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6 | At Your Servery • 16 | Titanic Belfast • 36 | The Apostle of Stoke • 42 | Raid the Archive
The Magazine of Rice University • No. 15 | 2013

F O R E W O R D
SOME THOUGHTS ON SHADOW AND LIGHT
Remember No. 100? In the fall issue’s blockbuster feature titled “100 Things We Love
About Rice,” we asked you to complete the list by sending your own favorites. And send
them you did, via email, handwritten letters and, notably, sheaves of typed pages with
photocopies. You also sent a few things emphatically not loved about Rice. Fair enough.
We appreciate the time you took to respond to this once-in-a-century list and being a part
of our celebration.
On Oct. 12, we gathered a new generation who “for this
fair day worked and prayed and waited” to witness President
David W. Leebron mark Rice’s 100th birthday with a speech
that recalled President Edgar Odell Lovett’s inaugural address
on the same day, a century before. We have included President
Leebron’s speech in its entirety in this issue, a souvenir of a
moment in time that perfectly linked our founding aspirations,
a century of hard-won achievements and a bold vision for the
future. Our pictorial wrap-up begins on Page 22.
Later that weekend, this time under starry skies, crowds
gathered again in the quad. We watched Rice’s history play out
decade-by-decade in an imaginative, jaw-dropping light and
sound performance. The show, intriguingly titled the Spectacle, opened with a moment of
pure magic as the shadow of an owl in flight swept across the buildings. Curious? Go online
(ricemagazine.info/134), then read the behind-the-scenes account of how it all happened by
senior media relations specialist (and former rock band lighting designer) Mike Williams.
Speaking of centennials, as the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking approached
last spring, we received a letter from alumnus Eric Kuhne ’73. Kuhne, whose firm CivicArts
is based in London, had helped design a new museum about the Titanic, one that aimed
to reclaim Belfast’s shipbuilding heritage and revitalize the city center. At the museum’s
entrance, the word Titanic is laser-cut into a 13-foot-high steel sign. The sun also writes
the name in shadow on the plaza. We asked Houston native and freelance writer Steven
Thomson, who happened to be in London working on an urban studies degree, to write the
story. It was a process that led Kuhne to take a few trips down memory lane with his alma
mater, even reconnecting with some of his former professors.
When Seattle-based freelance writer Corinne Whiting pitched a story last spring about
an alumnus who completed a news-making climb in the Sierra Nevada, we jumped, commissioning
a brief profile of Ben Horne ’02. We were delighted to discover that another
alumnus, Shay Har-Noy ’04, was also in the group that achieved the first winter ascent of
Peter Croft’s Evolution Traverse. Just after Whiting turned in a draft last July, she received
frightening news. Horne and another friend, Gil Weiss, were missing while climbing in
Peru’s Cordillera Blanca range. A formal search confirmed the worst fears of their families
and friends — an avalanche had claimed the lives of these two experienced climbers.
Whiting, who is from the same town as the Horne family, continued with the story, which
expanded into a feature about remembering a young man whose inspirational light lives on
through the stories and memories of loved ones.
We hope these stories touch you as they have touched us, and we wish you a happy
and healthy 2013.
Lynn Gosnell
lynn.gosnell@rice.edu
Rice Magazine
No. 15
Published by the
Office of Public Affairs
Linda Thrane, vice president
Editor
Lynn Gosnell
Creative Services
Jeff Cox, senior director
Tracey Rhoades, editorial director
Jenny W. Rozelle ’00, assistant editor
Erick Delgado, associate director of design
Dean Mackey, senior graphic designer
Jackie Limbaugh, graphic designer
Tommy LaVergne, university photographer
Jeff Fitlow, asst. university photographer
Contributing Staff
Jade Boyd, news and media relations
Jeff Falk, news and media relations
Amy Hodges, news and media relations
Mike Williams, news and media relations
Freelance Contributors
Andrew Clark
David Gusakov
Kelly Klaasmeyer
Steven Thomson
Corinne Whiting
The Rice University
Board of Trustees
James W. Crownover, chairman;
Edward B. “Teddy” Adams Jr.;
J.D. Bucky Allshouse; D. Kent Anderson;
Keith T. Anderson; Laura Arnold;
Subha Viswanathan Barry; Suzanne Deal
Booth; Robert T. Brockman; Albert Chao;
T. Jay Collins; Lynn Laverty Elsenhans;
Lawrence Guffey; James T. Hackett;
John Jaggers; Larry Kellner; R. Ralph Parks;
Lee H. Rosenthal; Charles Szalkowski;
Robert M. Taylor Jr.; Robert B. Tudor III;
James S. Turley; Lewis “Rusty” Williams;
Randa Duncan Williams.
Administrative Officers
David W. Leebron, president;
George McLendon, provost; Kathy Collins,
vice president for Finance; Kevin Kirby, vice
president for Administration;
Chris Muñoz, vice president for Enrollment;
Allison Kendrick Thacker, vice president for
Investments and treasurer; Linda Thrane,
vice president for Public Affairs; Richard A.
Zansitis, vice president and general counsel;
Darrow Zeidenstein, vice president for
Resource Development.
Rice Magazine is published by the Office
of Public Affairs of Rice University and
is sent to university alumni, faculty, staff,
parents of undergraduates and friends of
the university.
Editorial Offices
Creative Services–MS 95
P.O. Box 1892
Houston, TX 77251-1892
Fax: 713-348-6757
Email: ricemagazine@rice.edu
©JANUARY 2013 RICE UNIVERSITY
ONLINE AT: WWW.ISSUU.COM/RICEUNIVERSITY

Features
Through
the Sallyport
4 Read all about running a servery,
the 100th commencement speaker,
Guam’s spider problem, campus
drama and other research news.
Sports
41 Women’s soccer scores a record
season.
22
Arts
16 Unsinkable City
Alumnus Eric Kuhne ’73 is at the helm of
Belfast’s new Titanic museum that showcases
the city’s shipbuilding heritage and anchors
an ambitious urban redevelopment plan.
By Steven Thomson
22 Highlights From the
Centennial Celebration
Our Centennial Celebration last October was
filled with “the joy of high adventure.” Please
enjoy these pictorial highlights and links to
the remarkable events and programs that
launched Rice into a second century. Read
the full text of President David W. Leebron’s
centennial speech.
36 The Apostle of Stoke
Alumnus Ben Horne ’02 is remembered with
deep affection by Rice friends and family.
Among Horne’s favorite quotes is one by
climber Anatoli Boukreev: “Mountains are
not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition
to achieve; they are the cathedrals where I
practice my religion.”
By Corinne Whiting
16
36
42 The Rice Media Center hosted
“Raid the Archive: The de Menil
Years at Rice,” commemorating
the centennial as well as the Menil
Collection’s 25th anniversary.
43 And the Grammy for best opera
recording goes to …
Bookshelf
44 Douglas Brinkley’s biography of
Walter Cronkite shares the shelf
with an examination of religion
and race co-written by sociologist
Michael Emerson, Justin Cronin’s
“The Twelve” and a roundup of books
by Rice alumni and faculty.
Parting Words
46 Can you complete this owlsome
crossword puzzle?
48 Alumnus Glenn Fuller ’50 traveled
from Minneapolis to Houston for
Rice’s centennial. And then …
Cover: (Top) President Edgar Odell Lovett gives the inaugural address to open the Rice Institute,
Oct. 12, 1912. Behind Lovett is the newly dedicated administration building that would one day bear his name.
(Bottom) David W. Leebron, Rice’s seventh president, marks the 100th anniversary of Rice University,
Oct. 12, 2012, in front of Lovett Hall. Photo by Jeff Fitlow. President Leebron’s address begins on Page 25.

Letters
More Things We Love (and in some cases, do not love at all)
Editor’s note:
We received a smattering
of feedback following
our last issue of Rice
Magazine. Here are some
of your comments.
10 More Things I Loved About Rice
First, I loved your centennial issue. However, many of the items on your list
didn’t exist during my time at Rice, from 1950 until 1955. I owe a great deal to
Rice, for a fine professional education that allowed me to prosper for almost
40 years as a practicing mechanical engineer, mostly designing large magnets,
both resistive and superconducting, at physics research laboratories and one
private corporation.
Other faves of our era:
■ Bum’s Rush — This was a hallowed blast sponsored by the Rally
Club.
■ Freshman/sophomore (hell) week — This was a favored institution
of sophomores, though not perhaps of freshmen who, when caught,
were hauled off in the dark and deposited at various lonely and often
remote sites, where they were obliged to find their way back by
whatever means they could.
■ Paul Cochran’s ’54 iconic yellow 1954 Rice Campanile — It’s a classic!
Cochran’s wit is sprinkled throughout as appropriate — or not.
I was quite impressed with your ‘ginormous listicle.’ (Are you sure it is not a
lead-in for listerine popsicle?) Super article, seriously. Keep up the good work.
Bob Winship ’52
(Bob Winship recently published an essay on Mark Twain’s autobiography in
The Texas Review, a biannual literary journal.)
I enjoyed the last issue of Rice Magazine. It covered many events, etc., which
were not around when I attended Rice. It omitted some, such as the following:
■ In 1943, Rice joined a larger number of universities to admit and house
Naval cadets. The program was known as V-5 (for aviation cadets) and
V-12 (for line officers). This benefited the university, and it introduced
many students from out of Texas to Rice.
■ Naval students were required to attend year-round. Rice went with a
trimester school year to meet this requirement, which lasted for nine
trimesters, resulting in Rice having two graduations in 1946.
Ed Sharp ’49
C.R.L.S. officers, 1957
■ Fondren Library — This is where we often studied and sometimes
fired spitballs at other students.
■ Women’s literary societies — These were Rice’s equivalent of
sororities.
■ Slime parade
■ Rice Senior Follies
■ Elizabeth Baldwin Literary Society melodrama
■ Kay’s Lounge on Bissonnet
■ I have interpreted No. 64 regarding college associates differently.
We bonded closely at Rice, both through classroom association and
as my roommates, on the fifth floor of East Hall. I roomed with Kneel
Ball ’54, Crayton Walker ’54, John Lyle ’54 and John McClintock ’55
— a dear friend from earlier days. We styled ourselves as ‘apes’ and
tended to behave accordingly, especially by ape-walking in the Roost
and elsewhere. In fact, some 58 years later, we still convene every
two years, most recently at John Lyle’s in Prescott, Ariz.
John Stewart Alcorn ’54
Navy initiation, 1943
2 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

