Rice faculty are invited to submit proposals for summer 2026 courses at the Rice Global Paris Center, a hub that has already transformed teaching for those who’ve led classes there. Set in the heart of the city, the center offers more than a space to teach. It’s a framework for courses that draw directly from Paris itself.
For associate professor of anthropology Gökçe Günel, the city became both subject and classroom. In the summers of 2024 and 2025, her course on urban sustainability used excursions to examine how Paris has evolved historically and how it is adapting to climate change today.
“It was an environmental studies class, but our readings and our excursions made the class very interdisciplinary,” Günel said. “We tried to understand the history of Paris and its transformation as a city. We also attempted to map the ways in which the city is becoming more climate-change ready in the contemporary era.”
That kind of immersion is what many faculty say sets the Paris Center apart. Students are able to engage with materials in real time — in the neighborhoods, museums and streets that shaped the ideas they’re studying.
“That concrete dimension really gives the students the chance to experience hands-on the way in which not just these theoretical ideas structure their lives and their thinking but also how they have an instant real representation around them,” said Alexander Regier, the William Faulkner Professor of English and chair of the Department of English and Creative Writing, who taught a Paris course during summer 2025. “Suddenly what they do is they take what we’ve explored in class together and apply it to the way in which they experience the city itself and bring that back into the classroom the very next day.”
The support structure behind those courses is equally important. Faculty consistently point to the center’s team of Garry White and Camille Evans, who handle logistics and create a sense of belonging far from Houston.
“They’ve taken such good care of us,” said Sylvia Dee, associate professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences, who led a summer 2024 course on climate change and winemaking. “From booking our meals to getting our train tickets organized to making sure we have someone there to greet us when we get to the vineyards, I could not be doing this without them. I’m really grateful for their help.”
Dee added that teaching in Paris also gave her a chance to build stronger ties with other Rice faculty, exchanging ideas about research and pedagogy outside the usual campus context.
For many, though, the impact on students is the deepest reward. Associate professor of psychological sciences Bryan Denny was drawn to the program because of his own transformative study abroad experience.
“I studied abroad in Europe and in Paris for the very first time when I was 18, and it was transformational for me,” said Denny, who taught his first course at the center in summer 2025. “I wanted to try to see if conditions like that might be possible for the students so that they could really deepen their understanding and be exposed to cultures that they may have less familiarity with.”
Most of his students, Denny added, were experiencing life abroad for the first time, an experience he believes helps them grow intellectually and personally.
“I’m really in support of Rice Global’s mission,” Denny said. “I know how transformative that can be and how it can help you grow and develop.”
Faculty in the arts have also found Paris uniquely suited to their teaching. Lecturer of art Eli Greene described how exhibitions and performances available only during their stay aligned perfectly with his course.
“This course has been on both of our minds and hearts for a long time,” Greene said. “When the opportunity presented itself, it was kind of more than a dream come true.”
For Denny, the Paris Center provides not just a setting but a kind of home base, but what some have called the “Embassy of Houston in Paris.”
“I love that we’re here and I just hope that these sorts of opportunities, that students will continue to take advantage of them,” Denny said.
Faculty interested in proposing a course for summer 2026 can find full details here.