Rice University

William Marsh Rice University, commonly called Rice University and opened in 1912 as Rice Institute, is one of the United States's elite institutions of higher education. It is located near the Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas. Rice combines the small size and teaching emphasis of a liberal arts college with the scholarship of a major research university. The faculty is nationally known for its close involvement in nanotechnology research"Nanotechnology; Science of the small could drive big revolution". (May 21, 2004). Houston Chronicle.. Much of the initial development of artificial hearts has also been conducted with the help of Rice faculty. Forty-one years ago, Rice University established its department of space science (now the Rice Space Institute). Fullerenes were discovered at Rice, leading to a Nobel Prize for two faculty members in 1996.

Campus and students

Rice University occupies a heavily-wooded 285 acre campus adjoining Hermann Park, Houston's most historically significant public green space, and the Houston Museum District. Also adjoining is the world's largest medical complex, the Texas Medical Center, and a neighborhood commercial center, Rice Village. Hermann Park includes the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the Houston Zoo, Miller Outdoor Theater 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. All undergraduate students at Rice are given an annual Metro pass, good on light rail and all city buses, free of charge; graduate students can acquire the Metro pass at a heavily discounted rate.

Several interdisciplinary research institutes, schools and think tanks are located on the Rice campus, including the Rice Architecture School, Shepherd School of Music, James Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice Quantum Institute, the Rice Engineering Design and Development Institute, the Rice Design Alliance, the Computer and Information Technology Institute, the Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, and the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology.

The campus itself is organized into a number of quadrangles, and features buildings designed in an eclectic Mediterranean style by Ralph Adams Cram of the Boston architectural firm of Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson. The Academic Quad is centered on the memorial statue of William Marsh Rice. It includes the Lovett Hall, the grand principal building of the university; Fondren Library; and buildings for physics, languages, architecture, arts and the humanities. The Engineering Quad is centered on a set of three sculptures by Michael Heizer collectively entitled "45/90/180" and includes buildings for the electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry and computer science departments. Undergraduates are randomly assigned to the college system, which are modeled on some aspects of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. Nine residential colleges (Baker, Brown, Hanszen, Jones, Lovett, Martel, Sid Rich, Wiess, and Will Rice) act as self-governed social units. A 10th residential college, McMurtry College, is currently in the planning stages.

Each residential college has developed its own traditions, including Baker 13, and the Night of Decadence (also known as NOD). Due in part to the traditions of the college system, Seventeen magazine, read by many high school students, named Rice the "coolest college in the land" in its "Top 100 Coolest Colleges" issue (October 2002).

Approximately twenty percent of undergraduates are National Merit Scholars, and Rice has often enrolled the highest percentage in its freshman class among American universities. Rice has also recently ranked No. 1 for the percentage of its students receiving National Science Fellowships, and it also is known for its strength in the social sciences and humanities. All undergraduate students of Rice are members of the residential college system, and there are no fraternities or sororities. Rice's undergraduate enrollment currently is about 3,000, with a student-teacher ratio of about 5:1. Approximately two-thirds of the students major in two or more disciplines. Rice ranks first among NCAA Division I-A schools in the graduation rate of student-athletes. Seventy-seven percent of the students reside on campus, and intramural sport participation is the highest in the nation. Rice students are locally known for being somewhat geeky and highly insulated from the outside world; hence the expression: "Rice students never leave the hedges," refering to the plantings that both surround the campus and line the academic quad.

Rice has a special program whereby a small number of applicants are admitted simultaneously to both Rice and the Baylor College of Medicine in the nearby Texas Medical Center, allowing them to pursue wide interests as undergraduates without having to worry about medical school admission. Rice is affiliated with more than 500 program sites worldwide, offering students a vast variety of destinations and program options, and Rice students have studied on every continent, including Antarctica.

Endowment and cost

Rice University possesses an endowment of $3.7 billion, fifth-highest per student among U.S. universities. Being relatively generous with these funds allows the university to charge lower tuition, room, and board than most other prestigious private universities. Rice has recently been ranked one of the two best values among 1,600 private universities in Kiplinger's Personal Finance and a Top Five Best Value by Princeton Review, as well as among the leaders in "least amount of debt per graduate" by U.S. News and World Report.

History

Rice University was founded by William Marsh Rice in 1891 and was originally named The William Marsh Rice Institute for the Advancement of Letters, Science, and Art.

