Rebecca Richards-Kortum was featured on NPR’s “Morning Edition” for being named one of 23 2016 MacArthur fellows. This prestigious honor also resulted in a front page Houston Chronicle story and a mention in The New York Times.
Rice moved up to No. 15 among the best national universities and remained the highest ranked among universities in Texas in the 2017 edition of U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Colleges” guidebook.
Houston Chronicle features five Rice faculty members
Five Rice faculty members — Edward Knightly, Anthony Pinn, Rebecca Richards-Kortum, James Tour and Ruth López Turley — were featured in full-page profiles in a special section of the Houston Chronicle called “Houston: A City of Possibilities.”
Here's a link to the Dateline that has links to all five profiles: http://bit.ly/2eg9reS
For a list of our September-October media stars, please see the last section of this report.
University Relations
New website makes it easier to schedule campus tours
A new website has streamlined the campus tour reservation process for the Welcome Center. The website includes a user-friendly calendar that allows tour organizers to make reservations instantly and generates automatic confirmation emails. As of October, the Welcome Center has brought in 131 tour groups — a total of 4,620 visitors — and is mostly booked for the rest of the 2016–2017 academic year. To view the new website, click visit.rice.edu.
Creative Services
De Lange Conference
Creative Services designed and edited the materials for the 2016 De Lange Conference, titled “Humans, Machines and the Future of Work.” At the December conference, speakers from academia, industry and leading think tanks will share their expertise about the impact of information technology on labor markets.
Kinder Institute report
A new Kinder Institute report, designed and edited by Creative Services, documents the Houston area’s growing rift between rich and poor. Heather O’Connell, a postdoctoral fellow at the institute, and Ph.D. candidate Junia Howell wrote the report, called “Disparate City: Understanding Rising Levels of Concentrated Poverty and Affluence in Greater Houston.”
Flyer for social sciences lecture
Consumer behavior was the subject of a Nov. 7 lecture hosted by the School of Social Sciences. Justine Hastings, a professor of economics and international and public affairs at Brown University, gave a lecture titled “The RIIPL Effect: Science Improving Policy and Equity of Opportunity” Creative Services designed a promotional flyer
The "interwebs" dashboard
Total reach This number reflects how many people potentially were reached through Rice websites and social media during the months of September and October:
9,443,138
Passive viewers This number reflects people who have read or been exposed to Rice via web efforts in the months of September and October:
832,734
Web advocates This number reflects people who have actively shared Rice web and social media content during September and October:
113,738
During September and October, more than 113,738 brand advocates shared the Rice message, which reached 9,443,138 users. The most-engaged-with and clicked-on story was the announcement of the latest U.S. News and World Report rankings. This story reached 76,057 people on Facebook, where it garnered more than 1,300 likes, 19 comments and 278 shares. The most watched and engaged with video documented an architecture student project--installation of hammocks outside Fondren Library. It reached 18,994 people and received 347 likes, 41 shares, 21 comments and 6,500 views.
Multicultural Community Relations joined forces with the Oil and Gas Diversity Council to host a roundtable discussion on diversity and leadership at Farnsworth Pavilion Sept. 23. Topics ranged from strategies for inclusiveness to recognizing one’s leadership style and what it takes to be an effective leader.
Refugee documentary premieres
Nearly 200 people attended the U.S. premiere of “We Are in It,” a film about refugees living in Houston. Yehuda Sharim, the Anna Smith Fine Postdoctoral Fellow in Jewish Studies, directed the film. The event, sponsored in part by MCR, included a reception and a panel discussion about the plight of immigrant and refugee families in Houston.
Award winners at the Blueprint for Excellence Gala were (from left) Rodrigo Barnes, Joseph Branch, Janis Scott, Alex Byrd, Andrea Ehlers and Roland Smith. (Photo by Jerren Willis Photography)
Yearlong celebration ends with gala
The Association of Rice University Black Alumni wrapped up its yearlong celebration of 50 years of black undergraduate life at Rice with the Blueprint for Excellence Gala Oct. 1. MCR helped promote the event, which drew 300 alumni and community members. A story about the gala was featured on the Rice News home page and garnered 1,679 views.
Documentaries highlight public service
The Houston chapter of the American Leadership Forum hosted a Sept. 22 screening of three documentaries about civic leadership and community service, followed by a discussion with the director of one of the films. MCR helped sponsor the event at the Rice Media Center.
Marketing
Marketing campaign launches
The fiscal year 2017 marketing campaign has launched. With our higher ranking by U.S. News and World Report under our belts, the marketing and digital communications team continues its efforts to build top-of-mind awareness. Our media strategy is focused on key educational publications, websites and newsletters. New to our media buy is a longer market presence with digital placements. Our ads will feature a static version as shown below:
Also, rotating digital ads will include rich media that pulls stories from unconventional.rice.edu.
Home page gets new look
In September, the main image on rice.edu was redesigned as a full-width slider to create a more dynamic home page and encourage visitors to learn more about Rice. This slideshow feature allowed us to direct people to key Rice News stories, such as the 20th anniversary of Robert Curl’s Nobel Prize, Rebecca Richards-Kortum’s MacArthur fellowship and the Shepherd School’s Carnegie Hall performance, as well as to promote pages including Campus Life, Why Rice? and various alumni sites. Throughout the months of September and October, the slider received 17,396 clicks. The most-clicked-on story was the Nobel Prize anniversary story, with 2,684 clicks.
Media Stars
Top media star for September-October: Dan Wallach
Dan Wallach had the highest number of media mentions — 1,743 — during September and October, mainly for his comments about election security. He is a professor of computer science and electrical and computer engineering. Below are the Rice experts who were mentioned in the media five or more times in September and October.
