Rice: Living Its Vision for the Second Century
Rice University’s Centennial Campaign, which kicked off in November, is the most ambitious fundraising effort in the university’s history. Its goal is to raise $1 billion by June 30, 2013, the end of the academic year that marks Rice’s 100th anniversary. But the campaign isn’t really about a milestone birthday or about economic resources. It’s about value, which isn’t strictly a financial matter because we also have to ask what it means to have value, what is the value of the work we do, and what do we value about ourselves and our world? It’s about the mission of Rice and the university’s ability to carry out that mission as it embarks on its second century — a century that promises fantastic advances in the very disciplines in which Rice excels. And ultimately, it’s about the people who support Rice and inspire others to get involved.
Few universities can claim the kind of loyalty Rice does, and that loyalty comes from the value that Rice has added to the personal lives of not just its students and alumni, but also its faculty and staff. It’s impossible to keep a note of pride out of your voice when you tell someone that you graduated from Rice or teach or work here. It’s also gratifying that Rice’s excellence is recognized by independent sources. Organizations that rank universities routinely place Rice among the best: among the top 20 in the United States and among the top 100 globally. (See “Top 20” and “Top 200.")
Rice also is rated a best value among universities. Usually, this refers to the quality of the educational experience compared with the amount of money a student has to spend to get that education. By that metric, Rice is undoubtedly a best value among its peers. Princeton Review and Kiplinger’s both just rated Rice as the No. 4 best value in private higher education.
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But Rice is a best value in a great number of other ways, too. One is the quality of the research that goes on here — not just quality in the abstract, but a tangibly real quality that enhances the lives of real people in a real world. This has recently been attested to by the Patent Board, which ranks patent portfolios held by companies and institutions of higher education and judges Rice head and shoulders above its nearest competitor. (See “Patently Best”.)
But even patents can seem like an abstraction, so let’s bring it down to real terms. Cell phones and other wireless communications are based on technology developed at Rice. ATM machines were pioneered by a Rice graduate. The first heart pump was developed in part by Rice engineers, as is the most recent innovation in the field. (See “Heart of the Matter”.) The discovery of buckminsterfullerene at Rice launched the nanotechnology revolution. And in-depth studies of social groups, political organizations and cultural constructs that are under way here promise a greater understanding of how humans behave and interact. Obvious examples are Stephen Klineberg’s Houston Area Survey, the longest-running in-depth demographic survey of a major American urban center; the Center on Race, Religion and Urban Life; and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, which has become one of the world’s leading think tanks and a magnet for global political leaders as well as for important political and economic research.
Seasoned researchers aren’t the only ones making contributions. Among universities, Rice has the highest percentage of prestigious CAREER Awards, which are given to promising young researchers in a variety of fields. (See “Making a CAREER of It” .) Equally astounding are our undergraduate students, who are not just winning awards, but who are doing cutting-edge research with far-ranging consequences. One example is the students in the Rice 360º program, who are creating medical technologies that will revolutionize health care in the developing world. (See “Global Health”.) Another is Libby Stephens, who is working to develop a way to grow replacement heart valves using the patient’s own tissue. (See “Help for Young Hearts”.)
Every day, you use or depend on something that owes its existence to Rice research, and that situation will only amplify in the years to come. While no one knows what the future holds, we do know that getting there will cost time and money. We may not be able to do much about time, but the Centennial Campaign will help with the money, which, in turn, will aid Rice in acquiring the resources it needs to move forward into the next century and to add value to lives not just here, but around the world.
What makes it important to raise money for Rice in these admittedly difficult economic times? The truth is, the current economic malaise will pass. The real issue is the future into which all of us are moving and the viability of institutions that will educate us, support us, heal us and lead us as we take that inevitable journey. The viability of institutions like Rice University.
That viability is the central reason for the Centennial Campaign, which has its genesis in President David W. Leebron’s 2005 Call to Conversation. Leebron queried all constituents of the university — alumni, faculty, students, administrators, staff, friends of the university and leaders in the Houston community at large — in an effort to gain information and opinions that might help him formulate a plan that would establish a firm foundation upon which Rice could build in the decades to come. That gave rise to the Vision for the Second Century, a 10-point strategy for Rice to accomplish its goals that, in turn, has been distilled into three major campaign initiatives. (See “Three Big Ideas”.)
The first aims to transform extraordinary students into extraordinary leaders. This has long been one of Rice’s deeply held commitments, and the Centennial Campaign will continue to fuel undergraduate and graduate education to prepare the next generation of leaders to make a distinctive impact in the world. The second initiative involves facing challenges and generating solutions. This means that the Centennial Campaign will support extensive investment in Rice’s research enterprise so that we can put our interdisciplinary and multi-institutional collaborations to work to solve problems that face us all. And third is what we refer to as learning and leading locally and globally. In a nutshell, the Centennial Campaign will foster partnerships with leading institutions in Houston and across the world that will benefit our students and faculty and extend the university’s local-to-global reach.
We usually think of value as spending a little less, but sometimes it means spending a little more — at least initially. Buying a product in bulk, for example, requires a larger initial outlay but saves money in the long run. And I think of the times I’ve purchased a product because it was cheap, only to discover it didn’t work properly, which forced me to return to the store to spend more money on a better replacement. Finally, there is this simple fact: If we expect returns in the future — whether financial or of the other sorts of value — we must invest even when it may be inconvenient.
Rice has a reputation as a stronghold of academic and research excellence precisely because it lives up to its association with all the senses of the word “value”. But it achieved that excellence through adherence to the principle of “no upper limit.” As Rice enters the 21st century, it will continue that trajectory, not because it strives to be as good as it was in the 20th, but because it promises to be even better.