectively.
Although each college is composed of a full cross-section of students at Rice, they have over time developed their own traditions and "personalities". When students matriculate
they are randomly assigned to one of the eleven colleges, although "legacy" exceptions are made for students whose siblings or other close relatives have attended Rice. Students generally remain members of the college that they are assigned to for the duration of their undergraduate careers, even if they move off-campus at any point. Students are guaranteed on-campus housing for freshman year and two of the next three years; each college has its own system for determining allocation of the remaining spaces, collectively known as "Room Jacking". Students develop strong loyalties to their college and maintain friendly rivalry with other colleges, especially during events such as Beer Bike Race and O-Week
. Colleges keep their rivalries alive by performing "jacks," or pranks, on each other, especially during O-Week and Willy Week. During Matriculation, Commencement, and other formal academic ceremonies, the colleges process in the order in which they were established.
at 10 p.m. on the 13th and the 31st of every month (the 26th on months with fewer than 31 days). The event, long sponsored by Baker College, usually attracts a small number of students, but on Halloween
night and the first and last relevant days of the school year both attract large numbers of revelers.
"Beer Bike is a combination intramural bicycle race and drinking competition dating back to 1957. Ten riders and ten chuggers make up a team. Elaborate rules include details such as a prohibition of "bulky or wet clothing articles designed to absorb beer/water or prevent spilled beer/water from being seen" and regulations for chug can design. Each residential college as well as the Graduate Student Association participates with a men's team, a women's team, and alumni (co-ed) team. Each leg of the race is a relay in which a team's "chugger" must chug 24 USfloz of beer or water for the men's division and 12 USfloz for women before the team's "rider" may begin to ride. Participants who both ride and chug are referred to as "Ironmen". Willy Week is a term coined in the 1990s to refer to the week preceding Beer-Bike, a time of general energy and excitement on campus. Jacks (pranks) are especially common during Willy Week; some examples in the past include removing showerheads and encasing the Hanszen guardian."
The morning of the Beer Bike race itself begins with what is by some estimations the largest annual water balloon fight in the world. Beer-Bike is Rice's most prominent student event, and for younger alumni it serves as an unofficial reunion weekend on par with Homecoming. The 2009 Beer Bike race was dedicated to the memory of Dr. Bill Wilson, a popular professor and long-time resident associate who died earlier that year.
One of the goals of the Residential colleges is to "Sweep" Beer Bike (To win all three races). This has been achieved by one of the eleven colleges. Will Rice College first swept in 1983, then again in 1986, then in 1999, and most recently in 2009. No other college has managed the feat thus far.
The Rice Coffeehouse is a not-for-profit student-run organization serving Rice University and the greater Houston community. Over the past few years, it has introduced fair-trade and organic coffee and loose-leaf teas.
Coffeehouse baristas are referred to as K.O.C.'s, or Keepers of the Coffee. Rice Coffeehouse has also adopted an unofficial mascot, the squirrel, which can be found on t-shirts, mugs, and bumper stickers stuck on laptops across campus. The logo pays tribute to Rice's unusually plump and frighteningly tame squirrel population.
It was founded in 1970, but did not get an alcohol license until 1971. The management and all shifts are staffed by graduate students, faculty, staff, and other volunteers, which helps keep prices affordable for the target graduate student clientele. The pub's patrons have expanded beyond graduate students and other members of the local community in recent years, and the pub has become a regular on the annual "Best of Houston" published by the Houston Press
, being named the "Best Place to Meet Single Women" in 2004 due to the frequency of intelligent conversation and smart, single women.
. After the drinking age in Texas was raised in 1986, the pub entered a period of financial difficulties and in April 1995, was destroyed in a fire. The space was gutted but renovated and remains open.
(The Rice Thresher
), college radio station (Rice Radio), and campus-wide student television station
(RTV5). All three are based out of the RMC student center. In addition, Rice hosts several student magazines dedicated to a range of different topics; in fact, the spring semester of 2008 saw the birth of two such magazines, a literary sex journal called Open and an undergraduate science research magazine entitled Catalyst.
The Rice Thresher
is published every Friday and is ranked by Princeton Review as one of the top campus newspapers nationally for student readership. It is distributed around campus, and at a few other local businesses and has a website on the College Publisher
network. The Thresher has a small, dedicated staff and is known for its coverage of campus news, open submission opinion page, and the satirical Backpage, which has often been the center of controversy. The newspaper has won several awards at Associated Collegiate Press conferences.
Rice Radio is the student-run radio station. Though most DJs are Rice students, anyone is allowed to apply. It is known for playing genres and artists of music and sound unavailable on other radio stations in Houston, and often, the US. The station takes requests over the phone or online. In 2000 and 2006, Rice Radio won Houston Press' Best Radio Station in Houston. In 2003, Rice alum and active Rice Radio DJ DL's hip-hip show won Houston Press' Best Hip-hop Radio Show. On August 17, 2010, it was announced that Rice University had been in negotiations to sell the station's broadcast tower, FM frequency and license to the University of Houston System
to become a full-time classical music
and fine arts programming station. The new station, KUHA
, would be operated as a not-for-profit outlet with listener supporters. The FCC approved the sale and granted the transfer of license to the University of Houston System on April 15, 2011.
RTV5 is a student run television network available as channel 5 on campus. RTV5 was created initially as Rice Broadcast Television in 1997; RBT began to broadcast the following year in 1998, and aired its first live show across campus in 1999. It experienced much growth and exposure over the years with successful programs like "Drinking with Phil," a weekly news show, and extensive live coverage in December 2000 of the shut down of Rice Radio by the administration. In spring 2001, the Rice undergraduate community voted in the general elections to support RBT as a blanket tax organization, effectively providing a yearly income of $10,000 to purchase new equipment and provide the campus with a variety of new programming. In the spring of 2005, RBT members decided the station needed a new image and a new name: Rice Television 5. The station has recently set about revitalizing its staff roster and campus image; one of RTV5's most popular shows is the 24 hour show, where a camera and couch placed in the RMC stay on air for 24 hours. One such show is held in fall and another in spring, usually during a weekend allocated for visits by prospective students. RTV5 has a video on demand site at rtv5.rice.edu.
The Rice Review, also known as R2, is a yearly student-run literary journal at Rice University that publishes prose, poetry, and creative nonfiction written by undergraduate students, as well as interviews. The journal was founded in 2004 by creative writing professor and author Justin Cronin.
The Rice Standard is an independent, student-run variety magazine modeled after such publications as The New Yorker and Harper's. Prior to fall 2009, it was regularly published three times a semester with a wide array of content, running from analyses of current events and philosophical pieces to personal essays, short fiction and poetry. In August 2009, the Standard transitioned to a completely online format with the launch of their redesigned website, ricestandard.org. The first website of its kind on Rice's campus, the Standard now features blog-style content written by and for Rice students. The Rice Standard has around 20 regular contributors, and the site features new content every day (including holidays).
Open, a magazine dedicated to "literary sex content," predictably caused a stir on campus with its initial publication in spring 2008. A mixture of essays, editorials, stories and artistic photography brought Open attention both on campus and in the Houston Chronicle
. The third annual edition of Open was released in spring of 2010.
Rice participates in NCAA
Division I athletics and is part of Conference USA
. Rice was a member of the Western Athletic Conference
before joining Conference USA in 2005. Rice is the second-smallest school, measured by undergraduate enrollment, competing in NCAA Division I FBS football
, only slightly ahead of Tulsa
.
The Rice baseball team
won the 2003 College World Series
, defeating Stanford
, giving Rice its only national championship in a team sport. The victory made Rice University the smallest school in 51 years to win a national championship at the highest collegiate level of the sport. The Rice baseball team has played on campus at Reckling Park
since the 2000 season. As of 2010, the baseball team has won 14 consecutive conference championships in three different conferences: the final championship of the defunct Southwest Conference, all nine championships while a member of the Western Athletic Conference
, and five more championships in its first five years as a member of Conference USA
. Additionally, Rice's baseball team has finished third in both the 2006
and 2007 College World Series
tournaments. Rice now has made six trips to Omaha for the CWS. In 2004, Rice became the first school ever to have three players selected in the first eight picks of the MLB draft
when Philip Humber
, Jeff Niemann
, and Wade Townsend
were selected third, fourth, and eighth, respectively. In 2007, Joe Savery
was selected as the 19th overall pick.
In 2006, the football team qualified for its first bowl game since 1961, ending the second-longest bowl drought in the country at the time. On December 22, 2006, Rice played in the New Orleans Bowl
in New Orleans, Louisiana
against the Sun Belt Conference
champion, Troy. The Owls lost 41-17. The bowl appearance came after Rice had a 14-game losing streak from 2004–05 and went 1-10 in 2005. The streak followed an internally authorized 2003 McKinsey report that stated football alone was responsible for a $4 million deficit in 2002. Tensions remain high between the athletic department and faculty, as a few professors who chose to voice their opinion were in favor of abandoning the football program. Hired in January 2006, new head coach Todd Graham sparked the "Rice Renaissance," the revival of the Owl football program. David Bailiff
replaced Graham and inherits a team poised to continue the success enjoyed in 2006. Sophomore wide receiver Jarett Dillard
set an NCAA record in 2006 by catching a touchdown pass in 13 consecutive games and took a 15-game overall streak into the 2007 season. Rice Stadium also serves as the performance venue for the university's Marching Owl Band
, or "MOB." Despite its name, the MOB is a scatter band that focuses on performing humorous skits and routines rather than traditional formation marching.
In 2008, the football team posted a 9-3 regular season, capping off the year with a 38-14 victory over Western Michigan University in the Texas Bowl. The win over Western Michigan marked the Owls' first bowl win in 45 years.
