Opening Doors INSIDE RICE SALLYPORT • the MAGAZINE of RICE UNIVERSITY • FALL 2004
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The Magazine of Rice. University Opening Doors INSIDE RICE SALLYPORT • THE MAGAZINE OF RICE UNIVERSITY • FALL 2004 2 President's Message • 3 Returned Addressed Departments 5 Through the Sallyport • 14 Students • 38 Arts 40 On the Bookshelf • 42 Who's Who • 47 Scoreboard The new Boniuk 12 An enormous pool of 7 Center for the Study methane gas lies just and Advancement of beneath the ocean floor. Religious Tolerance Until now,scientists looks to establish a code thought that it had little ofreligious conduct. effect on the carbon cyde, 9 Fruit flies fly high aboard but they may be wrong. the International Space How do you encourage Station to help scientists 1 high-school students better understand to make the grade in genetic changes that science? A new training may occur in low-gravity program developed at environments. win The stars belong to everyone, but Rice helps students take ‘41F planetarium shows are available ownership ofscientific only to those who live near a concepts and principles. planetarium. That may change with a portable dome theater system developed at Rice. Do surveys alter the 11 perceptions ofthose who take them? Rice research suggests that surveys can subtly bias survey takers. And you thought A digitization project mayonnaise was just 5 in conjunction with the for sandwiches: Rice Shoah Foundation's researchers discover Visual History Archive unusual attractive will aid researchers and properties ofcertain educators in overcoming emulsions,including prejudice, intolerance, mayonnaise, that are and bigotry. similar to properties of Kevlar. 18 A Conversation with 28 Opening Doors David W. Leebron and Y. Ping Sun Growing up poor and black in a small South An informal interview with Rice's new first Texas town before integration might have stymied family. are what Who they, and attracts them to Raymond Johnson. Instead, he became the first Rice and Houston? African American to graduate from Rice, and by Terry Shepard and Debra Thomas since then, he has quietly but persistently helped open doors for other people Features ofcolor. 24 Fondren and the Future by David D. Medina Electronic enhancements and reconfiguration of space will help re-create Fondren as a library for 32 Rice Twice the 21st century. An MBA can give you the tools to take you by Chuck Henry and Sara Lowman where you want to go. Eight alums who earned bachelor's degrees at Rice and returned for MBAs talk about the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management's MBA program. by Ann S. Boor tl j Rice Sallyport All Things Great land Small) Fall 2004, Vol. 61, No. 1 By President David VV. Leebron Published by the Division of Public Affairs When Rice announced in December that I was coming as its seventh president, Terry Shepard, vice president several friends in the Northeast had an intriguing reaction: "Wow, Rice is a huge university!" Editor That misperception seems to spring from a number ofsources. It certainly suggests that Rice's rec- Christopher Dow accomplishments in teaching, learning, and research are wonderfully out of proportion to our ognized Creative Director numbers of faculty and students. It speaks well of you, Rice's graduates, and the enormous respect you Jeff Cox have earned for your alma mater. And admittedly, it may have something to do with the general sense in Art Director other parts of the country that everything in Texas is BIG. Chuck Thurmon We,of course, know that Rice's impact is great even though its numbers are relatively small. All our major competitors—from Stanford Editorial Staff David D. Medina '83, senior editor in the West to Duke in the East—are at least two to three times larger Dana Benson, associate editor than Rice;some ofthem—such as Princeton,Yale, and Harvard—have M. Yvonne Taylor, contributing editor been in existence hundreds ofyears longer. Among the 62 institutions Lindsay Dold, assistant editor Lorrie Lampson, production coordinator whose research eminence has earned membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities, only Caltech, which does not Design Staff Dean Mackey, senior designer attempt our breadth, is smaller than Jana Starr, designer Rice. Because of our Tommy LaVergne, photographer This does not, however, suggest that Rice is a great small uni- size, faculty and Jeff Fitlow, assistant photographer versity. That order of adjectives implies that there is a category—small students from The Rice University Board universities—within which our goal is to be great. That, of course, is different fields of Trustees E. William Barnett, chair; J. D. Bucky very limiting. constantly are Allshouse; D. Kent Anderson; Teveia Rather, we should think of Rice as a smallgreat university. The T. able to talk, share Rose Barnes; Alfredo Brener; Robert category here is great universities, a class in which Rice is able to com- Brockman; Albert Y. Chao; James