President Leebron seeks input on the university’s future
President David Leebron introduced the Vision for the Second Century, part 2 (V2C2) at his Feb. 7 town hall presentation. Faculty, staff, students, alumni and others received an email inviting them to participate in an online survey that will play a key role in the university's strategic planning. The survey remains open through March 19.
Rice 360° Institute for Global Health is MacArthur grant semifinalist
The announcement that the Rice 360° Institute for Global Health and its partners are among eight semifinalists for a $100 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation was widely reported by The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle and other media. Rice used video, photos, a story and its website and social media accounts to share the great news. The foundation plans to select the winner this fall.
Rice's Moody Center for the Arts opened to the public Feb. 24 with a dedication ceremony and ribbon-cutting. The 50,000-square-foot, $30 million center was designed by acclaimed Los Angeles-based architect Michael Maltzan.
For a list of our January-February media stars, please see the last section of this report.
Government Relations
New government relations director joins Rice's Public Affairs team
Meet Nathan Cook, Rice’s new director of government relations. Nathan brings a strong history of state and federal government relations experience to the job. Most recently, he directed state government relations nationally for McKesson Specialty Health, the nation’s largest network of independent community oncology care providers. He also served as district director for U.S. Rep. Pete Olson ’85 and deputy regional director for U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. With the Texas Legislature in session and a new administration in Washington, D.C., Nathan is hitting the ground running.
University Relations
Rice’s United Way donations rank among top 50 in Houston
For each of the past three years, the Rice United Way Campaign has raised more than a quarter-million dollars, which puts the university in United Way’s top echelon of institutional donors. For the second straight year, the Rice campaign was one of the 50 most generous in Houston and exceeded the campaign’s $250,000 goal by nearly $20,000.
The divisional breakdown of the 2016-17 campaign is shown below. Over the past five years, the Rice United Way Campaign has contributed a total of $1.25 million to improving our community.
Creative Services
Poster publicizes medieval violence talk
As part of the O’Brien Medieval and Early Modern Studies Guest Lecture Series, Creative Services designed and edited a poster to promote visiting Duke Professor Jehangir Malegam’s talk on violence, exorcism and the politics of discernment in medieval Europe.
A festive holiday card
Creative Services designers had some fun with the Rice holiday card when they produced this design for the print version and features the four student faces from the Sallyport archway. The design also tied in with the emailed holiday card, which featured the same faces in an animated video.
Brochure maps Rice space program
Working closely with clients in the Wiess School of Natural Sciences, a Creative Services team designed and edited a brochure detailing the offerings of the Space Studies program. It’s the latest in a series of brochures for the school’s Professional Science Master’s program. The Space Studies track is geared toward scientists and engineers interested in space program management, with courses designed to help them navigate the challenges inherent in U.S. space policy, human and robotic space exploration and the science of space exploration and technology development.
Promoting a creative lecture series
Three national experts on creativity, innovation and psychology are discussing “Creativity Up Close” as part of a public lecture series sponsored by the Moody Center for the Arts, the Humanities Research Center and the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies, among others. The first two lectures took place Jan. 24 and Feb. 28; a third will be held March 21. Creative Services designed and produced publicity materials, including this eye-catching poster.
Multicultural Community Relations
MLK Day speakers discuss the path to a just society
Houston City Councilmember Amanda Edwards and Rice alumna Karen Kossie-Chernyshev, a history professor at Texas Southern University, were keynote speakers at Rice’s annual celebration of the life of Martin Luther King Jr. The Jan. 16 event was organized by the Black Student Association with the help of Multicultural Community Relations. Building on the program’s theme, “The Dream Lives On,” both speakers talked about how to continue building a just society.
Events celebrate 100 years of Asian undergraduate life at Rice
Rice kicked off its celebration of 100 years of Asian undergraduate life with a Jan. 27 event that included presentations and a documentary on Asian food in Houston. More than 200 people gathered at the Rice Media Center to listen to presentations by Anne Chao ’05, Ed Chen ’59 and a number of Asian students.
As part of the yearlong celebration, 55 members of the Rice University Community of Asian Alumni attended a happy hour Jan. 19 and toured the “Emperors’ Treasures: Chinese Art From the National Palace Museum, Taipei” exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. MCR helped organize both events.
MCR promotes college readiness
In January and February, MCR took part in events aimed at encouraging students from a variety of ethnic communities to pursue college educations. On Jan. 24, MCR staff spoke about college readiness to third- through fifth-graders at Ketelsen Elementary. On Feb. 8, MCR and the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies hosted an open house for members of Rice’s K-12 Council. On Feb. 18, they recruited students from the Hispanic Association for Cultural Enrichment at Rice to help host a booth at the Houston Hispanic Forum’s Career and Education Day, which drew more than 10,000 students, parents and educators. On Feb. 24, Stephen Klineberg, founding director of Rice’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research and a professor of sociology, and Samuel Sarabia, deputy assistant superintendent of HISD, were keynote speakers at the Latino Education Summit hosted by MCR at the Rice Memorial Center.
Marketing and Digital Communications
Hero slider increases engagement
The hero slider on Rice’s home page attracted 24,941 clicks in January and February — an increase of 43 percent from the previous two months. In February, the web team launched a video that adds a new element to the slider. In January and February, the slider directed people to major Rice News stories, including one about the opening of the new Moody Center for the Arts and one about the Wall Street Journal ranking Rice second in the country for best student-to-faculty ratio; the latter was the most clicked-on story, with 3,482.
New Rice-branded websites launch
The Public Affairs web development team and the Office of Information Technology have been working to move Rice websites onto the Drupal platform. In January and February, the following sites launched using the new Rice-branded template:
Total reach This number reflects how many people potentially were reached through Rice websites and social media during January and February:
7,689,625
Passive viewers This number reflects people who have read or been exposed to Rice via web efforts in January and February:
757,271
Web advocates
This number reflects people who have actively shared Rice web and social media content during January and February:
95,892
In January and February, more than 95,000 brand advocates shared the Rice message, which reached more than 7 million users. The most clicked-on story was President Leebron’s statement on the recent executive order restricting immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries. This story reached 98,816 people on Facebook, where it got more than 1,600 likes, 40 comments and 314 shares; it also prompted more than 4,400 clicks on rice.edu.
Nine videos were posted to the Rice Facebook page in January and February, including two Facebook Live videos. A video about “Teslaphoresis” reached 14,731 people and garnered 218 likes, 38 shares, one comment and more than 4,600 views.
Mark Jones and Douglas Brinkley nearly tied for the highest number of media mentions during January and February. Jones had 3,127 mentions and Brinkley had 3,126, both for their political commentary.
Jones is the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies, a professor of political science, a political science fellow at Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and a fellow at Rice’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research. Brinkley is a professor of history.
Below are the Rice experts who were mentioned in the media five or more times during January and February.