Rice Owls men's basketball
won 10 conference titles in the former Southwest Conference (1918, 1935*, 1940, 1942*, 1943*, 1944*, 1945, 1949*, 1954*, 1970; * denotes shared title). Most recently, guard Morris Almond was drafted in the first round of the 2007 NBA Draft
by the Utah Jazz
. Rice recently named former Cal Bears head coach Ben Braun
as head basketball coach to succeed Willis Wilson, fired after Rice finished the 2007-2008 season with a winless (0-16) conference record and overall record of 3-27.
Rice has been very successful in women's sports in recent years. In 2004-05, Rice sent its women's volleyball, soccer, and basketball teams to their respective NCAA tournaments. In 2005-06, the women's soccer, basketball, and tennis teams advanced, with five individuals competing in track and field. In 2006-07, the Rice women's basketball team made the NCAA tournament, while again five Rice track and field athletes received individual NCAA berths. In 2008, the women's volleyball team again made the NCAA tournament. In 2011 the Women's Swim team won their first conference championship in the history of the university. This was an impressive feat considering they won without having a diving team.
Rice's mascot is Sammy the Owl
. In previous decades, the university kept several live owls on campus in front of Lovett College, but this practice has been discontinued.
Rice also has a 12-member coed cheerleading squad and an all-female dance team, both of which perform at football and basketball games throughout the year.
Rice's distinguished faculty consists of 1 Nobel laureate, 1 Pulitzer Prize
award winner, 6 Fulbright Scholars, 29 Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Recipients, 8 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
, 1 member of the American Philosophical Society
, 35 Guggenheim Fellowships, 17 members of the National Academy of Engineering
, 7 members of the National Academy of Sciences
, 5 fellows of the National Humanities Center
, and 86 fellows of the National Science Foundation
.
Alumni of Rice have occupied top positions in business, including George R. Brown
, Thomas H. Cruikshank
, the former CEO of Halliburton
, John Doerr
, billionaire and venture capitalist who provided original investments in Google
, Amazon.com
, Compaq
, Netscape
, and Sun Microsystems
, Howard Hughes
, and Fred C. Koch
.
In government and politics, Rice alumni include Alberto Gonzales
, former Attorney General, Charles Duncan, former Secretary of Energy, William P. Hobby, Jr.
, John Kline
, and Annise Parker
, incumbent Mayor of Houston.
Many Rice alumni have gone on to successful careers in the humanities such as Larry McMurtry
, Pulitzer Prize
winning author and Oscar winning writer of Brokeback Mountain
screenplay, and Candace Bushnell
, author of Sex and the City
.
In science and technology, Rice alumni include 14 NASA
astronauts, Robert Curl
, Nobel Prize
winning discoverer of fullerene
, and Robert Woodrow Wilson
.
Rice athletes include Lance Berkman
, Bubba Crosby
, Harold Solomon
, as well as three Olympians
.
Private university
Private universities are universities not operated by governments, although many receive public subsidies, especially in the form of tax breaks and public student loans and grants. Depending on their location, private universities may be subject to government regulation. Private universities are...
located on a heavily wooded 295 acres (1.2 km²) campus in Houston, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The university is situated near the Houston Museum District
Houston Museum District
The Houston Museum District commonly known as, “The Museum District,” is an association of museums, galleries, cultural centers and community organizations located in Houston, Texas, dedicated to promoting the arts, sciences, and cultural amenities of the area.The Houston Museum District currently...
and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center
Texas Medical Center
The Texas Medical Center is the largest medical center in the world with one of the highest densities of clinical facilities for patient care, basic science, and translational research...
.
Opened in 1912 after the murder of its namesake William Marsh Rice
William Marsh Rice
William Marsh Rice was an American businessman who bequeathed his fortune to found Rice University in Houston, Texas.-Biography:...
, Rice has grown into a preeminent research university with an undergraduate focus. Its emphasis on undergraduate education is demonstrated by a 5:1 student-faculty ratio, among the lowest in the top American universities
College and university rankings
College and university rankings are lists of institutions in higher education, ordered by combinations of factors. In addition to entire institutions, specific programs, departments, and schools are ranked...
including the Ivy League
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...
. Rice alumni are prominent in every sector of society today. The university has produced 101 Fulbright Scholars, 20 Marshall Scholars, and 12 Rhodes Scholars. The university has a very high level of research activity for its size, with $115.3 million in sponsored research funding in 2011. Rice is noted for its applied science
Applied science
Applied science is the application of scientific knowledge transferred into a physical environment. Examples include testing a theoretical model through the use of formal science or solving a practical problem through the use of natural science....
programs in the fields of artificial heart
Artificial heart
An artificial heart is a mechanical device that replaces the heart. Artificial hearts are typically used in order to bridge the time to heart transplantation, or to permanently replace the heart in case transplantation is impossible...
research, structural chemical analysis, signal processing, space science, and nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
. It was ranked 1st in the world in materials science
Materials science
Materials science is an interdisciplinary field applying the properties of matter to various areas of science and engineering. This scientific field investigates the relationship between the structure of materials at atomic or molecular scales and their macroscopic properties. It incorporates...
research by the Times Higher Education (THE) in 2010.
The university is organized into eleven residential colleges
Residential colleges of Rice University
The residential colleges of Rice University comprise eleven separate residential colleges which function as the primary housing, dining, and social organization for undergraduate students...
and eight schools of academic study, including the Wiess School of Natural Sciences
Wiess School of Natural Sciences
The Wiess School of Natural Sciences is an academic school at Rice University in Houston, Texas. It contains the departments of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chemistry, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Earth Science, Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy. Rice is well-known for its groundbreaking...
, the George R. Brown School of Engineering
George R. Brown School of Engineering
The George R. Brown School of Engineering is an academic school at Rice University in Houston, Texas. It contains the departments of Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering and Biomolecular Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computational and Applied Mathematics, Computer Science,...
, and the School of Humanities
Rice University School of Humanities
The School of Humanities at Rice allows students to choose from 12 academic departments including art history, classical studies, English, French studies, German and Slavic studies, Hispanic studies, history, kinesiology, linguistics, philosophy, religious studies, and visual and dramatic arts...
. Graduate programs are offered through the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, School of Architecture, Shepherd School of Music
Shepherd School of Music
The Shepherd School of Music is a university school of music located on the campus of Rice University in Houston, Texas. Shepherd School is itself very selective, accepting overall about 10-15% of all graduate applicants and 15% of all undergraduate applicants...
, and Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies
Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies
The Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies at Rice University offers the Houston community the opportunity to study personal and professional areas of interest...
. Rice students are bound by the strict Honor Code, which is enforced by a uniquely student-run Honor Council.
Rice competes in 14 NCAA Division I varsity sports and is a part of Conference USA
Conference USA
Conference USA, officially abbreviated C-USA, is a college athletic conference whose member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports...
, often competing with its cross-town rival the University of Houston. Intramural and club sports are offered in a wide variety of activities such as Jiu Jitsu
Jiu jitsu
Jiu jitsu or jiu-jitsu may refer to:*Jujutsu, martial art from Japan consisting of grappling and striking techniques*Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, martial art and combat sport, focuses on ground grappling, commonly used in mixed martial arts competitions...
, water polo
Water polo
Water polo is a team water sport. The playing team consists of six field players and one goalkeeper. The winner of the game is the team that scores more goals. Game play involves swimming, treading water , players passing the ball while being defended by opponents, and scoring by throwing into a...
, and crew
Rowing (sport)
Rowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...
. Rice athletes include Lance Berkman
Lance Berkman
William Lance Berkman is an American professional baseball outfielder and right fielder with the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball....
, Harold Solomon
Harold Solomon
Harold Solomon was an American professional tennis player during the 1970s and 1980s. He achieved a career-high ranking of No. 5 in the world in 1980.- Tennis career :...
, Bubba Crosby
Bubba Crosby
Richard Stephen "Bubba" Crosby is a former Major League Baseball outfielder who played with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees...
, Arsalan Kazemi
Arsalan Kazemi
Arsalan Kazemi Naeini is an Iranian basketball player who currently plays for Rice University and the Iran national basketball team.He was the captain of the Iranian under-18 national basketball team and has previously played for the main team of Zob Ahan Isfahan at the age of 17 before travelling...
, along with three Olympians.
Background
William Marsh Rice
William Marsh Rice was an American businessman who bequeathed his fortune to found Rice University in Houston, Texas.-Biography:...
. Rice made his fortune in real estate, railroad development and cotton trading in the state of Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
. In 1891, Rice decided to charter a free-tuition educational institute in Houston, bearing his name, to be created upon his death, earmarking most of his estate towards funding the project. On the morning of September 23, 1900, Rice was found dead by his valet, and presumed to have died in his sleep. Shortly thereafter, a suspiciously large check made out to Rice's New York City lawyer, signed by the late Rice, was noticed by a bank teller due to a misspelling in the recipient's name. The lawyer, Albert T. Patrick
Albert T. Patrick
Albert T. Patrick was a lawyer who was convicted and sentenced to death at Sing Sing for the murder of his client William Marsh Rice. Doubts about the evidence caused the governor of New York to pardon him. In 1930 he was disbarred and the disbarment was upheld by the New York State Supreme Court....
, then announced that Rice had changed his will to leave the bulk of his fortune to Patrick, rather than to the creation of Rice's educational institute. A subsequent investigation led by the District Attorney of New York resulted in the arrests of Patrick and of Rice's butler and valet Charles F. Jones, who had been persuaded to administer chloroform
Chloroform
Chloroform is an organic compound with formula CHCl3. It is one of the four chloromethanes. The colorless, sweet-smelling, dense liquid is a trihalomethane, and is considered somewhat hazardous...
to Rice while he slept. Rice's friend and personal lawyer in Houston, James A. Baker, Sr.
