Rice University Statistics for Prospective Undergraduate Students
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Rice Resources
(as of October, 2004)

Rice University endowment: The quoted market value of Rice’s endowment as of June 30, 2004, was approximately $3.3 billion.

Sources: Rice’s audited financial statements included endowment and investment information. In addition, an Investment Systems database is maintained by the Office of the Vice President for Investments and Treasurer. Total consolidated budget for the fiscal year 2005: The consolidated budget (the university’s operating budget) reflected the financial year July 1, 2004, to June 30, 2005. The revenue side of the budget was primarily comprised of endowment distribution, tuition and fees, and sponsored research cost recovery. Educational and general expenses were primarily salaries and benefits, sponsored research, scholarships and fellowships, and supplies. Source: Financial data are maintained by the Budget Office and the Controller’s Office on the Banner Financial and Human Resources Systems database. These budget figures are taken from an e-mail message from the Budget Director dated September 15, 2004. Campus acreage: This acreage reflected the physical dimensions of the campus within its fringe of stately oaks, bounded by Main Street on the east, Rice Boulevard on the north, Greenbriar on the West and University Boulevard on the South. It did not include any other property in the vicinity that was owned by Rice University. Source: Surveyors’ Records housed in the Technical Services division of the Department of Facilities and Engineering. Research Centers, Institutes, and Consortia

Descriptions of most of these research centers, institutes and consortia can be found on the Rice web site at http://riceinfo.rice.edu/directory/departments.html#research.
 

Research Groups, Institutes, and Consortia
 

The Baker Institute is a nonpartisan, multidisciplinary public policy institute dedicated to building bridges between the worlds of action and ideas. Its research agenda covers domestic and international affairs. The institute's professional staff includes scholars in economics, political science, sociology and other fields as well as practitioners of public policy. It is endowed in the name of James A. Baker, III, 61st Secretary of State.
 

The Boniuk Center for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance aims to understand and to promote conditions conducive to sustainable, peaceful co-existence among people of different religions around the world.

The Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology will foster the development of nanoscience through an integrated set of programs that aim to address the scientific, technological, environmental, human resource, commercialization, and societal barriers that hinder the transition from nanoscience to nanotechnology. The Center's research will focus on investigating and developing nanoscience at the "wet/dry" interface. Water, the most abundant solvent present on Earth, is of unique importance as the medium of life. The Center's research activities will explore this interface between nanomaterials and aqueous systems at multiple length scales, including interactions with solvents, biomolecules, cells, whole-organisms, and the environment.
 

The Center for Education is a center for research and teacher development programs sharing common goals of reducing teacher isolation, reorganizing schools to make students more involved in learning, and rethinking ways to evaluate students' learning. The Center aims to identify and create links between research, policy, curriculum, learning, and school organization.
 

• Center for Excellence and Equity in Education

The Center for Excellence and Equity in Education (CEEE) seeks to promote greater participation of underrepresented groups in the sciences, and to encourage academic excellence for all.

The CETE was created to meet a growing need for research facilities and an administrative infrastructure dedicated to university-industry collaborations focusing on tissue engineering research. This center opens exciting opportunities for industry and university scientists to work together in an intellectually stimulating environment with advanced laboratory and research facilities.

Formerly known as the Center for Ethics, Medicine, and Public Issues, it was created in July 1982 as a joint project of Baylor College of Medicine, the Institute of Religion of the Texas Medical Center, and Rice University. While Baylor College of Medicine is primarily responsible for administering the program, the joint sponsorship of the program enables the Center to draw on the rich intellectual resources of all three institutions, even now that the Institute of Religion is no longer an official sponsor. The mandate of the Center is to develop teaching and research programs that address the moral, legal, and public policy questions raised by health care and the biomedical sciences. The Center cooperates with the philosophy department at Rice University in offering a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Bioethics.
  The Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology at Rice University is devoted to nurturing science and technology at the nanometer scale.
  The mission of the Center for Neuroscience is to promote research and education in the neurosciences, broadly construed, by advancing our efforts at Rice and by coupling them with the strengths of neighboring institutions in the Texas Medical Center.
 

