Rice Athletics to host 4th annual Student Leadership Conference Friday

MEDIA ADVISORY

David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu

Rice Athletics to host 4th annual Student Leadership Conference Friday

HOUSTON – (May 12, 2016) – Rice University’s Athletics Department and Rice faculty, students and staff will host 645 students from the IDEA Public Schools charter schools May 13 for the fourth annual Student Leadership Conference from 1:30 to 6:30 p.m. IDEA Public Schools are based in the Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. The conference will culminate with students attending the Rice-Florida Atlantic University baseball game in the evening.

Students from the IDEA public schools are 95 percent Hispanic and first-generation students who would like to attend college in the future.

During the first part of the day, students will hear from various speakers from different walks of life and learn about college opportunities. Students will then attend breakout sessions hosted by the university’s faculty, staff and students.

The conference is open to the news media. The full agenda is as follows:

1-1:30 p.m.:                Students arrive and register at Reckling Park.

1:35-1:40 p.m.:          Welcome from Tanner Gardner, senior associate athletics
director.

1:40-1:55 p.m.:          Speaker 1: Michael Kidd, current Rice student from the Rio
Grande Valley.

2-2:15 p.m.:                Speaker 2: Sergio Chavez, assistant professor of sociology.

2:20-2:35 p.m.:          Speaker 3: Paul Negrete, senior assistant director, Office of
Financial Aid at Rice.

2:35-3 p.m.:                Students head to Rice classrooms.

From 3 to 6:15 p.m., students will break out into groups and spend 15 minutes at each of the following stations before heading back to Reckling Park for the baseball game, which begins at 7 p.m.

Station 1:         Creating a self-brand — Anderson BioLab, Room 123.
Rick Schell, senior lecturer of management, Jones Graduate School of Business.

Station 2:         Leadership the military way — Keith-Wiess Geological Laboratories, Room 100.
Lt. Gerry Sellars, adjunct assistant professor of naval science.

Station 3:         How to set your goals — Space Science and Technology Building, Room 106.
Tom Stallings, professor in the practice of sport management.

Station 4:         Understanding STEM — Herman Brown Hall, Room 227.
Daniel Gonzales, graduate student in applied physics.

Station 5:         Student life at Rice University — Mechanical Engineering Building, Room 128.
Rice student Michael Kidd.

Station 6:         Understanding movements — Keck Hall, Room 100.
Rice student Jon Flynn.

Station 7:         Tour of Fondren Library and Academic Quad.

News media who plan to attend should contact Shu Muthyala, general manager of ticket sales and service for Rice Athletics, at shu@rice.edu.

-30-

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,910 undergraduates and 2,809 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for best quality of life and for lots of race/class interaction by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. To read “What they’re saying about Rice,” go to http://tinyurl.com/RiceUniversityoverview.