Before the Rice Institute could be opened, there were challenges to be endured. William Marsh Rice, 84 and living alone in New York, was poisoned by his valet in 1900. On discovery that Rice's will had been changed to leave the bulk of his estate to a lawyer "friend," Albert T. Patrick, Mr. Rice's lawyers and the New York district attorney uncovered evidence proving Patrick had conspired with Rice's valet to prepare the false will, leading to Patrick's murder conviction in 1901. Legal challenges to William Rice's will continued through 1904, when the Rice Institute finally received a $4.6 million (about $95 million in 2005 dollars) funding endowment. By the time the Institute opened in 1912, its endowment had grown to almost $10 million, the seventh largest university endowment in the country at the time.

Edgar Odell Lovett of Princeton was selected as the first president of the Rice Institute. Lovett undertook extensive research before formalizing plans for the new Institute, including visits to 78 institutions of higher learning across the world in 1908 and 1909. The cornerstone was laid for the first campus building, now Lovett Hall, in 1911. In 1912, course work began. Rice was unusual for that time in admitting both male and female students. The first class consisted of 48 men and 29 women. The student body voted to adopt an Honor System in 1916; Rice's first commencement exercises were held the same year.

In 1930, the founder's memorial statue, a landmark to the campus, was dedicated. The residential college system was adopted in 1957, some twenty years after Yale University did the same.

In 1959, the Rice Institute Computer went online. 1960 saw Rice Institute formally renamed Rice University. Rice donated much of its land to form NASA's Manned Space Flight Center (now called Johnson Space Center) in 1962, prompting President John F. Kennedy to make a speech at Rice Stadium announcing that the United States intended "to become the world's leading space-faring nation." The relationship of NASA with Rice University and the city of Houston has remained strong to the present day.

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 Rice to modify its charter to admit students of all races and to charge tuition. Rice won its case, and charged tuition for the first time in 1965. In the same year, Rice launched a $33 million (about $200 million in 2005 dollars) development campaign. $43 million (about $215 million in 2005 dollars) 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 Challenge, a fund-raising program designed to encourage annual gifts, launched in 1976, ending in 1996 having raised $185 million (about $225 million in 2005 dollars). The Rice School of Social Sciences was founded in 1979.

The Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations was held at Rice in 1990. In 1993, the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy was created. In 1997, the Edyth 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 the University of Texas and Stanford University twice each en route to the title.

School of Architecture

The Rice School of Architecture (RSA) is one of the world's most highly-regarded architecture schools. A 2006 ranking by Design Intelligence, "America's Best Architecture & Design Schools," placed the RSA undergraduate program at #3 (tied with Cal Poly SLO). The graduate program was ranked at #7 nationally. The overall program was ranked at #6 in terms of academic innovation, while the design abilities of students were nationally ranked at #5. The study results were based on a wide-ranging survey of professional design practitioners from all parts of the country.

College system

The residential college system is the focus of the undergraduate experience at Rice University. This takes the place of the typical American university on-campus housing organization of dorms, fraternities, and sororities. When students become undergraduates they are assigned to a residential college randomly (often simply referred to as 'college'), although "legacy" exceptions are made for students whose siblings or other close relatives have attended (or are attending) Rice.

Each college enjoys the diversity of the greater university with regard to majors, ethnicities, personalities, athletes, etc. Students remain a member of the college that they are assigned to for the duration of their undergraduate career. The vast majority of students prefer to live on campus for all four years, but shortage of spaces results in some students being forced to live off campus each year. Students are guaranteed on campus housing for freshman year (as well as three of their first four years), and each college has its own system for determining allocation of the remaining spaces. Most colleges have some form of "room draw," in which people claim rooms in order of seniority. Each college has its own set of buildings, commons, and dining hall (or shares a "servery" with other colleges).

Students tend to develop extreme loyalty to their college and maintain friendly rivalry with other colleges, especially during events such as Beer Bike and O-Week. As a result of this organization the colleges are the central social structure of the undergraduate population at Rice. When asked where they are from, students often reply with their college rather than their hometown. Students social groups tend to, but not always, revolve around their college. This has been the most significant criticism of the college system: that it tends to create groups of friends within a college to the exclusion of people in the other colleges. Colleges keep their rivalries alive by performing "jacks," or pranks, on each other, especially during O-Week (Orientation Week) and "Willy Week," the week preceding Beer Bike.

