Rice University

History

Background

Rice University's history began with the death of Massachusetts businessman William Marsh Rice, who had made his fortune in real estate, railroad development and cotton trading in Texas. In 1891, Rice decided to charter a free-tuition educational institute in Houston, bearing his name, to be created upon his death, earmarking most of his estate towards funding the project. Rice's will specified the institution was to be "a competitive institution of the highest grade" and that only white students would be permitted to attend.

On the morning of September 23, 1900, Rice, age 84, was found dead by his valet, Charles F. Jones, and was presumed to have died in his sleep. Shortly thereafter, a large check made out to Rice's New York City lawyer, signed by the late Rice, aroused the suspicion of a bank teller, due to the misspelling of the recipient's name. The lawyer, Albert T. Patrick, then claimed that Rice had changed his will to leave the bulk of his fortune to Patrick, rather than to the creation of Rice's educational institute.

A subsequent investigation led by the district attorney of New York resulted in the arrests of Patrick and of Rice's butler and valet Charles F. Jones, who had been persuaded to administer chloroform to Rice while he slept. Rice's friend and personal lawyer in Houston, Captain James A. Baker, aided in the discovery of what turned out to be a fake will with a forged signature. Jones was not prosecuted since he cooperated with the district attorney, and testified against Patrick. Patrick was found guilty of conspiring to steal Rice's fortune and he was convicted of murder in 1901 (he was pardoned in 1912 due to conflicting medical testimony).

Baker helped Rice's estate direct the fortune, worth $4.6 million in 1904 (equivalent to $125 million in 2024), towards the founding of what was to be called the Rice Institute, later to become Rice University. The board took control of the assets on April 29 of that year.

In 1907, the board of trustees selected the head of the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy at Princeton University, Edgar Odell Lovett, to head the institute, which was still in the planning stages. He came recommended by Princeton's president, Woodrow Wilson. In 1908, Lovett accepted the challenge, and was formally inaugurated as the institute's first president on October 12, 1912.

Establishment and growth

In 1911, the cornerstone was laid for the institute's first building, the Administration Building, now known as Lovett Hall in honor of the founding president. On September 23, 1912, the 12th anniversary of William Marsh Rice's murder, the William Marsh Rice Institute for the Advancement of Letters, Science, and Art began coursework with 59 enrolled students, who were known as the "59 immortals," and about a dozen faculty. After 18 additional students joined later, Rice's initial class numbered 77, 48 male and 29 female. Rice accepted coeducational admissions from its beginning, but on-campus housing would not become co-ed until 1957.

Per William Marsh Rice's will and Rice Institute's initial charter, the students paid no tuition. Classes were difficult, however, and about half of Rice's students had failed after the first 1912 term. At its first commencement ceremony, held on June 12, 1916, Rice awarded 35 bachelor's degrees and one master's degree. That year, the student body also voted to adopt the § Honor System, which still exists today. The first Ph.D. was awarded in 1918 in mathematics.

In the 1920s, many of the university's early students were active supporters of the Ku Klux Klan, with a 1922 yearbook showing approximately twenty students wearing Klan robes in a posed photograph. President David Leebron reacted to the re-circulation of these images in 2019 by stating that "It is unsurprising but nonetheless deeply disturbing that racist imagery, including students in blackface and KKK outfits, appeared at Rice with some frequency during the years prior to the admission of black students." In 1923, a Ku Klux Klan event was held on a Rice-owned Louisiana Street location, near to the home of a Black woman who had filed a lawsuit against the institute in 1909.

The Founder's Memorial Statue, a bronze statue of a seated William Marsh Rice, holding the original plans for the campus, was dedicated in 1930, and installed in the central academic quad, facing Lovett Hall. The statue was crafted by John Angel. In 2020, Rice students petitioned the university to take down the statue due to the founder's history as a slave owner. In January 2022, the board of trustees announced plans to relocate the statue within the academic quadrangle. In November 2023, the statue along with its plinth were taken down in conjunction with a renovation of the Academic Quad, and eventually were relocated to a different location in the Quad.

