New program seeks to enhance Rice

New program seeks to enhance Rice’s engagement with Houston

BY JAN WEST
Special to the Rice News

Rice University recently announced the creation of Houston Enriches Rice Education (HERE), a program designed to advance the university’s engagement with Houston.

HERE will enhance faculty research as well as undergraduate and graduate education by exposing participants to research materials and community leaders from the Greater Houston area. HERE also will help expand the community’s interaction with Rice.

ANTHONY PINN

”Houston is a city rich with resources and opportunities for exploring local social history and political change,” said Anthony Pinn, the program’s creator and the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and professor of religious studies at Rice. ”Thanks to HERE, Rice and the Greater Houston community will share this information from both sides of the table.”

HERE includes three key components: a presentation by a distinguished lecturer each semester, the creation of an archive and a local speaker series. Each will offer a fresh perspective for viewing the diverse social and political history of Houston.

The distinguished lecturer component begins in early 2008 and will provide Rice faculty and students the opportunity to learn about the achievements of Houston residents from diverse segments of the community. ”We will be looking for speakers who can provide information from community-based perspectives,” Pinn said. Selected lecturers will include community leaders who can provide rich oral histories from the Civil Rights movement to the present.

The next component is an archive collection, which will be created by program participants and housed on the Rice campus. It will include research materials for graduate and undergraduate students, focusing on historical developments in the diverse communities of Houston. ”I am awed by the unique socio-political research materials available only in Houston,” said Pinn, a relative newcomer to Houston and the Rice community.

The local speaker series, the project’s third component, will enrich and encourage campuswide communication, as well as dialogue between Rice and the diverse communities of Houston. Presentations will occur both on and off campus.

The HERE initiative is supported by the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, the Office of the Provost, the Humanities Research Center and the Boniuk Center for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance.

–Jan West is assistant director of Multicultural Community Relations in the Office of Public Affairs.