Rice Magazine Issue 14

| New Alumni Director

3

•

| Rice Seminars

4

•

| Amazing Paint

5

•

| Being a Master

8

| History Books

42

•

THINGS WE

The Magazine of Rice University

•

No. 14 | 2012

The Centennial Beetle (aka the Centenni-Bug) has been owl about town.

Contents

5 Is it Higgs boson?

Rice physicists explain.

9 Rice joins online

education platform.

7 To thrive at work, just be yourself.

41 Composer William 2

A paint with built-in power

Bolcom presents the “Ninth Symphony.”

3 Carrie Brown joins

Alumni Affairs as executive director.

4 Yearlong seminar addresses human trafficking.

13

100 things we love about Rice — our once-in-acentury compendium of favorites.

40 Rice Gallery

presents AfricanAmerican art.

8 Meet the Jones College masters.

46

Becky Wade ’12 stumbles but just keeps on running.

Rice Magazine

F o r e w o r d

No. 14 Published by the Office of Public Affairs Linda Thrane, vice president Editor Lynn Gosnell Editorial Director Tracey Rhoades Creative Director Jeff Cox Graphic Designers Dean Mackey Jackie Limbaugh Chuck Thurmon Editorial Staff B.J. Almond, staff writer Jade Boyd, staff writer Amy Hodges, staff writer Jenny West Rozelle, assistant editor David Ruth, staff writer Mike Williams, staff writer Photographers Tommy LaVergne, photographer Jeff Fitlow, assistant photographer The Rice University Board of Trustees James W. Crownover, chairman; Edward B. “Teddy” Adams Jr; J.D. Bucky Allshouse; D. Kent Anderson; Keith T. Anderson; Laura Arnold; Subha Viswanathan Barry; Suzanne Deal Booth; Robert T. Brockman; Albert Chao; T. Jay Collins; Lynn Laverty Elsenhans; Lawrence Guffey; James T. Hackett; John Jaggers; Larry Kellner; R. Ralph Parks; Lee H. Rosenthal; Charles Szalkowski; Robert M. Taylor Jr; Robert B. Tudor III; James S. Turley; Lewis “Rusty” Williams; Randa Duncan Williams.

Administrative Officers David W. Leebron, president; George McLendon, provost; Kathy Collins, vice president for Finance; Kevin Kirby, vice president for Administration; Chris Muñoz, vice president for Enrollment; Allison Kendrick Thacker, vice president for Investments and treasurer; Linda Thrane, vice president for Public Affairs; Richard A. Zansitis, vice president and general counsel; Darrow Zeidenstein, vice president for Resource Development.

Rice Magazine is published by the Office of Public Affairs of Rice University and is sent to university alumni, faculty, staff, graduate students, parents of undergraduates and friends of the university.

Editorial Offices Creative Services–MS 95 P.O. Box 1892 Houston, TX 77251-1892

One Ginormus List

This issue of Rice Magazine is chock-full of centennial goodness, including a shelf of new books about Rice’s history, a gallery of images by African-American artists and a note about composer William Bolcom’s “Ninth Symphony.”

“Through the Sallyport” includes a news story about a lithium-ion battery that can be painted on just about any surface, as well as other remarkable examples of faculty research and creativity.

We’re kicking off a new department that focuses on Rice staff — in this issue, meet Jones College masters Michel and Melanie Achard. Last, but definitely not least, read about Becky Wade ’12, a Watson Fellow and cross-country star whose Olympic dreams are just beginning. But the heart and soul of our fall issue is a blockbuster listicle, “100 Things We Love About Rice.” This compendium is our gift to you, Rice Magazine’s readers, in honor of a milestone in our collective history.

Speaking of gifts, we’re especially excited about the roster of distinguished speakers for Rice’s Centennial Lecture Series. These include human genome pioneer J. Craig Venter, who will give a talk titled “From Reading to Writing the Genetic Code”; Pritzker Architecture Prize-winner Rem Koolhaas, who will speak about “Architecture as a Global Practice”; angel investor, entrepreneur and former journalist Esther Dyson, who will speak on “Traveling Behind the Scenes”; and theoretical physicist Shirley Ann Jackson, the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who will speak on “Valuing Science: Exploring Our Past, Securing Our Future.” Rice will also welcome the Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts to campus for a public conversation. For those unable to attend the lectures and other festivities, much of our centennial programming will be archived online. Check out the centennial website for stories and more by clicking http://centennial.rice.edu.

And of course read all about it in the next issue of Rice Magazine.

President David W. Leebron’s message reminds us that the events of October 2012 will echo and honor the grand celebration that marked the opening of Rice university a century before and will take into account Rice’s many accomplishments. “When we come together to celebrate our centennial, we do not merely celebrate the extraordinary men, women and events of 1912, but the women, men and accomplishments of every year since,” he writes. We have much to dream and discover and do.

About that word, listicle — a portmanteau that means part list and part article. Listicles are ubiquitous in print and online magazines and blogs (and quite a few alumni magazines). We hope you enjoy our once-in-a-century production. Feel free to send me any special things you happen to love about Rice that you don’t see there and, as always, we welcome your feedback. Send your thoughts, favorite portmanteau words and listicles to ricemagazine@rice.edu.

And follow @RiceMagazine on Twitter.

Fax: 713-348-6757 Email: ricemagazine@rice.edu ©S eptem ber 2012 R i ce U n i v e rs i ty Online at: w w w. i ssuu. co m / ri ce u n i v e rs i ty

Lynn Gosnell lynn.gosnell@rice.edu

through the

Sallyport

Paint-on Battery Discovery Makes News In June, Rice engineers announced the development of a lithium-ion battery that can be painted on virtually any surface. The rechargeable battery created in the lab of Rice materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan consists of spray-painted layers, each representing the components in a traditional battery. “This means traditional packaging for batteries has given way to a much more flexible approach that allows all kinds of new design and integration possibilities for storage devices,” said Ajayan, Rice’s Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and professor of chemistry.

The research appeared in Nature’s Scientific Reports. Lead author Neelam Singh, a Rice graduate student, and her team spent painstaking hours formulating, mixing and testing paints for each of the five layered components — two current collectors, a cathode, an anode and a polymer separator in the middle. The materials were airbrushed onto ceramic bathroom tiles, flexible polymers, glass, stainless steel and even a beer stein to see how well they would bond with each substrate. Once painted, the tiles and other items were infused with the electrolyte and then heat-sealed and charged.

Singh said the batteries were easily charged with a small solar cell. She foresees the possibility of integrating paintable batteries with paintable solar cells to create an energyharvesting combination that would be hard to beat. The Rice researchers have filed for a patent on the technique, which they will continue to refine. “We really do consider this a paradigm changer,” she said.

Professor Pulickel Ajayan (center) with graduate students Charudatta Galande (left) and Neelam Singh (right), demonstrate the paintable battery concept. To check out the video, visit http://news.rice. edu/2012/06/28/rice-researchers-develop-paintable-battery-2/.

Know More: ››› ricemagazine.info/128 Watch the video ›› › ricemagazine.info/129

2

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

This October, Carrie Brown, Rice’s new

executive director of Alumni Affairs, will be everywhere at once. Or so it may seem as Brown navigates her first alumni homecoming and reunion weekend, which occurs contiguously with Rice’s much-anticipated Centennial Celebration.

That’s a Texas-sized helping of welcome for the director who arrived last May after a 16-year tenure at Smith College in Northampton, Mass.

Though the “drinking from the water hose” schedule may be unprecedented, Brown views the centennial year start date as a real advantage.

“It gives me an opportunity to meet so many people, and that’s what alumni relations is all about — getting to know the constituency well,” Brown said.

And despite the obvious differences between Smith, a distinguished liberal arts college for women in Massachusetts, and Rice, a distinguished coed research university in Texas, Brown noted that there are similarities that may not be obvious. For example, both schools have alumni groups totaling about 47,000. In addition, “Smith has a lot of Houstonians in its alumni ranks,” Brown said, “some of whom have been generous to Rice as well as Smith.”

Most of all, Brown said, “Both alumni bodies are incredibly bright, engaged and devoted. They’re really smart people who are interested in maintaining that intellectual connection to the university as well as their social connections to their friends.”

This past summer, Brown was busy hiring staff. Robyn Blackmon, director of alumni communications; Kate Almond, assistant director of alumni events and programs; and Monica Sedelmeier, alumni affairs specialist, have joined the alumni staff. They will join veteran staff members Jennifer Harding, Dan Stypa, Roque Strew, LaCresha Lamb and Veronica Bernal in the Huff House office.

Brown has also been working diligently with Rice Public Affairs staff to

Carrie Brown Would Like to Meet You

The new executive director of Alumni Affairs prepares for a once-in-a-lifetime trifecta of alumni-centered events this fall — Rice Homecoming and Reunion 2012 and Rice’s Centennial Celebration. create and launch an interactive Alumni Affairs website. The website is a key tool in realizing the Association of Rice Alumni (ARA) board’s strategic goals of lifelong learning, alumni recognition, effective communication and strengthening the organization’s identity, she said.

“All those things hang so much on virtual communications that you really need a website to take it to people,” Brown said. “Amazon has done a great job of making us all think we can have anything that’s tailored to us any time of the day that we want it. People really expect that from their alma mater at this point.

“I hope we have a website that is not just a place where people come to look someone up or see what’s going on.

It’s not a transaction. It’s really building a relationship with people, virtually. I hope it can be a place where people can exchange ideas and engage with one another,” she said.

At Smith, Brown helped alumnae engage with their alma mater — and each other — through webinars, travel programs, alumnae presentations, seminars and other innovative programming.

“Carrie has made the entire body of alumnae extremely interconnected and very accessible, one to the other, and I think that is a very healthy direction for an alumni affairs program to go in,” said Gloria Meckel Tarpley ’81, ARA board president.

Brown would also like to strengthen connections between alumni and current students. To that end, Alumni Affairs and the Center for Career Development are hiring a shared position to help students engage alumni in their career search.

