New scholarship honors former Rice board chair

Rice University announced a new scholarship in honor of former Board of Trustees Chair James Crownover ’65 Sept. 18. The scholarship will provide one entering student each year with full tuition and a stipend for living expenses while in the full-time Rice MBA program at Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business.

The scholarship recipient, to be known as the “Crownover Scholar,” will be selected on the basis of strong academic credentials and traits that Crownover demonstrated at Rice and throughout his career, including aspirational leadership, dedicated community service and personal qualities such as respect for others and humility.

More than $1 million in funding for the scholarship was raised by the Rice community and internally announced at an April 4 dinner honoring Crownover’s service.

“Jim represents so many of the qualities we look for in Rice students — integrity, intellectual curiosity and commitment to excellence, both professionally and in service to his community,” Board of Trustees Chair Bobby Tudor ’82 said. “Having his name on this new scholarship is a great way for Rice to continue to live the values that Jim has so effectively lived himself.”

“We were extremely fortunate to have Jim provide his leadership to Rice University, and I’m confident that the scholarship named in his honor will foster future leaders through the Jones School,” said Bill Glick, Jones School dean and the H. Joe Nelson III Professor of Management.

“The ability to recognize an entering student as a Crownover Scholar every year will ensure we continue to attract the best and the brightest to the Rice MBA.”

Glick said three volunteers drove the fundraising for the scholarship program: Rob Ladd, Judy Ley Allen and Richard Everett. “They have done a magnificent job of shaping a program that the Jones School is incredibly honored to have bear Jim Crownover’s name,” he said.

Crownover has extensive global consulting and management experience. He had a 30-year career with McKinsey & Company Inc., a global management consulting firm, where he held several leadership positions, including serving as a member of its board of directors. He retired from McKinsey in 1998 and was elected to the Rice board in 1999. He was named chair in 2005 and served for eight years — a period during which Rice celebrated its centennial; launched and concluded its Centennial Campaign, surpassing its $1 billion goal; and implemented the 10-point Vision for the Second Century that included a 37 percent increase in the undergraduate and graduate student population and $800 million in campus construction and renovation.

Crownover graduated from Rice with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, cum laude, and received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

The application deadline for the scholarship is Jan. 6, 2014. To learn more about the Crownover Scholars Program, visit business.rice.edu/crownover.