James A. Baker, Sr.
James Addison Baker, Sr. was an American attorney and banker in Houston, Texas.Grandfather of the Chief of Staff in President Ronald Reagan's administration, James Addison Baker III...
, aided in the discovery of what turned out to be a fake will with a forged signature. Jones was not prosecuted since he cooperated with the district attorney, and testified against Patrick. Patrick was found guilty of conspiring to steal Rice's fortune and convicted of murder in 1901, although he was pardoned in 1912 due to conflicting medical testimony. Baker helped Rice's estate direct the fortune, worth $4.6 million in 1904 ($ million today), towards the founding of what was to be called the Rice Institute. The Board took control of the assets on April 29 of that year.
In 1907, the Board of Trustees selected the head of the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Edgar Odell Lovett
Edgar Odell Lovett
Edgar Odell Lovett was an American educator and education administrator.He was the first president of Rice Institute in Houston, Texas...
, to head the Institute, which was still in the planning stages. He came recommended by Princeton's president, Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
. In 1908, Lovett accepted the challenge, and was formally inaugurated as the Institute's first president on October 12, 1912. Lovett undertook extensive research before formalizing plans for the new Institute, including visits to 78 institutions of higher learning across the world on a long tour between 1908 and 1909. Lovett was impressed by such things as the aesthetic beauty of the uniformity of the architecture at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, a theme which was adopted by the Institute, as well as the residential college
Residential college
A residential college is an organisational pattern for a division of a university that places academic activity in a community setting of students and faculty, usually at a residence and with shared meals, the college having a degree of autonomy and a federated relationship with the overall...
system at Cambridge University in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, which was added to the Institute several decades later. Lovett called for the establishment of a university "of the highest grade," "an institution of liberal and technical learning" devoted "quite as much investigation as to instruction." [We must] "keep the standards up and the numbers down," declared Lovett. "The most distinguished teachers must take their part in undergraduate teaching, and their spirit should dominate it all."
Establishment and growth
In 1911 the cornerstone was laid for the Institute's first building, the Administration Building, now known as Lovett Hall in honor of the founding president. On September 23, 1912, the anniversary of William Marsh Rice's murder, the William Marsh Rice Institute for the Advancement of Letters, Science, and Art began course work. 48 male and 29 female students were enrolled, paying no tuition, with classes taught by a dozen faculty. Unusually for the time, Rice accepted coeducational admissions.Three weeks after opening, a spectacular international academic festival was held in celebration, bringing Rice to the attention of the entire academic world. Four years later, at the first commencement ceremony, 35 bachelor's degrees and one master's degree were awarded. That year, the student body voted to adopt the Honor System, which still exists today. The first doctorate was conferred in 1918.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Rice Institute was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
V-12 Navy College Training Program
The V-12 Navy College Training Program was designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the United States Navy during World War II...
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
The Founder's Memorial Statue, a bronze statue of a seated William Marsh Rice, holding the original plans for the campus, was dedicated in 1930, and installed in the central academic quad, facing Lovett Hall. The residential college
Residential college
A residential college is an organisational pattern for a division of a university that places academic activity in a community setting of students and faculty, usually at a residence and with shared meals, the college having a degree of autonomy and a federated relationship with the overall...
system proposed by President Lovett was adopted in 1958, with the East Hall residence becoming Baker College
Baker College
Baker College is a private not-for-profit American college in Michigan, founded in 1911. Its campuses are located throughout the Lower Peninsula of Michigan....
, South Hall residence becoming Will Rice College, West Hall becoming Hanszen College, and the temporary Wiess Hall becoming Wiess College.
In 1959, the Rice Institute Computer
Rice Institute Computer
The Rice Institute Computer, also known as the Rice Computer or R1, was a 54-bit tagged architecture digital computer built during the years 1958-1961 on the campus of Rice University, Houston, Texas, United States...
went online. 1960 saw Rice Institute formally renamed William Marsh Rice University. Rice acted as a temporary intermediary in the transfer of land between Humble Oil and Refining Company and NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
, for the creation of NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
's Manned Spacecraft Center (now called Johnson Space Center) in 1962. President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
then made a speech at Rice Stadium
Rice Stadium
Rice Stadium is a football stadium located on the Rice University campus in Houston, Texas. It has been the home of the Rice University football team since its completion in 1950 and hosted Super Bowl VIII in 1974....
reiterating that the United States intended to reach the moon before the end of the decade of the 1960s, and "to become the world's leading space-faring nation". The relationship of NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
with Rice University and the city of Houston has remained strong .
The original charter of Rice Institute dictated that the university admit and educate, tuition-free, "the white inhabitants of Houston, and the state of Texas". In 1963, the governing board of Rice University filed a lawsuit to allow the university to modify its charter to admit students of all races and to charge tuition. In 1964, Rice officially amended the university charter to desegregate its graduate and undergraduate divisions. The Trustees of Rice University prevailed in a lawsuit to void the racial language in the trust in 1966.. Rice began charging tuition for the first time in 1965. In the same year, Rice launched a $33 million ($ million) development campaign. $43 million ($ million) was raised by its conclusion in 1970. In 1974, two new schools were founded at Rice, the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management
Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management
The Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business is one of the academic units of Rice University in Houston, Texas. Named in honor of the late Jesse Holman Jones, a prominent Houston business and civic leader, the school received its initial funding in 1974 through a major gift from the Houston...
and the Shepherd School of Music
Shepherd School of Music
The Shepherd School of Music is a university school of music located on the campus of Rice University in Houston, Texas. Shepherd School is itself very selective, accepting overall about 10-15% of all graduate applicants and 15% of all undergraduate applicants...
. The Brown Foundation Challenge, a fund-raising program designed to encourage annual gifts, was launched in 1976 and ended in 1996 having raised $185 million ($ million). The Rice School of Social Sciences was founded in 1979.
On-campus housing was exclusively for men for the first forty years. Jones College was the first women's residence on the Rice campus, followed by Brown College. According to legend, the women's colleges were purposefully situated at the opposite end of campus from the existing men's colleges as a way of preserving campus propriety, which was greatly valued by Edgar Odell Lovett, who did not even allow benches to be installed on campus, fearing that they "might lead to co-fraternization of the sexes". The path linking the north colleges to the center of campus was given the tongue-in-cheek name of "Virgin's Walk". Individual colleges became coeducational between 1973 and 1987, with the single-sex floors of colleges that had them becoming co-ed in 2006. By then, several new residential colleges had been built on campus to handle the university's growth, including Lovett College, Sid Richardson College, and Martel College.
Recent history
The Economic Summit of Industrialized NationsG8
The Group of Eight is a forum, created by France in 1975, for the governments of seven major economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1997, the group added Russia, thus becoming the G8...
was held at Rice in 1990. In 1993, the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy
James Baker Institute
The James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, often shortened to Baker Institute, is a think tank on the campus of Rice University in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1993, it has become a notable center of public policy research. It is named for James Baker, former United States Secretary of State...
was created. In 1997, the Edythe Bates Old Grand Organ and Recital Hall and the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, renamed in 2005 for the late Nobel Prize winner and Rice professor Richard E. Smalley, were dedicated at Rice. In 1999, the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology was created. The Rice Owls baseball
Rice Owls baseball
The Rice Owls baseball team is the interscholastic baseball team representing Rice University in Houston, Texas. The Rice Owls have been a regular fixture in the NCAA Tournament, participating in every tournament since 1995 including a victory in the 2003 College World Series, the first national...
team was ranked #1 in the nation for the first time in that year (1999), holding the top spot for eight weeks.
In 2003, the Owls won their first national championship in baseball, which was the first for the university in any team sport, beating Southwest Missouri State in the opening game and then the University of Texas and Stanford University twice each en route to the title. In 2008, President David Leebron
David Leebron
David W. Leebron is the seventh president of Rice University. He has been a professor and dean of Columbia Law School, until he was named president of Rice University on July 1, 2004. Leebron is the first Jewish president of Rice University....
issued a ten point plan titled "Vision for the Second Century" outlining plans to increase research funding, strengthen existing programs, and increase collaboration. The plan has brought about another wave of campus constructions, including the erection the newly renamed Bioscience Research Collaborative building (intended to foster collaboration with the adjacent Texas Medical Center
Texas Medical Center
The Texas Medical Center is the largest medical center in the world with one of the highest densities of clinical facilities for patient care, basic science, and translational research...
), a new recreational center and renovated basketball stadium
Autry Court
Tudor Fieldhouse is multi-purpose arena in Houston, Texas. Previously known as Rice Gymnasium, it was renamed in honor of Rice alum Bobby Tudor, who spearheaded the renovation of the facility with a multi-million dollar donation. The court is designated "Autry Court" in memory of Mrs. James L....
, and the addition of two new residential colleges, Duncan College and McMurtry College.
Beginning in late 2008, the university considered a merger with Baylor College of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine, located in the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas, USA, is a highly regarded medical school and leading center for biomedical research and clinical care...
, though the merger was ultimately rejected in 2010. Select Rice undergraduates are currently guaranteed admission to Baylor College of Medicine upon graduation as part of the Rice/Baylor Medical Scholars program. According to History Professor John Boles' recent book University Builder: Edgar Odell Lovett and the Founding of the Rice Institute, the first president's original vision for the university included hopes for future medical and law schools.
Campus
West University Place, Texas
West University Place, often called West University or West U for short, is a city located in the U.S. state of Texas within the metropolitan area and southwestern Harris County, Texas, United States. As of the 2000 U.S. Census, the population of the city was 14,211...
, in the museum district of Houston
Houston, Texas
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
.