As for the month of October, Brown and her staff have prepared for the five- and 10-year class reunions stretching back to the Class of 1952, as well as a full schedule of tours, events, children’s programming, gallery talks, concerts, films, academic talks, alumni lectures and numerous receptions.

A smiling Brown will be a ubiquitous presence at the October 2012 celebrations. She’s ready to shake your hand.

Perhaps you could offer her a chair.

—Lynn Gosnell

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

3

Inaugural Rice Seminar to Focus on

Human Trafficking Coerced labor. Slavery. Human trafficking. These words all describe a cruel and complex system for the exploitation of labor, a phenomenon that is recognized as a significant historical component in U.S. history as well as a growing contemporary and international human rights crisis.

The School of Humanities’ inaugural Rice Seminar is titled “Human Trafficking — Past and Present: Crossing Disciplines, Crossing Borders.”

The yearlong think tank will bring together a group of scholars to examine this phenomenon from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives.

“We believe that an engagement between historical understandings of slave systems and current analyses of modern human trafficking will generate new knowledge about the past and the present,” said Kerry Ward, associate professor of history. Ward and James Sidbury, the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities and professor of history, are leading this year’s seminars.

Four additional Rice-affiliated faculty are participating: Rebecca A.

“We believe that an engagement between historical understandings of slave systems and current analyses of modern human trafficking will generate new knowledge about the past and the present.”

—Kerry Ward

Goetz, assistant professor of history; Kimberly Kay Hoang, postdoctoral fellow in the Program in Poverty, Justice and Human Capabilities; Rachel Hooper, graduate student in the Department of Art History; and Meina Yates-Richard, graduate student in the Department of English.

External faculty are Sheryl McCurdy, associate professor in the division of health promotion and behavioral science and the division of management, policy and community health at the University of Texas

4

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

School of Public Health; Jennifer Musto, Ph.D., UCLA; Deliana Popova, Ph.D., University of Hamburg, Germany; and Robert W. Slenes, professor of history at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil.

This year’s seminar includes a significant public outreach and programming component. For example, legislators, prosecutors and nongovernmental organizations involved in protecting victims of trafficking and trafficking victims will participate.

“Given the growing interest on campus, in Houston and throughout the world in the struggle against human trafficking, the Rice Seminar has the chance to create reciprocal ties between a vibrant body of scholarship in the humanities and a humanitarian crisis in the world today,” said Sidbury.

The human trafficking seminar is organized into four sections that examine the topic through global and local lenses and track a historical trajectory that links the slave systems of the past to contemporary networks of human trafficking.

The first will deal with what Sidbury and Ward call “the age of slavery” — from antiquity to 1815. The second will examine the global effort to emancipate slaves. The third will take up the emergence of a new trade in human beings that continues today, despite being outlawed in most countries. Finally, the seminar will turn to a local context, focusing on Houston as an important hub of human trafficking.

The segment on Houston is expected to play a key role in bringing together scholars from the humanities and the social sciences, as well as nonacademics in law enforcement, NGOs and others active in fighting human trafficking. With this segment, the seminar proposes to ask important questions about networks and practices of human trafficking that intersect with the local Houston community.

The Rice Seminars program is an initiative of the Office of the Dean of Humanities and is funded by the Office of the Provost, the School of Humanities and the Humanities Research Center.

—Lynn Gosnell

For more information about the Rice Seminar: › › › http://hrc.rice.edu/riceseminars

Rice Physicists at the Forefront of Particle Discovery

Using Paint to Find Structural Flaws Here’s another great use for paint — revealing structural flaws. A new type of paint made with carbon nanotubes at Rice University can help detect strain in buildings, bridges and airplanes. The Rice scientists call their mixture “strain paint” and are hopeful it can help detect deformations in structures like airplane wings. Rice Chemistry Professor Bruce Weisman led the discovery and interpretation of near-infrared fluorescence from semiconducting carbon nanotubes in 2002, and he has since developed and used novel optical instrumentation to explore nanotubes’ physical and chemical properties. This method could tell where a material is showing signs of deformation well before the effects become visible to the naked eye and without touching the structure.

Satish Nagarajaiah, a Rice professor of civil and environmental engineering and of mechanical engineering and materials science, and his collaborators led the 2004 development of strain sensing for structural integrity monitoring at the macro level using the electrical properties of carbon nanofilms — dense networks/ensembles of nanotubes.

Since then, he has continued to investigate novel strain-sensing methods using various nanomaterials. It was a stroke of luck when Weisman and Nagarajaiah attended the same NASA workshop in 2010. There, Weisman gave a talk on nanotube fluorescence.

As a flight of fancy, he said, he included an illustration of a hypothetical system that would use lasers to reveal strains in the nano-coated wing of a space shuttle.

“I went up to him afterward and said, ‘Bruce, do you know we can actually try to see if this works?’” recalled Nagarajaiah. Strain paint could be designed with multifunctional properties for specific applications. Weisman said the project will require further development of the coating before such a product can go to market.

—Mike Williams

Read more: ››› http://tinyurl.com/rice-nanopaint

Rice entering class numbers: Fall 2012 Total number of new students: 935 Percent of women: 51% From outside of Texas: 57%

Country with most international freshmen at Rice: China (49) Countries with one international freshman at Rice: Austria, Guatemala, Indonesia, New Zealand, Poland, Singapore, Sweden

Admit rate: 17% Percent of international students 10%

Last summer, basic physics captured the world’s imagination, as both the public and the scientific community heard about the confirmation of a neverobserved subatomic particle. On July 4, Rice physicists joined their colleagues and other scientists working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland for the announcement of the discovery of a particle that they say is consistent with the powerful, yet infinitesimal, Higgs boson.

The search for the Higgs particle is at the heart of the most expensive science project in history: CERN’s $6 billion Large Hadron Collider. The recent discovery marks a historic chapter in physics: The

particle is the final unobserved piece of the puzzle called the Standard Model, a model that jibes with every particle physics experiment ever performed.

The Higgs, a type of particle known as a boson, is one of the linchpins of the Standard Model.

“To use an analogy from CSI: We’ve found a body, but we need to wait for the DNA results to declare it the Higgs,” said Rice particle physicist Paul Padley, a co-investigator on the LHC Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment. “We’re not calling this the Higgs for the same reason the police don't guess about the identity of a body. It’s our responsibility to be sure.”

The Higgs is theorized to be the mechanism by which all particles of nature get their mass, said Frank Geurts, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Rice and a co-investigator on the CMS experiment. “So, if we don't find the Higgs particle — if that’s not there — then we seriously have to rethink why we exist at all.”

— Jade Boyd

Source: http://futureowls.rice.edu/ futureowls/Freshman_Profile.asp

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

5

Tracking Vaccinations Do you know where your immunization record is? A team of student inventors from Rice, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and the University of Texas School of Public Health have developed an app to help parents and individuals keep up with the often-elusive, but essential, health record.

The team invented a Web-based app called VaxNation, a free immunization planner and tracker that integrates the Web, social media and mobile devices to make online records easily accessible to patients, parents and clinicians from anywhere with an Internet connection.

Their innovation won first prize in this year’s Institute of Medicine of the National Academies’ Go Viral to Improve Health competition.

Team members are Hashim Zaidi ’11 and Emma Corbett, medical and public health students in a joint degree program at BCM and The University of Texas School of Public Health, part of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston; Ronnie Ren ’11, a medical student at BCM; and Peter Kamel ’12 and George Chen ’12, who graduated from the George R. Brown School of Engineering.

The Web-based VaxNation app ties vaccination data for individuals to a reminder system and information about the diseases each immunization addresses. It also incorporates the properties of social media that allow the program to go “viral,” a key goal of the contest meant to inspire positive action at the community level.

—Mike Williams

Read more: ››› www.vaxnation.org

Shepherd School to Offer Artist Diploma in Music Program The Shepherd School of Music is now offering

an Artist Diploma in Music for gifted performers seeking a highly advanced level of performance study. The two-year program is intended for postmaster’s degree students interested in training at the highest levels of musical performance.

The artist diploma will complement the doctoral program, which focuses more heavily on teaching and research, and will accept up to nine students per year, with a maximum of 18 students in the program at any one time.

“We’re looking for a select group of exceptional students in specialized areas, including orchestral, chamber music, opera and solo performance,” said Robert Yekovich, dean of the Shepherd School. Norman Fischer, the Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Cello, said the artist diploma is a different approach than the school’s other programs. “The students will spend a year immersed in private lessons, community engagement and performance projects,” he said. “In addition, students will report to a group of teachers who are part of a committee in charge of instruction.”

—Amy Hodges

Learn more: › › › www.music.rice.edu 6

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

JUST BE YOU Hiding your true social identity — race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation or disability — at work can result in decreased job satisfaction and increased turnover, according to a recent study from Rice University, the University of Houston and George Mason University.

“The workplace is becoming a much more diverse place, but there are still some individuals who have difficulty embracing what makes them different, especially while on the job,” said Michelle Hebl, Rice professor of psychology and of management and co-author of “Bringing Social Identity to Work: The Influence of Manifestation and Suppression on Perceived Discrimination, Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intentions.” The study examined the behavior of 211 working adults in an online survey and measured factors such as identity, perceived discrimination, job satisfaction and turnover intentions. “This research highlights the fact that people make decisions every day about whether it is safe to be themselves at work, and that there are real consequences of these decisions,” said Eden King ’01, study co-author and associate professor of psychology at George Mason University.

The research finds that expression of one’s true identity in a workplace can have a positive impact on interpersonal relationships.

“When individuals embrace their social identity in the workplace, other co-workers might be more sensitive to their behavior and treatment of individuals like them,” said Juan Madera ’05, lead study author and an assistant professor of the Conrad N. Hilton College at the University of Houston. “And quite often, what’s good for the worker is good for the workplace. The employees feel accepted and have better experiences with co-workers, which creates a positive working environment that may lead to decreased turnover and greater profits.”