Late twentieth and early twenty-first century

The Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations was held at Rice in 1990. Three years later, in 1993, the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy was created. In 1997, the Edythe Bates Old Grand Organ and Recital Hall and the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, renamed in 2005 for the late Nobel Prize winner and Rice professor Richard E. Smalley, were dedicated at Rice. In 1999, the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology was created. The Rice Owls baseball team was ranked #1 in the nation for the first time in that year (1999), holding the top spot for eight weeks.

In 2003, the Owls won their first national championship in baseball, which was the first for the university in any team sport, beating Southwest Missouri State in the opening game and then the University of Texas and Stanford University twice each en route to the title. In 2008, President David Leebron issued a ten-point plan titled "Vision for the Second Century" outlining plans to increase research funding, strengthen existing programs, and increase collaboration. The plan has brought about another wave of campus constructions, including the newly renamed BioScience Research Collaborative building (intended to foster collaboration with the adjacent Texas Medical Center), a new recreational center and the renovated Autry Court basketball stadium, and the addition of two new residential colleges, Duncan College and McMurtry College.

Beginning in late 2008, the university considered a merger with Baylor College of Medicine, though the merger was ultimately rejected in 2010. Select Rice undergraduates were guaranteed admission to Baylor College of Medicine upon graduation as part of the Rice/Baylor BS/MD Medical Scholars program, until the termination of the program in 2022.

In 2018, the university added an online MBA program, MBA@Rice.

In June 2019, the university's president announced plans for a task force on Rice's "past in relation to slave history and racial injustice", stating that "Rice has some historical connections to that terrible part of American history and the segregation and racial disparities that resulted directly from it".

In 2021, President Leebron decided to pursue a development agreement with the City of Houston in response to requests from community members and Rice students regarding the Rice Innovation District. This decision was made instead of implementing a community benefits agreement, which had been suggested by the community. Typically, community benefits agreements involve a community coalition as a signatory, but the proposed agreement with the City of Houston will not include such a coalition.

Campus

Located near the city of West University Place, Rice University's campus covers a 285-acre (115 ha) area within Houston's museum district and is heavily wooded.

The campus is bounded by five streets: Greenbriar Street, Rice Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard, Main Street, and University Boulevard. Throughout its history, Rice University's buildings have been situated within this "outer loop." However, in recent times, new facilities have been constructed in proximity to the campus. Despite this, most of the academic, administrative, and residential structures are still situated within the original pentagonal area. Some off-campus buildings include the Collaborative Research Center, graduate student housing, the Greenbriar building, and the Wiess President's House.

Rice University's campus houses around 50 buildings that are dispersed between the main entrance located at its easternmost corner and the parking lots and Rice Stadium situated at the western end. The Lynn R. Lowrey Arboretum, consisting of more than 4000 trees and shrubs is spread throughout the campus.

The university's first president, Edgar Odell Lovett, intended for the campus to have a uniform architecture style to improve its aesthetic appeal. Nearly every building on campus is noticeably Byzantine in style, with sand and pink-colored bricks, large archways and columns being a common theme among many campus buildings.

Lovett Hall, named for Rice's first president, is the university's landmark building. Through its Sallyport arch, new students symbolically enter the university during matriculation and depart as graduates at commencement. Duncan Hall, Rice's computational engineering building, was designed to encourage collaboration between the four different departments situated there. The building's foyer, drawn from many world cultures, was designed by the architect to symbolically express this collaborative purpose.

