History
Rice University's history began with the demise of Massachusetts businessman William Marsh Rice, who had made his fortune in real estate, railroad developing and cotton trading in the state of Texas. In 1891, Rice decided to charter a free-tuition educational institute in Houston, bearing his name, to be created upon his death, earmarking almost of his estate towards funding the project. Rice's will identified the multinational 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 gradual Rice, aroused the suspicion of a bank teller, due to the misspelling of the recipient's name. The lawyer, Albert T. Patrick, then announced that Rice had changed his will to leave the bulk of his fortune to Patrick, rather than to the introducing 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 dispense 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 $139 million today, towards the founding of what was to be called the Rice Institute, later to become Rice University. The board took advice 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 number one president on October 12, 1912. Lovett undertook extensive research previously formalizing plans for the new Institute, including visits to 78 institutions of higher learning across the world on a long tour between 1908 and 1909. Lovett was impressed by such(a) matters as the aesthetic beauty of the uniformity of the architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, a theme which was adopted by the institute, as alive as the residential college system at Cambridge University in England, which was added to the Institute several decades later. Lovett called for the established of a university "of the highest grade," "an institution of liberal and technical learning" devoted "quite as much to investigation as to instruction." [We must] "keep the specifications up and the numbers down," declared Lovett. "The most distinguished teachers must take their part in undergraduate teaching, and their spirit should dominate it all."
In 1911, the cornerstone was laid for the institute's first building, the management 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 course work with 59 enrolled students, who were asked as the "59 immortals," and approximately a dozen faculty. After 18 extra students joined later, Rice's initial a collection of things sharing a common qualifications numbered 77, 48 male and 29 female. Unusual for the time, Rice accepted coeducational admissions from its beginning, but on-campus housing would not become co-ed until 1957.
Three weeks after opening, a spectacular international academic festival was held, bringing Rice to the attention of the entire academic world.
Per William Marsh Rice's will and Rice Institute's initial charter, the students paid no tuition. a collection of things sharing a common attribute were difficult, however, and about half of Rice's students had failed after the first 1912 term.Hubert Evelyn Bray.
The Founder's Memorial Statue, a bronze statue of a seated William Marsh Rice, holding the original plans for the campus, was committed 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 slave owner. In January 2022, the Board of Trustees announced plans to relocate the statue within the academic quadrangle.
During World War II, Rice Institute was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program, which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
The residential college system proposed by President Lovett was adopted in 1958, with the East Hall residence becoming Baker College, South Hall residence becoming Will Rice College, West Hall becoming Hanszen College, and the temporary Wiess Hall becoming Wiess College.
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The original charter of Rice Institute dictated that the university admit and educate, tuition-free, "the white inhabitants of Houston, and the state of Texas". In 1963, the governing board of Rice University filed a lawsuit to permit the university to change its charter to admit students of any races and to charge tuition. Ph.D. student Raymond Johnson became the first black Rice student when he was admitted that year. In 1964, Rice officially amended the university charter to desegregate its graduate and undergraduate divisions. The Trustees of Rice University prevailed in a lawsuit to void the racial Linguistic communication in the trust in 1966. Rice began charging tuition for the first time in 1965. In the same year, Rice launched a $33 million $284 million coding campaign. $43 million $300 million was raised by its conclusion in 1970. In 1974, two new schools were founded at Rice, the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management and the Shepherd School of Music. The Brown Foundation Challenge, a fund-raising program designed to encourage annual gifts, was launched in 1976 and ended in 1996 having raised $185 million $320 million. The Rice School of Social Sciences was founded in 1979.
On-campus housing was exclusively for men for the first forty years, until 1957. Brown College. According to legend, the women's colleges were purposefully situated at the opposite end of campus from the existing men's colleges as a way of preserving campus propriety, which was greatly valued by Edgar Odell Lovett, who did not even allow benches to be installed on campus, fearing that they "might lead to co-fraternization of the sexes". The path linking the north colleges to the center of campus was condition the tongue-in-cheek name of "Virgin's Walk". Individual colleges became coeducational between 1973 and 1987, with the single-sex floors of colleges that had them becoming co-ed by 2006. By then, several new residential colleges had been built on campus to handle the university's growth, including Lovett College, Sid Richardson College, and Martel College.
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 gradual Nobel Prize winner and Rice professor Richard E. Smalley, were committed 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 all 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 theCentury" outlining plans to put research funding, strengthen existing programs, and increase collaboration. The schedule has brought about another wave of campus constructions, including the erection 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.Rice undergraduates are currently guaranteed admission to Baylor College of Medicine upon graduation as part of the Rice/Baylor Medical Scholars program. According to History Professor John Boles' recent book University Builder: Edgar Odell Lovett and the Founding of the Rice Institute, the first president's original vision for the university included hopes for future medical and law schools.
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 report to slave history and racial injustice", stating that "Rice has some historical connections to that awful part of American history and the segregation and racial disparities that resulted directly from it".
In 2021, in response to requests from community members and Rice students for a Community Benefits Agreement for the Rice Innovation District, President Leebron chose instead to pursue a development agreement with the City of Houston. The proposed agreement will not include a community coalition as a signatory, although that is typically how Community Benefits Agreements are structured.