The Center for the Study of Cultures exists to promote the study of cultures across time and around the world, both as unique examples of human behavior and creativity and as interconnected phenomena that can illuminate one another. The goal of the Center is to provide a forum for conversations that make visible the connections between cultures and the particularities that divide them. The Center seeks to advance humanistic knowledge by supporting research that deepens our understanding of particular cultures, and by encouraging the exploration of new configurations of materials, methods, theories, or cultures through interdisciplinary work and comparative collaborations.

  • Center for the Sustainability in the Built Environment


    • • Center for the Study of Environment and Society

    The Center for the Study of Environment and Society (CSES) coordinates courses and curricula on environmental topics offered in the schools of Engineering, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, and Humanities.

    The Center for the Study of Languages (CSL) was founded in August 1997 to promote and enhance all aspects of language learning at Rice University. The role of the center is to establish innovative approaches to language education, expand opportunities for language learning across the curriculum, and increase Rice students' participation in study and work abroad.



    The Center on the Management of Information Technology (COMIT), a component of Rice University's Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management, began its first program of activities in 1984. The center is sponsored by business and government organizations. Its objectives are to provide training, development, and continuing education for information systems professionals; to provide research opportunities for faculty and students in the area of information systems; and to promote interaction between information systems professionals and representatives of the academic community.
    The Computer and Information Technology Institute (CITI) at Rice University is a research institution whose purpose is to facilitate interdisciplinary research across the university's departmental, center, and laboratory boundaries with industrial and government partners, and in collaboration with other universities. There are approximately eighty Ph.D. faculty and research scientists and more than 120 graduate students affiliated with CITI.
     

    The mission of the Center for Chemical Processing Technology (CCPT) is to engage Rice University faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students in the study of problems relevant to today's chemical industry; conduct collaborative research projects to solve problems of interest to Center faculty and member companies; enhance graduate and undergraduate education through interactions with chemical industry personnel; and provide a focal point for the exchange of ideas between the chemical industry and the greater Rice community.

     

    • Center for Computational Finance and Economic Systems

    The Center for Computational Finance and Economic Systems is dedicated to the quantitative study of financial markets and their ultimate impact on society. By integrating the talents of economists, finance experts, computational scientists, engineers, and other disciplines, CoFES will advance the boundaries of modeling and computational science in this important arena. Using a systems approach CoFES seeks to enhance academic disciplines, business operations, and economic policy.

    The creation of CoFES represents Rice University’s commitment to this important area of intellectual inquiry. A key component of the research center is the integration of probabilistic and mathematical modeling for complex, multidisciplinary investigations. Rice University is well suited for this endeavor because of its exceptionally bright student body; its distinguished faculty in engineering, business, and economics; its world-class resources in high-performance computing; and an unusually flexible and collegial environment in which to pursue interdisciplinary research and education.

     

    The Center encompasses all aspects of Computational Geoscience research now active at Rice, with particular emphasis on 3-D seismic exploration for petroleum and environmental remediation, as well as seismic topography, mantle convection, and geomagnetism.
      This center involves the design and implementation of programming support tools which are based upon cooperation between compiler systems, program tuning and debugging for HPC environment, including research for highly-optimized and parallel compilers for JAVA. This is a research center within the Computer and Information Institute (CITI), comprised of faculty members and researchers in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), Computer Science (CS), and Computational and Applied Mathematics (CAAM). Research efforts focus on many facets of telecommunications, from multimedia networking to
    communications systems and signal processing.
      In 1995, Rice University established the Center for Technology in Teaching and Learning (CTTL) to address the ways in which information technology can expand and enrich education on the Rice campus as well as in other settings.