There are currently nine residential colleges, with six (Baker, Hanszen, Lovett, Sid Rich, Wiess, and Will Rice) on the south side of campus and three (Brown, Jones, and Martel) on the north. Although each college is composed of a full cross-section of students at Rice, each college over time has developed its own personality and traditions to varying degrees. All colleges except Sid Richardson College ("Sid Rich") are organized around their own small quadrangle.

Baker College, slightly smaller than the other eight colleges, is officially the oldest and includes the original wood-paneled library, living quarters, and dining facility of the campus. It is named after Captain James A. Baker, William Marsh Rice's lawyer who uncovered the plot of Rice's butler. Baker was also the grandfather of James Baker III, Secretary of State to President George H.W. Bush and the namesake of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. Traditions at Baker College include freshman camping and a Christmas Tree hunt.

William Marsh Rice Jr. College ("Will Rice College") was the second college created, though its original dormitory building, originally called South Hall, is the oldest building on campus built as a residential college. Will Rice prides itself on its individualism and tends to focus on its extensive winning history in the annual Beer Bike competition. Will Rice was named after the nephew of William Marsh Rice, himself a contributor to the university.

Hanszen College, known for being mysteriously protective of a knight sculpture near their house, was the third college formed. It was soon followed by Wiess College. Wiess is the southernmost college on campus, and has a reputation for being somewhat insular, with a more distinct or visible set of traditions than the other colleges. Their unique customs include the third-floor dangle and the Ubangee. Although the Ubangee is still proudly practiced, the dangle disappeared as human life became more valuable. The residents here refer to their community as "Team Wiess." Wiess moved into a new building in 2002 as the previous facility was rapidly becoming uninhabitable. Some feel that the new Wiess house somewhat resembles a prison, with corrugated looking roofs, steel mesh railings, and narrow passages overlooked by balconies.

Lovett College was opened as an all-male college in 1968 after student riots of the 1960s, with an eye towards being riot-proof. Lovett, named after the first president of Rice, Edgar Odell Lovett, is sometimes referred to as "the toaster" after its rectangular facade and brutalist design. It became co-ed in 1980. Sid Richardson College is the tallest building on campus and was opened in 1971, making Sid and Lovett sister colleges and arch-rivals.

Jones College and Brown College are the two original north colleges. These were followed in 2002 by the third north college, Martel College. As a result of its recent formation, Martel has few traditions and is playfully mocked by the other colleges. However, it is becoming an integrated part of the Rice college system with some of the newest facilities on campus.

In the past, the south colleges were the men's colleges, while the women's colleges were the (at the time) two north colleges. The physical separation made it easier to maintain propriety since reaching the women's colleges required a long walk down a well-illuminated path still known as "Virgin's Walk."

Graduate students are not affiliated with the college system; most of them live in either the university-owned and operated Rice Graduate Apartments at 1515 Bissonnet (the former Southampton Apartment complex, demolished in 1997) or in private housing off campus. The complex is located near Houston's museum district and has convenient shuttle service to and from campus.

The previous "Grad House" -- converted from an "hourly rate" motel -- was demolished and is now a fenced-in grassy field across from St. Luke's Hospital on South Main. It is the projected home of a new Collaborative Research Center, linking Rice and Texas Medical Center research.

Traditions

Baker 13

Baker 13 is one of the most enduring student traditions at Rice University. At 10 p.m. on the 13th and 31st of every month (and the 26th of those months having fewer than thirty-one days), a group of students runs around the entire campus wearing nothing but shaving cream (possible due to Houston's temperate climate during the school year). Although the run usually attracts a small number of students, on Halloween and the last relevant day of the school year (generally April 26th), the event usually has a fair turnout, regularly attracting over 100 students.

The participants run to all residential colleges, often leaving shaving cream impressions by rubbing their bodies on windows and doors. College members often throw water balloons on the runners. The runners usually shout the anti-cheer of the college they are running by and the Baker 13 cheer, "Join us! Join us!" Although the students are naked, the event is non-sexual, silly, and exuberant.

The run usually finishes at Valhalla, the graduate student pub on campus. In recent years runners have been given a complimentary soft-drink in lieu of free beer due to concerns about under-aged drinking. Sometimes the runners continue their run, joined by a Valhalla patron or two who decides to join in on the fun.

Also, when the Olympic torch passed through Rice University, two Baker 13ers ran in front of it.

