Rice University was founded by William Marsh Rice in 1892. It opened 1912 in the Museum District of Houston, Texas.
Rice boasts a 3 billion dollar endowment, owing partly to William Marsh Rice's generous bequeathal. Until 1964 Rice did not charge tuition. Today, Rice has a tuition lower than many private universities. Indeed, near the beginning of the 21st century, Rice was named a "Best Buy" by US News & World Report.
Rice professors Robert Curl and Richard Smalley received the Nobel Prize in 1996 in chemistry for their discovery of fullerenes. Other Nobel Laureates have had affiliations with the university, both as alumni and researchers. Some of the first work on artificial hearts was done with the help of Rice faculty.
The campus is organized into a number of quadrangles, and features buildings designed in a style informally called neo-Byzantine.
The Academic Quad is centered on the memorial to William Marsh Rice. It includes the administration buildings, Fondren Library, and the buildings for physics, languages, architecture, and the humanities.
The Engineering Quad includes buildings for the electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry and computer science departments.
The Residential Quad is home to a college system similar to those found at Yale University, Oxford and Cambridge. The nine colleges (Hanszen, Baker, Brown, Lovett, Weiss, Jones, Sid Rich, Will Rice, Martel) act as self-governed social units. Each college has unique traditions, including Baker 13, Beer Bike, and the Night of Decadence (also known as NOD).
Rice participates in NCAA Division I-A athletics and is part of the Western Athletic Conference. However, in 2005 Rice will leave the WAC and join Conference USA. Rice Baseball won the national title in 2003. Rice Stadium seats 72,000 and was the site of Super Bowl VIII and a speech by John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1962. |