  • The Rice Inversion Project Consortium

    The Rice Inversion Project applies the best of contemporary mathematical and computational technology to address the needs of the seismic data processing industry. Current projects include: velocity estimation directly from waveform data (without travel time picking) from inaccurate initial estimates; calibration of source wavelet and directivity as part of inversion; multiparameter inversion (aka model-based AVO processing) in the presence of attenuation; new numerical methods for
    various tasks, including viscoelastic simulation and travel time and amplitude computation; and design of numerical software using OOP technology (C++) and various styles of parallelism. Several of our projects are collaborative with members of the Stanford Exploration Project, the Center for Wave Phenomena, and sponsoring firms.

    The Rice Inversion Project is affiliated with the Rice Center for Computational Geophysics.

    The Dynamical Systems Group objectives are to help coordinate and foster interdisciplinary activities in the dynamical systems area within the School of Engineering. These objectives can be partitioned into two major categories: education and research. In the category of education the goal is to develop coherent programs of study for students in the field of dynamical systems in collaboration with individual departments within the School of Engineering. The research objective is to consolidate existing research activities in Dynamical Systems and establish new areas of interdisciplinary research with a view toward responding to new funding opportunities.

    Bioinformatics is an integration of mathematical, statistical and computer methods to analyze biological, biochemical and biophysical data. Bioinformatics ties together two of Rice's key strategic thrusts: biological science and engineering and information technology. The purpose of the Rice Bioinformatics Group is to act as a nexus for various activities at Rice in the field of bioinformatics.
     

    The Statistical Consulting Lab (SCL) at Rice University has been established to advance, promote,and support the use of statistical methodologies and computing within the Rice University research community. The focus of the SCL is to broaden both the understanding and use of statistical applications in this community.
     
       • Connexions Project

    Connexions is a content commons of free, open-licensed educational materials in fields such as music, electrical engineering and psychology. Mostly college level, but some content for younger students too. It is a place for communities of authors and instructors to create, find, and share content.
    This laboratory is dedicated to fostering interdisciplinary interactions encompassing the biological and chemical sciences and engineering disciplines. It focuses on research in the biomedical and biotechnical areas and promotes active collaboration with the Texas Medical Center, NASA's Johnson Space Center and other public, private, and industrial organizations.

       • Digital Signal Processing Group

    The DSP group has been actively teaching courses, conducting research, and publishing results since 1968.
    Much of this activity has taken place in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department and the Computer and Information Technology Institute (CITI).

        • El Paso Corporation Finance Center

    The El Paso Corporation Finance Center is designed to bring the markets to students – and the students to the markets – through the Jones Graduate School MBA curriculum and through market-oriented extra-curricular activities centered in the Finance Center. Offering students access to the tools and data used by finance practitioners around the world, the Finance Center is a conduit for the exchange of ideas, expertise, and talent between the Jones School and finance and energy markets.
    The mission of EESI is to initiate, promote and enhance university-wide research, teaching and outreach in a broad range of energy and environment-related issues. In addition, EESI fosters the development of partnerships with government and industry to help meet national needs for sustainable energy, economic development, and environmental protection. The Institute is currently organized into five research divisions: Processes in Porous Media; Mechanics of Solids and Structures; Engineering and Process Chemistry; Earth Systems; Energy and Environmental Policy.
      This industrial consortium which focuses on mechanistic and applied research and development on scale and corrosion inhibitors in natural gas wells.

    Research in fluid transport through porous media ranged from the microscopic scale intermolecular forces governing wettability to the megascopic scale numerical reservoir simulators for field-wide modeling. A reoccurring theme throughout this research is the dominance of interfaces in the determination of fluid transport processes. Fluids flow through rock and soil in pore spaces that are on the order of microns. The relative transport of phases and components are governed by the degree of wetting of the solid by the fluid phases and the sorption of species on the fluid and solid surfaces in addition to the usual transport coefficients such as viscosity and diffusivity.  
    The GCHSRC is a seven-university research consortium funded by the U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development. Current consortium members are: Lamar University, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, the University of Houston, the University of Alabama, and the University of Central
    Florida.
    The Hazardous Substance Research Center/South and Southwest is a competitively awarded, peer-reviewed research consortium led by Louisiana State University with the cooperation of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Rice University to address critical hazardous substance problems, especially as they relate to contaminated sediments. Technical specialty areas are the remediation of contaminated sediments and dredge materials with projects focusing on in-situ chemical mobilization processes in beds and confined disposal facilities; in-situ remediation; and in-situ detection. The Center has the ability to assemble teams of researchers that cross departmental and institutional boundaries to better address these problems. Through its training and technology transfer activities, the center disseminates information about research advances to the public and private sectors. Some of these activities include one-day regulatory update conferences, technical briefs, workshops, an annual symposium, and an annual report.
     