Feeding the Wireless Rice researchers have developed a multi-antenna technology

that could help wireless providers keep pace with the voracious demands of data-hungry smartphones and tablets. The technology aims to dramatically increase network capacity by allowing cell towers to simultaneously beam signals to more than a dozen customers on the same frequency.

The new technology, dubbed Argos, is under development by researchers from Rice, Bell Labs and Yale University.

A prototype built at Rice this year uses 64 antennas to allow a single wireless base station to communicate directly to 15 users simultaneously with narrowly focused directional beams.

“The technical term for this is multi-user beamforming,” said Argos project co-leader Lin Zhong, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and of computer science at Rice. “The key is to have many antennas, because the more antennas you have, the more users you can serve.”

The Argos prototype, which was built by Rice graduate student Clayton Shepard, uses an array of antennas and off-the-shelf hardware — including several dozen open-access test devices called WARP boards that were invented at Rice’s Center for Multimedia Communication. Zhong said the base-station design can be scaled up to work with hundreds of antennas and several dozen concurrent users, which would result in much higher capacity gains.

“There’s also a big payoff in energy savings,” Shepard said. “The amount of power you need for transmission goes down in proportion to the number of antennas you have.”

Zhong and Shepard said Argos is at least five years away from being available on the commercial market. It would require new network hardware and a new generation of smartphones and tablets. It might also require changes in wireless standards. Those are big hurdles, but Zhong said the potential benefits of multi-user beamforming technology make it a very likely next big step for the wireless industry.

—Jade Boyd

—Amy Hodges

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

7

Keeping Up With the Jonesians An interview with Michel and Melanie Achard

Michel and Melanie Achard recently began their second year as masters of Jones College, where they live in a house adjacent to the college and work with the approximately 300 students there. Day and night, masters oversee student life and activities in the college, offer advice, share meals, and help foster student success in and out of the classroom. Michel, an associate professor of linguistics, has worked at Rice since 1997. Melanie works for Symantec, a large software company, as a senior product manager in their enterprise security group.

How would you describe the position of master to someone who is not familiar with the role?

Michel: I feel like a driver education instructor. I never have a hand

on the wheel, but I know I can grab it if need be, and I can always apply the brakes. We’re not driving that car, but in case things go astray, hopefully we can reach over.

Melanie: You’re here to see to the health of the college commu-

nity that you’re associated with — that means the mental health, the physical health and the academic health and their interaction with the administration. That job is so broad it’s very hard to describe.

You both have other jobs in addition to your responsibilities at Jones.

What do you bring from that side of your lives to the master position?

Michel: It’s easy to be in charge of a class — you know the roles

well. You know what being a student means; you know what being a teacher means. In a mastership situation, the roles are there, but you don’t make a syllabus, and you don’t get to make all the decisions. To

8

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

me, the role of the master is to assist students in learning the virtues of self-governance and see how you can make a college work for everybody and advising in that role. It’s easy to make a decision for yourself. It’s a little different to try and help people come up with ways of collectively making a decision. It’s a huge amount of teamwork, and understanding how you fit in that team is not the easiest thing in the world.

Melanie: One thing I enjoy is that my “day job” brings something to

the college. When we’re talking with students and have a technical conversation around software and database design, I get to geek out on that. They seem to appreciate having that level of conversation.

What was your first year like?

Michel: It showed me a very different angle of the institution than

my job as a faculty member has shown me before. I never realized the extent to which everything we do at Rice is interwoven in the colleges. It’s not only a social unit or an academic unit. It’s the quintessential way Rice does business.

Melanie: During the first semester, I learned how an educational

institution works, which is very different from how a large, profitdriven corporation works. I expected the faculty and administration to be very student-focused. But what’s touched me so many times is that everybody is that way. The gardeners, the police — everyone is focused on improving the student experience. We’ve had members of the police force come by to alert us to students who were doing nothing wrong but weren’t acting like themselves. We’ve had members

of the Housing and Dining staff go out of their way to help students. To me, that was a wonderful thing.

What kind of application process did you go through to become masters?

Melanie: What I found most interesting

was the first thing they asked us to do — during lunchtime, we had to run out into the commons, into a sea of students we’d never met, to find one international student, a Powderpuff person, a girl who was on the chug team and other people like that. Then we had to bring them back with us to the PDR. And they timed us. What a great activity! They were testing to see if we were comfortable doing this with students. They were outside watching us to see what our teamwork was like, although we didn’t know that at the time.

Michel: Another part was kind of a com-

petition between the two of us with as many students as could fit in the Jones Masters House. They had different stations with groups of different students. We had to fill out a questionnaire about the history of Jones. It was a very nice way to see how we interact with different students, how we deal with each other and to learn about Jones in the process.

“When we’re talking with students and have a technical conversation around software and database design, I get to geek out on that.

They seem to appreciate having that level of conversation.”

—Melanie Achard

What was the most rewarding experience you had in your first year?

Michel: Seeing people come in and figure out who they’re going to be with respect to the

community — becoming Jonesians — and watching them solve their own problems. Any time that we see students struggling with something and then come out of it is rewarding.

And watching their successes as they transition into who they were dreaming to be — and the way that they’re happy for other people’s successes.

What are your expectations for the coming academic year?

Michel: I hope we can be more comfortable in the advising role. In the first year, you’re

trying to understand how the college works. The second year is figuring out how we can become part of that process.

Melanie: We should be the stagehands, creating a nice scene and disappearing and allowing

the students to come in and run the show.

—Jenny Rozelle

Rice Joins Movement to Offer Open, Free Online Courses Coursera, launched in April, is the first education platform to host content from multiple world-renowned universities on one website. Rice is one of 16 universities currently offering free online courses with Coursera. Rice’s pilot offerings include courses in general chemistry, software programming, electrical engineering, analytical chemistry and nanotechnology.

“Rice students can also benefit from the courses, which will be available as supplemental or instructional resources and can help stimulate discussions during class time,” said Provost George McLendon.

Of the Rice courses in the current Coursera catalog, An Introduction to Interactive Programming in Python, has drawn the most interest to date. More than 25,000 students have signed up for the eight-week class, described as “a fun introduction to the basics of programming in Python” and taught by Joe Warren, professor of computer science. Warren will share teaching duties with Scott Rixner, associate professor of computer science and of electrical and computer engineering.

Although larger than anything taught in the campus setting, the Python class is not the largest Coursera offers, Warren said. Some have had up to 40,000 or 50,000 students. “One of our goals is to grow and expose more students worldwide to Rice.” In addition to the Python class, Rice plans to offer four more courses during the coming academic year and may make additional courses available in the future. For more details about the courses and how to enroll, visit › ›› www.coursera.org

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

9

President’s

column

The year 1912 was full of momentous events: The Republic of China was established and the last Chinese emperor abdicated; New Mexico and Arizona became the newest and last states in the continental United States; the first parachute jump from an airplane was made; Robert Scott’s expedition perished near the South Pole; the Titanic sank; “Tarzan of the Apes” was published; Jim Thorpe won the pentathlon and decathlon at the London Olympics; Montenegro declared war on Turkey; Woodrow Wilson was elected president; the Girl Scouts was founded; and Nabisco invented the Oreo cookie.

Yet in Houston, there was little doubt that the most important development of 1912 was the establishment of the Rice Institute just beyond the outskirts of the 10

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

Our Founding

rapidly growing town of about 90,000 people.

This was Houston’s first institution of higher education, and Edgar Odell Lovett put together a grand celebration the likes of which the city had never seen. Distinguished academic leaders came from all over the world. The chief justice of the Supreme Court of Texas made remarks on the subject of “Education and the State,” followed by the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee (who was also the chancellor of the University of the South in Sewanee) on the subject of “The Church and Education.” And then President Lovett gave his remarkable address, titled “The Meaning of the New Institution.”

Since the opening of Rice’s doors to the first group of 59 students, more than 70,000 degree students have enrolled, plus tens of thousands more who have benefited from continuing studies and other programs. The first faculty of a dozen or so has grown to more than

600. And what started as four buildings isolated toward one end of a pentagonshaped piece of prairie have increased to about 80. There can be little doubt that founder William Marsh Rice, founding Board of Governors chairman Captain James Baker and President Lovett would be pleased with the results of their endeavor.

We will echo in some ways those heady days of 1912 as we celebrate our university’s centennial. We celebrate the generosity of our benefactor, the dedication and wisdom of the founding chairman and the vision of our founding president. We will take pride in how much we have achieved of the founding vision laid out in Lovett’s address, which truly became the blueprint of our university and set the path for the next century.

But as prescient as Lovett was on almost every topic, we have accomplished things he could scarcely have imagined.

It has not always been a smooth ride, punctuated by two world wars, the Great

and Our Future

By Dav i d W. L e e b r o n

Depression and the social upheavals of the 1960s. Over the course of time, we have refined, changed and raised our aspirations. We took seriously President Lovett’s aspiration and admonition “to assign no upper limit to our educational endeavor.” We added schools and other initiatives. We erased the stain of exclusion that marred our founding charter and our first half century and became one of the most diverse private universities in the country. We became a leader in putting a man into space and eventually on the moon. We gave birth to nanoscience and nanotechnology, which have transformed the possibilities of materials science, chemistry, chemical and biomolecular engineering, and other fields.

In short, when we come together to celebrate our centennial, we do not merely celebrate the extraordinary men, women and events of 1912, but the women, men and accomplishments of every year since. It is some sense not our founding — or at least not alone our

“We will take pride in how much we have achieved of the founding vision laid out in Lovett’s address, which truly became the blueprint of our university and set the path for the next century.”

—David W. Leebron

founding — that warrants that grand celebration, but how over generations, our faculty, our students and alumni, our staff, our trustees, our community and our city have built something that truly warrants our pride and continued dedication.

We are now the stewards of that legacy. And we know that despite our great successes, there is more work to be done. Our changing world, our evolving city, and the constant emergence of new technologies create new possibilities and new challenges. The question is not so much what the founding aspirations were in 1912, but what those founders’ aspirations would be if they came back today. That is our task. But there is no better way to begin that task than to gather together as a community to honor our past and continue laying the path for our future. The date is October 12. Let us celebrate.