Letters Policy
Are you shocked and appalled? Do you beg to differ? Is there more to the story? Good. We celebrate the university as a marketplace of ideas. We want to hear from
you. Please send us your note, letter or email, which we will edit for clarity and space considerations. If your letter or note elicits further responses from our readership,
we may print those, too. After that, dear readers, you’ll have to take it outside. Our contact information is listed by the editor’s foreword.
■ KTRU motto: “At 50 watts, less powerful than your average toaster.”
■ Steam tunnels — an acquired taste.
■ Owls from the chemistry building tower dive-bombing girls on their
way back to Jones.
■ The Fondren stacks.
■ Beer team practice in my dorm room.
■ Before RUPD officers, there were the Pinkies.
Richard Pulley ’68
Will Rice College
Here are some of my favorite features of the Rice experience that I did not
see in the current issue:
■ Navy ROTC students in their summer whites.
■ Rice University and college decals that fit on the inside of car
windows, not the outside.
■ The panoramic views from Sid Rich balconies sweeping across the
Galleria to the downtown skyline and other points east.
■ Intimate lunches with favorite faculty members at Cohen House.
Brian Watson ’84
Baker College
How could you possibly omit my favorite thing about Rice? The Rice community.
When I was there, all the students and all the faculty were interesting
people in one way or another, with minds that were going somewhere, much
more so than in the world at large. I presume this is still true.
In the spirit of things fair and balanced, I would like to see a list of some
things unloved about Rice. (Just like the Higgs particle, such a list might
exist.)
At the very top of any list of things I didn’t love about Rice would
be the oppressive heat and humidity in the new, but unair-conditioned, Will
Rice dorm rooms in the late 1950s.
Charles Walpole ’60
Will Rice College
I think you should publish a booklet of this article and supply it to various
high schools for recruitment. I plan to take mine to my alma mater.
I recall that when I was a student, there was an intramural sports
participation rate of nearly 90 percent. It would make a great addition to
No. 23.
Mark H. Friedman ’72
Will Rice College
I’m not sure where this should be ranked in the list, but I believe that
student access to professors should be one of the ‘100 Things We Love
About Rice.’ My personal example goes back to 1966, when I was an
incoming freshman. I wanted to be a physicist, and I was so sure of myself
that I was certain I would win a Nobel Prize by the time I was 25.
Well, that didn’t happen. In fact, halfway though the semester, I was
flunking Physics 101. After the second quiz, I went to the guy teaching the
course, Professor Rorschach. He worked closely with me, giving me one of
Hugh Brown ’69
Will Rice College
What a great article! However, there was just one thing I was looking for
and did not find: ‘Hello, Hamlet!’ by George Greanias ’70, Wiess Tabletop
Theater’s first production in 1970. A real Rice tradition, performed every four
years.
The only thing I hate about ‘Hello, Hamlet!’ is that I graduated
eight years before George matriculated and missed the seminal
experiences. However, I was offered the major role of Richard III when
‘Hamlet’ was produced as a fundraiser for the author’s campaign for Houston
City Council. The ‘big time,’ as it were. And, as we all agreed, ‘There is
nothing like a Dane!’
Barry Moore ’62
Wiess College
Physics department professors, 1953
Professor Rorschach, 1968
his other physics texts from which I was to work problems. In essence, he
became my tutor. Ultimately, I passed the course.
What I didn’t appreciate at the time was that my freshman physics
course was taught by a full professor who was also chairman of the physics
department! He not only taught the class of some 100 students, he took time
to help those students understand and learn the material. I am absolutely
certain that as a lowly freshman I would not have gotten that kind of access
to such a ranked professor at any other school. Whenever I talk about Rice,
Professor Rorschach’s name comes up, among others.
And, by the way, I got my B.A. in physics in 1970 and was on the
President’s Honor Roll.
Julian A Levy Jr. ’70
Hanszen College
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 3

Bravo!
A selection of honors, awards and notable
achievements of students, faculty and staff
The Rice School of Architecture has risen to No. 3 in a national
ranking for undergraduate education in the Design Futures Council’s
“America’s Best Architecture and Design Schools, 2013,” published by
DesignIntelligence. Rice ranked No. 5 in the 2012 edition.
Seven members of the Department of Mathematics have been
selected for the inaugural class of fellows of the American
Mathematical Society (AMS). The 30,000-member society announced
1,119 fellows from more than
600 institutions Nov. 1. Rice’s
new AMS fellows are professors
Michael Wolf, David Damanik
and John Hempel; associate
professor Shelly Harvey; adjunct
research professor Michael Field;
professor emeritus and research
professor John Polking; and the
Edgar Odell Lovett Professor of
Mathematics William Veech.
Pedro Alvarez, the George R.
Brown Professor and chair of
the Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering, has
been awarded the prestigious
Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke
Prize for excellence in water
science research by the National
Water Research Institute. “The
Clarke Prize is one of the greatest
honors I’ve received in my life,”
Alvarez said. “It’s an inspiration
for generosity, integrity and world
affirmation — the idea that the
world can be a better place, and
we can do something about it
by making water safer and more
affordable.”
Yildiz Bayazitoglu, the Harry S.
Cameron Professor of Mechanical
Engineering, has been doubly recognized for her distinctive contributions
to engineering. Bayazitoglu has received the Society of Women
Engineers 2012 Achievement Award, its highest honor. The award is
presented annually to a woman who has made an “outstanding contribution
over a significant period of time in a field of engineering.”
She also was elected an honorary member of the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers.
Rice’s 110,000-square-foot Brockman Hall for Physics recently earned
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold
certification by the U.S. Green Building Council. Brockman is home
to dozens of experimental, theoretical and applied physicists from the
departments of Physics and Astronomy and Electrical and Computer
Engineering. The building has energy-saving and environmental features
that include an energy-recovery system — the largest in a single
air unit in Texas — that saves as much as 30 percent of the energy
needed to cool the building in the
summer. Another green innovation
is the building’s dehumidification
system, which turns Houston’s
legendary humidity into an asset
by capturing and returning 100,000
gallons of pure, clean water each
year to Rice’s Central Plant.
Brockman Hall for Physics
Rice University President David
W. Leebron has been appointed
to the National Collegiate Athletic
Association (NCAA) Division I
board of directors as a representative
of Conference USA. His term
is effective through Aug. 31, 2016.
Lanny Martin, associate professor
of political science, won the 2012
Richard F. Fenno, Jr. Prize for his
book, “Parliaments and Coalitions:
The Role of Legislative Institutions
in Multiparty Governance,” coauthored
with Georg Vanberg of
the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill. The American Political
Science Association awards the
prize annually for the best book
on legislative studies.
Rice’s newest residential colleges
McMurtry College Commons — Duncan and McMurtry — are
among 10 recipients across the
country of the American Institute of Architects’ 2012 Housing Awards
for Architecture. The awards recognize the best in housing design and
“emphasize the importance of good housing as a necessity of life, a
sanctuary for the human spirit and a valuable national resource.” The
awards jury comments noted, “The communal spaces were really
beautiful, and for a student residence, they act as magnets and seem
to be exactly what residential living should be for college.”
4 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

THROUGH THE
Sallyport
Cheering for the Arts
New Kinder Institute survey reveals widespread support for the arts in Harris County
We love our football in Texas. And basketball, too. And baseball and
soccer and, well, you get the picture. So the results of a new survey
on the arts in Houston, conducted by Rice’s Kinder Institute for Urban
Research, may be surprising. The first Houston Arts Survey revealed that,
if given the choice of preserving either the arts or sports, 56 percent
of Houstonians would choose the arts, compared with 35 percent who
would preserve sports.
“The survey participants express broad-based support for investments
that will enhance the visibility and quality of the arts in this region,
even if it means an increase in taxes,” said Stephen Klineberg, professor
of sociology and co-director of the Kinder Institute. “The respondents
are clear in their belief that the arts are important to Houston, that their
Percent of Respondents
“If Houston had to choose between having either excellent music and theater or great
sports teams and stadiums, which would you most want to preserve? In other words,
which would you miss most — music and theater (56%) or sports teams and stadiums
(35%) — if one or the other were to disappear from Houston?”
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
60%
51%
42%
Male
Female
28%
Music and theater
50% 53% 53%
41%
Never involved with
the arts as a child
36% 36%
Involved for two
years or less
availability and excellence are critical to the area’s quality of life and that
arts instruction should be a part of every child’s education.”
The study found that Houstonians are more likely than Americans
in general to attend live arts performances and that the most important
attendance predictors are education, household income and exposure to
the arts in childhood. Ethnic background makes no difference at all in attendance
rates: African-Americans, Latinos and Asians are just as likely as
Anglos to report that they attended a live performance in the arts during
the preceding 12 months.
“The usual suspects — mainly costs, traffic, safety and no time —
were among the reasons respondents do not attend arts performances,”
Klineberg said.
Americans today are far more likely to access
Sports teams and stadiums
63%
27%
Involved for more
than two years
the arts at home through the media than at live
performances, but the respondents indicate that
viewing or listening to the arts at home is more
likely to increase than to decrease their interest
in attending live arts performances.
“If Houston is to succeed in the 21st century,
it will need to nurture a far more educated
work force, improve its overall quality of life and
capitalize on its burgeoning ethnic and cultural
diversity,” Klineberg said. “The survey findings
bode well for the future of our region.” The
study was funded by Houston Endowment Inc.
and aided by an advisory panel of leading national
and local arts experts.
Read more:
››› kinder.rice.edu/shea
—Lynn Gosnell
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 5