Five streets demarcate the campus: Greenbriar Street, Rice Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard, Main Street, and University Boulevard. For most of its history, all of Rice's buildings have been contained within this "outer loop". In recent years, new facilities have been built close to campus, but the bulk of administrative, academic, and residential buildings are still located within the original pentagonal plot of land. The new Collaborative Research Center, all graduate student housing, the Greenbriar building, and the Wiess President's House are located off-campus.
Rice prides itself on the amount of green space available on campus; there are only about 50 buildings spread between the main entrance at its easternmost corner, and the parking lots and Rice Stadium
Rice Stadium
Rice Stadium is a football stadium located on the Rice University campus in Houston, Texas. It has been the home of the Rice University football team since its completion in 1950 and hosted Super Bowl VIII in 1974....
at the West end. The Lynn R. Lowrey Arboretum
Lynn R. Lowrey Arboretum
The Lynn R. Lowrey Arboretum is an arboretum located across the campus of Rice University in Houston, Texas. It is open daily without charge.The arboretum was dedicated in 1999 to honor horticulturist Lynn R. Lowrey...
, consisting of more than 4000 trees and shrubs (giving birth to the legend that Rice has a tree for every student), is spread throughout the campus.
The university's first president, Edgar Odell Lovett
Edgar Odell Lovett
Edgar Odell Lovett was an American educator and education administrator.He was the first president of Rice Institute in Houston, Texas...
, intended for the campus to have a uniform architecture style to improve its aesthetic appeal. To that end, nearly every building on campus is noticeably Byzantine
Byzantine architecture
Byzantine architecture is the architecture of the Byzantine Empire. The empire gradually emerged as a distinct artistic and cultural entity from what is today referred to as the Roman Empire after AD 330, when the Roman Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire east from Rome to...
in style, with sand and pink-colored bricks, large archways and columns being a common theme among many campus buildings. Noteworthy exceptions include the glass-walled Brochstein Pavilion, Lovett College with its Brutalist-style concrete gratings, and the eclectic-Mediterranean Duncan Hall.
Lovett Hall, named for Rice’s visionary first president, is the university’s most iconic campus building. Through its Sallyport arch, new students symbolically enter the university during matriculation and depart as graduates at commencement. Duncan Hall, Rice’s computational engineering building, was designed to encourage collaboration between the four different departments situated there. The building’s colorful Martel Foyer, drawn from many world cultures, was designed by the architect to symbolically express this collaborative purpose.
The campus is organized in a number of quadrangle
Quadrangle (architecture)
In architecture, a quadrangle is a space or courtyard, usually rectangular in plan, the sides of which are entirely or mainly occupied by parts of a large building. The word is probably most closely associated with college or university campus architecture, but quadrangles may be found in other...
s. The Academic Quad, anchored by a statue of founder William Marsh Rice
William Marsh Rice
William Marsh Rice was an American businessman who bequeathed his fortune to found Rice University in Houston, Texas.-Biography:...
, includes Ralph Adams Cram
Ralph Adams Cram
Ralph Adams Cram FAIA, , was a prolific and influential American architect of collegiate and ecclesiastical buildings, often in the Gothic style. Cram & Ferguson and Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson are partnerships in which he worked.-Early life:Cram was born on December 16, 1863 at Hampton Falls, New...
's masterpiece, the asymmetrical Lovett Hall, the original administrative building; Fondren Library; Herzstein Hall, the physics building and home to the largest amphitheater on campus; Sewall Hall for the social sciences and arts; Rayzor Hall for the languages; and Anderson Hall of the Architecture department. The Humanities Building, winner of several architectural awards, is immediately adjacent to the main quad. Further west lies a quad surrounded by McNair Hall of the Jones Business School, the Baker Institute
James Baker Institute
The James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, often shortened to Baker Institute, is a think tank on the campus of Rice University in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1993, it has become a notable center of public policy research. It is named for James Baker, former United States Secretary of State...
, and Alice Pratt Brown Hall of the Shepherd School of Music
Shepherd School of Music
The Shepherd School of Music is a university school of music located on the campus of Rice University in Houston, Texas. Shepherd School is itself very selective, accepting overall about 10-15% of all graduate applicants and 15% of all undergraduate applicants...
. These two quads are surrounded by the university's main access road, a one-way loop referred to as the "inner loop". In the Engineering Quad, a trinity of sculptures by Michael Heizer
Michael Heizer
Michael Heizer is a contemporary artist specializing primarily in large-scale sculptures and earth art .Heizer was born in Berkeley, California in 1944; and he attended the San Francisco Art Institute. Traveling to New York City in 1966, he began his career producing more conventional, small-scale...
, collectively entitled 45 Degrees, 90 Degrees, 180 Degrees, are flanked by Abercrombie Laboratory, the Cox Building, and the Mechanical Laboratory, housing the Electrical, Mechanical, and Earth Science/Civil Engineering departments, respectively. Duncan Hall is the latest addition to this quad, providing new offices for the Computer Science, Computational and Applied Math, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Statistics departments.
Residential colleges of Rice University
The residential colleges of Rice University comprise eleven separate residential colleges which function as the primary housing, dining, and social organization for undergraduate students...
.) The colleges are named for university historical figures and benefactors, and while there is wide variation in their appearance, facilities, and dates of founding, are an important source of identity for Rice students, functioning as dining halls, residence halls, sports teams, among other roles. Rice does not have or endorse a Greek system, with the residential college system taking its place. Five colleges, McMurtry, Duncan, Martel, Jones, and Brown are located on the north side of campus, across from the "South Colleges", Baker, Will Rice, Lovett, Hanszen, Sid Richardson, and Wiess, on the other side of the Academic Quadrangle. Of the eleven colleges, Baker is the oldest, originally built in 1912, and the twin Duncan and McMurtry colleges are the newest, and opened for the first time for the 2009-10 school year. Will Rice, Baker, and Lovett colleges are undergoing renovation to expand their dining facilities as well as the number of rooms available for students.
Rice Stadium
Rice Stadium is a football stadium located on the Rice University campus in Houston, Texas. It has been the home of the Rice University football team since its completion in 1950 and hosted Super Bowl VIII in 1974....
, opened in 1950 with a capacity of 70,000 seats. After improvements in 2006, the stadium is currently configured to seat 47,000 for football but can readily be reconfigured to its original capacity of 70,000, more than the total number of Rice alumni, living and deceased. The stadium was the site of Super Bowl VIII
Super Bowl VIII
Super Bowl VIII was a professional American football game played on January 13, 1974 at Rice Stadium. in Houston, Texas to decide the National Football League champion following the 1973 regular season. The American Football Conference champion Miami Dolphins defeated the National Football...
and a speech by John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
on September 12, 1962 in which he challenged the nation to send a man to the moon by the end of the decade. The recently renovated Tudor Fieldhouse, formerly known as Autry Court, is home to the basketball and volleyball teams. Other stadia include the Rice Track/Soccer Stadium
Rice Track/Soccer Stadium
Rice Track/Soccer Stadium is a stadium in Houston, Texas. It is primarily used for track and field and soccer for the Rice University Owls. It sits on the location of Rice Field, Rice's old football stadium that was used prior to the opening of Rice Stadium in 1950. The venue held less than 37,000...
and the Jake Hess Tennis Stadium. A new Rec Center is being built on campus, which will house the intramural sports offices and provide an outdoor pool, training and exercise facilities for all Rice students, while athletics training will solely be held at Tudor Fieldhouse and the Rice Football Stadium.
The university and Houston Independent School District
Houston Independent School District
The Houston Independent School District is the largest public school system in Texas and the seventh-largest in the United States. Houston ISD serves as a community school district for most of the city of Houston and several nearby and insular municipalities...
jointly established The Rice School
The Rice School
The Rice School is a combined elementary and secondary school in Houston, Texas.Rice, which serves grades kindergarten through 8, is a part of the Houston Independent School District....
, a kindergarten
Kindergarten
A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...
through 8th grade public magnet school in Houston. The school opened in August 1994. Through Cy-Fair ISD Rice University offers a credit course based summer school for grades 8 through 12. They also have skills based classes during the summer in the Rice Summer School.
Organization
Financial endowment
A financial endowment is a transfer of money or property donated to an institution. The total value of an institution's investments is often referred to as the institution's endowment and is typically organized as a public charity, private foundation, or trust....
of $4.1 billion (as of 2011).
Undergraduate and Graduate Schools
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Graduate Schools
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Rice's undergraduate students benefit from a centralized admissions process, which admits new students to the university as a whole, rather than a specific school (the schools of Music and Architecture are decentralized). Students are encouraged to select the major path that best suits their desires; a student can later decide that they would rather pursue study in another field, or continue their current coursework and add a second or third major. These transitions are designed to be simple at Rice, with students not required to decide on a specific major until their sophomore year of study.
Rice's academics are organized into six schools which offer courses of study at the graduate and undergraduate level, with two more being primarily focused on graduate education, while offering select opportunities for undergraduate students. Rice offers 360 degrees in over 60 departments. There are 40 undergraduate degree programs, 51 masters programs, and 29 doctoral programs.
Undergraduate tuition for the 2011-2012 school year is $34,900. $651 is charged for fees, and Rice projects an $800 budget for books and $1550 for personal expenses. Rice students are charged $12,270 for room and board. Per year, the total cost of a Rice University education is $50,171.
Faculty members of each of the departments elect chairs to represent the department to each School's dean and the deans report to the Provost who serves as the chief officer for academic affairs.
Academics
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools is one of the six regional accreditation organizations recognized by the United States Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation...
as well as the professional accreditation agencies for engineering, management, and architecture.
Each of Rice's departments is organized into one of three distribution groups, and students whose major lies within the scope of one group must take at least 12 credit hours of approved distribution classes in each of the other two groups, as well as completing two physical education courses as part of the LPAP (Lifetime Physical Activity Program) requirement. For students who do not pass the university's writing test (administered during the summer before matriculation), a writing class, COMM 103, becomes a requirement.