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

11

NotedandQuoted “We’re still a long way off from you being able to charge your smartphone with a beer mug, but this could be a game changer in terms of opening up all kinds of new ways to store energy. And that could be a boon to solar power as a source of energy within our homes.”

—posted by Randy Rieland on “Innovations,” a blog at Smithsonian.com, July 5,2012, in reference to the news thatRice scientists have pioneered a spray-on battery paint.

Read the blog at http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/ideas/2012/07/our-daily-juice.

“I’ve always found engineering for the developing world to be an intellectually engaging challenge: Dealing with electrical power limitations and working around limited clinical personnel poses more design constraints, and finding the ultimate elegant solution to a health problem is like solving a puzzle.”

—posted by Jordan Schermerhorn ’12, July 6, 2012, in The New York Times blog “On the Ground.” Schermerhorn wrote five posts and narrated a video about the 10 days she spent traveling in southern Africa with op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof as the 2012 “Win-a-Trip” winner. Read her posts at http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com.

“O-Week is the best week of the year because there are no classes to screw things up.”

—English Professor Dennis Huston, welcoming students to Hanszen College, as tweeted 8/13/12 by #Hanszen.

See http://www.rice.edu/oweekstory.shtml.

“The first thing I want to think together about is how you can leverage that validation that you’re about to get to kind of increase the positivity in the world, the net happiness in the world, to help empower others, and I personally believe that it will come back to you.”

—Salman Khan, Rice University commencement speech, May 12, 2012.

Watch the speech at http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=oipQBY7F4YY.

12

rice.edu/ricemagazine www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

“This is the most dramatic legislation to influence health care in America since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s. The court’s decision today means well over 30 million people who are uninsured today will get access to affordable health insurance and therefore health care.”

—Vivian Ho, James A. Baker III Institute Chair in Health Economics, quoted in the Baker Institute blog, June 28, 2012.

“Compare Higgs bosons to groupies mobbing a celebrity. The other particles are the celebrities, desperately trying to move but slowed by autograph-seekers.

Higgs bosons don’t have pens, but the attention they give to the other particles slows them, creating inertia.”

—Paul Padley, professor of physics and astronomy, quoted in USA Today, July 6, 2012.

“One centrifuge in Iran doesn’t stop spinning if we solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

—Ambassador Ron Prosor, Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, speaking at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, May 30, 2012.

“You’re the top!

You’re the iPhone’s Siri.

You’re the top!

You’re The Big Bang Theory.

You’re the mega-dough earned from J.K. Rowling’s words.

You’re Blue Ivy’s mama, 2008 Obama, you’re “Angry Birds”!

You’re elite; you’re Cy Twombly’s scribble.

You’re the heat in Jer’my Lin’s dribble.

I’m a budget bill stuck on Cap’tal Hill — I’ll flop!

But if baby I’m the bottom, you’re the top!”

—Nancy Taubenslag ’77 contributed these winning lines to a contest on “Ask Me Another,” a National Public Radio show featuring puzzles, word games and trivia played in front of a live audience. The updated lyrics to the Cole Porter classic “You’re the Top” were heard on the May 12 broadcast.

Back story: “I’ve written song parodies since I was a teenager (even before attending Rice), so I loved this challenge,” Taubenslag said. “And it was a major kick to have Jonathan Coulton perform it, laugh at the humor and praise my internal rhyme scheme.

Not to mention winning an NPR tote bag.”

To honor our centennial, Rice Magazine set out to create a list of 100 things we (and you) love about Rice.

The list is neither ranked, nor ordered in any conventional way. Some of the numbers do wink at their content. (You’ll see what we mean.) Many of you sent in wonderful suggestions for our “100 Things” project via the @Rice newsletter and our social media sites. We’ve used many of your contributions and appreciate hearing from you. We probably missed a few of the things you love about Rice, and we’re sorry we couldn’t include everything, though a few of the items you sent have given us ideas for future Rice Magazine stories. Tell us about that one wonderful, significant, unforgettable place, memory, event you love — or you love to remember — from your days at Rice. Write to us at ricemagazine@rice.edu, and we’ll print an addendum in our next issue. Happy 100th, Rice.

No.

80

the campus and the city 61oo Main St. but have grown up to create

The address hasn’t changed, a singular district where the arts and sciences flourish. Main Street was more like mud street when Rice opened, unpaved and isolated from the provincial city of Houston. Today, Rice is located in the bustling middle of the Museum District and adjacent to one of the world’s largest research, patient care and treatment centers — one of the best locations in the country’s fourth-largest city.

No.

17

Edgar Odell Lovett

No.

6

Sallyport “I will always remember passing through the Sallyport as an incoming student and walking out again after graduating (after avoiding doing so for years!). It is a great feeling and distinctly Rice.”

—Alex Wagner ’10

14

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

No.

86

“The worn steps in Lovett Hall” —Roswitha Firth ’91

Rice Magazine Magazine Rice

••

No. 14 13 No.

••

2012 15 15 2012

No.

47

Our creation story features a whodunit No.

Murdered Man’s Estate Founds Great University

Dream of William Marsh Rice Who Was Killed by Albert T. Patrick Comes True, and the Richest Educational Institution of the South Will Open Its Doors Next Fall Through the Wealth He Left.

When William Marsh Rice, an old Southern gentleman, died in a New York apartment on Sept. 23, 1900, several extraordinary consequences followed. The most spectacular and sensational was the arrest of his former attorney on a murder charge, and the extensive court proceedings that issued out of this are recorded in eight large volumes of New York court reports: People vs.

Albert T. Patrick. He is in Sing Sing Prison, still hoping for a pardon on an appeal which has been carried from court to court.

Another consequence of Mr. Rice’s death has been a longer time maturing; it is just coming to fruitage in Houston, Texas, where he had lived, made a fortune and retired, the particular consequence there being the establishment of a new university to be known as the Rice Institute.

The Texan left practically his entire fortune, $8,000,000, as a foundation for the proposed institute.

He gave in his will a general plan of what he wanted it to be and named a Board of Trustees to put this plan into effect.

The murder trial involved the institute, for another disposition of the Rice millions was a part of Patrick’s claims, all of which had to be got out of the way and the legality of the will established before the trustees could begin their work.

In the meantime the $8,000,000 was not idle. It was all wisely invested, and now aggregates nearly $10,000,000 in endowment for the Texas institution, whose initial buildings are in course of construction and whose doors will open to students in September. …

—Excerpted from “Murdered Man’s Estate Founds Great University” The New York Times, Feb. 25, 1912

61

6:1

Our undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio.

College associates

College associates bring snacks for study breaks, participate in theater productions, offer travel advice, and become lifelong friends and mentors to the students at their college.

No.

No.

65 Future leaders on campus like houston Mayor Annise D. Parker ’78 and Harris County Judge Ed Emmett ’71

No.

“The rings always stay the same, so I can recognize a kindred spirit anywhere.”

71

—N. Lynn Williams Schlatter ’87

16

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

64

Willy No.

5

43

We appreciate a good jack — the approved kind and the unapproved kind. Pranks (or No. jacks) are part of Rice’s heritage. It’s amazing what students can do with a little knowledge about biology, chemistry and engineering coupled with motivation. Being close to the zoo has come in handy, too, in the past. So has access to planes. Not-soofficial stationery has proven effective, we’re told. We hold high the memory of the BEST PRANK IN RICE HISTORY, the 1988 turning of Willy’s statue.

29

No.

No.

26

Archi-Arts Ball “What I always looked forward to at Rice was the annual Archi-Arts Ball. I especially liked the one whose theme was Through the Looking Glass. I went as the Queen of Chess.”

—Maryallen Collins Estes ’48

The MOB Rice’s famous, nonmarching, irreverent scatter band, the Marching Owl Band is known for in-yourface renditions of contemporary and classic popular music. Performances feature scripts focused on topical humor, crazy props and theatrical action along with semicomprehensible formations on the football field. Remember the attention-getter from fall 2011, the $EC formation against UT?

Student self- governance

No.

It’s the Rice way. Each college has its own self-governance system.

Rice Magazine

•

62 No. 14

•

2012

17

No.

11

Residential colleges

It’s your home away from home and second family, complete with parents (masters), aunts and uncles (RAs), and a fairy godmother (college coordinator). We also love that colleges are a great mix of men and women, athletes and nonathletes, poets and physicists, engineers and English majors. Everyone belongs!

No.

No No No No

No.

18

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

25

Greek life sororities. frats. one minds.

56

College Cheers and Jeers We can’t print them heres.

CLASSIS ET GERMANITAS

Water balloon fights and pre-Beer Bike parade

No.

No.

63

68

Gizilcher:

No.

52

A giant slingshot to send water balloons from college to college.

College rivalries A long-standing tradition at Rice, college rivalries encourage creative cheers and anti-cheers as well as innovative jacks to promote college pride.

Wiess vs. Hanszen.

Jones vs. Brown.

Martel is not a college. Who was your enemy?

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

19

15

No.

No.

50

“The azaleas and the 100-year-old oak trees making an amazing canopy along the walkways.”

—Barbara Holt Szalkowski ’83

Our professors are some of the most distinguished faculty in the world. They teach students to think globally through experiential learning and hands-on research. With a median class size of 15, excellent teaching is at the heart of a Rice education.

No.

34

“The sound of the cicadas singing in the Hanszen quad in the late afternoons.”

—Deborah Gronke Bennett ’82

No.

54

No.

19

Working out at the Rec Center

Brochstein Pavilion Centrally located and popular for meetings, the Brochstein’s indoor-outdoor setting features hot coffee and cool conversation.

(And the soup and sandwiches are good, too.)

20

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

No.

94 Willy’s Pub Since 1975, old school and student-run

No.

58 No.

No.

49

Rice Coffeehouse Serving bagels and honoring squirrels since 1990. Past lives include the Corner of the Dreaming Monkey — the Hanszen College coffeehouse.