Night of Decadence

Every year around Halloween, Rice University's Wiess College throws a party called the Night of Decadence (commonly referred to simply as "NOD"). Instead of traditional costumes, students wear as little as possible. Although there are always several people creatively attired in Saran Wrap or fishnet stockings and pasties, the traditional costume is boxer shorts for men, and bra and thong for women. The theme and decorations of the event are always sexual (e.g. James Bondage, Lust In Space). For these reasons, the party is a polarizing event on the Rice University campus. Although it still exists, the decorations have become more conservative in recent years.

Beer-Bike

Beer-Bike, a Rice tradition since 1957, is a combination intramural bicycle race and drinking contest. All nine of the residential colleges plus the graduate school participate with a men's, women's, and alumni (co-ed) team. Each leg of the race is a sort of relay in which a team's "chugger" must chug 24 ounces for the men's division and 12 ounces for women before the team's "rider" may begin to ride. Prior to the increase of the Texas legal drinking age to 21 in 1986, chuggers consumed beer; today, the rules permit "beer or water." Chuggers of any age now generally select water, due to its competitive advantage -- it goes down faster -- over beer. An excellent male chugger can finish a 24-ounce container in about three seconds; colleges place great pride in the skill of their chug teams, though the vast majority of separation between teams is due to the cycling component. 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. Prior to the race, the colleges participate in a parade which progresses the wrong way along the one-way campus inner loop, all the while exchanging a barrage of tens of thousands of water balloons. Preparations for the waterfight and jacks begin at least a month in advance.

There are many other traditions that surround the preceding week (known as "Willy Week"). Colleges "jack" or pull pranks on other colleges - such examples in the past include removing showerheads and encasing the Hanszen guardian. The most notorious and legendary jack was the 180 degree rotation of William Rice's statue. In 1988, a group of Wiess members rotated the statue of William Marsh Rice in the quad away from the administration building to face Fondren Library, thus symbolizing the founder turning his back on the administration.Wiess History (turning Willy's statue) While legend had it that the students were angry over planned tuition increases, this prank was merely that--a prank.

Notable On-campus establishments

Coffeehouse

The Rice Coffeehouse began at Hanszen College, where students would serve coffee in the college's Weenie Loft, a study room in the old section's fourth floor. The coffee shop grew in popularity and expanded into the basement under Hanszen's new section so that it could more comfortably accomodate more students, where it was known as Bread and Pomegranates. Due to flooding in the basement, the Hanszen coffee shop was disbanded, but the basement kept the old name, B&P. Eventually, its absence created a demand that gave rise to current installation. Thus, in 1990, students founded the Coffeehouse as it is today in the RMC student center: a not-for-profit student-run organization serving Rice University and the greater Houston community.

The Coffeehouse is known for being entirely student run and serving fair trade Katz's coffee. It also distributes free coffee before closing during the week, one of the most popular times to visit. The Coffeehouse often serves as a popular hangout, as most of the workers (or Keepers of the Coffee, as they are known) are students. These student workers give it a laid back attitude. Thresher staffers can often be found there, since an advertising deal between the two institutions grants them free coffee.

Recent renovations gave the Coffeehouse a fun, artsy look. http://the.ricethresher.org/news/2005/08/19/coffeehouseredesigned

Supposed plans to expand the RMC and library, including another coffee shop, have spurred controversy on campus. Many students are afraid that this plan could replace the beloved student-run Coffeeshop with a corporate caffeine provider, ruining the fun atmosphere the Coffeehouse creates. http://the.ricethresher.org/opinion/2006/01/27/chaincoffeehouse

Valhalla

Valhalla is a non-profit, graduate student pub located under the Chemistry Lecture Hall, known for its eclectic clientele and cheap drinks. It was founded by Thomas Nichols in 1970, a graduate student in physical chemistry at the time. He envisioned Valhalla as a glue that would hold together the Graduate Student Association. For the first several years the chairman of the GSA would automatically be the manager of Valhalla. Architecture graduate student Vic Gelsomino helped with architectural drawings.

Nichols and materials science graduate student Kurt Alex coined the pub "Valhalla" when listening to Wagner's Das Rheingold, Scene II, during the pub's construction. The scene describes two giants from Norse mythology, Fasolt and Fafner, building the great hall Valhalla as a home for the gods.

