The Rice Investment: Full tuition scholarships for low- and middle-income students
Rice’s new initiative to make quality higher education more affordable by expanding financial aid to students from low-income families to those with incomes up to $200,000 was widely covered by local, national and international media outlets, including U.S. News & World Report, Forbes, NPR, The Hill, Houston Chronicle, Houston Business Journal as well as television stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston.
You really can die of a broken heart, Rice research suggests
Grief can cause inflammation that can kill, according to research conducted by the lab of Professor Chris Fagundes. The story was carried by more than 300 media outlets around the world, including Forbes, MSN and the Huffington Post in the U.S., Glamour France in Europe and The International in the Middle East. The research was also widely reported on radio and television stations throughout the U.S.
Will this year’s flu vaccine work better than last year’s?
The news that the 2018 flu vaccine will be less effective than last year’s, according to Professor Michael Deem, was carried by hundreds of media outlets across the nation, especially radio news broadcasts. Among those reporting the story was Radio Health Journal, which is syndicated on more than 500 radio stations, as well as Houston Public Media, Everyday Health and the Texas Standard.
For a list of media stars for September and October,
please see the last section of this report.
Government Relations
Collaboration is key for Government Relations in work on and off campus
During October, Government Relations remained active across campus leading up to the midterm elections. The department presented to the Faculty Senate and Political Club Genre Council on Rice’s partisan political activities policy and helped Rice’s Young Democrats and College Republicans arrange congressional candidate appearances on campus.
In mid-September, Government Relations led the planning for a panel, jointly hosted by the George R. Brown School of Engineering and the Wiess School of Natural Sciences, in which National Science Foundation Director France Córdova and U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, were featured participants in a discussion titled “The Future of Scientific Research.” The panel was moderated by President David Leebron and featured Professor Emeritus Neal Lane and Professor Yael Hochberg. More than 240 students, faculty and staff attended the event.
Government Relations also helped arrange a number of meetings with government officials for a variety of Rice-led initiatives, including the Kinder Institute’s meeting with state Rep. Jim Murphy to discuss the findings of a recent county governance report and meetings with state Sen. Borris Miles and state Reps. Jessica Farrar and Sarah Davis on behalf of the Rice Management Co. to discuss the Midtown innovation district.
University Relations
Rice and NASA celebrate 60 years of collaboration
In October, as NASA celebrated its 60th anniversary and the 50th anniversary of the Apollo missions, University Relations collaborated with campus colleagues and NASA counterparts to emphasize Rice’s historic and ongoing ties with the space program.
Repairs and lighting upgrades were made to the “Rice Stuff” permanent exhibit in Fondren Library (created by Public Affairs for the Centennial Celebration in 2012) and, with the help of the Woodson Research Center, five display cases were transformed into a temporary exhibit on Rice’s long history of collaboration with NASA.
At Rice Stadium, the site of former President John F. Kennedy’s landmark “Moon Speech,” University Relations arranged for a sycamore “moon tree” (a clone of a tree grown from a seed that flew around the moon on Apollo 14) to be planted in front of the Patterson Sports Performance Center, where it will grow to complete a line of sycamores planted in previous years.
University Relations, Rice Athletics, the University Place neighborhood and the Rice Village District collaborated on the Starlight Movie Night series, which invited campus neighbors to enjoy space-themed movies on the field at Rice Stadium. The series culminated with a screening of “Apollo 13” after the NASA Day football game Oct. 13.
At the NASA Day game, University Relations arranged for the Johnson Space Center to bring an inflatable space station education pavilion and Cosmo, NASA’s mascot, to Tailgate Owley. During the game, several Rice alumni and faculty with ties to NASA’s history were honored on the field. The tribute ended with an on-screen message from NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine ’97.
Creative Services
Psychological Sciences poster series
Creative Services edited and designed a series of posters for the Psychological Sciences Department. The team produced several sets of posters in different sizes to be displayed at the department’s conferences and events.