W. information, and Crownover;Edward A.Dominguez; Bruce pete with the best in the nation, indeed, in the world. And while we be exposed to W. Dunlevie; James A. Elkins, III; Lynn will remain smaller than most of them, Rice also remains intent on, in Laverty Elsenhans; Douglas Lee Foshee; the words offounding president Edgar Odd Lovett,"setting no upper entirely different Karen 0. George; Susanne Glasscock; viewpoints. Carl E. Isgren; K. Terry Koonce; Cindy limit on its educational endeavor." J. Lindsay; Michael R. Lynch; Robert R. Indeed, our smallness can be an advantage. Because of our size, Maxfield; Steven L. Miller; M. Kenneth Shapiro; different fields constantly are able to talk, Oshman; Marc William N.Sick; faculty and students from L. E. Simmons share information, and be exposed to entirely different viewpoints. We are able to cross the lines of departments and interests, developing Administrative Officers We are small David W. Leebron, president; John great strengths in interdisciplinary fields,from bioengineering to the philosophy of religion. Hutchinson, interim vice president for enough to foster a true intellectual community. A very large university simply cannot do that in anything Student Affairs; Dean W. Currie, vice close to the same way. presidentfor Finance and Administration; is in Eric Johnson, vice president for This issue of Sallyport illustrates some ofthe manifold ways in which Rice, despite its small size, Resource Development; Eugene Levy, the class ofgreat universities. It profiles Rice's Jackie Robinson: mathematics PhD Raymond Johnson,who provost; Terry Shepard, vice presidentfor in 1964 became the first African American student at Rice. "I didn't feel uncomfortable," now-Profes- PublicAffairs,ScottW.Wise, vice president for Investmentsand treasurer,AnnWright, sor Johnson says. "I was in a small cocoon of maybe 30 graduate students." Elsewhere, we get a glimpse vice presidentfor Enrollment; Richard A. of eight diverse and accomplished alumni, all of whom chose Rice twice, once for their undergraduate Zansitis,general counsel. the people and the campus," degrees and again for their MBAs."I had a very comfortable feeling about All submissions to Sallyport are subject says Elizabeth Corneliuson, who now works in finance at Nissan's North American headquarters. "I liked to editing for length, clarity, accuracy, the smallness and the traditions." In Scoreboard, you will find Rice women's and Puerto Rico Olympic appropriateness, and fairness to third parties. track coach Victor Lopez, whose Owls dominate the Western Athletic Conference and have won NCAA titles in six different events. His students, he says, "are an extension of my family. My mission is to Sallyport is published by the Division of make sure they graduate and become productive members of our society." Throughout the magazine Public Affairs ofRice University and is sent to university alumni,faculty, staff, graduate you will find examples of students and faculty who cross boundaries, from economics professor Suchan students, parents of undergraduates, and Chae's election to the South Korean National Assembly to the partnership of our Center for Education friends of the university. develop a training program for ninth- and Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology to Editorial Offices grade teachers. Office of Publications—MS 95 In sum, Rice's reach is far greater than its size would suggest. Size does matter, but perhaps in this P.O. Box 1892 case in just the opposite way that people expect. Houston, Texas 77251-1892 Fax: 713-348-6751 E-mail: [email protected] I i Postmaster Send address changes to: Rice University Development Services—MS 80 P.O. Box 1892 Houston, TX 77251-1892 02004 RICE UNIVERSITY 2 Rice Sallyport Letters Thanks for the Questions ought to maintain a museum of 1953-54, during a poliomyelitis 50 years. South Main has not obsolete computers so that scholars epidemic in Houston. been a wall between the institu- I was interested in the article in the future could recover mate- In summer 1953, Drs. Heb- tions but rather a passageway. in your winter issue about Di- rial from old discs and programs. I bel Hoff and Les Geddes of Baylor And as time goes on, even ear- ana Strassmann and the jour- have worked with manuscripts of and W. A. Spencer of the South- lier efforts may surface from the nal Feminist Economics. I was the 16th century that are as clear west Poliomyelitis Respiratory university's other departments trained as a chemical engineer today as when they were written Center approached Professor James as others are heard from. and know only a little econom- on sturdy rag paper. What will re- Waters, chair of Rice's electrical ics, but being a Rice gradu- searchers of the next century do engineering department, to solicit Robert Schwartz '50 ate, I do read, and I've often when the originals ofsome 20th- assistance with several medical elec- Houston, Texas had this thought when reading century Shakespeare exist on a stack tronics problems.