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Rice Center for Engineering Leadership | Annual Review
From the Faculty Director
C. Fred Higgs III
Faculty Director, Rice Center for Engineering Leadership John & Ann Doerr Professor of Mechanical Engineering Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
There may never be a more exciting time to serve as the faculty director of the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership (RCEL), the only entity at Rice University dedicated to producing leaders in engineering and technology. Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering released its strategic plan in summer 2018, shortly after the university released the grand strategic vision known as the Vision for the Second Century, Second Decade (V2C2). This means there is a lot of energy and excitement on campus as the various academic units and operational offices gear up to launch new initiatives that aim to lift the stature of Rice University and to pursue specific goals over the next decade as described in the V2C2. Not to be left behind, RCEL has been meticulously planning and spending time in the RCEL “war room” developing what we call RCEL 2.0. RCEL 2.0 refers to the second act of RCEL, which not only aims to prepare Rice undergraduate engineering students to become managers and leaders of teams in the first years of their career, but also to inspire them to ultimately chart a path toward becoming leaders at the top of organizations. There are two facets of the revamped RCEL certificate experience that will enable this. First, RCEL will still provide a rich, focused suite of fundamental engineering leadership development courses. The well-known curriculum of fundamental engineering leadership principles and training experiences have been revisited, revamped, and in many cases, recovered. Numerous core competencies, such as communication, decision-making, and self-leadership remain, but the curriculum has also been augmented with new competencies in project management and engineering ethics to ensure that RCEL students graduate with a mission-minded drive to lead and help organizations flourish. continued on page 3