    The Shell Center for Sustainability will create an interdisciplinary program of education, research, and outreach to address the role of the private sector in implementing a sustainable future. The Center will draw upon the various strengths of the university and will collaborate with other highly respected regional, US, and global institutions of higher learning and non-government organizations (NGOs) in this endeavor. Among others, Rice faculty members from the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, the Jones Graduate School of Management, and the Environmental & Energy Systems Institute will be involved in the Center's interdisciplinary endeavors.
    The Gulf Coast Center for Computational Cancer Research (GC4R) fosters research that will accelerate the development of high-performance software for advanced computational problems in cancer research. Related goals are to simplify the application development process to make advanced computation more broadly accessible to cancer researchers, and to educate numerical scientists in the fundamentals of cancer biology. To foster rapid progress, the center aims to establish collaborations between biologists and clinicians and a critical mass of quantitative scientists from bioinformatics, biomathematics, biostatistics and computational science. These collaborations will bring patients together with a team of investigators—including physicians, scientists, research nurses, pharmacists, and biostatisticians—who can evaluate novel and creative approaches to eliminating cancer as rapidly and deliberately as possible. The GC4R was established by a joint initiative of M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and Rice University, under the auspices of the Gulf Coast Consortium for Bioinformatics.
    The Gulf Coast Consortia were formed in 2001 by an unprecedented agreement between six member institutions: Baylor College of Medicine, Rice University, University of Houston, University of Texas Health Science Center - Houston, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and University of Texas Medical Branch - Galveston. This agreement brought together our strengths to train new scientists at the intersection of biological sciences with computational and physical sciences; to establish a cutting edge research infrastructure designed to collect novel data across these boundaries; to apply resulting knowledge in the treatment and prevention of disease; and to address the challenging biological questions of our time. At the heart of the GCC is its training program: the W. M. Keck Center for Computational and Structural Biology. This Center was established in 1990 with support from the W. M. Keck Foundation to Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University and has expanded in the intervening years to include the remaining institutions of the GCC.

    The mission of the Institute is to promote cross-disciplinary research and education encompassing the biological, chemical, and engineering disciplines at Rice and collaboration with colleagues at other institutions. In addition, the institute has a mission to strengthen the cross-disciplinary educational programs at the undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate levels. Members of the institute include thirty-five faculty from the Departments of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering, and twenty faculty members from the Texas Medical Center. Research is carried out in the three major laboratories that make up the Institute: The Cox Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering, the Mabee Laboratory for Biochemical and Genetic Engineering, and the Greenwood Laboratory of Basic Medical Science.
    Feminist Economics provides an open forum for dialogue and debate about feminist economic perspectives. By opening new areas of economic inquiry, welcoming diverse voices, and encouraging critical exchanges, the journal enlarges and enriches economic discourse. The goal of Feminist Economics is not just to develop more illuminating theories, but to improve the conditions of living for all children, women and men. The Journal of Southern History, sponsored by Rice University is published quarterly by the Southern Historical Association. The Journal circulates to more than 5000 members and libraries in the United States and foreign countries. It focuses on southern history, broadly interpreted. Issues contain scholarly articles, historical notes, book reviews, reports of the annual meetings, and news of historical interest. Contributors to the Journal include almost everyone who is doing or has done significant work in the field of southern history.
      The Keck Center brings together computational, physical, and biological scientists in a stimulating and nurturing environment for the development and training of a new type of scientist—one who can incorporate theory, simulation, and experiment to expand our understanding of modern biological problems. Students are provided an intellectual environment for considering problems that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries, and they have access to training opportunities with mentors in different disciplines.
  • Mathematics Leadership Institute