Running
the Resort
An interview with Julie Bogar
How Rice feeds its masses has drastically changed over the years. The Central Kitchen, which used to produce all
meals for the colleges and then transport them to each commons, is now home to the Oshman Engineering Design
Kitchen, where recipes of a different kind are cooked up. Alumni can surely attest to how things were, as can Julie
Bogar, who began working at Rice in 1990 as a residential dining manager, supervising the operations, menus and
ordering for the first eight residential colleges.
As Housing and Dining gradually opened
the four larger serveries (cafeteria-style eateries
with professional chefs that are attached
to two to three colleges each) beginning in
2002, the management and culinary staff increased.
In 2010, Rice restructured its Housing
and Dining staff to include four senior operations
managers. Their time is divided between
residential housing and dining responsibilities.
Bogar oversees the South Servery and Sid,
Wiess and Hanszen colleges.
Describe your average day.
I like to view my area as “the resort,” and
I’m the manager. I begin my day by walking
through the servery, checking the breakfast
service and talking with students and staff.
Another key area that I monitor is the work
order system for repairs or services requested
by residents in the South Colleges. I make sure
they are completed and often follow up with
the resident via email.
I walk different areas of my three colleges
doing visual safety and repair inspections
each day. It’s also a good time to interact
with the students who might have a particular
concern. My average day, free of fire alarms,
a broken sprinkler pipe, a college covered in
chocolate syrup or a bird flying through the
servery, also includes lots of ongoing communication
via informal meetings or emails
on issues pertaining to special events, college
ambiance projects [projects that improve college
public spaces], training, inspections or
renovation projects.
What are things like behind the scenes in the
South Servery?
Very organized. Chef Roger [Elkhouri] and
Chef Kyle [Hardwick] run a very efficient,
structured kitchen, which eliminates guesswork
and increases efficiency. This is very
evident in our staff’s satisfaction level. I hope
they would all say that they enjoy their work
and are constantly learning new things. Our
newest venture, the Whoo Deli, a retail deli
6 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

with custom-designed sandwiches managed
by Chef Ahmed [Mihabi], is doing very well
and is also part of our operation.
And the Centennial
Commencement
Speaker Is …
How often do you get to interact with the
students?
All of the time. Sometimes I eavesdrop a little
in the servery when I hear students talking
about what they wish they could get, whether
it’s a bowl of kiwi or a request for a favorite
pie. We are all about customer service. That’s
the key to enjoying my job at the resort. I’m
also there to make copies for a term paper
that’s due in five minutes or to provide props
for a costume or help look for a missing passport
in the trash. I love interacting with the
students, as they are so appreciative of even
the smallest things.
What’s the weirdest experience you’ve had in
the course of your job?
We discovered that a snake and a scorpion
were being kept in one of the college rooms,
so we notified the students that that was
against the housing policies and could result in
a fine. The roommates claimed that the creatures
must have found their way in on their
own or were brought by someone else.
How does your job change during the students’
summer break?
It gets even busier, and the days fly by. Most
of my time is spent contracting and managing
projects in my colleges, such as painting,
new furniture, carpeting, remodeling, plumbing
improvements, etc. I also work with the
various summer groups staying in the South
Colleges and assist with summer dining.
World-renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson will give the commencement
address at Rice University’s 100th graduation ceremony May
11, 2013. Tyson is the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium
at the American Museum of
Natural History (AMNH) in
New York City.
Born and raised in New
York City, Tyson was 9 years
old the night he saw the Milky
Way with “such clarity and majesty”
at Hayden Planetarium’s
sky theater in Manhattan that
he knew he had been called
to be an astrophysicist. “The
study of the universe would
be my career, and no force on
Earth would stop me,” Tyson
wrote in his memoir, “The Sky
Is Not the Limit: Adventures of
an Urban Astrophysicist.”
“I am honored to deliver
Rice University’s commencement
address during a year
that commemorates President
Kennedy’s famous ‘We Choose
to Go to the Moon’ speech
Neil deGrasse Tyson
given at Rice Stadium a half century ago,” Tyson said. “That speech not
only established space exploration as a national goal, but it also forged
space exploration as a national identity and secured Rice University and
Houston’s Manned Spacecraft Center (later, Johnson Space Center) as the
birthplace of that era. My wife, Alice Young ’79, happens to be a graduate
of Rice, in physics, and so this trip will also serve as a homecoming for her.”
Tyson wrote in his memoir that his life’s commitment is to bring people
closer to the universe, and he has done that by writing books, giving
lectures and appearing on television and radio to educate the public about
astrophysics.
—Rice News
—Jenny Rozelle ’00
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 7

Rice Launches Energy
and Environment Initiative
The mission is to engage researchers and scholars from every corner of campus
to address the complex challenges of energy in the 21st century.
Rice’s new Energy and Environment Initiative (E2I) will draw experts
from every corner of the university to work with Houston’s
energy industry to overcome barriers to the sustainable development
and use of current and alternative forms of energy.
Rice Provost George McLendon said E2I is unique among
university activities because it recognizes that addressing challenges
in energy requires more than just technological solutions.
E2I researchers will study energy policy and markets, finance,
“One of the most critical global issues of
our time is the challenge of meeting the
world population’s escalating need for
energy and simultaneously safeguarding
the environment.”
—David W. Leebron
and management, as well as the cultural and societal values that
underpin and sometimes undermine public discussion about energy
and the environment.
E2I will be led by a committee chaired by Pedro Alvarez,
Rice’s George R. Brown Professor and chair of the Department
of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The committee members
are Ken Medlock, the James A. Baker III and Susan G.
Baker Fellow in Energy and Resource Economics at the Baker
Institute for Public Policy and adjunct professor in economics;
Alan Levander, Rice’s Carey Croneis Professor of Earth Science
and director of Rice’s data analysis and visualization cyberinfrastructure
(DAVinCI) project; Dominic Boyer, associate professor
of anthropology; and William Arnold, professor in the practice of
energy management at the Jones School. A national search for a
permanent faculty director will begin in 2013.
McLendon said Rice will invest about $1 million this fiscal
year to start E2I seed-funding programs and establish an infrastructure
to link existing activities across departments and
schools. Future investments will be linked to research growth.
“This is about building a bridge from today’s fossil fuel economy
to an all-of-the-above energy future in which all sources of
energy are used in concert,” he said. “Building this bridge is as
much a political, economic and social challenge as a technical
one.”
“One of the most critical global issues of our time is the
challenge of meeting the world population’s escalating need for
energy and simultaneously safeguarding the environment,” said
Rice President David Leebron. “Rice’s location in Houston, the
global energy capital, uniquely positions us to serve both our
city and our world by offering rich insights and practical but innovative
solutions to this daunting challenge. Not only will we
explore issues related to the safe harvesting and use of traditional
hydrocarbons, but also advance the next generation of energy
sources, from biofuels to solar.”
8 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