The campus is organized in a number of quadrangles. The Academic Quad, anchored by a statue of founder William Marsh Rice, includes Ralph Adams Cram's masterpiece, the asymmetrical Lovett Hall, the original administrative building; Fondren Library; Herzstein Hall, the original physics building and home to the largest amphitheater on campus; Sewall Hall for the social sciences and arts; Rayzor Hall for the languages; and Anderson Hall of the Architecture department. The Humanities Building, winner of several architectural awards, is immediately adjacent to the main quad. Further west lies a quad surrounded by McNair Hall of the Jones Business School, the Baker Institute, and Alice Pratt Brown Hall of the Shepherd School of Music. These two quads are surrounded by the university's main access road, a one-way loop referred to as the "inner loop". In the Engineering Quad, a trinity of sculptures by Michael Heizer, collectively entitled 45 Degrees, 90 Degrees, 180 Degrees, are flanked by Abercrombie Laboratory, the Cox Building, and the Mechanical Laboratory, housing the Electrical, Mechanical, and Earth Science/Civil Engineering departments, respectively. Duncan Hall is the latest addition to this quad, providing new offices for the Computer Science, Computational and Applied Math, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Statistics departments.

Innovation District

In early 2019, Rice announced the site where the abandoned Sears building in Midtown Houston stood, along with its surrounding area, would be transformed into "The Ion," the hub of the 16-acre (6.5 ha) South Main Innovation District. President David Leebron stated, "We chose the name Ion because it's from the Greek ienai, which means 'go'. We see it as embodying the ever-forward motion of discovery, the spark at the center of a truly original idea. It also represents the last three letters in many of the words that define the building's mission, like inspiration, creation, acceleration and innovation."

Students of Rice and other Houston-area colleges and universities making up the Student Coalition for a Just and Equitable Innovation Corridor are advocating for a community benefits agreement (CBA), a contractual agreement between a developer and a community coalition. Residents of neighboring Third Ward and other members of the Houston Coalition for Equitable Development Without Displacement (HCEDD) have faced consistent opposition from the City of Houston and Rice Management Company to a CBA as traditionally defined, in favor of an agreement between the latter two entities without a community coalition signatory.

Organization

Rice University is chartered as a non-profit organization and is governed by a privately appointed board of trustees. The board consists of a maximum of 25 voting members who serve four-year terms. The trustees serve without compensation and a simple majority of trustees must reside in Texas, including at least four within the greater Houston area. The board of trustees delegates its power by appointing a president to serve as the chief executive of the university. Reginald DesRoches was appointed president in 2022 and succeeded David W. Leebron, who served since 2004. The provost, three executive vice presidents, and seven vice presidents report to the president.

The university's academics are organized into several schools. The Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies has only graduate programs. Schools that have undergraduate and graduate programs include:

Rice University School of Architecture

George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing

School of Humanities

Shepherd School of Music

Wiess School of Natural Sciences

Rice University School of Social Sciences

Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management

Rice's undergraduate students are admitted from a centralized admissions process, which admits new students to the university as a whole, rather than a specific school (the schools of Music and Architecture are decentralized). Students are encouraged to select the major path that best suits their desires; a student can later decide that they would rather pursue study in another field, or continue their current coursework and add a second or third major. These transitions are designed to be simple, with students not required to decide on a specific major until their sophomore year of study. Rice offers 360 degrees in over 60 departments. There are 40 undergraduate degree programs, 51 masters programs, and 29 doctoral programs.

Rice Management Company

The Rice Management Company manages the $8.1 billion Rice University endowment (June 2021) and $1.1 billion debt. The endowment provides 40% of Rice's operating revenues.

In August 2021, an economic development agreement that would provide Rice Management Company with up to $65 million in cost reimbursement from local taxes was given initial approval by the Midtown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone. The agreement does not require a community benefits agreement in exchange for funding. Final approval requires a vote by the Houston City Council.

Academics

Rice is a medium-sized, highly residential research university. The majority of enrollments are in the full-time, four-year undergraduate program emphasizing arts & sciences and professions. There is a very high level of research activity. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools as well as the professional accreditation agencies for engineering, management, and architecture.

