Community
Community
Decade of Discovery
management case study, a competitive analysis of an episode of Pawn Stars, and a capstone team stock analysis and presentation, students at RSBI also take field trips to companies, including underwriter Bank of America Merrill Lynch, corporate sponsor ConocoPhillips (a sponsor since day one), Reliant Stadium (home of corporate sponsor McNair Foundation/Houston Texans), and the Federal Reserve.
By Weezie Mackey
In January, over a buffet dinner at the Jones School, the Rice Summer Business Institute (RSBI) and its graduates, families, teachers and corporate friends celebrated the start of the tenth year of introducing ambitious high-school students from low- and moderateincome communities to the world of business. For two weeks every June, the program brings rising juniors and seniors from Houston high schools — Chinquapin, Davis, Harmony, KIPP, Reagan, Sam Houston, Wheatley, Yates, YES Prep — to the Jones School for firsthand exposure to the fundamentals of business, finance and energy. Rahsaan King, a Harvard freshman studying economics, statistics and social studies, participated in RSBI as both student in 2012 and teaching assistant in 2013. He has done non-profit work with inner city Houston students and is now founder and CEO of Students of Strength, a network of scholars from top tier universities who serve as mentors, tutors and academic support systems for struggling middle and high school students. “The Rice Summer Business Institute gave me the formal training and experience that prepared me to pursue my passion for social entrepreneurship.” King introduced the evening’s keynote speaker, Jamey Rootes, president of the Houston Texans, who spoke about adversity, how to face a challenge and how to sustain success. His four points to staying on track were to stay humble, stay focused, stay balanced and keep going. “The path to realizing your potential lies with those four points,” Rootes said. “You all have incredible capacity for success.” 34 // JONES JOURNAL SPRING 2014
With strong support from Jones School alumni from the beginning that continues today, the program’s most visible impact is still focused on the students, according to Foote. “To watch the kids’ horizons expand — it’s extraordinary. Because of the summer business institute, they’re able to visualize what is possible for them. Our sponsors, our schools, even our faculty — everyone is changed by this program.”
Lessons learned RSBI Class of 2009 visiting ConocoPhillips
Beginnings Back in the summer of 2002, as the construction of McNair Hall was completed, Professor Barbara Ostdiek gave a tour of the El Paso Corporation Finance Center. The former academic director of the center and present senior associate dean of degree programs and associate professor of finance explained to a group from El Paso Corporation Foundation, the major funder, how the center would be used for MBA students — integrating finance curriculum such as the student-run M.A. Wright Fund, on-going training, and extra-curricular activities such as trading simulations. As part of her role as chair of the committee that designed and launched the finance center, Ostdiek was tasked with imagining an expanded scope for the finance center. She had a few ideas. For starters, the space would sit vacant over summer if it were used only for MBA-related curriculum and activities. With long-term business education in mind, she also felt a segment of the population — low- and moderateincome communities — were not being addressed, and she knew Houston had the talent to increase the diversity of the applicant pool interested in and prepared for an MBA. While growing up in small town, Middle America, she had had little exposure to business and knew
little of the many avenues for careers in business. Was there a way to address use of the finance center and diversity of future MBAs while targeting the business education of a younger set of students? She mentioned her ideas during her tour with the El Paso Corporation Foundation, and it was met with great interest. At the time, the foundation was heavily involved with Project GRAD, the nation’s largest college access program for students in lowincome areas. The foundation associates suggested that Project GRAD might be a good place to start. And so it was. With support and direction from Project GRAD; Dr. Jill Foote (Rice ’87), senior lecturer in finance and director of the finance center; and a hand-picked advisory committee, the Rice Summer Business Institute opened its doors in 2004.