HELP FOR
Brain Injuries
A nanoparticle developed at Rice University and tested in
collaboration with Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) may
bring great benefits to the emergency treatment of brain-injury
victims, even those with mild injuries.
Combined polyethylene glycol-hydrophilic carbon clusters
(PEG-HCC), already being tested to enhance cancer treatment,
are also adept antioxidants. In animal studies, injections of PEG-
HCC during initial treatment after an injury helped restore balance
to the brain’s vascular system. A PEG-HCC infusion that
quickly stabilizes blood flow in the brain would be a significant
advance for emergency-care workers and battlefield medics,
said Rice chemist and co-author James Tour.
“This might be a first line of defense against reactive
oxygen species (ROS) that are always overstimulated during a
medical trauma, whether that be to an accident victim or an
injured soldier,” said Tour, Rice’s T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of
Chemistry as well as a professor of mechanical engineering and
materials science and of computer science. “They’re certainly
exacerbated when there’s trauma with massive blood loss.”
In a traumatic brain injury, cells release an excessive amount
of an ROS known as superoxide into the blood. Superoxides
are toxic free radicals, molecules with one unpaired electron,
that the immune system normally uses to kill invading
microorganisms.
“There are many facets of brain injury that ultimately determine
how much damage there will be,” said Thomas Kent, the
paper’s co-author, a BCM professor of neurology and chief of
neurology at the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical
Center in Houston. “One is the initial injury, and that’s pretty
much done in minutes. But a number of things that happen later
often make things worse, and that’s when we can intervene.”
In tests, the researchers found PEG-HCC nanoparticles immediately
and completely quenched superoxide activity and
allowed the autoregulatory system to quickly
regain its balance. “This is an occasion
where a nano-sized package is
doing something that no small
drug or protein could do, underscoring
the efficacy of
active nano-based drugs,”
said Tour. “This is the
most remarkably effective
thing I’ve ever seen,” Kent
said.
The research was
funded by the Department
of Defense’s Mission
Connect Mild Traumatic
Brain Injury Translational
Research Consortium, the
National Science Foundation,
the National Institutes of Health,
and the National Heart, Lung and
Blood Institute.
Predatory
Bacteria
Scientists ID a simple formula that allows
bacteria to engulf food in waves.
Move forward. High-five your neighbor. Turn around.
Repeat.
That’s the winning formula of one of the world’s smallest
predators, the soil bacteria Myxococcus xanthus. A new
study by scientists at Rice University and the University of
Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical
School shows how M. xanthus uses the formula to spread,
engulf and devour other bacteria.
Researchers found that simple motions of individual
bacteria are amplified within colonies of M. xanthus to form
millions-strong waves moving outward in unison. The findings
answer long-standing questions about how the waves
form and the competitive edge they provide M. xanthus.
“When the cells at the edge of the colony are moving
outward, they are unlikely to encounter another M. xanthus
cell, so they keep moving forward,” said lead author
Oleg Igoshin, assistant professor of bioengineering at Rice.
“When they are traveling the other way, back toward the
rest of the colony, they are likely to encounter other cells
of their kind, and when they pass beside one of these and
touch, they get the signal to turn around.”
M. xanthus is an oft-studied model organism in biology,
Igoshin said. As a computational biologist, Igoshin specializes
in creating mathematical models that accurately
describe the behavior of living systems. Such models are
useful for understanding the cellular and even genetic basis
of emergent phenomena. The research was supported
by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The computer
modeling was performed on three NSF-funded Rice supercomputers
— STIC, SUG@R and DAVinCI — that are jointly
managed and operated by Rice’s Ken Kennedy Institute for
Information Technology and Rice’s Information Technology
office.
—Jade Boyd
—Mike Williams
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 9

Q&A:
Architectronica
Architectronica, the Rice School of Architecture’s
epic public party, drew more than 1,000 students to
Anderson Hall the evening of Oct. 13. Designated
the official after-party of the centennial’s
Spectacle, the event showcased a complex and
visually stunning mix of digital media, all designed
by RSA student Joshuah Howard ’13. The elaborate
production featured a “custom projection-mapping
installation that synchronizes to the music to trigger
specific psycho-emotional effects,” Howard
said. DJ Vivas Kumar ’14 presided over four hours
of music, an eclectic mix of electronica and original
tunes. The crowd favorite, Howard said, was a dub
step remix of the “Bill Nye the Science Guy” theme.
We asked Howard to answer a few questions about
the production.
How did you end up designing the light show
for the party?
I have a passion for allowing the digital world to
leak out into our own, so when I attended Media
Party (the precursor to Architectronica) for the first
time in 2009, I began imagining ways to transform
the room into a stagelike installation. Over the
next two years, I dug deep into the world of audio/
visual production on my own time — not just for
Architectronica. Eventually I found a combination
of programs that was capable of producing what I
had in mind.
When did you start working on the show?
The show is in a constant state of development —
even during the show I’m changing things around.
I wish I had the time to prerecord the audio and
video entirely before the event, but that level of
production is not the kind of thing I could balance
with classes.
What is involved in designing a show of this
magnitude?
Lots. First of all there are other RSA officers that
take care of RUPD, security, food and drinks. They
take care of the logistics and leave the show and
advertising to me. The show itself involves heavy
amounts of tech and creativity.
How many DJs were there and how did you
coordinate with them?
There was just one live DJ — Vivas Kumar —
though there are plans to incorporate more Rice
DJs in the future. During the performances, Vivas
controls the tempo for the whole show, so he’s
free to speed up, slow down or even drop the beat
entirely. His computer sends a tempo control signal
via a LAN cable to mine, which then adjusts
all my video triggers, layers sequencing, effects
and other parameters according to the incoming
tempo. This setup allows for us both to jam out
while keeping the whole show coordinated to the
millisecond.
How would you describe the music this year?
Our mission with Architectronica is to provide
what the other public parties don’t, which is pretty
easy since those parties just puke out top 40s every
weekend. We avoid pop music like the plague
unless it’s totally reinvented in a remix.
What was the general reaction from students?
The crowd loved the show. Normally people come
to public parties for about 40 minutes and then
leave to cool off or get a drink. It was actually impossible
to get any more people into the room for
most of the night.
Do you see yourself working on light and
media as a career?
I want to continue my efforts in augmenting the
real world with digital media, but there are countless
ways to do this. I worked with URBANSCREEN
(see Page 32) this summer during the development
of the Spectacle and plan to go back for another
internship this summer. I’m hoping to integrate
this knowledge of light and media into my architectural
designs, rather than work purely with the
elements.
—Lynn Gosnell
New Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program Launched
Rice University has established a new doctoral program that encompasses several of the 21st century’s emergent
research fields in life sciences. The Ph.D. degree in systems, synthetic and physical biology (SSPB) was approved last fall
by Rice’s Faculty Senate and is set to enroll its first students in fall 2013. The SSPB program is a joint venture between the
George R. Brown School of Engineering and the Wiess School of Natural Sciences.
“Systems, synthetic and physical biology is a new field that combines experimental and theoretical approaches to
solve both fundamental and applied problems in the biosciences, biotechnology and medicine,” said Michael Deem, Rice’s
John W. Cox Professor of Biochemical and Genetic Engineering and professor of physics and astronomy. Deem will direct
the new Ph.D. program.
Read more:
››› sspb.rice.edu/sspb
10 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

OMG!
She’s Multitalented.
Rebecca Carrington ’97 doesn’t fit the mold
of a typical classically trained and accomplished
cellist. For starters, she combines
playing the cello with stand-up musical
comedy. During those performances, she
refers to her instrument, an 18th-century
cello, by the name of Joe.
For more than a decade, Carrington,
who is English, has traversed the globe
to perform her unique musical-comedy
act. She has performed at the venerable
Comedy Store in Los Angeles, at numerous
festivals, and on TV and radio programs.
Her performances have taken her
on trans-Atlantic cruises and to India, but
she plays most frequently in Germany and
throughout Europe. Now based in Berlin,
Carrington spends more than half the year
on the road and has performed up to 170
shows in a year.
“Looking back, I’ve always loved making
people laugh. But it’s much different
than it used to be now that I do it for a
living,” Carrington said.
It was during her days as a master’s
student at the Shepherd School of Music
that Carrington discovered her talent for
stand-up comedy. It was also at Rice that
she started performing in campus cabaret,
including an hour-long show she developed
for a P.D.Q. Bach evening at the
Shepherd School of Music. While on a trip
to New York as a student, a friend dared
her to try performing at a comedy club.
Carrington accepted and was
hooked. Soon she was combining
her talents — a thorough
grounding in classical music,
a love of cabaret and a knack
for making others laugh —
into a highly entertaining
stage act.
“If it wasn’t for going to
America, I would have never had
the confidence to go into comedy,”
said Carrington, who won the university’s
MasterCard Talent American
Collegiate Search in 1996.
During her performances,
Carrington rattles jokes off with a manic
energy, interspersed with cello playing
and singing. She oscillates between
voices, even languages, switching from
English to French and German. Her topic
“Looking back, I’ve always loved making people
laugh. But it’s much different than it used to be
now that I do it for a living.”
—Rebecca Carrington
matter is diverse, ranging from the idiosyncrasies
of the world’s different cultures to
song parodies.
“I’ve found that in certain areas of the
U.S. of A., I only need about three English
words per day to express myself,” she begins
in a bit during a show’s performance.
Carrington then proceeds to use a mocking,
ditzy voice to make fun of a woman
in California who prefaced every sentence
with “Oh my God.”
“Oh my God, that is such a beautiful
piece of furniture!” Carrington says, referring
to her cello.
It can get difficult
trying to entertain
people through two
distinctly different
mediums, Carrington
acknowledged.
“What happens is
that you have to come
up with ideas about how
to arrange things for two
different voices. Not only
are you just playing
your cello on stage.
You need to prepare
jokes to crack, as
well.” She relishes
the challenge.
Since 2007, Carrington has
been joined onstage by her husband,
actor and singer Colin Brown.
Her CDs and DVDs feature both her
solo work and the duo’s collaboration as
Carrington-Brown. When it comes to producing
material, Carrington writes with her
husband, whom she met while performing
at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Brown
adds a unique dynamic to Carrington’s
performance, whether he is rapping along
to her cello riffs or adding a monologue
of his own. The duo has won a number of
awards throughout Europe.
Carrington and Brown will head to New
York this year for an entertainment showcase.
“We hope to make contacts and to be
able to tour in the U.S. That is our goal.”
—Andrew Clark
Andrew Clark is a freelance writer and law student based in
Boston, Mass. He can be reached at andrewclark87@gmail.com.
Watch:
››› rebeccacarrington.com/video.php
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 11

