President's Message

“Success requires creativity and imagination, an extraordinary capacity to learn on the job and from the environment, and an ability to communicate with others effectively.” —David W. Leebron

Since arriving almost two years ago as Rice’s first lawyer president, I have discovered that my background in law quickly led me to value the study of engineering, for in some ways, it is quite like law. As the article on engineering in this issue states, “Solving problems is what engineers do.” Many lawyers and legal educators would say the same about lawyers. Even though the skills, tools, and subject matter of the two fields arguably couldn’t be more different, individuals in both disciplines need to take into account the realities of our world, and they need to build the detailed understandings that enable us to move from theory to practice.

However, as Yogi Berra observed, “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.” Engineers must design and build structures (whether macro, micro, or nano), materials, and processes that will accomplish both specific and general goals. These are great challenges that require much more than substantive knowledge. Success also requires creativity and imagination, an extraordinary capacity to learn on the job and from the environment, and an ability to communicate with others effectively.

Engineering education at Rice today is, in some respects, very different than in the past, as it seeks to address today’s challenges. As evident in the article here, it is more interdisciplinary and reflects our increasing ability to manipulate our world down to the molecular level. That ability poses new dangers as well, so it is critical that we assess and understand the environmental consequences of these new technologies. Rice is a leader in this, through, for example, our Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology. Indeed, if one looks at the engineering curriculum today, with its emphasis on bioengineering, computer science, and environmental engineering, it would seem that engineering education has been revolutionized in the last three or four decades. That is partially true, but the fundamental skills of engineering that have, from Rice’s beginning, served our graduates so well are as much in evidence as ever.

It is not, however, only the educational opportunities afforded by the Brown School of Engineering that makes the undergraduate study of engineering at Rice so extraordinary. It is the breadth and creativity we instill in our students through their exposure to educational opportunities in fundamental science, humanities, and the social sciences. In short, one of the engineering school’s greatest assets is being fully integrated into a full-spectrum university.

Creativity in both education and research is found across all schools at the university. To take a couple of examples from these pages: Rice sociologist Bridget Gorman has advanced our understanding of the relationship between poverty and asthma; economist Richard Boylan’s work helps us better understand how prosecutorial decisions may be shaped (perhaps unconsciously) by the job opportunities that await prosecutors in their local environments; and Jones School professor Marc Epstein analyzes the effectiveness of microfinance organizations. Increasingly, education in the classroom is linked to real world projects that call on students to confront the Berra theorem. At the School of Architecture, students in the Rice Building Workshop learn by designing and building projects that contribute to the city of Houston, and students in biology and evolutionary biology have created a conservation management plan for the Houston Arboretum.

Of course, it is the nature of a great university that our education and research are not limited to those projects that have immediate practical application. Thus, we celebrate such accomplishments as the discovery by mathematician Michael Wolf and others of a new geometric shape. The curiosity-driven research in universities ultimately produces great benefits, and it is our ability to sustain such fundamental research that distinguishes universities from other enterprises engaged in research endeavors.

Before closing, I want to say a word about food, or more specifically about our chefs chronicled here. Most of what we cover in Sallyport is about our faculty and our students. But the dedication to excellence, and to supporting the nurturing and learning community we strive to create, is something that characterizes all parts of our community, and most especially our dedicated staff. As the article on our chefs makes clear, even when it comes to preparing the nourishment for our students, we are working to exceed the bounds of what is merely expected or acceptable. That is true of our chefs and, as any visitor to our campus would note, true of our groundskeepers and our custodians. Without the work of such dedicated staff, Rice simply would not be what it is today. I hope that those of you who visit the campus will, if you have the opportunity, take a moment to thank our staff for all they do to create a campus and community of which we are justly proud.