T h e Oshman Engin e e ring D e sign K itch e n , where Rice students think up, design, prototype and deploy devices that help solve real-world needs.

84

BioScience Research Collaborative

Leading Research. Infinite Possibilities: The BRC serves as the hub of interaction between Rice and the Texas Medical Center.

The 477,000-square-foot building features an auditorium, lecture hall, classrooms and core research facilities that encourage interdisciplinary interactions and serves as a catalyst for researchers to collaborate, explore, learn and lead.

Sammy the Owl Our mascot since 1917

No.

4 Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

21

No.

14

The Honor Code Since 1914, keeping us honest.

No.

44

Old English R No.

No.

46

“The complete exhilaration of move-in day when we meet all the new students and their families!”

72

—Laura Cox, master of Brown College and former Sid Rich master

We get by with a little help from our upperclassmen.

Almost 20 percent of upperclassmen volunteer for O-Week.

No.

22

70

Lifelong learning “Education does not begin with the university, nor does it end with the university. It’s a matter of the whole span of life,” said Edgar Odell Lovett. The Glasscock School of Continuing Studies serves a community of adult learners — more than 13,000 last year alone — and is one of the largest continuing ed programs in Texas.

New courses are always being added to a catalog that is bursting with professional and personal development offerings, not to mention a unique Master of Liberal Studies degree program. Fall classes include Inside the 2012 Elections and Maya 2012: Prophecy Becomes History.

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

No.

12

THANKS CALEB!

O-Week

“My favorite thing about coming to Rice was driving up to my college the first day of O-Week and 42 upperclassmen enthusiastically greeting me by name.”

—Caleb McBride ’14

No.

66 Matriculation ceremony In a welcoming ceremony full of tradition and promise, each new class of freshmen walk through the Sallyport to symbolically begin their Rice careers.

No.

31

“It’s where I found my better half.”

Rice students marry each other … a lot.

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

23

1

No.

24

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

Lovett Hall: 101 Years Old Originally the Rice Institute’s Administration Building and renamed to honor our founding president in 1946, Lovett Hall is Rice’s most iconic structure.

Majestic and colorful — and especially beautiful at sunset — Lovett Hall remains the heart of Rice University. Exegit monumentum aere perennius.

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

25

No.

37

RUPD o ffic e rs Trustworthy, supportive and helpful.

Friends to students and administrators alike. What more could you ask from our men in blue?

No.

No.

45

“I really enjoy Dhamaka every year because, being an Indian, it’s a chance for me to not only relive my culture, but also a unique opportunity to enjoy and share it with my friends who, much like Rice as a whole, come from many different backgrounds and cultures.”

—Shaurya Agarwal ’14

95

Cinnamon rolls from one of the four serveries

No.

26

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

67

Serveries The modern-day Central Kitchen with five-star food

No.

55 No.

Culture of

18

care

91

International students International degreeseeking students at Rice make up almost 20 percent of the student body. For undergrads, that number is more than 10 percent.

Rice 360º and Beyond Traditional Borders

Our Institute for Global H e a l t h Te c h n olo g i e s (Rice 360º) works with communities and nonprofits to develop low-cost solutions to serious health care challenges, especially in rural, remote and resource-poor areas of the world. Rice students’ designs include inexpensive and hardy continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines for infants, IV drips, syringe dosing kits, handpowered centrifuges, low-cost incubators and a versatile “lab in a backpack.” This past summer, students traveled to Malawi, Lesotho, Botswana and Brazil to test these health technologies, gather feedback and improve them. “One of the things I love most about Rice students is how much they care about others and making the world a better place. It’s so amazing how creative and giving the students can be!”

—Jenny West Rozelle ’00

“My dad died during finals week my freshman year at Rice. Dennis Huston, the then-master at Hanszen, was notified, and as I finished up an exam he was already gathering my friends and changing my plane ticket. He had my roommate start packing for me. When I got out of the exam he met me and broke the news to me and then gathered me up off the floor when I fell to the ground in shock. He was there for me. He cared. He knew me. He knew my friends. The college system allows for, and actually promotes, this kind of close relationship. (And Prof. Huston was a great master, to be sure.)”

No.

—Gaye Grayson Pauroso ’84

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

27

No.

28

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

3

Arches and cloisters

Campus squirrels

No.

79

No.

No.

No.

96

KTRU — For your listening pleasure

Every Tuesday afternoon in a parking lot next to Rice Stadium, a dozen or more vendors create a spread of fresh vegetables, locally raised meats, prepared foods (from kombucha to naan to cheese), and flowers and plants, too. A dog rescue group also brings four-legged wares for potential adoption. The market attracts between 200 and 500 visitors every week, though it never feels too crowded.

“Stargazing atop 180.” —Harley Campbell ’15

No.

Baker 13

90

20

Rice Farmers Market

No.

13

60

TGs “Every Friday at 4 p.m., there was a keg somewhere on campus sponsored by one of the residential colleges.

That was it. They would announce “the TG is at Baker this week,” and everyone would crawl out from under their respective rocks on Friday afternoon, blinking in the unaccustomed sunlight, and stand around, enjoy a beer and have a little social intercourse.”

The Owl sign

No.

7

—Greg Marshall ’86

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

29

Art on campus

No.

No.

73

10

B ak e r S hak e The play’s the thing — since 1970. Every spring, Baker hosts the longest-running Shakespeare festival in Houston with a cast and crew of students, alumni, and staff and faculty members.

52,000 Service hours contributed by Rice students in one year, according to the latest tally. 2009–2010 stats

No.

30

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

38

Rice Art Gallery

No.

22

No.

93 Rice

Dance

No.

Theatre

78

Rice Dance Theatre (RDT) has provided students with opportunities to train, perform, choreograph and produce contemporary dance since 1970. Each semester, RDT produces a main stage concert of student choreography and welcomes guest choreographers and master teachers from Houston’s dance community and beyond.

48

Then: Posada Now: HACER Cultural Show

Since the 1970s, Rice’s Latino students have organized an annual event called Posada each December prior to finals. Through members of the Hispanic Association for Cultural Enrichment at Rice (HACER), the campus is treated to an evening of delicious food, dance and music. In 2011, the Posada tradition was reborn as the HACER Cultural Show. “While Posada is a great tradition, the cultural show invites many more traditions from Latin American cultures.

Through the show, HACER is able to share these traditions with the Rice campus,” said Jessica Faber ’12, the event’s 2011 coordinator. Tony Castilleja ’09 fondly remembers Posada as an event that stretched him in many ways. “One grows up in a family who define you. When you get to college, you get to know yourself in a different way and to realize how unique you really are.

Posada introduced me to salsa, a musical genre that I really had not had the chance to explore.” People automatically expected that if you were Latino you knew how to salsa, Castilleja said. “I did not, but within two weeks I learned and served as a backup salsa dancer each year. Posada was also kind of an out-of-body experience for nonHispanics — exposing them to wonderful Mexican cooks and truly good Mexican food.

The Thresher

“For a school without a journalism program, the Thresher puts out conNo. tent far superior to what it otherwise should, and alums are everywhere from Texas Monthly and the Houston Chronicle to a few pubs in New York.

It’s much-maligned on campus — going without journalism classes do lead to a few lumps — but there was no single entity more influential in my leaving Rice with a positive impression of my collegiate career.”

97

No.

Backpage We love it.

We hate it.

We read it.

—Casey Michel ’10

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

31

No.

No.

75

C o unting o ur stars — O w ls in spac e In 1962, Rice established a space science depa r t ment, the nation’s first, and our close partnership with the Johnson Space Center (then named the Ma n ned Spacecraf t Center) took off. Many NASA scientists, flight directors, eng ineers and more have studied a nd worked at Rice. To date, 14 Rice faculty members or alumni were selected or served as astronauts.

They are Curt Michel, John Bull ’57, Kathryn Sullivan, Jeffrey Hoffman ’88, Franklin Chang-Diaz, Tamara Jernigan ’89, Janice Voss ’80, Peter Wisoff, Jim Newman ’84, Takao Doi ’04, M i ke Ma s si m i no, Pegg y Whitson ’85, Danny Olivas ’96 and Shannon Walker ’87.

32

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

33

“The secret little architectural details, like the bubbles in the frame of the Anderson Hall doorway that pop when you run a finger across them really quickly.”

No.

87

Crosstown rivalry: Rice vs. UH, Owls vs. Coogs, Blue and Gray vs. Red and White.

—Katherine Reeves Carpenter ’80

No.

Buckyballs

85

In 1985, Rice professors Richard Smalley and Robert Curl ’54 launched the new field of fullerene chemistry and helped create the field of nanotechnology, earning them the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Today, the Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology works to apply nanotechnology to help solve big problems (energy, water, environment, disease, education).

No.

32

Duncan Hall’s painted ceiling … and the gasp the first time a visitor sees it. John Outram, architect of the Anne and Charles Duncan Hall and designer of the ceiling, said that the building and Rice’s Beaux Arts campus have the same “scripted space.”

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

33

No.

16

R ice Institute Your alma mater before 1960

No.

V alhalla

No.

89

No.

81

9

Screw Yer Roommate Rice’s epic roommateselected blind dating event, complete with some of the most creative costumes you’ll see all year.

Toasting our centennial with Centenni-Ale

In case you hadn’t heard, Saint Arnold Brewing Company (founded by Rice alumni Brock Wagner ’87 and Kevin Bartol ’81) has brewed up a special ale in honor of Rice’s 100th birthday. The 22-ounce commemorative bottles are available at many local establishments, but far-flung alumni — in most states — may order a bottle or even a case from Spec’s on Smith Street. Did we mention that 100 percent of the profits from the sale of Centenni-A le go back to Rice?

34

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

No.

76

Baker Commons

Rice’s version of Hogwarts

No.