First, Snakes. Now, Spiders.
Ecologists have found as many as 40 times more spiders in Guam’s remote jungle
than are found on nearby islands. In some places, dense spiderwebs fill gaps
between trees in the jungle canopy.
It sounds like something from a horror movie
— a Pacific island infested with venomous
tree-lounging snakes and dense thickets of
spiderwebs. An island where the sound of
birds has fallen silent. Welcome to Guam,
where brown tree snakes have done untold
damage to the U.S. territory since being accidentally
introduced to the island in the late
1940s. The snakes’ lack of natural predators
combined with access to abundant food
sources, in the form of native bird species
and small mammals, has devastated native
ecosystems.
Credit: Isaac Chellman
The ripple effect of this eco-disaster is
the subject of a new study by biologists from
Rice University, the University of Washington
and the University of Guam.
Because many birds consume spiders,
compete with spiders for insect prey and use
spiderwebs in their nests, Haldre Rogers,
a Huxley Research Instructor in ecology
and evolutionary biology at Rice, and her
colleagues are investigating whether the loss
of birds led to an increase in the spider population
on Guam. Huxley fellows are recent
Ph.D. recipients who are appointed to teach
at Rice for two to three years.
“You can’t walk through the jungles on
Guam without a stick in your hand to knock
down the spiderwebs,” said Rogers, the lead
author of the study, which appeared in the
journal PLOS ONE last fall.
The results are some of the first to examine
the indirect impact of the brown tree
snake on Guam’s ecosystem. By the 1980s,
10 of 12 native bird species had been wiped
out, and the last two live only in small areas
protected by intense snake-trapping.
Counting spiderwebs on Guam and on
nearby islands in the Marianas Islands chain
was the first step in the study. Rogers and
study co-authors Janneke Hille Ris Lambers
and Josh Tewksbury of the University of
Washington and Ross Miller of the University
of Guam found that spiders were between
two times and 40 times more plentiful on
Guam than on neighboring islands.
Rogers has extensive experience studying
the ripple effects of the tree snake invasion
on Guam. Her first job out of college
was to lead the U.S. Geological Survey’s
brown tree snake rapid response team, a
small group of snake hunters charged with
capturing brown tree snakes that manage to
get off the island.
“When I was [on Guam’s nearby islands]
searching for snakes at night, I spent a lot of
time thinking about the differences between
the forests I was walking through and the
forests back on Guam,” said Rogers, recalling
her field research. “The spiderwebs were just
one difference. The lack of songbirds also
make Guam’s forests eerily quiet during the
day,” she said.
“There isn’t any other place in the world
that has lost all of its insect-eating birds,” she
said. “There’s no other place you can look to
see what happens when birds are removed
over an entire landscape.”
In future work, she plans to conduct experiments
on neighboring islands that still
have forest birds and compare those results
with observations on Guam to determine the
exact links between the lost forest birds and
the spider population increases.
“Ultimately, we aim to untangle the impact
of bird loss on the entire food web, all
the way down to plants,” she said. “For example,
has the loss of birds also led to an increase
in the number of plant-eating insects?
Or can this increase in spiders compensate
for the loss of birds?”
Read the journal article:
››› ricemagazine.info/131
—Jade Boyd
12 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

Religious fraud! Comedy! Satire!
It’s “Tartuffe.”
Jake LaViola ’15 as Tartuffe has a moment
with Hayley Jones ’14 as Elmire
in the fall production of Molière’s
comic masterpiece, “Tartuffe.” The Rice
University Theatre Program presented
the play at Hamman Hall to rave reviews.
“Molière gives us a farce with a scathing
wit as he roasts religion, hypocrisy
and sexual deceit,” said Christina Keefe,
director of Rice’s Theatre Program. In
addition to LaViola and Jones, the show
starred Qingyang Peng ’15 as Orgon,
staff member Alice Rhoades as Madame
Pernelle, Tasneem Islam ’14 as Mariane
and John Hagele ’16 as Damis. Director:
Samuel Sparks. Production manager:
Matt Schlief. Costume designer: Macy
Perrone.
Photo credit: Claire Elestwani ’15
Everything’s Coming Up Roses
Rice has always been lauded for its beautiful landscaping. Now we have one more
site to be proud of — the Puddin Clarke Centennial Garden between Sewall Hall and
Lovett Hall. According to David Rodd, university architect in Facilities Engineering and
Planning, committee members for Rice’s Lynn R. Lowrey Arboretum first proposed the
idea for the rose garden as a centennial project because Mary Ellen Lovett, wife of
the university’s first president, Edgar Odell Lovett, nurtured roses on campus in Rice’s
early days.
When Robert Clarke ’63 heard about the rose garden, he generously volunteered to
fund the project. “I thought it was a great idea to make the donation in memory of my
wife,” said Clarke. “Although she wasn’t an alum, Puddin was very much a supporter
of Rice and involved in a lot of things here. It seemed like a nice way to honor her.”
Old Blush roses, a China hybrid, were selected because they were a favorite of the
garden’s honoree.
—Jenny Rozelle ’00
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 13

NotedandQuoted
“So when I was running around the world saying, ‘The world is flat! We’re all
connected,’ Facebook didn’t exist, Twitter was still a sound, the Cloud was still in
the sky, 4G was a parking place, LinkedIn was a prison, applications were what
you sent to college and, for most people, Skype was a typo.”
—Thomas Friedman
Nov. 12, 2012, as quoted in an article that appeared in the Rice Thresher, Nov. 16, 2012
“I was the altar boy of
journalism. I was a
fact-checker. And that in
a way is something I’ve
done my entire life. What
is true?
How can
you prove
that it’s
true? How
does it
work? My parents were
both scientists. I’ve spent
my life trying to find
out new things and tell
people about them.”
—Esther Dyson
Oct. 11, 2012, Centennial Lecture Series
“As we look to a future of true energy security
by exploiting new unconventional fossil sources,
augmented by alternative energy sources such
as solar, wind and biofuels, the only way forward
is through a government science policy that
includes basic research support and thoughtful
regulation. These are necessary if we are to
have the energy security we want and the
environmental stewardship we need.”
—Shirley Ann Jackson
Oct. 11, 2012, Centennial Lecture Series
“Understanding your complete genome is very key
to understanding inheritance. Everyone’s asked the
questions: ‘Did I get this trait from my mother or father?
Did I give this trait to my children?’ Now we have the
tools to start to answer those questions because we can
separate the DNA sequence into that from the parental
chromosomes. One of the ways we do this … we can
sequence a genome from a single sperm cell.”
—J. Craig Venter
Oct. 10, 2012, Centennial Lecture Series
“History happens,
history leaves its
traces, and I have
to say, I prefer
history without
preservation.”
—Rem Koolhaas
Oct. 11, 2012, Centennial Lecture Series
“Rice has excelled in ways that even Lovett could not have guessed.
I’m talking of course about Rice’s famous come-from-behind
victory over heavily favored Colorado in the 1938 Cotton Bowl. It
is at least famous in the halls of the Supreme Court, because until
then unbeaten Colorado was led by future Supreme Court Justice
Byron White. Despite a stellar offensive and defensive performance
by White — he threw a touchdown pass, scored on an interception
and kicked two extra points — the Owls prevailed by a final score
of 28–14. Not even President Lovett could have foreseen that.”
—Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr.
“A Conversation With the Chief Justice,” Oct. 17, 2012
14 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

On Oct. 11, 2012, Douglas Brinkley, professor of history and fellow in history at Rice University’s Baker Institute
for Public Policy, interviewed President Barack Obama in the Oval Office at the White House for the Nov. 8 cover
story in Rolling Stone magazine. The Obama cover story was Brinkley’s third for Rolling Stone. He also has profiled
Hunter S. Thompson and Bob Dylan for the magazine.
Pundit Watch
Remember the primaries? The presidential debates? Doesn’t the
election season seem like both half a life ago AND something
that took up half our lives? No matter in which political tent
one camped for the duration, the 2012 election season was
both endless and endlessly frustrating. But at least, as ordinary
citizens, we could confine our opinions and insights to our
living rooms (and Facebook and Twitter feeds). For many of
our distinguished Rice faculty, who were called upon day and
night by the news media to provide topical insight, there was
no rest for the weary. The news, after all, is a 24-hour affair. So,
here’s a shout out to our hardworking historians, economists,
political scientists and more who took the time to explain,
correct, analyze and generally provide rational commentary for
the American public. They worked from their offices, homes
and cars, as well as from the Office of Public Affairs’ television
studio in the basement of Allen Center.
Mark
Jones
Douglas
Brinkley
Paul
Brace
Bob
Stein
Notable Rice experts who appeared in the media
nationally and locally to discuss the elections include
Douglas Brinkley, Mark Jones, Paul Brace and Bob Stein.
The graph reflects the number of appearances in the
media during the months of October and November.
293
596
23
52
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 15

City
Architect Eric Kuhne ’73 tells the
story of Belfast’s maritime majesty
with the new Titanic museum.
16 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