Each of Rice's departments is organized into one of three distribution groups, and students whose major lies within the scope of one group must take at least three courses of at least three credit hours each of approved distribution classes in each of the other two groups, as well as completing one physical education course as part of the LPAP (Lifetime Physical Activity Program) requirement. All new students must take a Freshman Writing Intensive Seminar (FWIS) class, and for students who do not pass the university's composition examination (administered during the summer before matriculation), FWIS 100, a writing class, becomes an additional requirement.

Student body

As of fall 2022, men made up 51.1% of the undergraduate body and 63.1% of the professional and post-graduate student body. 36.9% of degree-seeking students were from out of state, 35.9% were from Texas and 27.2% were from outside of the United States. In 2022, the largest proportion of international students came from Asian countries, with 1623 out of the 2344 total students (or 69.24%) coming from China (1145), India (296), Taiwan (93), and Korea (89).

Honor Code

The Rice Honor Code plays an integral role in academic affairs. Almost all Rice exams are unproctored and professors give timed, closed-book exams that students take home and complete at their own convenience. Potential infractions are reported to the student Honor Council, elected by popular vote. The penalty structure is established every year by Council consensus; typically, penalties have ranged from a letter of reprimand to an 'F' in the course and a two semester suspension. During Orientation Week, students must take and pass a test demonstrating that they understand the Honor System's requirements and sign a Matriculation Pledge. On assignments, Rice students affirm their commitment to the Honor Code by writing "On my honor, I have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid on this [examination, quiz or paper]".

Research centers and resources

Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship – supports entrepreneurs and early-stage technology ventures in Houston and Texas through education, collaboration, and research, ranked No. 1 among university business incubators.

Baker Institute for Public Policy – a leading nonpartisan public policy think-tank

BioScience Research Collaborative (BRC) – interdisciplinary, cross-campus, and inter-institutional resource between Rice University and Texas Medical Center

Boniuk Institute – dedicated to religious tolerance and advancing religious literacy, respect and mutual understanding

Center for African and African American Studies – fosters conversations on topics such as critical approaches to race and racism, the nature of diasporic histories and identities, and the complexity of Africa's past, present and future

Chao Center for Asian Studies – research hub for faculty, students and post-doctoral scholars working in Asian studies

Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality (CSWGS) – interdisciplinary academic programs and research opportunities, including the journal Feminist Economics

Data to Knowledge Lab (D2K) – campus hub for experiential learning in data science

Digital Signal Processing (DSP) – center for education and research in the field of digital signal processing

Humanities Research Center (HRC) – identifies, encourages, and funds innovative research projects by faculty, visiting scholars, graduate, and undergraduate students in the School of Humanities and beyond

Admissions

Admission to Rice is rated as "most selective" by U.S. News & World Report.

For fall 2025, Rice received 36,791 freshmen applications of which 2,948 were admitted (8.0%) slightly higher than the record-low 7.9% acceptance rate in 2023. Of those, 1,263 enrolled. The 25th and 75th SAT scores for the class of 2025 were 1500 and 1570 respectively; the same range for the ACT Composite score was 34–36.

Admission to the university is need-blind for domestic applicants.

Rankings and reputation

Rice was ranked tied at 17th among national universities and 108th among global universities, 6th for "best undergraduate teaching", 5th for "Best Value", and tied for 16th "Most Innovative" among national universities in the U.S. by U.S. News & World Report in its 2022 edition. In 2024, Forbes magazine ranked Rice University 9th nationally among 500 liberal arts colleges, universities and service academies, 1st among universities in the south, and 9th among research universities.

In 2020, Rice was ranked 105th in the world by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. In 2020, Rice was ranked tied for 95th internationally (41st nationally) by the Academic Ranking of World Universities. Rice was also ranked 85th globally in 2020 by QS World University Rankings.

The Princeton Review ranked Rice as one of the top 50 best value private colleges in its 2020 edition.