2

Student-taught courses Since 2007, students have been teaching one-credit college-based courses. Here’s a sampling of past and present offerings: Intro to Improv (Hanszen), Personal Financial Management (Brown), Cooking With Chef Roger (Duncan), Politics of Food (Wiess), For the Love of Baking (Sid Rich), Bass Guitar (McMurtry), African and Asian Refugees (Jones), Themes in Science Fiction (Will Rice), Self-Defense (Martel) and the ever-popular Rules of the Game (Brown).

Steam tunnels Strictly off limits.

Tours available.

No.

51

No.

98

Couches at the Shepherd School of Music Concerts at the Shepherd School of Music

No.

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

36 •

2012

35

No.

No.

77

N OD/ N ight o f De ca de nc e

42

A fig leaf, ’nough said.

Soul Night

In 1998, the Black Student Association No. (BSA) wanted to commemorate Black History Month with an event in the Grand Hall. Unfortunately, the hall was booked up through that month and much of March, too. “We decided to do something a little different and celebrate African-American history through dance and movement,” recalled June Marshall ’00. “We started off with an African dance, then moved to slavery, a gospel selection, 1920s dance, jazz interpretive dance, Motown, the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s dances. One notable fact is that all of the dances were choreographed and created in one week!”

Since then, Soul Night has become an annual tradition and fundraiser for the BSA.

No.

82

Breakfast muffins from the Baker College kitchen.

36

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

No.

23

Intramural and club sports. Powderpuff!

27

Facilities, Engineering and Planning (FEP) The air that cools (and warms) us, the trees we walk under, the buildings we occupy, the supplies we purchase, the sidewalks we walk on, the trails we run on, the gardens we enjoy. What’s not to love?

No.

99

“Views of the downtown skyline from the reclining seats on the top floor of Fondren Library.”

—Ali Goker ’05

28

No.

Beer Bike through the decades Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

37

No.

92

Drinking beer on the hill during a baseball game

No.

No.

COACH

38

2003 National Champions

8

Wayne Graham, beloved baseball coach and a 2012 College Baseball Hall of Fame inductee

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

88

No.

21

Student–athletes

Every year, Rice student–athletes achieve success on and off the field with NCAA honors and C-USA accolades for high achievements in the classroom. For 2011–12, Owl student–athletes earned the top spot on the C-USA Commissioner’s Honor Roll with 232 Owls maintaining a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better. Thirtyeight student–athletes were awa rded the C-USA Academic Medal for achieving a GPA of 3.75 or better. And each year, student–athletes give back to the community; last year, athletes contributed 3,444 service hours to more than 80 organizations.

41

The Athenian owl

Almost any owl will most certainly NOT do.

The Athenian owl is an image drawn from an ancient Greek drachma and pays homage to Athena, the goddess of wisdom.

In a 2009 Rice Magazine column, President Leebron wrote about the significance of our official owl: “One of the critical roles of symbols is that they enable us to communicate to others our common sense of identity and belonging to a community — in this case the Rice community.”

No.

No.

69

B ak e r I nstitut e

No.

83

Tudor Fieldhouse and Autry Court

Our formerly and famously UN-air-conditioned basketball and volleyball court and gym. Currently home to women’s and men’s basketball and women’s volleyball games. Memorable event: Men’s basketball Rice vs. Utah, Feb. 24, 1997. Because of the televised start at 11 p.m., Rice students attended in pajamas.

No.

35

Rice Business Plan Competition

f o r P ublic P o licy One of the top 25 think tanks in the U.S.

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

39

No.

30

Rice Players and college theater

“I thought I would give up theater when I got to Rice and focus only on my education in the classroom. But Rice prepared me for a life as an admissions professional and an artist. Plus, I got to be in the first all-black production at Rice, Brown College’s ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’.’”

—Tamara Siler ’86

“The integration of athletes into the remainder of the student body via the college system (instead of isolating them in athletic dorms like most of the NCA A) gives athletes the full Rice experience while giving Rice nonathletes the opportunity to get to know those who represent the university on the national scene.”

—Kent A. Rowald ’85

74

No.

No.

59

Friday afternoon music from the colleges

No.

40

All-nighters, especially in Anderson Hall

No.

57

Finals study breaks Each semester, President Leebron and a group of college deans sponsor a pet-friendly study break for stressed-out students.

Puppy dogs and study breaks = double love.

40

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

No.

24

Rice Stadium Built for football and football only, it’s where we also watch the MOB’s antics. The stadium is the setting for some storied Rice football victories — such as the 1957 7–6 win over Texas A&M University, the top-ranked team in the country that season. In that game, the late King Hill ’58 operated on both offense and defense, for a win that “absolutely riveted Rice’s student body,” wrote Centennial Historian Melissa Kean on her blog, “Rice History Corner.” “On Monday, the students closed and barricaded the gate and declared an unauthorized general holiday. In a move that still surprises me a little bit, the administration didn’t cancel classes, but decided that no one would be punished for failure to attend.” Rice Magazine has it on good authority that students used chewing gum and toothpicks to disable the padlocks on the gates around campus.

No.

39

Outer Loop A three-mile, perfectly shaded crushed gravel trail circumnavigating the campus.

The place to walk, run, jog, train, talk — and occasionally bike.

No.

53 Iconic campus

100

No.

All the things you love about Rice that did not appear in this list. Let us know. Send your favorites to ricemagazine@rice.edu.

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

41

Tradition Refined: The Thompson Collection Rice University is hosting the traveling exhibition “Tradition Redefined: The Larry and Brenda Thompson Collection of African American Art” in conjunction with the university’s Centennial Celebration. The exhibition, which opened Sept. 13 in the Rice Gallery, is organized by the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland at College Park.

“Tradition Redefined” features 72 works by 67 artists drawn from the Thompson’s extensive collection.

The collection came to the attention of Rice when Janice Cornell Doty ’60, centennial commission co-chair, and Paul Allison, director of development, met with Brenda Thompson in her Connecticut home. “It was a ‘wow’ experience,” Allison said. “The variety and quality of their personal collection was stunning.” Allison had the idea to feature the collection as the university’s centennial art exhibition and brought Rice’s senior administrators — including Dean of Humanities Nicolas Shumway, who traveled to Connecticut to view the collection — on board. The Thompsons have a close Rice connection; they are the parents of Rice chemical engineering grad Larry Thompson Jr. ’98.

Adrienne Childs, an independent scholar and fellow at Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, curated the exhibition. For Childs, it was meaningful that the Thompsons were not only culturally vested in the art, but also personally connected to those living artists whose work they collect.

Childs sought to work within the Thompson’s vision: “I made my selections based on their priorities and sensibilities as collectors and my judgment as an art historian and curator as to what artists are important.”

The resulting exhibition is an eclectic blend of works by well-known and established artists, as well as lesser-known and

unknown artists whose work the Thompsons champion. There are works by renowned historic figures like Henry O. Tanner and Romare Bearden as well as acclaimed contemporary artists like Radcliffe Bailey and Howardena Pindell. There also is an emphasis on Georgia artists — the Thompsons spent 30 years in the state.

Childs says she found some real gems by lesser-known artists.

She highlights “Still Standing” (2007), an abstract work on canvas by Maria-Lana Queen that employs a complementary color vibration of green and red. Queen is a former fashion model who began painting to cope with the death of her brother.

Childs was also struck by Ealy Mays’ “The Last Vernissage” (2004), a thickly painted black and white work that shows a high-ceilinged gallery drawn with an exaggerated perspective. Gestural black and white paintings hang on the walls, and there are the remnants of the opening’s bar in the foreground. The art looms large in the room, dwarfing the figure of a black man pushing a broom, sweeping up the postopening debris.

“I chose a couple of almost unknown artists,” Childs said. “I wanted to put in people who I’d never heard of but whose work I liked.

Although the exhibition title includes the phrase “African American art,” Childs points out that this commonly used phrase isn’t completely accurate. It’s really “art by African Americans,” Childs said. “The notion that somehow the art object is inherently raced is a flawed concept. Even if the object or image represents black subject matter, it is much more than that.” The varied works in — Adrienne Childs “Tradition Redefined” speak to artists defining themselves.

“Tradition Redefined” will be on view in the Rice University Art Gallery exhibition space through Nov. 18, 2012. Rice Gallery will feature a project by Korean-American artist Soo Sunny Park in January 2013.

“The notion that somehow the art object is inherently raced is a flawed concept. Even if the object or image represents black subject matter, it is much more than that.”

—Kelly Klaasmeyer

Preston Sampson, “Guardian Series” (2005)

42

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

Ealy Mays, “The Last Vernissage” (2004)

Ellis Wilson, “Dusk” (1950)

Frederick D. Jones, “Female F igure at Shore” (1950)

Arts

A Symphonic Celebration To commemorate Rice’s 100th birthday, American composer William Bolcom has composed a piece titled “Ninth Symphony: A Short Symphony in One Movement.” Commissioned for the Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra, the original work will be performed several times during centennial festivities.

Bolcom, professor emeritus of composition at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance, brings a lifetime of musical accomplishment — as well as strong connections to the Shepherd School — to the centennial commission.

Bolcom’s musical contributions are varied, including vocal, choral, symphonic, keyboard, operatic and instrumental works as well as movie scores. He is the winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Music and has been awarded a National Medal of Arts and a Grammy Award. His experience includes 35 years at the University of Michigan and past commissions with some of the world’s top orchestras and music organizations, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the MET Orchestra, Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Philharmonic. World-renowned soloists, including tenor Placido Domingo and violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, have also premiered Bolcom’s works.

Bolcom has taught Arthur Gottschalk and Richard Lavenda, both members of the Shepherd School’s composition department. He wrote two landmark pieces for Sergiu Luca, the

”Today our greatest enemy is our inability to listen to each other, which seems to worsen with time. All we hear now is shouting, and nobody is listening because the din is so great. Yet there is a ‘still, small voice’ that refuses to disappear, though often drowned out, that requires us to listen for it.”

—William Bolcom

Photo by Katryn Conlin

late violinist and former professor of violin at the Shepherd School and has had an anthology of his cello and piano music recorded

by Norman and Jeanne Kierman Fischer, the Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Cello and artist teacher of piano, respectively, at Rice.