BY STEVEN THOMSON • PHOTOS COURTESY OF ERIC KUHNE, CIVICARTS AND THE TITANIC BELFAST.
For a century following the sinking of the RMS Titanic, the tragedy was nary whispered within the Northern
Ireland capital that saw the ship’s design and construction. Even in Great Britain, few are privy to the fact that
in the early 20th century, nearly half of the tonnage on the seas took its maiden voyage from Belfast’s shipyards.
When the Titanic embarked in 1912, Belfast laid claim to the largest shipyard in the world. Yet a sense
of self-imposed ignominy after the disaster shrouded the city’s pride as a locus of maritime innovation. With
the post-World War II growth of deep port container shipping and surge in air travel, the once robust image of
Belfast’s shipyards descended into that of a postindustrial wasteland.
Today, following decades of internal political strife and a recent
crippling double-dip recession, Belfast is poised once again
to embrace its heritage as one of the world’s shipbuilding epicenters.
Enter Eric Kuhne ’73, who is leveraging a belief in architecture
as diplomacy to help restore the grandeur of the city’s
long-abandoned docks.
Sitting in the library of his firm, CivicArts, in the architectural
hub of Clerkenwell in east central London, Kuhne explained the
gradual realization of his vision for a 185-acre urban revitalization
of the wrench-shaped peninsula, Queen’s Island — renamed
the Titanic Quarter — and its centerpiece, the monumental Titanic
Belfast museum. Although the waterfront development will be
the museum’s marine-grade aluminum cladding sparkles.
“Most contemporary museums have lost that sense of wonder when you
enter,” Kuhne said. Inside the Titanic Belfast, the hum of the 28,000 builders
that once occupied the hoists and gangplanks of the Belfast shipyards
is restored in an ecclesiastically scaled six-story atrium, crisscrossed by
balconies, terraces and overlooks.
Above, nine galleries provide the social context of shipbuilding in
Belfast, house a ride through a reconstructed shipyard and detail the construction
of the RMS Titanic. The project’s monumentality is tempered
by documents of individual crew and passengers’ stories, while another
gallery offers a critical eye toward the myths and legends that surround
the disaster. Hard science finds its place in an exhibit on Robert Ballard’s
Left: Architect Eric Kuhne stands in front of a map of the Titanic Quarter, the 185-acre waterfront redevelopment project now underway in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Kuhne’s firm,
CivicArts, designed the project’s urban master plan, which combines residential, business, recreational and cultural elements, as well as parks and gardens. Middle: The Titanic
Belfast museum is located on the site of the Harland and Wolff shipyard. Right: Kuhne’s early sketches play with images of ice crystals, a central motif in the Titanic Belfast’s design.
Opposite: The White Star Line Titanic sets sail from Southampton, England, April 10, 1912. An architectural rendering of the exterior of the Titanic Belfast museum, which opened to
the public March 31, 2012.
years in the making, the museum opened in March 2012, just in time
to mark the 100th anniversary of the tragedy. The visceral appeal of the
Titanic in the public imagination endures, as evidenced by the museum’s
more than 500,000 visitors in its first six months of operation.
“We have worked on buildings all around the world, but nothing has
gone viral like this,” Kuhne said.
Drawing upon the water imagery that haunts the Titanic’s history,
Kuhne studied the geometric process of ice crystal formation to conceive
the museum’s faceted exterior, which resembles at once jutting icebergs
and ships’ prows. The façade mimics the scales of the gigantic gantries
system of timber and steel scaffolding built for the construction of the
Titanic’s massive hull 100 years ago. When viewed from above, the building
takes the form of a compass rose.
The building plan also alludes to the trajectory of four centuries of shipbuilding
innovation in Belfast: from timber and sail to iron and steam, followed
by steel and turbine and culminating in aluminum and diesel. Most
poignantly, the building’s height matches that of the storied cruise liner,
allowing tourists and Belfast locals to consider head-on the optimism and
opulence that the Titanic embodied. Even beneath Belfast’s mercurial skies,
1985 Atlantic expedition to record and recover the ship’s ruins, with
a special focus on deep-sea microbiology.
The museum, which cost $152 million to build, was funded through
a partnership that included Belfast City Council, Belfast Harbour
Commissioners, Northern Ireland Tourist Board and Titanic Quarter
Limited (a company of Dublin-based Harcourt Developments Ltd.).
“I think it’s a human story,” said Tim Husbands, CEO of Titanic
Belfast. “The sinking was a disaster, but the ship itself was a fantastic
feat of engineering and construction. The Titanic Belfast is
about recovering the city’s roots, but it also presents a story that
resonates internationally.” No doubt, the museum will far surpass
the initial annual target of 425,000 visitors. Almost 70 percent of
visitors are from outside of Northern Ireland.
While the consensus is that it’s a crowd pleaser, the Titanic
Belfast has faced criticism in the architectural press. It recently
garnered a nomination for Building Design magazine’s Carbuncle
Cup, a reader-nominated award for the ugliest building completed
in the U.K. in the last 12 months. On the plus side, the museum
also is a finalist for the International Interior Design of the
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 17

Year award at the Leading European Architects Forum. Unfazed,
Kuhne remains confident that the building is succeeding at telling
the Titanic story to legions of visitors. “It was a huge backhanded
compliment,” Kuhne said. “Very English.”
Keep in mind that the museum is merely a cornerstone of the
estimated $10 billion–$15 billion Titanic Quarter mixed-use development
that will occupy the Queen’s Island area of Belfast.
“The local authorities thought we were dreaming at the
time,” said Pat Doherty, the chairman and founder of Harcourt
Developments, recalling the process of acquiring the vast site nine
years ago. “It was a clear site almost in the center of the city with
the opportunity to do something very special, and Eric has a magical
way of doing things.” Kuhne and Doherty worked with myriad
government departments, harbor authorities and investors to make
way for the development that’s changing the face of Belfast.
Profit-driven inner-city revitalization schemes too often fall victim
to blank banality. To break this trend, Kuhne, in his role as the
lead concept architect on the project, consulted directly with the
very people who had abandoned central Belfast’s blight and violent
legacy for surrounding suburban hamlets.
“We interviewed almost 100 people and asked them one simple
thing: ‘What would it take for you to come back home?’ And they
asked for me to build something like their villages in the center of
Belfast,” Kuhne said.
“Eric always had a humanistic commitment that has allowed him to
abstract his project designs in such a striking way,” said former classmate
Stephen Fox ’73, architectural historian and lecturer at the Rice
School of Architecture. A dedicated Renaissance man, Kuhne penned a
Shakespearean sonnet for the real estate venture to pay homage to the
city’s shipbuilding roots:
TITANIC BELFAST:
We were the best who worked these hallowed slips
Bending iron, timber and steel ’to ships
’Neath gantries and cranes with Biblical names
Our sweat, our tears, and sweet salt air did raise
Fleets for trade, exploration and mail,
Liners, warships, and immigrants set sail —
Navigating charts on rhumb-lined seas with
Optimism! Opulence! at Godspeed!
Four centuries measure our balancing
Our will and Nature’s equanimity.
Time once again to lead the charge: Belfast’s
Sons and Daughters sing songs of these shipyards;
Choirs of workers shout across the seas:
Once where we built ships, now we build cities!
Left to right: Inside the Titanic Belfast, massive chains denote the scale of the Titanic and its sister ships. Visitors take in a view of the ship as it now rests on the ocean floor. A cut-out
steel sign in front of the museum. Children check out the interior galleries. Opposite: A view from the top-floor balcony of a large compass rose that locates the cardinal directions for
visitors. Visitors peruse one of nine galleries featuring interactive exhibits on the museum’s opening day.
The Titanic Quarter was then conceived around the idea of seven
“villages,” each with their own Georgian square, in which courtyard
gardens imbue a sense of safety to public space. When complete, the
development will complement new condo blocks with an expanded
campus of Belfast Metropolitan College and a bevy of retail distractions.
Plans are afoot to incubate a new financial center for Europe,
and new media is staking a claim via a cluster of budding film industry
studios. Strung together by grand boulevards and a new tramline, each
of the villages stands no more than two blocks away from the fresh air
of water or park space.
“Waterfronts all over Europe and North America are being transformed,”
Kuhne said, “but none of them has this level of complexity
of mixing new economies with housing, parks and gardens.” Northern
Ireland still suffers from a shaky real estate market, so the Titanic
Quarter developers are thinking long-term, with a projected completion
date of 2030 or beyond.
For all of the Titanic Quarter’s beguiling ambition, Kuhne understands
the importance of historical context in design.
This penchant for storytelling through architecture has brought
Kuhne’s pedigree from Houston to 32 current projects spanning five
continents, all informed by their local context. A new tower complex
rising in Kuala Lumpur is ensconced in seven gardens representing
the seven civilizations that have characterized Malaysia’s history,
while a Buddhist pilgrimage site in Nepal takes its form from the
three strands of the pocket of rice that Buddha wore.
Kuhne’s studio walls showcase blueprints for a skyscraper in
Kuwait that will top off at 1,001 meters — a nod to the region’s lionized
collection of folk tales, “1001 Arabian Nights.”
While these projects reach for the sky, the story on the ground
of the Titanic Quarter is a narrative with big themes — resilience,
rebirth and pride in a lost heritage. Eschewing a focus on urban
trauma to honor innovation, the Titanic Belfast museum invites visitors
to consider the pinnacle of human achievement — as well as
hubris — and to launch a new story in Belfast’s history.
18 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 19