Student life

Rice University's 300-acre (120 ha) campus is located in Houston's Museum District and surrounded by greenery, adjacent to Hermann Park, Rice Village, and the Texas Medical Center. Hermann Park features many attractions, including the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Miller Outdoor Theatre, and a municipal golf course. The Houston METRORail system provides access to downtown's theatre and nightlife district and Reliant Park, with a station located adjacent to the university's main gate. In 2008, Rice University joined the Zipcar program, providing two vehicles to offer more transportation options for students who do not have access to a vehicle.

Residential colleges

In 1957, Rice University implemented a residential college system, which was proposed by the university's first president, Edgar Odell Lovett. The system was inspired by existing systems in place in England and at several other universities in the United States. The existing residences known as East, South, West, and Wiess Halls became Baker, Will Rice, Hanszen, and Wiess Colleges, respectively.

Below is a list of residential colleges in order of founding:

Baker College, named in honor of Captain James A. Baker, friend and attorney of William Marsh Rice, and first chair of the Rice Board of Governors

Will Rice College, named for William M. Rice, Jr., nephew of the university's founder, William Marsh Rice

Hanszen College, named for Harry Clay Hanszen, benefactor to the university and chairman of the Rice Board of Governors from 1946 to 1950

Wiess College, named for Harry Carothers Wiess (1887–1948), one of the founders and one-time president of Humble Oil, now ExxonMobil

Jones College, named for Mary Gibbs Jones, wife of prominent Houston philanthropist Jesse Holman Jones

Brown College, named for Margarett Root Brown by her in-law, George R. Brown

Lovett College, named after the university's first president, Edgar Odell Lovett

Sid Richardson College, named for the Sid Richardson Foundation, established by Texas oilman, cattleman, and philanthropist Sid W. Richardson

Martel College, named for Marian and Speros P. Martel, built in 2002

Campus institutions

Rice Coffeehouse began in Hanszen College, where students would serve coffee in the Weenie Loft, a study room in the old section's fourth floor. Later, the coffee house moved to the Hanszen basement to accommodate more student patrons. That coffeehouse became known as Breadsticks and Pomegranates, and closed due to flooding. Demand for an on-campus Coffeehouse grew and in 1990, the Rice Coffeehouse was founded.

The Rice Coffeehouse is a not-for-profit student-run organization serving Rice University and the greater Houston community. Over the past few years, it has introduced fair-trade and organic coffee and loose-leaf teas.

Coffeehouse baristas are referred to as K.O.C.s, or Keepers of the Coffee. Rice Coffeehouse has also adopted an unofficial mascot, the squirrel, which can be found on T-shirts, mugs, and bumper stickers stuck on laptops across campus. The logo pays tribute to Rice's squirrel population, claimed by students to be unusually plump and frighteningly tame.

Formerly known as Willy's Pub, The Pub at Rice is Rice's student-run pub located in the basement of the Rice Memorial Center. It opened on April 11, 1975, with Rice President Norman Hackerman pouring the first beer. The original name was chosen by students in tribute to the university's founder, William Marsh Rice. After the drinking age in Texas was raised in 1986, the pub entered a period of financial difficulties and in April 1995, was destroyed in a fire. The space was gutted but renovated and remains open. On February 15, 2022, the Rice Thresher announced the rebranding of Willy's Pub as The Pub at Rice.

Rice Bikes is a full-service on-campus bicycle sale, rental, and repair shop. It originated in the basement of Sid Richardson College in February 2011. In 2012, Rice Bikes officially became the university's third student-run business. Rice Bikes merged with a student-run bicycle rental business in 2013, and operations moved to the Rice Memorial Center in 2014. In 2017, the business moved to the garage of the Rice Housing and Dining department's headquarters.

Rice Bikes functions as a full bicycle repair shop.

Rice has a weekly student newspaper (The Rice Thresher), a yearbook (The Campanile), college radio station (KTRU Rice Radio), and now defunct, campus-wide student television station (RTV5). They are based out of the RMC student center. In addition, Rice hosts several student magazines dedicated to a range of different topics; the spring semester of 2008 saw the founding of two magazines, a literary sex journal called Open and an undergraduate science research magazine entitled Catalyst.

