During July, Government Relations stayed busy as campus opened up to more government visitors and we returned to Washington to lobby in person for Rice priorities for the first time in nearly 18 months.

Working with University Relations and the Office of Research, we helped host a group of university envoys — all Rice alumni — from NASA’s Johnson Space Center as they toured campus and met with Rice leadership, including deans, department chairs and faculty members, in order to build rapport and discuss how the center can forge effective, lasting relationships with key universities.

Also in July, Rice hosted Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s third annual Healthcare Innovation Summit at the Bioscience Research Collaborative (BRC). In partnership with Rice’s Institute of Bioscience and Bioengineering, the event featured Vice Provost for Research Yousif Shamoo and gave special recognition to Stephen Hahn ’80, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

In late July, Government Relations held a series of meetings with staff on Capitol Hill as we promoted several Rice priorities, including our support for the concept of “regional technology hubs” included in the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act and for repeal of the “scholarship tax” on certain private university endowments.

In July and August, also in collaboration with University Relations, we helped arrange meetings between city of Houston department leaders and members of Rice’s environmentally focused faculty. Our EnviroFac members are interested in partnering with the city to pursue federal resiliency grant funding, for which our faculty would help the city implement a community resiliency plan. We continue to build toward this goal.

Finally, in August a good deal of our time was spent keeping tabs on the second special session of the 87th Texas Legislature. We monitored numerous bills from across a variety of categories, including bills that would restrict COVID vaccination mandates by employers or entities seeking state funding and the teaching of critical race theory, among others. Most of these bills failed to advance, but one bill on critical race theory passed and was sent to Gov. Greg Abbott.

Multicultural Community Relations (MCR) helped the Black Student Association (BSA) and the Hispanic Association for Cultural Enrichment at Rice (HACER) organize new student receptions Aug. 14. Both events were supposed to be in person, but because of the surge of the delta variant, the events had to go online. The BSA reception featured Vce Provost for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Alex Byrd ’90, as the keynote speaker. Byrd spoke about Black life and the increase of Black faculty at Rice. A panel of faculty, staff and alumni led by Catherine Clack, associate dean of undergraduates, gave advice on how to succeed at Rice and addressed safety issues on campus. HACER had an array of speakers, such as Richard Tapia, university professor; José Aranda, assistant professor of Chicano and American literature; and David Medina ’83, director of MCR. President David Leebron spoke at both events.