About the “Ninth Symphony” he said, “Today our greatest enemy is our inability to listen to each other, which seems to worsen with time. All we hear now is shouting, and nobody

is listening because the din is so great. Yet there is a ‘still, small voice’ that refuses to disappear, though often drowned out, that requires us to listen for it. I pin my hope on that voice. I search for it daily in life and music — and possibly the ‘Ninth Symphony’ is a search for that soft sound,” Bolcom said.

He admits that his interest in music has always been a part of who he is. “It happened so early,” Bolcom said, “I don’t remember how or when it started. It’s my life.” Bolcom, also a pianist, often accompanies his wife, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris, with whom he has produced 24 recordings.

The Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra will debut the 15-minute work with Bolcom in attendance Oct. 11. Repeat performances will be Oct. 12 and 14. For additional information, visit http://music.rice.edu.

—Tracey Rhoades

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

43

Ike’s Legacy Lessons and Warnings

A s teachers go, Hurricane Ike isn’t likely to win any popularity contests. But the 2008

Bird’s-eye View When a pair of great horned owls took up residence in a huge oak tree on campus in 2010 and began to raise two hatchlings, Robert Flatt ’69 was inspired to pull out his camera. Over the next few months, the adjunct professor at the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business chronicled the feathered family’s life at Rice. The result is “Rice’s Owls” (Robert Flatt, 2011), a photographic essay interspersed with text by Flatt and others, including David Leebron, Malcolm Gillis and history student Tsz Wong ’11, whose words are drawn from her senior thesis, “Rice Through a Bird’s Eye: The Adoption and Development of the Athenian Owl as a Collegiate Mascot.”

“I’ve attempted to use the arrival of the family of great horned owls to Rice to contemplate our past and our future,” Flatt wrote in his introduction.

“I believe that their return to campus is a harbinger for a wonderful future for the next hundred years, with the owl as our mascot.”

Profits from the sale of “Rice’s Owls” will go toward Rice Athletics. To purchase, go to www.ricemagazine. info/130.

—Christopher Dow

storm, the third-costliest hurricane in U.S. history, taught severe-storm experts much about how to protect Houston and Galveston from the ravages of future storms.

In “Lessons From Hurricane Ike,” Rice University’s Phil Bedient and more than 20 researchers from the Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center give a 224-page account of all they have learned in more than two years of studying Ike, which caused nearly $25 billion of damage and killed dozens of people.

Its 12 chapters summarize key information about specific topics like storm prediction and emergency planning. The writing is accessible to nonexperts, and each chapter is accompanied by color photos, diagrams, maps and illustrations.

“Ike revealed just how vulnerable the HoustonGalveston region is to a major storm, but Ike also helped us visualize

“The main lesson from Ike is that we can avoid catastrophic damage from future storms if we choose to act.”

—Phil Bedient

the true ‘worst-case’ storm scenario for our region,” said Bedient, director of the SSPEED Center. “The main lesson from Ike is that we can avoid catastrophic damage from future storms if we choose to act.”

The SSPEED Center’s research confirmed the need to rethink hurricane damage potential based on storm surge as well as wind speed.

“Ike’s ranking as the third-costliest hurricane in U.S. history is all the more amazing given that it ranked as a Category 2 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale at the time it made landfall and given that the point of landfall caused most of the storm surge to come ashore east of the major industrial and residential development near Galveston Bay,” said Jim Blackburn, SSPEED Center co-director.

“If Ike had struck 50 miles down the coast as predicted, it could have killed thousands of people and caused massive damage to the industrial infrastructure of the nation as well as extensive ecological damage due to contaminant spillage,” Blackburn added. In the latter chapters, the authors examine a range of structural and nonstructural strategies for managing hurricane damage.

—Jade Boyd

44

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

on the

Bookshelf

For the History Books Any birthday deserves a batch of presents, and Rice’s Centennial Celebration is no exception. In the case of an academic institution like Rice, it’s only fitting that some of those presents are books, especially if the books highlight the university’s history. Let’s unwrap a few.

The first is “A University So Conceived: A Brief History of Rice University” (Rice University, 2012), by John Boles ’65, the William P. Hobby Professor of History and the foremost authority on Rice history. Initially published in 1992 and updated for Rice’s centennial, “A University So Conceived” is the only comprehensive history of Rice currently in print. In addition to chapters detailing Rice’s history, the book has maps showing the development of the campus during each decade and a section titled “Fun Facts and Amusing Myths about Rice University.”

Boles goes deeper into the philosophical and academic underpinnings of Rice in the next offering: “University Builder: Edgar Odell Lovett and the Founding of the Rice Institute” (Louisiana State University Press, 2007). With a foreword by Rice’s fifth president, George Rupp, “University Builder” is an in-depth look at Lovett and how his ideas, inspiration and leadership helped create not only Rice, but the concept of the modern university.

“Edgar Odell Lovett and the Creation of Rice University: The Meaning of the New Institution” (Rice University, reprinted 2011) is edited by Boles but primarily contains the text of Lovett’s address at Rice’s formal opening ceremonies. “His lofty conception of the university,” Boles wrote in the preface, “launched the institution with breathtaking boldness and ambition, and to an unusual degree for higher education, that original plan has shaped the subsequent development of Rice.”

Randal L. Hall, an adjunct associate professor of history at Rice, is the editor of “William Marsh Rice and His Institute: The Centennial Edition” (Texas A&M University Press, 2012). This seminal biography of William Marsh Rice was initially researched by Rice historian Andrew Forest Muir beginning in 1957 and completed by Sylvia Stallings Morris in 1972 at the request of the Rice Historical Society. Hall has updated the book with new and important sources unearthed since the original publication.

In the first comprehensive look at Baker’s remarkable life and career, historian Kate Sayen Kirkland delivers a fascinating biography of the man who played a critical role in Rice’s and Houston’s development. In “Captain James A. Baker of Houston, 1857–1941” (Texas A&M University Press, 2012), Kirkland’s richly detailed biography captures key chapters

in Baker’s life, from family roots to his coming of age as an attorney at the firm his father helped to found (Baker Botts L.L.P.); his tireless work on behalf of client William Marsh Rice and the Rice Institute; and his defining leadership in the early 20th-century development of Houston’s financial institutions and cultural life. Alice Baker’s (Capt. Baker’s wife) pioneering social service work gets a full appreciation, and the chapter on the murder of Rice weaves Baker’s personal and professional struggles in vivid detail.

From the creative minds at ttweak, the strategic communications and design firm founded by Rice alum David Thompson ’86 and Randy Twaddle, comes the third book in the popular grassroots series, Houston.

It’s Worth It (HIWI). And this one is all about Rice. “HIWI: Rice” (ttweak, 2012) crowd-sources 160 photographs and 44 comments to create a oneof-a-kind tribute to the university and its hometown. Described as “part love letter, part roast and part remembrance of this venerable institution’s lively presence in our city,” the book will be available wherever Rice centennial books are sold and also at www.HoustonItsWorthIt.com.

“Rice University: One Hundred Years in Pictures” (Texas A&M University, 2012) is a compendium of images that communicates Rice’s singular identity and celebrates an eventful first century. But there’s more than images here. Brief chapters and vignettes combine with photographs and other pictorial memorabilia to tell a century’s worth of stories about the people and events that shaped Rice. The book was produced by Karen Hess Rogers ’68, founder of the Rice Historical Society; Lee Pecht, Rice University archivist and head of special collections at the Woodson Research Center at Fondren Library; and Alan Harris Bath ’95. “Rice alumni are certain that their university is a very special place, and who can deny that?” writes John B. Boles in his introduction. This book belongs to them.

Jesse Holman Jones (1874–1956) was a successful businessman (lumber, real estate, banking, entrepreneur, politician and philanthropist) who played a key role on the national stage during the economic tumult of the Great Depression and World War II. In “Unprecedented Power: Jesse Jones, Capitalism and the Common Good” (Texas A&M University Press, 2011), author and Houston native Steven Fenberg brings to bear decades of research on the life and times of a man whose influence extended far beyond Houston. A portrait of a pragmatic captain of industry who worked tirelessly for the common good emerges in fascinating detail.

—Christopher Dow and Lynn Gosnell

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

45

Go in g the

Distance

Sports

riceowls.com

Rice All-American and Watson Fellowship recipient Becky Wade hasn’t peaked yet.

Becky Wade ’12, a Rice All-American track and cross-country runner, stood on a bridge in London, watching countless runners from around the world competing in the women’s marathon at the 2012 Olympic Games. There were the legitimate contenders, trying to pace themselves toward a medal, and those at the back of the pack, thrilled to be competing in the Olympics.

“The competitors each came in with different backgrounds, goals and mindsets, but all seemed to give every ounce of themselves in that 26.2 miles,” Wade observed. Twice Wade watched the runners go by from street level, working her way through the mob of spectators for a good view, before positioning herself on the bridge.

“The most amazing part of the morning was seeing the reception the competitors got from the public,” she said. “It rained throughout the whole race, but that didn’t stop crowds from lining every single meter of the course on both sides of the railing. The [energy of the] crowd was absolutely contagious.”

Wade wasn’t just another face in the crowd though, as her long-range goal is to compete in the Olympics. “I definitely hope to be on the other side of the railing in the future,” she said. “And I’m prepared and excited to put in the kind of training that will give me a shot to wear the USA singlet.”

At Rice, Wade accomplished just about everything a college student can. A stand-out athlete, she received All-American honors in track and cross-country, made academic AllAmerican and earned a degree with majors in sociology, history and psychology. She established school records in the steeplechase, the 5,000-meter, the 10,000-meter and the indoor 5,000-meter races.

Like many athletes, Wade has periodically been sidelined by injuries. In 2010, she underwent surgery to repair a torn hip. The injury proved to be more annoying than painful, but Wade noticed that her stride was messed up.

After the surgery, she spent up to eight hours a day in rehab and slept with cuffs around her legs to prevent reinjuring the hip. “It was very frustrating at times. But I knew I would be able to get over the challenge of rehab.” It took more than a year before she felt 100 percent.