20 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

Unsinkable City:
Six questions for Eric Kuhne
Q: Describe the experience of arriving as a freshman to the School of
Architecture.
A: I was terrified. I was born in San Antonio and spent the first five years
of my life in Texas, so this was a kind of provincial return to the homeland
and had all of the dramas associated with it. I’d been working in an
engineer and architects’ office in Indiana since I was 14, so I had an exposure
to the practical side of the field. On the second day I was at Rice,
I went to see the director [of the School of Architecture], Anderson Todd.
Andy had a stack of School of Architecture stationery cards along
with a beautiful fountain pen and old ink well. He said, “Let me tell you
about architecture,” and explained the Vitruvian triad: firmness, commodity
and delight. So I said, “Mr. Todd, don’t you think it’s time we
reinvent that?” He handed me the pen and I said, “I think an equilateral
triangle and those things in balance is good for 2,000 years ago, but
we’re at the threshold of a new millennium.
So how about we add a
fourth element and turn this into a
tetrahedron, including volition and
meaning?” He just burst out laughing
and said, “You’re just going to
be nothing but trouble for four
years, aren’t you?”
Left: Bird’s-eye panorama of the Titanic
Quarter as viewed from the northeast.
Inset: Eric Kuhne with his sketchpad.
Q: What were some of the challenges
you encountered as a
student?
A: I was shocked because I
thought I had a good foundation
in architecture, but it was just
a foundation in construction. I
had to get over that conceit of
thinking that I knew more than
I actually did. Looking back,
Rice was hard — really, really
hard for me. Elinor Evans,
who was the first-year design
studio teacher, was constantly
getting us to have trust in the
unknown as the safest place to go. Once you get the sense that
you can do something that you never dreamed you could, you
become intoxicated with discovery and the exploration of design
as a way to see the world.
Q: You suggest that the interdisciplinary research behind each
of your projects is informed by your varied course choices while
at Rice. How so?
A: As it turned out, the classes that had the biggest impact on
me were those that weren’t architectural. I took cognitive anthropology
with Stephen Tyler, Tom McEvilley in comparative
religions and this calculus professor [Howard Resnikoff] who
just was a wizard. He said, “You won’t leave this class until you
understand that calculus is poetry.” He would write formulas
up on the board and read them as poems. It was just breathtaking.
You never think when you’re a student that these conversations
will stick with you for the rest of your life. Those
talks across all topics changed the way I work here in the studio.
Rice has sprinkled that magic dust of insatiable curiosity.
Q: Of all of the opportunities that Rice afforded, which had the
greatest impact on your education?
A: There was a design competition for an industrial building in
Seguin, Texas. I almost didn’t even apply for it, but then I decided
to work on it for five hours every day. I would sketch and put it
in a booklet and completely forget about it. I didn’t even go to the
awards ceremony at the School of Architecture, but on that day, I
was walking across campus and one of my classmates walks up to
me and says, “Where have you been? Come on!” He dragged me
over to the ceremony just as they were announcing that I had been
awarded the William Ward Watkin Travel Fellowship. I couldn’t believe
I had won it. Andy Todd and Bud Morehead were there, both
laughing. It was one of the biggest surprises of my life.
Q: What did you do with the fellowship?
A: I visited some of the most remarkable thinkers on architecture and
cities at the time: Jan Gehl invited me to swim in the Baltic Sea, and we
discussed the choreography of public spaces. In Austria, I met with [art
historian] Hans Sedlmayr, who was writing about the loss of the soul
in architecture and cities. Aldo van Eyck invited me to his home, and
we sat drawing until we worked out the plans for one of his churches.
In Stockholm, Sven Hesselgren lectured me on restoring the pageantry
of city life. At the time, some of these men were just beginning to have
an impact on the profession. They all just opened their homes to me,
and I would sit and have dinner with their families. And so my tour of
Europe wasn’t just a tour of buildings; it was a tour of the cutting-edge
thinkers of architecture. None of that would have happened without
Rice, because these figures’ names were in every class.
Q: In your career to date, what are the main changes you’ve seen in the
practice itself of architecture?
A: We’ve experienced an acceleration of drawing tools that has transformed
the profession as much as the art. When I started at Rice, we
used T-squares and Maylines [parallel bars]. What once took 30 people
to produce a set of drawings in the ’60s became a team half that size in
the ’70s and ’80s with computer-aided design programs. Now, we can
produce a set of drawings with five people. Yet, while drawing production
has accelerated, there is still a burning need for architects to draw, to
sketch. The fountain pen and the tyranny of the blank white sheet of paper
has not been replaced. The freedom and grace of a sketch, linked to the
imagination, still outperforms any computer program. Yet once transferred
to CAD, we can show our imagination to the world effortlessly. And the
sheer quality of decisions made with this breadth of representation is the
most profound adjustment to the profession in its history. ■
Steven Thomson is a New York-based writer with a focus on art, architecture and urbanism.
His work has appeared in Cite: The Architecture and Design Review of Houston. He
recently completed a graduate degree in urban studies at University College London. He
can be reached at sjt@stevenjamesthomson.com.
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 21

22 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

Wednesday, October
10
Rice Faculty and Staff Reception/
Centennial Lecture Series ·
Founder’s Court Tent/Tudor Fieldhouse
Rice honored faculty and staff at a lavish reception
in the centennial tent. J. Craig Venter, among the
first to sequence the human genome, kicked off
the lecture series.
Highlights from the
Centennial Celebration
During one memorable week in October, Rice gathered its far-flung family — faculty and staff, students present
and students past, community supporters and visitors alike — to commemorate its first century and march boldly
and joyfully into its second. The schedule was as packed as it was varied, filled with festivities and feasts (both
gustatory and intellectual), reunions and homecomings, ritual and rhetoric. Please enjoy these highlights and check
out our centennial website (centennial.rice.edu) for more.
PHOTOS by TOMMY LAVERGNE, JEFF FITLOW and ELI SPECTOR ’14
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 23

Thursday, October
11
Centennial Lecture Series ·
Tudor Fieldhouse
Rice welcomed (clockwise from
left) international angel investor
Esther Dyson, Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute President and
physicist Shirley Ann Jackson, and
Pritzker Prize-winning architect
Rem Koolhaas, as well as genomist
J. Craig Venter and Chief Justice
of the United States John G.
Roberts Jr.
e WATCH THE LECTURES ONLINE:
ricemagazine.info/132
World Premiere Concert
by Shepherd School
Orchestra ·
Stude Concert Hall
Commissioned by Rice
University in honor of its
Centennial Celebration, the
concert featured the world
premiere of William Bolcom’s
“Ninth Symphony.”
24 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

Centennial Address
Friday, October
12
Academic Procession and Centennial Address · Academic Quadrangle
Preceded by an academic procession with representatives of universities from around the world, President David W. Leebron’s keynote
address harkened back to that of Edgar Odell Lovett at the formal opening of the Rice Institute in 1912.
e WATCH THE PROCESSION AND KEYNOTE ADDRESS ONLINE: ricemagazine.info/133
“In the joy of high adventure, in the hope of high achievement, in the
faith of high endeavor, for this fair day we have worked and prayed and
waited. … [W]e have asked for strength, and with the strength a vision,
and with the vision courage. … [T]he Rice Institute, which was to be, in
this its modest beginning, now has come to be.”
And with these words, President Edgar Odell Lovett 100 years ago welcomed the first class of 59
women and men and the 10 faculty members of the Rice Institute. Today, we gather to celebrate
the realization of that hope, the rewarding of that faith and courage, and the continuation of
that joy.
We join today to reflect on a century of adventure and achievement, to honor our founders
and forbearers whose vision and hard work resulted in the extraordinary university we know
today, and to speak of our vision and ambitions for the future.
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 25

