Building Rice 1891
WILLIAM MARSH RICE (March 14, 1816–Sept.
23, 1900) establishes an endowment for the “William M. Rice Institute for the Advancement of Literature, Science and Art” to be used for “the instruction and improvements of the white inhabitants of the City of Houston, and State of Texas.” The charter also specifies that the institute will have no religious affiliation and will not charge tuition. Captain James A. Baker (Jan. 10, 1857– Aug. 2, 1941) leads the Board of Governors.
1900
ON SEPT. 23, RICE IS MURDERED by his valet, Charlie Jones, in a plan devised by Rice’s lawyer, Albert Patrick. (Jones turns state’s witness, and Patrick serves time in prison, but is released in 1912.) The Rice Institute’s trustees begin legal work to establish the long-planned institute.
THE RICE INSTITUTE OPENS Oct. 12, with
Edgar Odell Lovett, a mathematician and astronomer recruited from Princeton, as its first president. By laying the groundwork for a university “of the highest grade,” Lovett vastly expands Rice’s educational mission, which originally proposed the “establishment and maintenance of a Free Library, Reading Room, and Institute for the advancement of Science and Art,” as well as a polytechnic school “for males and females, designed to give instructions on the application of Science and Art to the useful occupation of life.” The first class comprises 59 students.
1917
AN ARMY ROTC IS ESTABLISHED on campus and students begin various training exercises in preparation for war.
1920s ENROLLMENT REACHES MORE THAN 1,000
students. While the Rice Institute is off to an impressive start, financial constraints begin to slow its growth.
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Setting the Stage For Change DURING THE 1940S, RICE BEGINS AN EXPANSION built on its science and engineering prowess, nurtured by federal grants in the post-World War II era. The institute’s financial footing is further stabilized by an inheritance from Rice’s nephew (William M. Rice Jr.) and through the discovery of oil and natural gas deposits on its Louisiana properties. But the most important financial windfall for Rice during this time is the purchase of a stake in the Rincon oil field in South Texas. These income streams, say historian Melissa Kean ’00, encouraged “a false sense of financial well-being and a certain detachment from the currents that shifted around it in the late 1940s and 1950s.”
1946
WILLIAM V. HOUSTON, AN EMINENT PHYSICIST,
becomes the second president of the Rice Institute. His charge is to implement an ambitious strategic plan to grow the university. At a time when many other universities are racing to capture postwar federal funding, Rice opts not to diversify its finances through government contracts.
1948 STUDENTS BEGIN TO KICK-START a debate
via the Rice Thresher. On Dec. 1, editor Brady Tyson reprints editorials from the Houston Post and the Houston Informer, both calling for better race relations. President Houston writes a letter to the editor stating that the Rice Institute was “founded and chartered specifically for white students.”
C H A RT E R : C O U RT E SY O F W O O D S O N R E S E A R C H C E N T E R O I L D E R R I C K : BY J O H N T R O ST
1912