Testimonials from former students bring the real message to the people — a room full of family, friends, faculty and graduates of RSBI. Rudy Ramirez, a 2006 RSBI graduate, formerly with JP Morgan Chase now in investment banking with Key Bank, said, “I grew up in the Fifth Ward. Going to RSBI motivated me to pursue finance and business. It made me realize I could do this.” Paloma Mendoza, a 2011 RSBI graduate who came back in 2012 as a teaching assistant, studies civil engineering at Vanderbilt. “I learned you don’t have to be over 30 to be a leader; networking is important in a career; and that I could be a successful professional.” Kierra Lee, a 2008 RSBI graduate and 2009 teaching assistant, who had, days earlier, graduated cum laude from Texas A&M, said with resounding emotion, “RSBI was a foundation for me to see my potential.” Now that Dr. Foote and James Lenz ’07, associate director of the finance center, have tracked down many of the RSBI alumni, they’re looking forward to celebrating the students’ success stories for years to come, especially the first RSBI graduate who comes full circle as a Rice MBA.
Gaining perspective
Today and tomorrow
When Jill Foote, executive director of RSBI, looks back, she can’t believe it’s been 10 years or that four former RSBI students are now enrolled at Rice as undergraduates — and one, Hector Alvarenga, is a business minor. “These students have been able to accomplish amazing things. They have tremendous attitudes. It makes you realize what’s important in life.”
During a recent recruiting visit to Yates High School, 10 prospective applicants sit knee to knee on a long couch and listen to an RSBI pitch from Lenz. They ask questions about public speaking and how they’ll have to dress. They ask if there will be homework. And then one student asks, “What’s an MBA?” A gentle reminder of Ostdiek’s inspiration — there are a lot of young people, including herself at one time, who know little about business and business education.
Along with a venture capital new business ‘pitch competition,’ a sports
The companies involved as sponsors of RSBI understand this, and they understand that their long-term commitment can transform lives. Dennis Albrecht, COO global commodities at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, has been involved from the
beginning. “We heavily recruit MBAs from Rice. There came a time when we asked how do we become more deeply involved with the Jones School?” RSBI was the perfect answer. “You can tell these students are high achievers. What better way than to support a program that teaches at the high school level?” Long-term commitment indeed. “Bank of America supports RSBI because we know that the experience can be transformative for the participating students – many of whom have little history in their families of going to college or entering a business field,” says David Ruiz, senior vice president, market manager, marketing and corporate affairs at Bank of America. “I had a high school chemistry teacher in south Texas who encouraged me to attend a summer chemistry program at Prairie View A&M, and it had a tremendously positive impact on my life. I know that the RSBI students are similarly being exposed to classes, professors and the campus of one of the nation’s finest institutions. RSBI and partner programs like Project GRAD help address the need to prepare more of our public school students for careers they might not consider otherwise.” Fran Vallejo ’96 echoes the sentiment. The vice president and treasurer of ConocoPhillips was invited to join the advisory committee in the early stages because of her active role as an alumna and her position with a company known for its commitment to education and employee volunteerism. With both monetary and programmatic support from ConocoPhillips, RSBI found its wings. Two summers ago, Vallejo hosted a field trip to ConocoPhillips. RSBI students learned about the energy value chain, careers in the oil and gas industry and that there is a Fortune 50 company headquartered in the city where they live. During that event, Vallejo had a conversation over lunch with Melida Perez-Errasquin. “I told her about a summer program at Colorado School of Mines — my undergraduate alma mater — for multicultural high school students who want to learn more about science and engineering. Last summer I got an email from her saying she was at the program and loving it.” Vallejo still gets excited talking about it. “I can’t believe something I said made that type of impact. Maybe she’ll go to college there or maybe she’ll pursue a degree in engineering or the sciences. We need more diverse young people to pursue technical degrees.” That enthusiasm reveals itself in everyone connected to RSBI, from the graduates and their parents to the Jones School faculty and corporate sponsors. When Texans President Jamey Rootes said, “Any time anything happens for a decade, that’s a big deal. You can call it a success.” RSBI and its staff are looking now to the future, how to expand and improve so that the next 10 years have that same capacity for greatness. SPRING 2014 JONES JOURNAL // 35