The majority of Rice's undergraduate degree programs grant B.S. or B.A. degrees. Rice has recently begun to offer minors in areas such as business
Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management
The Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business is one of the academic units of Rice University in Houston, Texas. Named in honor of the late Jesse Holman Jones, a prominent Houston business and civic leader, the school received its initial funding in 1974 through a major gift from the Houston...
, energy and water sustainability, and global health.
Student body
| Undergraduate | Post-graduate | U.S. Census | |
|---|---|---|---|
| African American African American African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States... |
7.7% | 6.2% | 12.1% |
| Asian American Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,... |
23.6% | 13.2% | 4.3% |
| White American White American White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa... |
47.9% | 62% | 65.8% |
| Hispanic American | 12.6% | 8.4% | 14.5% |
| Native American Native Americans in the United States Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as... |
0.4% | 0.8% | 0.9% |
| International student International student According to Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development , international students are those who travel to a country different from their own for the purpose of tertiary study. Despite that, the definition of international students varies in each country in accordance to their own national... |
9.5% | 20% | (N/A) |
Rice enrolled 3,001 undergraduates, 897 post-graduate, and 1,247 doctoral students and awarded 1,448 degrees in 2007. Women make up 48% of the undergraduate body and 35% of the professional and post-graduate student body. 51% of undergraduates and 49% of post-graduates hail from Texas but the student body also represented all 50 states, the District of Columbia, two U.S. Territories, and 83 foreign countries.
12,393 applications for undergraduate admission were received for the class of 2014 (Fall 2010), 2,639 were admitted (21%), and 949 enrolled (36%). In the class of 2014, 72% of ranked freshmen graduated in the top 5% of their high school class, and the inter-quartile range for SAT
SAT
The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a nonprofit organization in the United States. It was formerly developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service which still...
was 650-750 for reading and 690-790 for math. 97% of freshmen re-enrolled the subsequent year and 77% of students graduate in 4 years and 90% graduate in 6 years.
With tuition of $33,120 for the 2010-2011 school year, Rice awarded $55.8 million in financial aid and 2,139 (71.2%) of undergraduates received some sort of aid.
Honor Code
The Rice Honor Code plays a central role in academic affairs. All Rice exams are unproctored and professors give timed, closed-book exams that students take home and complete at their own convenience. Potential infractions are reported to the student Honor Council, elected by popular vote. The penalty structure is established every year by Council consensus; typically, penalties have ranged from a letter of reprimand to an 'F' in the course and a two semester suspension. During Orientation Week, students must take and pass a test demonstrating that they understand the Honor System's requirements and sign a Matriculation Pledge. On assignments, students affirm their commitment to the Honor Code by writing On my honor, I have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid on this (examination, quiz or paper).Research centers and resources
Rice is noted for its pioneer applied scienceApplied science
Applied science is the application of scientific knowledge transferred into a physical environment. Examples include testing a theoretical model through the use of formal science or solving a practical problem through the use of natural science....
programs in the fields of nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
, artificial heart
Artificial heart
An artificial heart is a mechanical device that replaces the heart. Artificial hearts are typically used in order to bridge the time to heart transplantation, or to permanently replace the heart in case transplantation is impossible...
research, structural chemical analysis, and space science, being ranked 1st in the world in materials science
Materials science
Materials science is an interdisciplinary field applying the properties of matter to various areas of science and engineering. This scientific field investigates the relationship between the structure of materials at atomic or molecular scales and their macroscopic properties. It incorporates...
research by the Times Higher Education (THE) in 2010.
- Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology (Smalley Institute) - the nation's first nanotechnology center
- Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN) - promotes the discovery and development of nanomaterials that enable new medical and environmental technologies
- Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) - provides a resource for education and research breakthroughs and advances in the broad, multidisciplinary field of nanophotonics
- Digital Signal Processing (DSP) - center for education and research in the field of digital signal processing
- Rice Quantum Institute - organization dedicated to research and higher education in areas relating to quantum phenomena
- Rice Space Institute -fosters programs in all areas of space research
- Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering (IBB) - facilitates the translation of interdisciplinary research and education in biosciences and bioengineering
- Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology - dedicated to the advancement of applied interdisciplinary research in the areas of computation and information technology
- Baker Institute for Public Policy - one of the leading nonpartisan public policy think-tanks in the country
- ConnexionsConnexionsConnexions is a global repository of educational content provided by Rice University. The entire collection is available free of charge, and students and learners alike can explore all the content they desire....
- an open-content library of course materials developed by Rice University - Rice Alliance for Technology and EntrepreneurshipRice Alliance for Technology and EntrepreneurshipThe Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship is an entrepreneurship program at Rice University in Houston, Texas, United States. The mission of the Rice Alliance is to provide entrepreneurship education and support the commercialization of technology and non-technology innovations and the...
- supports entrepreneurs and early-stage technology ventures in Houston and Texas through education, collaboration, and research - Mid-InfraRed Technologies for Health and the EnvironmentMid-Infrared Technologies for Health and the EnvironmentMid-Infrared Technologies for Health and the Environment is an Engineering Research Center funded by the National Science Foundation. It was launched on May 1, 2006 as part of NSF's larger program of ERCs...
(MIRTHE) - Rice Gallery- the only university art space in the country dedicated to site-specific installation
Rankings
In 2011 Rice was ranked 17th among national universities by U.S. News and World Report. In 2011, USNWR ranked the Jones Graduate School of Management 34th and the Brown School of Engineering 34th. In 2010, Rice was ranked 47th in the world by the Times Higher Education World University RankingsTimes Higher Education World University Rankings
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings is an international ranking of universities published by the British magazine Times Higher Education in partnership with Thomson Reuters, which provided citation database information...
, and 99th internationally (54th nationally) by the Academic Ranking of World Universities
Academic Ranking of World Universities
The Academic Ranking of World Universities , commonly known as the Shanghai ranking, is a publication that was founded and compiled by the Shanghai Jiaotong University to rank universities globally. The rankings have been conducted since 2003 and updated annually...
. Rice University was ranked 115th in 2011 by QS World University Rankings
QS World University Rankings
The QS World University Rankings is a ranking of the world’s top 500 universities by Quacquarelli Symonds using a method that has published annually since 2004....
. Forbes Magazine ranked Rice University 25th nationally among both liberal arts colleges and universities in 2010. The Princeton Review ranked Rice 1st for "Best Quality of Life" and "Happiest Students" in its 2012 edition and one of the top 50 best value private colleges in its 2011 edition. Rice was ranked 25th among national universities by The Washington Monthly
The Washington Monthly
The Washington Monthly is a bimonthly nonprofit magazine of United States politics and government that is based in Washington, D.C.The magazine's founder is Charles Peters, who started the magazine in 1969 and continues to write the "Tilting at Windmills" column in each issue. Paul Glastris, former...
in 2010, and 41st among research universities by the Center for Measuring University Performance in 2007. In 2011, for the fourth year in a row, Kiplinger's Personal Finance
Kiplinger's Personal Finance
Kiplinger's Personal Finance is a magazine that has been continuously published, on a monthly basis, from 1947 to the present day. It was the nation's first personal finance magazine, and claims to deliver "sound, unbiased advice in clear, concise language"...
magazine has ranked Rice 4th for best value in private colleges. Consumer's Digest ranked Rice 3rd on the list of top 5 values in private colleges in its June 2011 issue. Fiske Guide to Colleges ranked Rice as one of the top 25 private "best buy" schools in its 2012 edition.
Student life
Hermann Park
Hermann Park is one of Houston's most-visited public parks. Situated between Fannin Street and Cambridge Street, it is within walking distance from the Texas Medical Center, Rice University, and the Museum District, and within a few miles of the Third Ward, the historic Astrodome and Reliant Stadium...
, the Texas Medical Center
Texas Medical Center
The Texas Medical Center is the largest medical center in the world with one of the highest densities of clinical facilities for patient care, basic science, and translational research...
, and a neighborhood commercial center called Rice Village
Rice Village
Rice Village is a shopping district in Houston, Texas, United States.Rice Village is a collection of shops, restaurants and pubs, situated about a half-mile west of the center of Rice University's campus...
. Hermann Park includes the Houston Museum of Natural Science
Houston Museum of Natural Science
The Houston Museum of Natural Science is a science museum located on the northern border of Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, USA. The museum was established in 1909 by the Houston Museum and Scientific Society, an organization whose goals were to provide a free institution for the people of Houston...
, the Houston Zoo
Houston Zoo
The Houston Zoo is a zoological park located within Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, United States. Housing over 6,000 animals belonging to over 900 species, the zoo receives 1.6 million visitors each year and is the seventh most visited zoo in the nation...
, Miller Outdoor Theatre
Miller Outdoor Theatre
The Miller Outdoor Theatre is the premier outdoor theater for the performing arts in Houston, Texas. It is located on approximately of land in Hermann Park, at 6000 Hermann Park Drive, Houston, Texas 77030...
and an 18-hole municipal golf course. Reliant Park
Reliant Park
Reliant Park is a complex in Houston, Texas, USA, named after the energy company Reliant Energy. It is located on Kirby Drive at the 610 Loop...