    To nurture the intellectual curiosity and stimulate the teaching repertoire of high school mathematics teachers in the Houston area, Rice University was awarded an National Science Foundation grant to establish a Mathematics Leadership Institute(MLI). Expected outcomes include:
    a. Expanding teachers knowledge in each of the important mathematics strands that form the core of the high school mathematics curriculum;
    b. Developing long-term relationships among high school and college faculty in the departments of Mathematics (MATH), Computational and Applied Mathematics (CAAM), and Statistics (STAT);
    c. Inspiring better teaching practice among K-20 faculty;
    d. Exposing teachers to the beauty, power, connections, and richness of mathematics.

    MLI will engage a total of 80 teachers over a five-year period. The Rice University School Mathematics Project (RUSMP) together with CAAM, MATH, and STAT will partner with two very ethnically diverse school districts, Aldine (AISD) and Houston (HISD) Independent School Districts.

     

    The Papers of Jefferson Davis is a documentary editing project based at Rice. From the roughly 100,000 Davis documents in their files, the project is producing a selective letterpress set that is being published by Louisiana State University Press. Nine volumes have been published thus far; the series is projected for fifteen volumes. Since this is the largest collection of Davis materials, the office also serves as a research center for scholars and others interested in the life and career of the Confederate president.
      The Rice Advanced Visualization Lab is located in Anderson Hall. Its primary users are members of the school of Architecture; however, it is open to all members of the Rice community. It houses high-end Macintosh, PC, and SGI workstations with specialized design and visualization software (Alias, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc).
      The Alliance is an official Rice University "center" and is the University's principal organization devoted to the support of technology and entrepreneurship. The Alliance is a collaborative effort among the Schools of Engineering, Management, and Natural Sciences. Designing this initiative as a strategic alliance enhances the breadth of its teaching, research, and business incubation activities. In this regard, the Alliance is differentiated from entrepreneurship centers located in university business or engineering schools. Rice's relatively small size as a university facilitates the development and cultivation of this collaborative alliance. Prof. Steve Currall, Director (Jones Graduate School of Management).
  • Rice Building Institute

    The creation of the built environment accounts for 8% of the total US GDP and touches every aspect of our economy both national and local. The modern process has become so complex that needed improvements and innovations lag far behind the growing challenges. Clearly, innovative approaches will be required to re-integrate what has become a fragmented process. This will not happen without broad industry-wide involvement of leaders representing all dimensions of this multi-faceted machine.

    The Rice Building Institute, a University / Industry partnership, will provide the requisite forum in which this interdisciplinary search for innovation can come to life.