Athletics

Rice plays in NCAA Division I athletics and has been a member of the American Conference since 2023. A founding member of the Southwest Conference until its dissolution in 1996, Rice was later a member of the Western Athletic Conference before joining Conference USA in 2005. Rice is the second-smallest school, measured by undergraduate enrollment, competing in NCAA Division I FBS football, only ahead of Tulsa.

The Rice baseball team won the 2003 College World Series, defeating Stanford, giving Rice its only national championship in a team sport. The victory made Rice University the smallest school in 51 years to win a national championship at the highest collegiate level of the sport. The Rice baseball team has played on campus at Reckling Park since the 2000 season. As of 2010, the baseball team has won 14 consecutive conference championships in three different conferences: the final championship of the defunct Southwest Conference, all nine championships while a member of the Western Athletic Conference, and five more championships in its first five years as a member of Conference USA. Additionally, Rice's baseball team has finished third in both the 2006 and 2007 College World Series tournaments. Rice now has made six trips to Omaha for the CWS. In 2004, Rice became the first school ever to have three players selected in the first eight picks of the MLB draft when Philip Humber, Jeff Niemann, and Wade Townsend were selected third, fourth, and eighth, respectively. In 2007, Joe Savery was selected as the 19th overall pick.

In 2004–05, Rice sent its women's volleyball, soccer, and basketball teams to their respective NCAA tournaments. The women's swim team has consistently brought at least one member of their team to the NCAA championships since 2013. In 2005–06, the women's soccer, basketball, and tennis teams advanced, with five individuals competing in track and field. In 2006–07, the Rice women's basketball team made the NCAA tournament, while again five Rice track and field athletes received individual NCAA berths. In 2008, the women's volleyball team again made the NCAA tournament.

In 2011 the Women's Swim team won their first conference championship in the history of the university. This was an impressive feat considering they won without having a diving team. The team repeated their C-USA success in 2013 and 2014.

In 2017, the women's basketball team, led by second-year head coach Tina Langley, won the Women's Basketball Invitational, defeating UNC-Greensboro 74–62 in the championship game at Tudor Fieldhouse.

Notable people

As of 2011, Rice has graduated 98 classes of students consisting of 51,961 living alumni. Over 100 students at Rice have been Fulbright Scholars, 25 Marshall Scholars, 25 Mellon Fellows, 13 Rhodes Scholars, 6 Udall Scholars, and 65 Watson Fellows, among several other honors and awards.

Rice's distinguished faculty and alumni consists of five Nobel laureates, a Turing Award winner, five Pulitzer Prize award winners, six Fulbright Scholars, 29 Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Recipients, 14 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1 Abel Prize winner, 3 members of the American Philosophical Society, 36 Guggenheim Fellowships, 12 members of the National Academy of Engineering, 2 members of the National Academy of Medicine, 10 members of the National Academy of Sciences, five fellows of the National Humanities Center, and 86 fellows of the National Science Foundation.

In science and technology, Rice alumni include 14 NASA astronauts; Robert Curl, Nobel laureate discoverer of fullerene; Robert Woodrow Wilson, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation; Matthew Sands, physicist and co-author of The Feynman Lectures on Physics; David Eagleman, celebrity neuroscientist and NYT bestselling author; and NASA former Apollo 11 and 13 warning systems engineer and motivational speaker Jerry Woodfill.

In business and entrepreneurship, Rice alumni include:

Brian Armstrong, founder and CEO of Coinbase

Elizabeth Avellán, co-founder of Troublemaker Studios

Thomas H. Cruikshank, former CEO of Halliburton

John Doerr, billionaire and venture capitalist

Howard Hughes, film producer and aviator

Ali Koç, president of Fenerbahçe SK football club, Turkish Union of Clubs, and vice chairman of Koç Holding