Data Science Conference materials
Hosted by the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology, the 2018 Data Science Conference took place Oct. 8–9 at the BioScience Research Collaborative. Creative Services designed and edited the programs, signage and email banner images for the conference.
Princeton Review rankings ad
Creative Services worked with the Marketing team to create targeted ads promoting the 2018 Princeton Review rankings. This ad, featuring Rice’s top 10 rankings, ran in the American School Counselor Association magazine. Keeping Rice top of mind with key audiences is a priority in positioning Rice as one of the top universities in the country.
Multicultural Community Relations
‘Blacks at Rice: An Evolving Legacy’ exhibition opening
The “Blacks at Rice: An Evolving Legacy” exhibition opened Sept. 13 at the African American Library at the Gregory School in Houston’s historic Fourth Ward. The exhibition tells the story of the university’s first black athletic trainer, the first black undergraduate and graduate students, and current students and black alumni who are making a difference in their communities. Association of Rice University Black Alumni and Multicultural Community Relations (MCR) worked together on the project with support from the Woodson Research Center, the Rice Alumni office and the Gregory staff. More than 150 Rice alumni, faculty, staff, students and Houston community members attended opening night. President Leebron and executives from Merrill Lynch, a major exhibition sponsor, gave the welcoming remarks.
From opioids to opera
In keeping with the Vision for the Second Century, Second Decade (V2C2), MCR helped organize a series of events that engaged diverse groups from the Houston community. The Houston Forensic Science Center held a symposium Sept. 21 that focused on the opioid epidemic plaguing the U.S. The Chado Urasenke Tankokai of Houston celebrated its 25th anniversary with a conference Oct. 19 focusing on the Japanese tea ceremony. Members of the Rice community attended the NAACP Houston Branch Centennial Freedom Fund Awards Dinner Oct. 25. Granaderos y Damas de Gálvez performed “Yo Solo,” an educational opera, at the Shepherd School of Music Oct. 30.
Making connections
Every three months, MCR organizes a meeting with members of the Rice community who engage in K-12 outreach. The purpose of the meetings is to identify opportunities for greater collaboration and impact. During the first meeting of the year in September, presenters came from the Rice Houston Engagement and Recovery Effort project, the George R. Brown School of Engineering and The Health Museum. Separately, MCR organized two luncheons in October — one for Rice students from Mariachi Luna Llena and another for the Hispanic Association for Cultural Enrichment at Rice to introduce them to Linda Thrane, the vice president of Public Affairs, and discuss how to work together to move Rice forward.
Marketing and Digital Communications
The 'interwebs' dashboard
Engagements
This number reflects how many people were potentially reached through Rice websites and social media during September and October: 200,530
Impressions
This number reflects people who have read or been exposed to Rice via web efforts in September and October: 2,067,217
Followers
This number reflects people who have actively shared Rice web and social media content during September and October: 197,625
In September and October, Rice social media channels received more than 2 million impressions and more than 200,000 engagements.
The most engaging story in September was the announcement of The Rice Investment. It reached more than 150,000 people on Facebook and gained more than 68,000 impressions on Twitter.
The Rice Day post Oct. 12 was one of the most engaging stories in October. It reached more than 19,000 people on Facebook.
A top tweet in October highlighted recent rankings from WalletHub and gained more than 20,000 impressions on Twitter.
The hero slider on rice.edu received 16,928 clicks in September and October. During these two months, the slider featured art exhibitions, Unconventional Wisdom campaign ads and a story about student-designed pacemakers.
September’s most-clicked slider was The Rice Investment story with 8,991 clicks. October’s most-clicked slider featured the Center for Transforming Data to Knowledge (D2K Lab), which gained 1,187 clicks.
Media Stars
Douglas Brinkley, the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Professor in Humanities, had the highest number of media mentions — 1,701 — during September and October, mainly for comments about President Donald Trump. Below are members of the Rice community who were mentioned in the media 10 or more times during September and October.