    The Rice Center for Organizational Effectiveness Studies (RCOES) is a nonprofit, interdisciplinary entity affiliated with Rice University. Its mission is to promote interactions and alliances among faculty at Rice who are concerned with issues of organizational effectiveness and to promote basic and applied research on organizational effectiveness and to secure funding for this research by establishing relationships with the business community.
      The Rice Design Alliance (RDA), established in 1973, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of architecture, urban design, and the built environment in the Houston region through educational programs, the publication of Cite, and active programs to initiate physical improvements. By sponsoring lectures, seminars, symposia, exhibits, and tours, RDA seeks to involve the general public in issues related to the design of public spaces, parks, offices, retail centers, residential areas, and private homes. The organization attempts to create a public forum to stimulate discussion, involvement, and cooperation among the many groups of citizens who are able to improve the quality of life within Houston and its environs. RDA includes a broad base of Houstonians, comprising of faculty, students, and alumni from both Rice University School of Architecture and the University of Houston College of Architecture, other design professionals, and the general public. Currently RDA has 1,100 members.
      The mission of Rice University Art Gallery is to stimulate the creation and understanding of contemporary art for the benefit of Rice University and the larger community. Goals in support of this mission complement and support the educational mission of Rice University through exhibitions, publications and educational programming in accordance with the highest professional standards.
      The Rice University Media Center was founded in 1969 by international art patrons Jean and Dominique de Menil, with the assistance of Colin Young, then chair of the UCLA Theater Arts department, and Roberto Rossellini, the premier Italian filmmaker of the post-war period. As the home of film and photography at Rice University, the founders' intent was, essentially, that the Center provide a channel through which different peoples of the world could communicate. The Media Center is part of the Department of Art & Art History.
      In 1979, a collaborating group of chemists, physicists and engineers comprising about twenty Rice faculty members formally joined forces under the name of The Rice Quantum Institute (RQI). It has grown from 20 to about 35 faculty members, and has over 100 ongoing research projects, each of which presents outstanding opportunities for graduate research in an intellectually stimulating environment.
      The Rice Space Institute brings together space plasma researchers, researchers from various Rice departments and space specialists from other Houston-area institutions.  The institute will advance such Rice programs as computational modeling of the Earth's space environment, investigation of the causes and consequences of "space weather," advanced interplanetary rocket  propulsion based on plasma technology and studies of the surfaces and space environments of solar system objects. It will also include efforts in spacecraft command, tracking and data analysis and in the history of astronomy and space science.
      Scientia is an institute of Rice University faculty founded in 1981 by the mathematician and historian of science Salomon Bochner. Scientia provides an opportunity for scholarly discussion across disciplinary boundaries; its members and fellows come from a wide-range of academic disciplines. Scientia sponsors an annual series of colloquia devoted to the exploration of a broad topic from a variety of points of view. These colloquia are open to the general public.
      Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 is a quarterly journal of historical and critical studies, published by Rice University. Each issue is devoted to one of four fields, and includes an article reviewing books recently published in that field. The themes are English Renaissance, Tudor and Stuart Drama, Restoration and Eighteenth Century, and Nineteenth Century.
     
      • The Team for Advanced Flow Simulation and Modeling

    The Team for Advanced Flow Simulation and Modeling (T*AFSM) is an inter-institutional group of researchers focusing on development of advanced computational methods and tools for flow simulation and modeling. The T*AFSM has been active in launching and sustaining research partnerships with collaborators from the US Army, NASA, and other institutions in the US and abroad. In particular, the T*AFSM has been widely recognized for successful joint projects with Army researchers. This collaboration has been based on targeting challenges in flow simulation and modeling to address technological issues of interest to the Army, and developing the advanced methods needed to address those challenges.

     

    Fondren Library

    The scope of Fondren Library's collection is broad with coverage in art, architecture, history, literature, music, philosophy, languages, economics, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. Rare books, manuscripts and university archives are in the Woodson Research Center. The library is a selective depository for US and Texas government publications and a depository for US patents and trademarks.

    The Fondren Library subscribes to 16,013 current journals and houses over 2,300,000 volumes. Satellite collections include the Business Information Center and the Brown Fine Arts Library. Several dozen journal indexes are available to the Rice community only via RiceInfo, the campus wide information system. The Fondren Library also subscribes to a wide variety of online full-text journals, which are also found on RiceInfo. For more information on the Fondren Library Collections view http://riceinfo.rice.edu/Fondren/Info/collections.html

  • Source: This information was accessed from the automated library systems for catalog and acquisitions, Collection Development and Electronic Information Resources. Library statistics on volumes, current serials and microforms were obtained from Spring 2004 News from Fondren.


    Varsity Athletic Facilities and Other Athletic Facilities
    (as of January, 2003)

    Descriptions of the Rice varsity athletic facilities can be found at www.riceowls.com/.

    Sources: In addition to the web site, this information was accessed from paper records, maintained in the Athletic Department by the Assistant Athletic Director, Media Relations; and from records maintained in the Department of Human Performance and Health Sciences by the Department Manager.


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    Last updated September 1, 2005.