, home of Reliant Stadium
Reliant Stadium
Reliant Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium, in Houston, Texas, USA. Reliant Stadium has a seating capacity of 71,500, a total square footage of with of natural grass playing surface....
and the Astrodome, is two miles (3 km) south of the campus. Among the dozen or so museums in the Museum District
Houston Museum District
The Houston Museum District commonly known as, “The Museum District,” is an association of museums, galleries, cultural centers and community organizations located in Houston, Texas, dedicated to promoting the arts, sciences, and cultural amenities of the area.The Houston Museum District currently...
is the Rice University Art Gallery, open during the school year. Easy access to downtown's theater and nightlife district and to Reliant Park is provided by the Houston METRORail
METRORail
METRORail is the light rail line in Houston . It is the second major light rail service in Texas following the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system. With an approximate daily ridership of 34,155, the METRORail ranks as the fourteenth most-traveled light rail system in the United States, with the...
system, with a station adjacent to the campus's main gate. The campus recently joined the Zipcar
Zipcar
Zipcar is an American membership-based car sharing company providing automobile reservations to its members, billable by the hour or day. Zipcar was founded in 2000 by Cambridge, Massachusetts residents Antje Danielson and Robin Chase, and is now led by Scott Griffith, Chairman and Chief Executive...
program with two vehicles to increase the transportation options for students and staff that need that currently don't utilize a vehicle.
Residential colleges
In 1957, Rice University implemented a residential collegeResidential college
A residential college is an organisational pattern for a division of a university that places academic activity in a community setting of students and faculty, usually at a residence and with shared meals, the college having a degree of autonomy and a federated relationship with the overall...
system, as proposed by the university's first president, Edgar Odell Lovett
Edgar Odell Lovett
Edgar Odell Lovett was an American educator and education administrator.He was the first president of Rice Institute in Houston, Texas...
. The system was inspired by existing systems in place at Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
and Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
in England. The existing residences known as East, South, West, and Wiess Halls became Baker, Will Rice, Hanszen, and Wiess Colleges, respectively.
List of residential colleges
This is a list of residential colleges at Rice:- Baker College, named in honor of Captain James A. Baker, friend and attorney of William Marsh RiceWilliam Marsh RiceWilliam Marsh Rice was an American businessman who bequeathed his fortune to found Rice University in Houston, Texas.-Biography:...
, and first chair of the Rice Board of Governors. - Brown College, named for Margaret Root Brown by her in-laws, George R. BrownGeorge R. BrownGeorge Rufus Brown was a prominent Houstonian entrepreneur. Brown led Brown & Root Inc. to become one of the largest construction companies in the world and helped to foster the political career of Lyndon B. Johnson. The George R. Brown Convention Center and the George R...
. - Duncan College, named for Charles Duncan, Jr., Secretary of Energy.
- Hanszen College, named for Harry Clay Hanszen, benefactor to the university and chairman of the Rice Board of Governors from 1946-1950.
- Jones College, named for Mary Gibbs Jones, wife of prominent Houston philanthropist Jesse Holman JonesJesse Holman JonesJesse Holman Jones was a Houston, Texas politician and entrepreneur. He served as United States Secretary of Commerce from 1940 to 1945...
. - Lovett College, named after the university's first president, Edgar Odell Lovett.
- Martel College, named for Marian and Speros P. Martel, was built in 2002.
- McMurtry College, named for Rice alumni Burt and Deedree McMurtry, Silicon ValleySilicon ValleySilicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
venture capitalists. - Will Rice College, named for William M. Rice, Jr., the nephew of the university's founder, William Marsh RiceWilliam Marsh RiceWilliam Marsh Rice was an American businessman who bequeathed his fortune to found Rice University in Houston, Texas.-Biography:...
. - Sid Richardson College, named for the Sid Richardson Foundation, which was established by Texas oilman, cattleman, and philanthropist Sid W. RichardsonSid W. RichardsonSid Williams Richardson was a Texas oilman, cattleman, and philanthropist known for his association with the city of Fort Worth....
. - Wiess College, named for Harry Carothers Wiess (1887–1948), one of the founders and one-time president of Humble OilHumble OilHumble Oil and Refining Co. was founded in 1911. The company would later consolidate with Standard Oil of New Jersey to become Exxon.-Early history:...
, now ExxonMobilExxonMobilExxon Mobil Corporation or ExxonMobil, is an American multinational oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. Its headquarters are in Irving, Texas...
.
Although each college is composed of a full cross-section of students at Rice, they have over time developed their own traditions and "personalities". When students matriculate
Matriculation
Matriculation, in the broadest sense, means to be registered or added to a list, from the Latin matricula – little list. In Scottish heraldry, for instance, a matriculation is a registration of armorial bearings...
they are randomly assigned to one of the eleven colleges, although "legacy" exceptions are made for students whose siblings or other close relatives have attended Rice. Students generally remain members of the college that they are assigned to for the duration of their undergraduate careers, even if they move off-campus at any point. Students are guaranteed on-campus housing for freshman year and two of the next three years; each college has its own system for determining allocation of the remaining spaces, collectively known as "Room Jacking". Students develop strong loyalties to their college and maintain friendly rivalry with other colleges, especially during events such as Beer Bike Race and O-Week
Orientation week
Student orientation or new student orientation, is a period of time at the beginning of the academic year at a university or other tertiary institution during which a variety of events are held to orient and welcome new students. The name of the period varies by country...
. Colleges keep their rivalries alive by performing "jacks," or pranks, on each other, especially during O-Week and Willy Week. During Matriculation, Commencement, and other formal academic ceremonies, the colleges process in the order in which they were established.
Baker 13
The Baker 13 is a tradition in which students run around campus wearing nothing but shoes and shaving creamShaving cream
Shaving cream is a substance that is applied to the face or wherever else hair grows, to provide lubrication and avoid razor burn during shaving. Shaving cream is often bought in a spray can, but can also be purchased in tubs or tubes. Shaving cream in a can is commonly dispensed as a foam or a gel...
at 10 p.m. on the 13th and the 31st of every month (the 26th on months with fewer than 31 days). The event, long sponsored by Baker College, usually attracts a small number of students, but on Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
night and the first and last relevant days of the school year both attract large numbers of revelers.
Beer Bike Race
According to the official website, http://rpc.rice.edu/beerbike/:"Beer Bike is a combination intramural bicycle race and drinking competition dating back to 1957. Ten riders and ten chuggers make up a team. Elaborate rules include details such as a prohibition of "bulky or wet clothing articles designed to absorb beer/water or prevent spilled beer/water from being seen" and regulations for chug can design. Each residential college as well as the Graduate Student Association participates with a men's team, a women's team, and alumni (co-ed) team. Each leg of the race is a relay in which a team's "chugger" must chug 24 USfloz of beer or water for the men's division and 12 USfloz for women before the team's "rider" may begin to ride. Participants who both ride and chug are referred to as "Ironmen". Willy Week is a term coined in the 1990s to refer to the week preceding Beer-Bike, a time of general energy and excitement on campus. Jacks (pranks) are especially common during Willy Week; some examples in the past include removing showerheads and encasing the Hanszen guardian."
The morning of the Beer Bike race itself begins with what is by some estimations the largest annual water balloon fight in the world. Beer-Bike is Rice's most prominent student event, and for younger alumni it serves as an unofficial reunion weekend on par with Homecoming. The 2009 Beer Bike race was dedicated to the memory of Dr. Bill Wilson, a popular professor and long-time resident associate who died earlier that year.
One of the goals of the Residential colleges is to "Sweep" Beer Bike (To win all three races). This has been achieved by one of the eleven colleges. Will Rice College first swept in 1983, then again in 1986, then in 1999, and most recently in 2009. No other college has managed the feat thus far.
Campus institutions
A number of on-campus institutions form an integral part of student life at Rice. Many of these organizations have been operating for several decades.Rice Coffeehouse
Rice Coffeehouse finds its beginnings in Hanszen College, where students would serve coffee in the Weenie Loft - a study room in the old section's fourth floor. Later, the coffee house moved to the Hanszen basement to accommodate more student patrons. That coffeehouse became known as Breadsticks and Pomegranates. Due to flooding, an unfortunate effect of 1) its location in the basement and 2) the Houston climate, this coffee house closed. Demand for an on-campus Coffeehouse grew and in 1990, the Rice Coffeehouse was founded.The Rice Coffeehouse is a not-for-profit student-run organization serving Rice University and the greater Houston community. Over the past few years, it has introduced fair-trade and organic coffee and loose-leaf teas.
Coffeehouse baristas are referred to as K.O.C.'s, or Keepers of the Coffee. Rice Coffeehouse has also adopted an unofficial mascot, the squirrel, which can be found on t-shirts, mugs, and bumper stickers stuck on laptops across campus. The logo pays tribute to Rice's unusually plump and frighteningly tame squirrel population.
Valhalla
Valhalla is a non-profit graduate student pub located under Keck Hall which serves as the social nexus for graduate student life at Rice. It provides the graduate student community and the Rice community as a whole with a family-friendly place to unwind and relax after a long work day, and a comfortable place for graduate students to relax and relate on the woes of graduate research. Additionally, Valhalla plays a pivotal role in many campus traditions including the Baker 13 and Beer Bike.It was founded in 1970, but did not get an alcohol license until 1971. The management and all shifts are staffed by graduate students, faculty, staff, and other volunteers, which helps keep prices affordable for the target graduate student clientele. The pub's patrons have expanded beyond graduate students and other members of the local community in recent years, and the pub has become a regular on the annual "Best of Houston" published by the Houston Press
Houston Press
The Houston Press is an alternative weekly newspaper published in Houston, Texas, United States. It is headquartered in Downtown Houston....
, being named the "Best Place to Meet Single Women" in 2004 due to the frequency of intelligent conversation and smart, single women.
Willy's Pub
Willy's Pub is Rice's undergraduate pub run by students located in the basement of the Rice Memorial Center. It opened on April 11, 1975, with Rice President Norman Hackerman pouring the first beer. The name was chosen by students in tribute to the university's founder, William Marsh RiceWilliam Marsh Rice
William Marsh Rice was an American businessman who bequeathed his fortune to found Rice University in Houston, Texas.-Biography:...
