ARA Thanks Rice-TMS

Competition among universities for top-notch minority students has always been intense, but in the wake of the 1996 Hopwood decision, which banned Texas institutions from using race in admission decisions, it became more so.

Concerned about the impact Hopwood was having on the diversity of the undergraduate population at their alma mater, six alumni—Andrea Ehlers '88, Sofia Adrogue '88, Hank Coleman Jr. '66, C. M. Hudspeth '40, Marco Leal '97, and Steve Shaper ’58—founded RICE-TMS (Recruitment Into Collegiate Education Through Minority Scholarships), a non-Rice-affiliated organization whose goal is broadening the pool of talented minority applicants and enrollees at Rice.

In its three years, RICE-TMS has experienced amazing success, raising more than $800,000, more than $135,000 of which has been contributed by members of the Rice community. With this support, the organization has been able to fund 53 $10,000 scholarships to date to minority students accepted to Rice who have demonstrated leadership potential. Each scholarship is awarded over a four-year period in annual $2,500 installments and includes an assignment to a faculty mentor for the student’s entire four years at Rice.

This spring, the Association of Rice Alumni showed its appreciation by honoring the organization, the alumni board members who founded it, and the association’s president, Carl MacDowell, at the association’s annual awards ceremony. “The alumni who comprise the RICE-TMS board should be very proud of their accomplishment,” MacDowell said. Time and again, he noted, the students who accept the scholarships say that the honor of being selected and the scholarship itself were important in their decision to come to Rice.