Rice to host groundbreaking for new social sciences building

Rice University
Office of Public Affairs / News & Media Relations

MEDIA ADVISORY

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

Amy McCaig
713-348-6777
amym@rice.edu

Rice to host groundbreaking for new social sciences building

HOUSTON – (Sept. 11, 2018) – Rice University will host a groundbreaking ceremony for the Patricia Lipoma Kraft ’87 and Jonathan A. Kraft Hall for Social Sciences, a new home for the School of Social Sciences, at 2 p.m. Sept. 13. The building will be named for Patti and Jonathan Kraft, the lead donors for the project.

A rendering of the future Patricia Lipoma Kraft ’87 and Jonathan A. Kraft Hall for Social Sciences.

Who:              Rice University.

What:             Groundbreaking for Patricia Lipoma Kraft ’87 and Jonathan A. Kraft Hall for Social Sciences.

When:            2 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 13.

Where:           Future site of the new building, east of Tudor Fieldhouse.

The new $38 million, four-story, 73,000-square-foot building is expected to be completed by November 2019 and open prior to the spring 2020 semester. It will include classrooms, seminar and conference rooms, undergraduate and graduate student lounges and a multipurpose space that can hold nearly 300 people for guest lectures and other events.

The space will be home to the School of Social Sciences’ Sociology and Economics departments, the dean’s office, sociology lab space and the Texas Policy Lab. It will also house the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, the Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance and the Houston Education Research Consortium, which is part of both the School of Social Sciences and the Kinder Institute. The Kinder Foundation and Milton Boniuk provided financial support for the spaces for the Kinder Institute and Boniuk Institute, respectively. The Cullen Foundation and more than 35 individual donors also provided support for the building.

The architect for the project is Rogers Partners, and the general contractor is Tellepsen Builders. The building is being designed to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Silver certification standards.

More information on the new building is available at https://bit.ly/2Nk3vhL.

For more information, contact Amy McCaig, senior media relations specialist at Rice, at 713-348-6777 or amym@rice.edu.

For a map of Rice University’s campus, go to http://www.rice.edu/maps/maps.html.

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This news release can be found online at http://news.rice.edu.

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Related materials:

Photo link: https://bit.ly/2x2AIbK.

Photo credit: Rogers Partners.

Social Sciences building announcement: https://bit.ly/2Nk3vhL

Rice School of Social Sciences website: https://socialsciences.rice.edu/

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 3,970 undergraduates and 2,934 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction and No. 2 for quality of life 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.

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