. After the drinking age in Texas was raised in 1986, the pub entered a period of financial difficulties and in April 1995, was destroyed in a fire. The space was gutted but renovated and remains open.
Student-run media
Rice has a weekly student newspaperStudent newspaper
A student newspaper is a newspaper run by students of a university, high school, middle school, or other school. These papers traditionally cover local and, primarily, school or university news....
(The Rice Thresher
Rice Thresher
The Rice Thresher is the weekly, student-run newspaper of Rice University in Houston, Texas, United States. It was founded in 1916, the year of Rice University's first matriculation...
), college radio station (Rice Radio), and campus-wide student television station
Student television station
A student television station is a television station run by university, high or middle school students that primarily airs school/university news and in many cases, student-produced soap operas, entertainment shows, and other programming....
(RTV5). All three are based out of the RMC student center. In addition, Rice hosts several student magazines dedicated to a range of different topics; in fact, the spring semester of 2008 saw the birth of two such magazines, a literary sex journal called Open and an undergraduate science research magazine entitled Catalyst.
The Rice Thresher
Rice Thresher
The Rice Thresher is the weekly, student-run newspaper of Rice University in Houston, Texas, United States. It was founded in 1916, the year of Rice University's first matriculation...
is published every Friday and is ranked by Princeton Review as one of the top campus newspapers nationally for student readership. It is distributed around campus, and at a few other local businesses and has a website on the College Publisher
College Publisher
College Publisher is an online hosted college newspaper system used by hundreds of college newspapers around the United States. The product is an application service provider that provides web site design and hosting...
network. The Thresher has a small, dedicated staff and is known for its coverage of campus news, open submission opinion page, and the satirical Backpage, which has often been the center of controversy. The newspaper has won several awards at Associated Collegiate Press conferences.
Rice Radio is the student-run radio station. Though most DJs are Rice students, anyone is allowed to apply. It is known for playing genres and artists of music and sound unavailable on other radio stations in Houston, and often, the US. The station takes requests over the phone or online. In 2000 and 2006, Rice Radio won Houston Press' Best Radio Station in Houston. In 2003, Rice alum and active Rice Radio DJ DL's hip-hip show won Houston Press' Best Hip-hop Radio Show. On August 17, 2010, it was announced that Rice University had been in negotiations to sell the station's broadcast tower, FM frequency and license to the University of Houston System
University of Houston System
The University of Houston System is a state university system in Texas, encompassing four separate and distinct universities. It has two system centers, which operate as and distance learning course delivery sites for its universities...
to become a full-time classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
and fine arts programming station. The new station, KUHA
KUHA
KUHA is a public radio station serving the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. It broadcasts on a frequency of 91.7 Megahertz on the FM dial. The station is owned by and licensed to the University of Houston System...
, would be operated as a not-for-profit outlet with listener supporters. The FCC approved the sale and granted the transfer of license to the University of Houston System on April 15, 2011.
RTV5 is a student run television network available as channel 5 on campus. RTV5 was created initially as Rice Broadcast Television in 1997; RBT began to broadcast the following year in 1998, and aired its first live show across campus in 1999. It experienced much growth and exposure over the years with successful programs like "Drinking with Phil," a weekly news show, and extensive live coverage in December 2000 of the shut down of Rice Radio by the administration. In spring 2001, the Rice undergraduate community voted in the general elections to support RBT as a blanket tax organization, effectively providing a yearly income of $10,000 to purchase new equipment and provide the campus with a variety of new programming. In the spring of 2005, RBT members decided the station needed a new image and a new name: Rice Television 5. The station has recently set about revitalizing its staff roster and campus image; one of RTV5's most popular shows is the 24 hour show, where a camera and couch placed in the RMC stay on air for 24 hours. One such show is held in fall and another in spring, usually during a weekend allocated for visits by prospective students. RTV5 has a video on demand site at rtv5.rice.edu.
The Rice Review, also known as R2, is a yearly student-run literary journal at Rice University that publishes prose, poetry, and creative nonfiction written by undergraduate students, as well as interviews. The journal was founded in 2004 by creative writing professor and author Justin Cronin.
The Rice Standard is an independent, student-run variety magazine modeled after such publications as The New Yorker and Harper's. Prior to fall 2009, it was regularly published three times a semester with a wide array of content, running from analyses of current events and philosophical pieces to personal essays, short fiction and poetry. In August 2009, the Standard transitioned to a completely online format with the launch of their redesigned website, ricestandard.org. The first website of its kind on Rice's campus, the Standard now features blog-style content written by and for Rice students. The Rice Standard has around 20 regular contributors, and the site features new content every day (including holidays).
Open, a magazine dedicated to "literary sex content," predictably caused a stir on campus with its initial publication in spring 2008. A mixture of essays, editorials, stories and artistic photography brought Open attention both on campus and in the Houston Chronicle
Houston Chronicle
The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. , it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States...
. The third annual edition of Open was released in spring of 2010.
Athletics
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
Division I athletics and is part of Conference USA
Conference USA
Conference USA, officially abbreviated C-USA, is a college athletic conference whose member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports...
. Rice was a member of the Western Athletic Conference
Western Athletic Conference
The Western Athletic Conference is an American collegiate athletic conference, which was formed on July 27, 1962, making it the sixth oldest of the 11 college athletic conferences currently participating in the NCAA's Division I FBS...
before joining Conference USA in 2005. Rice is the second-smallest school, measured by undergraduate enrollment, competing in NCAA Division I FBS football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
, only slightly ahead of Tulsa
University of Tulsa
The University of Tulsa is a private university awarding bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. It is currently ranked 75th among doctoral degree granting universities in the nation by US News and World Report and is listed as one of the "Best 366 Colleges" by...
.
The Rice baseball team
Rice Owls baseball
The Rice Owls baseball team is the interscholastic baseball team representing Rice University in Houston, Texas. The Rice Owls have been a regular fixture in the NCAA Tournament, participating in every tournament since 1995 including a victory in the 2003 College World Series, the first national...
won the 2003 College World Series
2003 College World Series
The 2003 College World Series was held June 13 through June 23, 2003 in Omaha, Nebraska. Eight NCAA Division I college baseball teams met after having played their way through a 64-team bracket to play at historic Rosenblatt Stadium. In the first best-of-three championship series since 1948, Rice...
, defeating Stanford
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, giving Rice its only national championship in a team sport. The victory made Rice University the smallest school in 51 years to win a national championship at the highest collegiate level of the sport. The Rice baseball team has played on campus at Reckling Park
Reckling Park
Reckling Park is the baseball stadium at Rice University in Houston, Texas, USA. It serves as the home field of the Rice Owls baseball team. The stadium was built on the site of Cameron Field, Rice's home from 1978-99, in time for the 2000 season...
since the 2000 season. As of 2010, the baseball team has won 14 consecutive conference championships in three different conferences: the final championship of the defunct Southwest Conference, all nine championships while a member of the Western Athletic Conference
Western Athletic Conference
The Western Athletic Conference is an American collegiate athletic conference, which was formed on July 27, 1962, making it the sixth oldest of the 11 college athletic conferences currently participating in the NCAA's Division I FBS...
, and five more championships in its first five years as a member of Conference USA
Conference USA
Conference USA, officially abbreviated C-USA, is a college athletic conference whose member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports...
. Additionally, Rice's baseball team has finished third in both the 2006
2006 College World Series
The 2006 College World Series was held June 16-26 in Omaha, Nebraska; it was the 60th College World Series and the 57th series held in Omaha. Eight NCAA Division I college baseball teams met after having advanced through a 64-team bracket to play at historic Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium...
and 2007 College World Series
2007 College World Series
The 2007 College World Series was held from June 15–24, in Omaha, Nebraska. Eight NCAA Division I college baseball teams met at Rosenblatt Stadium after having played their way through a 64-team bracket. This was the 61st College World Series overall, and the 58th to be held in Omaha.Oregon State...
tournaments. Rice now has made six trips to Omaha for the CWS. In 2004, Rice became the first school ever to have three players selected in the first eight picks of the MLB draft
MLB Draft
The First-Year Player Draft, also known as the Rule 4 Draft, is Major League Baseball's primary mechanism for assigning amateur baseball players, from high schools, colleges, and other amateur baseball clubs, to its teams. The draft order is determined based on the previous season's standings, with...
when Philip Humber
Philip Humber
Philip Gregory Humber is a Major League Baseball pitcher for the Chicago White Sox.-Early life:Humber attended Carthage High School in Carthage, Texas...
, Jeff Niemann
Jeff Niemann
Jeffrey Warren Niemann is a Major League Baseball starting pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays.-College:...
, and Wade Townsend
Wade Townsend
Wade Daniel Townsend is a Minor League Baseball pitcher who is currently a free agent. He was the Tampa Bay Rays' first-round draft pick out of Rice University in 2005, signing for a $1.5 million bonus...
were selected third, fourth, and eighth, respectively. In 2007, Joe Savery
Joe Savery
Joseph Cain Savery is a pitcher for Philadelphia Phillies of Major League Baseball.-Amateur career:A 2004 graduate of Lamar High School, Savery was a 4 year starter and letterman for the Lamar Redskins under Jorge Garza. During his tenure at Lamar, he earned first team all-state and first team...
was selected as the 19th overall pick.