Initially the lounge had no beer license. Graduate students kept private six-packs stored in a refrigerator. They were required to record the beers they brought in a notebook. The system had its flaws. "Sometimes sophisticated customers have been irate when their Coors has been drunk by a Budweiser drinker," it was noted in a GSA memorandum to the dean of students, requesting a beer and wine license. By the spring of 1971, Valhalla was up and running with regular evening hours.

Over the years, Valhalla has mostly been used by graduate students, but other adult members of the Rice community also feel at home. It's the kind of place where one can see a space physicist schmoozing with a groundskeeper. In the past Valhalla went through periods of having more "outsiders" than it wanted, but not in recent years.http://media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=4477

In 2004, the Houston Press rated Valhalla the "Best Place to Meet Single Women," given its beer under a dollar and smart, single women. http://listings.houstonpress.com/gyrobase/BestOf/BestOfAward?Year=oid%3A28905&Section=oid%3A28911&oid=oid%3A31641

Willy's Pub

Willy's Pub is an undergraduate pub located in the basement of the RMC. Run by students, for students, Willy's features lunchtime Quizno's subs and Uno's pizza. After 5 p.m., Willy's offers bottled and draft beers for those 21 and over. While Pub Night on Thursdays promises a big fun-filled crowd, the quieter daytime hours allow patrons to relax in front of the big-screen TV, study, or take use the pool table or wireless Internet.http://www.rice.edu/projects/lsc/WebPages/pages/buildingservices.html http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~willypub/

Campus Media

Rice has a weekly student-run newspaper (The Rice Thresher), radio station (KTRU-FM), and campus-wide television network (RTV5). All three are based out of the RMC student center.

The Rice Thresher

The Rice Thresher is published every Friday and can be found around campus and at Kahn's Deli in the Rice Village. It has a small, but dedicated, staff and is known for its dry coverage of campus news, open submission opinion page, and widely popular satirical Backpage. It has won several awards at Associated Collegiate Press conferences.

KTRU

KTRU (pronounced kay-trew) is the student-run, 50,000 watt radio station. Though most DJs are student, 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 oftentimes, the US. This sometimes occurs at the expense of more popular, though available music, such as their lack of Beatles albums. The station takes requests over the phone or online at bash.rice.edu.

RTV5

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. RBT has always held their office in Mudd lab, though their live broadcasts were initially held in the Duncan Hall conference room. RBT experienced much growth and exposure during this year with successful segments like "Drinking with Phil", a weekly news and variety show, and extensive live coverage in December of the shut down of KTRU 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 need a new image and a new name: Rice Television 5.

One of the station'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 is held in fall and another in spring, usually during a prospective students' weekend.

RTV5 has a video on demand site at rtv5.rice.edu, where students can select what shows the network airs.

Athletics

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 on July 1, 2005. Rice is the second smallest school, measured by undergraduate enrollment, competing in NCAA D-IA football, just above the University of Tulsa's 2,756 and far below the largest, Arizona State University with 48,955.

The Rice baseball team won the 2003 College World Series, blasting Stanford 14-2 in the final game. Because of the academic quality of the two finalists, the series earned nicknames such as the "RBIs and SATs Series." The victory made Rice University the smallest school in 51 years to win a national championship at the highest collegiate level of the sport. This is Rice's only national championship in a team sport. The Rice baseball team has played on campus at Reckling Park since the 2000 season, and is by far the school's top athletic program. (The baseball team has won 12 consecutive conference championships in three different conferences – the final championship of the defunct Southwest Conference, all 10 championships while a member of the Western Athletic Conference, and the championship in its first year as a member of Conference USA.)

Rice Stadium seats 72,000 (more than the total number of living alumni) and 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. In addition to football, 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 which focuses on performing humorous skits and routines rather than traditional formation marching. Prior to the dissolution of the Southwest Conference, some of the most entertaining half-time shows to watch were during Rice vs. Texas A&M games, if only for the sheer contrast of the pure military precision of the Aggie Band versus the irreverent wackiness of the MOB. As for the football team, it has a long history of losing. The last bowl game the team appeared in was back in 1961. Its eight wins in 2001 were the most in any one season since 1953. It set a record in late 2005 by losing its 14th consecutive game. This streak - the longest active in college football at the time, 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 most professors who choose to voice their opinion are in favor of abandoning the football program.

Rice's mascot is an owl named Sammy. In previous decades the university kept several live owls on campus in front of Lovett College, but this has been discontinued.

References

External links

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