The injury did temporarily sideline Wade from one track event in particular — the steeplechase, a demanding combination of running and jumping that features a circuit of four 30-inch barriers or fixed hurdles and one water jump. It takes seven and a half laps to go the full 3,000-meter distance. After her injury and the surgery, “it wasn’t smart to be jumping over things,” Wade said.

In June, Wade came tantalizingly close to realizing her Olympic dreams — though not in the event everyone thought she’d be running. Wade had qualified for the Olympic Trials back in April at Stanford, setting a school record for the 10,000-meter race with a time of 32:40.82 in the process. This was the event she planned to run at the Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore. Then, a week before the Trials, Wade decided to compete in an all-comers meet at Rice — running the 3,000-meter steeplechase.

Though Wade had not run a steeplechase in three years, she led the entire race, winning by about 40 seconds. The time qualified her for a second event in Oregon. (At the Trials, Becky would compete

only in the steeplechase.) It was a big gamble that almost paid off.

On the second lap of the race, Wade tripped over one of the hurdles and fell into the water pit. She was hurt, but not badly.

“I really don’t know what happened,” she said. “I was in the lead pack going over the barrier and wound up near the back soon after.”

Wade regained her feet and kept on running. But the Olympics were gone, like a balloon rising out of reach. She finished 14th — last.

Only the top three qualified for London.

Regardless of her finish, the Trials proved worthwhile. Eugene, home of the University of Oregon, is to distance runners what Madison Square Garden is to basketball players. A crowd of more than 20,000 watched the women’s steeplechase. “It was pretty eye opening,” Wade said. “There’s actually a town that truly appreciates and is enthusiastic about distance running.”

That fall may have marked the end to her 2012 Olympic dream, but Wade had another reason to head to the London Olympics.

Along with Rachael Petersen ’12, Wade was awarded the prestigious Watson Fellowship in spring 2012. The two were among just 40 national awardees. Named after Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM, Watson Fellows receive $25,000 to travel the world for a year, researching a special project. Wade is spending the year studying runners and training methods.

The first stop, logically, was London and the Olympic Games. From there, her studies will take her to Ethiopia, Japan, New Zealand and Finland. “I’ll be living pretty simply,” Wade said. “I’ll have to spend most of the grant on travel. I’m staying in places that are cheap, with runners and at training places. I’ll be doing a lot of running.”

Wade grew up in Dallas, a twin in a family that included two sets of twins. Her twin brother, Luke, just began medical school at Southwestern University in Dallas.

“He’s the dead opposite of me,” said Wade. “He’s like 10 inches taller, very muscular, curly blond hair.” The other twins, Matt and Rachel, are a year older. Perhaps not surprisingly, her father, Kim, a former safety at the University of Texas, began running marathons.

Wade began running short distances with her dad as a youngster and started sprinting on the track team in fifth grade. She also competed in the hurdles in high school, foreshadowing her steeplechase running in college, ran cross-country and played lacrosse.

It wasn’t until Wade’s junior year that she began to take crosscountry seriously and attract attention from colleges. Wade missed her high school senior season in track after having a knee scoped, but she was still good enough to be recruited by Texas, Tulsa and Wake Forest, along with Rice. A combination of the school’s academic reputation, the campus and the track program sold her on the Owls, although her three siblings went to Texas.

“It was definitely a break in the family tradition [going to Rice], but they were all very supportive,” she said. “I think my parents were actually pretty thrilled when I came to Rice. It was a better fit for me.”

Early in her freshman year Jim Bevan, women’s track and field head coach, knew he had recruited someone special. “She’s an absolute jewel,” he said. “She has a passion for whatever she does.

Rice Magazine

•

No. 14

•

2012

47

Sports

riceowls.com

She’s extremely motivated, extremely conscientious. Inside she’s tremendously driven. It’s not unusual to have some of those qualities. She has all of them to the highest degree. She’s a complete package.”

And Wade knew soon enough she chose the right school in Rice.

“I’m always grateful to Jim for taking a risk,” she said.

“I wasn’t even one of the top ones he was talking to. He gambled by taking me.”

The bet paid off right away. Wade finished fifth in the Conference USA cross-country meet as a freshman. It took Bevan a while to get to know the effervescent Wade, who has a smile on her face and upbeat personality almost all the time. She’s a practical joker, too. She showed up for track practice one day with a pair of crutches and wearing a boot.

It was April Fools’ Day. She couldn’t stop laughing and gave the joke away.

“She has the most contagious laugh,” said Leslie Melton, who roomed with Wade last year.

To escape the rigors of running and studying, Wade played piano, dabbled with the guitar and cooked new recipes with Melton, a friend all the way back to first grade.

“She seems very happy-go-lucky,” Bevan said.

“But there is more under the surface. She would be a great poker player.”

Wade envisions herself eventually coaching runners and working for the FBI one day. Her father practices criminal law and her grandfather, once the district attorney for Dallas, also worked for the FBI, helping to break up a drug cartel in Ecuador.

But first, there’s the Watson Fellowship.

“It’s been unbelievably cool to experience the Olympics in the host country. The buzz in restaurants and bars and on the streets is pretty powerful,” she said. “I had a blast. I met up with lots of other runners, watching the free Olympic events. I did get to go to the Brazil vs.

South Korea men’s semifinal soccer game, so that was pretty neat.

“The women’s marathon was inspiring in so many ways,” said Wade. “I think my greatest chances of [being in the Olympics] will be in the marathon, and I have another decade or more running until I’m at my peak.”

—Gene Duffey

Gene Duffey is a veteran sports writer and former staff writer at the Houston Post. A graduate of the Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Journalism, Duffey is also the author of “60 Years of the Outland Trophy” (Atriad Press, 2006). He can be reached at sythinman@aol.com.

48

www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

NCAA honors six Rice sports For the seventh consecutive year, Rice University’s intercollegiate athletic teams have earned the NCAA’s Division I Academic Performance Program Public Recognition Awards, which were announced last summer. Six Rice sports were honored: football, men’s golf, women’s cross-country, women’s basketball, women’s swimming and women’s tennis, representing 37.5 percent of the Owls’ 16 sports.

Only four schools competing in the NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision have had a higher percentage of their programs honored by the NCAA. The Owls finished 31st among all schools that field at least one team at the Division I level; Rice’s total of six honored teams led all Division I programs in Texas as well as Conference USA.

Kramer Hall of Fame Salute

Rice football great Tommy Kramer ’77 will be honored with an on-campus salute during the Oct. 13 homecoming game against the University of Texas at San Antonio. A San Antonio native, Kramer is the sixth Rice player inducted into the Hall of Fame.

He later went on to play professionally for the Minnesota Vikings, staying with the NFL for 14 seasons. “There was no question that Tommy’s salute should be a part of the UTSA game,” Rice Director of Athletics, Recreation and Fitness Rick Greenspan said. “Tommy is one of the greatest in a very long list of student–athletes from the San Antonio area who have written so much of Rice’s athletic history.

This is a tremendous opportunity for everyone to come together and celebrate his legendary career in particular as well as the strong ties between Rice and the city of San Antonio.” Kickoff at Rice Stadium is at 2:30 p.m., and the game will be televised by Fox College Sports.

No Upper Limit. Still.

The Centennial Campaign

Building Stronger Bones Futuristic powers of healing figure prominently in our popular imagination — on television, in films and in books. Dr. Bones McCoy of “Star Trek” repaired silicone-based life-forms, and in the “X-Men” comics, Wolverine regenerated tissue at will thanks to mutated DNA. While the ability to heal instantaneously remains in the realm of science fiction, Rice researchers are in reality making advances in tissue engineering. And Rice undergraduate Stephanie Tzouanas ’14 is in the midst of it all.

Tzouanas, a bioengineering major and Goldwater Scholar, is working side by side with graduate students in the lab of renowned bioengineering professor Antonios Mikos to develop revolutionary new biomaterials for bone regeneration. Her latest venture: helping to develop an injectable hydrogel that hardens in the crevices of bones.

The substance could dramatically enhance the healing process, giving victims of trauma and those born with birth defects a better quality of life.

Behind the scenes, gifts from alumni and friends have been hard at work providing scholarship assistance, funding professors’ salaries, providing lab equipment and making Rice a place where great minds — like Stephanie’s — can flourish. What can you accomplish through Rice’s Centennial Campaign? Your contribution can help a Rice undergraduate build the future of healing.

[

The Centennial Campaign Report

]

As of Sept. 15, 2012, Rice’s alumni and friends have raised $880 million toward the Centennial Campaign’s $1 billion goal. Learn how these gifts are bringing the best people and ideas to Rice — and discover what lies ahead — at http://giving.rice.edu/campaignreport.

Phone: 713-348-4600

•

Email: giving@rice.edu

•

Website: www.rice.edu/centennialcampaign

Rice University Creative Services–MS 95 P.O. Box 1892 Houston, TX 77251-1892

Nonprofit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Permit #7549 Houston, Texas

The International Owl Sign McMurtry College students Christopher Liu ’13 (blue shirt) and Trent Navran ’15 (green shirt) spent part of the summer in Nepal and India studying Tibetan Buddhism, meditation and yoga practices. Their project was supported by the Dr. John E. Parish Fellowship, a Wiess College-sponsored fellowship that is open to all undergraduates. Navran and Liu first flew to Nepal. “We mountain biked for two days across the Nepal country, at one point discovering a beautiful monastery at the peak of a mountain,” Liu said. Then they made their way to the Nyingmapa Wishfulfilling Center, a Buddhist monastery located in the Kathmandu Valley. There, the two cognitive science majors learned about and practiced meditation while living and working alongside the young monks in residence. “We were able to spend two hours a day with the head lama receiving instruction on the teachings and practices of Tibetan Buddhism,” Navran said. As they were about to leave the monastery to study the practice of yoga in a South Indian ashram, the Rice students taught the monks how to make an Owl sign.