New Orleans Bowl
The New Orleans Bowl is a post-season college football bowl game certified by the NCAA that has been played annually at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana since 2001. The game was sponsored by Wyndham Hotels & Resorts from 2002 to 2004 and was officially called the Wyndham New...
in New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
against the Sun Belt Conference
Sun Belt Conference
The Sun Belt Conference is a college athletic conference that has been affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. Its football teams participate in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision , the higher of two levels of Division I football competition . The Sun Belt has member institutions...
champion, Troy. The Owls lost 41-17. The bowl appearance came after Rice had a 14-game losing streak from 2004–05 and went 1-10 in 2005. The streak followed an internally authorized 2003 McKinsey report that stated football alone was responsible for a $4 million deficit in 2002. Tensions remain high between the athletic department and faculty, as a few professors who chose to voice their opinion were in favor of abandoning the football program. Hired in January 2006, new head coach Todd Graham sparked the "Rice Renaissance," the revival of the Owl football program. David Bailiff
David Bailiff
- References :...
replaced Graham and inherits a team poised to continue the success enjoyed in 2006. Sophomore wide receiver Jarett Dillard
Jarett Dillard
Jarett Juma Porter Dillard is an American football wide receiver for the Jacksonville Jaguars. He played college football for Rice. He is also the cousin of Rutherford's LeRon Dillard.-College career:...
set an NCAA record in 2006 by catching a touchdown pass in 13 consecutive games and took a 15-game overall streak into the 2007 season. Rice Stadium also serves as the performance venue for the university's Marching Owl Band
Marching Owl Band
The Marching Owl Band is the Rice University "marching band" in the sense that it is the official ensemble that performs during football games, some basketball games, parades, and other public events...
, or "MOB." Despite its name, the MOB is a scatter band that focuses on performing humorous skits and routines rather than traditional formation marching.
In 2008, the football team posted a 9-3 regular season, capping off the year with a 38-14 victory over Western Michigan University in the Texas Bowl. The win over Western Michigan marked the Owls' first bowl win in 45 years.
Rice Owls men's basketball
Rice Owls men's basketball
The Rice Owls men's basketball program is the intercollegiate men's basketball program of Rice University. The program is classified in the NCAA's Division I, and the team competes in Conference USA...
won 10 conference titles in the former Southwest Conference (1918, 1935*, 1940, 1942*, 1943*, 1944*, 1945, 1949*, 1954*, 1970; * denotes shared title). Most recently, guard Morris Almond was drafted in the first round of the 2007 NBA Draft
2007 NBA Draft
The 2007 NBA Draft was held on June 28, 2007 at the WaMu Theatre at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. It was broadcast on television in 115 countries. In this draft, National Basketball Association teams took turns selecting amateur U.S...
by the Utah Jazz
Utah Jazz
The Utah Jazz is a professional basketball team based in Salt Lake City, Utah. They are currently a part of the Northwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association...
. Rice recently named former Cal Bears head coach Ben Braun
Ben Braun
Ben Braun is the men's college basketball coach at Rice University. He previously spent 12 years with the California Golden Bears program and 11 years at Eastern Michigan University, where he remains the winningest coach in school history.-Coaching History:...
as head basketball coach to succeed Willis Wilson, fired after Rice finished the 2007-2008 season with a winless (0-16) conference record and overall record of 3-27.
Rice has been very successful in women's sports in recent years. In 2004-05, Rice sent its women's volleyball, soccer, and basketball teams to their respective NCAA tournaments. In 2005-06, the women's soccer, basketball, and tennis teams advanced, with five individuals competing in track and field. In 2006-07, the Rice women's basketball team made the NCAA tournament, while again five Rice track and field athletes received individual NCAA berths. In 2008, the women's volleyball team again made the NCAA tournament. In 2011 the Women's Swim team won their first conference championship in the history of the university. This was an impressive feat considering they won without having a diving team.
Rice's mascot is Sammy the Owl
Sammy the Owl
-History:Sammy the Owl is the mascot at Rice University An early symbol of Rice's athletic teams was large canvas owl, a tempting target for the Institute's rivals. In 1917, when students from Southwest Conference football rival Texas A&M kidnapped the owl, Rice students pooled their resources and...
. In previous decades, the university kept several live owls on campus in front of Lovett College, but this practice has been discontinued.
Rice also has a 12-member coed cheerleading squad and an all-female dance team, both of which perform at football and basketball games throughout the year.
Alumni, faculty and presidents
As of 2011, Rice has graduated 98 classes of students consisting of 51,961 living alumni. Over 100 students at Rice have been Fulbright Scholars, 20 Marshall Scholars, 25 Mellon Fellows, 12 Rhodes Scholars, 6 Udall Scholars, and 65 Watson Fellows, among several other honors and awards.Rice's distinguished faculty consists of 1 Nobel laureate, 1 Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
award winner, 6 Fulbright Scholars, 29 Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Recipients, 8 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
, 1 member of the American Philosophical Society
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society, founded in 1743, and located in Philadelphia, Pa., is an eminent scholarly organization of international reputation, that promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, publications,...
, 35 Guggenheim Fellowships, 17 members of the National Academy of Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
, 7 members of the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
, 5 fellows of the National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center
The National Humanities Center is an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities. It is the only major independent institute for advanced study in all fields of the humanities in the United States. The NHC operates as a privately incorporated nonprofit and is not part of any...
, and 86 fellows of the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
.
Alumni of Rice have occupied top positions in business, including George R. Brown
George R. Brown
George Rufus Brown was a prominent Houstonian entrepreneur. Brown led Brown & Root Inc. to become one of the largest construction companies in the world and helped to foster the political career of Lyndon B. Johnson. The George R. Brown Convention Center and the George R...
, Thomas H. Cruikshank
Thomas H. Cruikshank
Thomas H. Cruikshank was the chairman and CEO of Halliburton Energy Services from 1989 to 1995. Cruikshank previously served as President and CEO from 1983 to 1989. During Cruikshank's tenure in the early 1990s, Halliburton provided extensive services to Kuwait in the aftermath of Operation...
, the former CEO of Halliburton
Halliburton
Halliburton is the world's second largest oilfield services corporation with operations in more than 70 countries. It has hundreds of subsidiaries, affiliates, branches, brands and divisions worldwide and employs over 50,000 people....
, John Doerr
John Doerr
L. John Doerr is an American venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in Menlo Park, California, in Silicon Valley. In February 2009, Doerr was appointed as a member of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide the president and his administration with advice and...
, billionaire and venture capitalist who provided original investments in Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
, Compaq
Compaq
Compaq Computer Corporation is a personal computer company founded in 1982. Once the largest supplier of personal computing systems in the world, Compaq existed as an independent corporation until 2002, when it was acquired for US$25 billion by Hewlett-Packard....
, Netscape
Netscape
Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...
, and Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
, Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
, and Fred C. Koch
Fred C. Koch
Fred Chase Koch was an American chemical engineer and entrepreneur who founded the oil refinery firm that later became Koch Industries, the second-largest privately-held company in the United States....
.
In government and politics, Rice alumni include Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
, former Attorney General, Charles Duncan, former Secretary of Energy, William P. Hobby, Jr.
William P. Hobby, Jr.
William Pettus “Bill” Hobby, Jr., is a Texas Democratic politician who served a record eighteen years as the 37th Lieutenant Governor...
, John Kline
John Kline (politician)
John Paul Kline is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2003. The district includes most of the southern suburbs of the Twin Cities, including Apple Valley, Inver Grove Heights, Burnsville and Eagan. He is a member of the Republican Party.-Early life, education and career:Kline was born...
, and Annise Parker
Annise Parker
Annise Danette Parker is an American politician and the mayor of Houston since January 2, 2010. She served as an at-large member of the Houston City Council from 1998 to 2003 and city controller from 2004 to 2009...
, incumbent Mayor of Houston.
Many Rice alumni have gone on to successful careers in the humanities such as Larry McMurtry
Larry McMurtry
Larry Jeff McMurtry is an American novelist, essayist, bookseller and screenwriter whose work is predominantly set in either the old West or in contemporary Texas...
, Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
winning author and Oscar winning writer of Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee. It is a film adaptation of the 1997 short story of the same name by Annie Proulx with the screenplay written by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry...
screenplay, and Candace Bushnell
Candace Bushnell
Candace Bushnell is an American author and columnist based in New York City. She is best known for writing a column that was anthologized in a book, Sex and the City, which in turn became the basis for a popular television series and its subsequent film adaptations.-Personal life:Bushnell was born...
, author of Sex and the City
Sex and the City
Sex and the City is an American television comedy-drama series created by Darren Star and produced by HBO. Broadcast from 1998 until 2004, the original run of the show had a total of ninety-four episodes...
.
In science and technology, Rice alumni include 14 NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
astronauts, Robert Curl
Robert Curl
Robert Floyd Curl, Jr. the son of a Methodist Minister is a graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio, Texas and is an emeritus professor of chemistry at Rice University....
, Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
winning discoverer of fullerene
Fullerene
A fullerene is any molecule composed entirely of carbon, in the form of a hollow sphere, ellipsoid, or tube. Spherical fullerenes are also called buckyballs, and they resemble the balls used in association football. Cylindrical ones are called carbon nanotubes or buckytubes...
, and Robert Woodrow Wilson
Robert Woodrow Wilson
For the American President, see Woodrow Wilson.Robert Woodrow Wilson is an American astronomer, 1978 Nobel laureate in physics, who with Arno Allan Penzias discovered in 1964 the cosmic microwave background radiation...
.
Rice athletes include Lance Berkman
Lance Berkman
William Lance Berkman is an American professional baseball outfielder and right fielder with the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball....
, Bubba Crosby
Bubba Crosby
Richard Stephen "Bubba" Crosby is a former Major League Baseball outfielder who played with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees...
, Harold Solomon
Harold Solomon
Harold Solomon was an American professional tennis player during the 1970s and 1980s. He achieved a career-high ranking of No. 5 in the world in 1980.- Tennis career :...
, as well as three Olympians
Olympians
Olympians may refer to any of the following:*The Olympians of Ancient Greek mythology*Those who have competed in the Olympic Games*Citizens of the ancient Greek city-state of Olympia*Citizens of Olympia, Washington*The Olympians of Marvel Comics...
.