Our path was set by the confluence of
the legacies of three extraordinary men: a
great man of commerce, a civic leader and a
visionary academic. William Marsh Rice was
the quintessential businessman of his time, a
man of commercial acumen and philanthropic
spirit. In the year 1891, the William Marsh Rice
Institute for the Advancement of Literature,
Science and Art was formally incorporated
with a modest initial endowment. After Rice’s
untimely death in 1900, the substantial assets
that Rice had bequeathed to his institute were
rescued by his lawyer and the first chairman of
the board of trustees, Capt. James A. Baker. The
trustees then began in earnest to define what
this new institute would be.
Their vision was reflected in the choice of
Rice’s first president, Edgar Odell Lovett, on
the recommendation of Princeton’s president,
Woodrow Wilson. And let me add how fitting
it is, and how grateful we are, that Princeton’s
current president, Shirley Tilghman, is with us
on the platform today. President Lovett then
traveled the world for more than nine months,
visiting the great universities, studying both
academic programs and architecture.
When Lovett stood on this very spot a century
ago, not far from the edge of a growing city
with just 80,000 people, he could take pride at
the launch of a new university that aspired to
be among the best and set, in his words, no
upper limit to its endeavors. As William Ward
Watkin, the architect who supervised the construction
of the first buildings, stated at Lovett’s
retirement, out of “the marsh and swamps of
this campus,” he built a university of “beauty
and fineness.”
Imagine yourselves here as Lovett spoke:
Around you was mostly a vast empty plain
with four lonely structures. There was the
Administration Building, now named Lovett
Hall. A bit in the distance was the Mechanical
Laboratory and its campanile, and across the
campus the residential hall and institute commons.
Between then and now lies a century of
ambition and achievement. All around us we
see the architectural embodiment of growing
intellectual ambition.
Imagine in your mind’s eye that century
of building our campus: first beginning near
where you sit and then moving outward to a
second quadrangle and then a third quadrangle
and then beyond, and even jumping across
University Boulevard to where the BioScience
Research Collaborative now stands — eventually
80 buildings over the course of a century,
creating a campus of architectural distinction
and harmony. The architecture is now complemented
by recent campus art, culminating in
our Centennial Pavilion, the Turrell Skyspace,
which symbolizes not only our continued
commitment to the beauty Lovett emphasized,
but also our limitless aspirations. Truly, this
is a campus that reflects our commitment to
learning, to discovery, to beauty, to the nurturing
of human potential and to a university that
was from its foundation envisioned as a gift to
the people of Houston.
President Lovett served for another 34 years
after the opening, with more than half that time
occurring during two world wars and the Great
Depression. And still the Rice Institute moved
forward, expanding its community and growing
its endeavor. As we approached our second
half century, we changed our name from
“Institute” to “University” to reflect that growth
and broader ambition.
At the time of our semicentennial, Rice,
while on a strong trajectory, had not yet
achieved its aspiration to be among the great
research universities of the world. That was the
challenge faced by President Kenneth Pitzer as
he was inaugurated in our 50th year. As the
new president then put it, he aimed for an institution
that resembled Stanford without a medical
school to a Westerner and Princeton with
girls to an Easterner.
President Pitzer led Rice into five decades
of advancement as a research university. We
realized that not charging tuition was not about
a commitment to price, but a commitment to
an ideal of opportunity — that we should be
This is a campus
that reflects our commitment
to learning, to discovery,
to beauty, to the nurturing
of human potential and to a
university that was from its
foundation envisioned as a gift
to the people of Houston.
open to all, regardless of their financial means.
That steadfast commitment continues to lie at
the core of who we are. And we also sued to
remove a stain of racial exclusion that was both
fundamentally unfair and deeply inconsistent
with our commitment to serving the people of
Houston, of Texas and the nation.
As Rice continued its progress toward
becoming a more balanced university envisaged
by Lovett, new schools sprouted in the
1970s, including the Shepherd School of Music,
the Jones School of Business, what is now
the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies,
and the creation of separate schools of Social
Sciences and the Humanities. Our ascendancy
into the top ranks of American higher education
was recognized in 1985 when Rice became
one of the 60 elite research universities in the
Association of American Universities. Great
milestones included the G7 summit in 1990,
the establishment of the Baker Institute in 1993
and the awarding of Nobel Prizes to Professors
Curl and Smalley in 1996 for the discovery of
the buckyball, which opened up new possibilities
for materials and medicine. And in 2003,
the Rice Owls emerged as national champions
from the College Baseball World Series. Out of
our Sallyport have passed more than 65,000
graduates — 46,000 of whom are the living
Rice alumni community of today, a global community
that magnifies every day the contributions
that we make as a university.
Throughout our first century, we have become
an ever greater university, driven to provide
opportunity for our students and knowledge
for the world. And here I want to pause
and acknowledge the remarkable leaders present
today who guided us to ascending achievement:
our past chairmen, Charles Duncan and
Bill Barnett, and our current chairman, Jim
Crownover, who between them steered this
university for the last three decades, and my
extraordinary predecessors, Presidents George
Rupp and Malcolm Gillis.
WHEN WE LOOK AROUND at the Rice of
today, it is very different of course from that
of 100 years ago, or 50 years ago or even 10
years ago. We are larger; we are more diverse;
we are more engaged with our city; we are
more international; and we are more committed
than ever to contributing to our world
through research and service. The era of the
ivory tower is long over. We do not come to
the university to shake the cares of society, but
to engage those cares in a different way. The
university of today is porous, with a constant
flow of people and ideas and contributions
and relationships.
We are very much the university that Lovett
imagined and hoped for, and yet we are in
many ways so much more. Today our university
is counted among the very best in the United
States. Whereas President Lovett traveled
around the world to visit the great universities,
today we receive visiting academic leaders from
across the globe who wish to study and emulate
Rice’s success.
Much of our first century has been dedicated
to catching up to our brethren — other
leading American universities that in many
cases are older, bigger, wealthier. We became
more complex, added schools, improved the
26 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

quality of our student body and faculty, raised
our aspirations and grew.
But while we were becoming more competitive
with other universities and in some
ways more like them, we were also becoming
quite distinctive. Even with our recent growth,
we remain a distinctively small research university
whose aspirations span the range of
academic endeavor. Our emphasis on and
commitment to undergraduate education are
extraordinary. Our sense of being a single community,
and the fostering of interdisciplinary relationships
and conversations, are rare. Our college
system, which creates strong communities
across the undergraduate classes, has become
the envy of others who seek to emulate it. The
dedication of our staff to our faculty, students
and the university, and our dedication to them,
are defining attributes.
As higher education both becomes ever
more competitive and faces ever more daunting
challenges, we must now lead with confidence
in our own values and our own identity, as they
have evolved over a century. Our strength as
a university lies in part in choosing a different
path from others, a different configuration for
the university not just of today, but of tomorrow.
Twenty years ago, Clark Kerr, the legendary
president of the University of California and
chancellor of Berkeley, wrote about two competing
visions of the university — one in which
the university is large and highly specialized in
its parts, the other in which it is small and has
a commonality of interests, or as he put it, “the
best of Berkeley and the best of Swarthmore.”
He expressed some pessimism that these visions
were compatible.
Rice has aspired to be the place where
these visions become joined, compatible and
synergistic, and we have succeeded. We must
draw upon our strengths and turn perceived
disadvantages into distinctive advantages. We
can be, we must be, a leader in defining what
a university can achieve and contribute both in
education and knowledge.
Fifty years ago, President Pitzer undertook
a substantial expansion of the university. We
have now completed the first major expansion
of our student body since then. Our 30 percent
growth has by almost every measure been a
success: We have remained true to our commitment
to make our education affordable and
have attracted an extraordinary and diverse
population along every dimension as our applications
doubled. We do not intend to grow
our undergraduate student body more in the
coming decade, because we choose to remain
a distinctively small university. Our size fosters
an intimate sense of community and the special
relationships between faculty and students
that have defined the experience for so many
of our graduates.
Our intellectual ambitions, however, are not
scaled to our size. We aim for excellence and
impact on a global standard. Thus our path to
success, more than most universities, lies in our
ability to collaborate with others and thereby
leverage our potential. We are too small to be
arrogant. We must in a new time find new ways
to build deeper and broader relationships with
the remarkable institutions that surround us
Our success
in areas like nanotechnology is
built not upon the endeavors
of a single department, but
upon the support, engagement
and connection across a large
swath of the university. We
must infuse this collaborative
spirit deep into our processes
and personality if we are to
continue our success.
— the museums, the medical institutions, the
Johnson Space Center and the great enterprises
of Houston. We must also reach out across the
world and build not merely bridges, but strong
and deep bonds.
That spirit of collaboration must be focused
internally as well as externally. Our success
in areas like nanotechnology is built not
upon the endeavors of a single department,
but upon the support, engagement and connection
across a large swath of the university.
We must infuse this collaborative spirit deep
into our processes and personality if we are to
continue our success. Ossified structures that
impede our collaborations must be adapted
or swept away, and we must be innovative in
developing new relationships. Our size is an
advantage when it allows us to be both collaborative
in spirit and nimble in action. In the
arts, biomedicine, neuroscience and other endeavors,
we have extraordinary potential, but
only if we seize the opportunities that exist
through deeper engagement.
I believe our university’s personality reflects
not only our history, but also our location.
We have renewed our sense of connection
and commitment to our home city of Houston,
both as our students experience it and as our
researchers contribute to it. Even a century ago,
President Lovett realized that Houston partakes
of both the warm hospitality of the South and
the dynamic and adventurous spirit of the West.
Houston is an entrepreneurial city, and we are
an entrepreneurial university. That spirit, which
has some of its origins in our early strength in
engineering, now finds its place in every corner
of our university.
The entrepreneurial imperative incorporates
the desire to lead, to create, to innovate
and to build. It is reflected in faculty who lead
our students abroad to test in the field medical
devices they have designed; in the studenttaught
courses in our colleges; in the policy
explorations of our Baker student fellows; in
engineering and architecture students getting
together to design a house that not only uses
zero energy, but is actually affordable; in the
creation and dissemination of digital educational
materials for both college and now one
million K–12 students; in building a research
consortium with medical institutions to advance
tissue regeneration that will save limbs
and lives; in creating a multitude of student organizations,
from Engineers Without Borders to
our Emergency Medical Service; in the convening
of conferences of experts to study biblical
texts and to disseminate results; and so much
more. We must nurture and support that spirit,
both individually and collectively, among both
students and faculty. President Lovett spoke of
the pleasures of teaching and the privileges of
research. But today we must do that and more.
An entrepreneurial university empowers our
students and embarks them on a life of difference
and impact, regardless of their chosen
disciplines and professions.
I WANT FOR A MOMENT to speak more
broadly about the role of the university and how
it ought to define our mission at Rice and our
path forward. It has been 2,500 years since the
founding of Plato’s Academy, 2,000 years since
the founding of the ancient religious universities
in India and Egypt, more than 900 since
the founding of the University of Bologna, now
the oldest university in continuous existence,
almost 380 years since the establishment of the
first American institution of higher education.
The modern research university emerged in the
19th century and set the stage for the explosion
of knowledge that universities have produced.
When we look back at the last century,
we see knowledge that has emerged from our
universities and transformed our world: the
fundamental structure of matter, the biological
building blocks of life, the electronics that have
revolutionized our ability to communicate, connect,
analyze and understand. The early embers
of the great ideas of our age, such as universal
human rights, were fanned in the great
universities. Powerful ideals, such as equality
of opportunity, were given content and understanding
by the work done in universities, and
our graduates were inspired to pursue them.
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 27

There is hardly an aspect of modern life that
has not been greatly influenced and enhanced
by the work done in universities. Indeed, one
former university president declared the university
to be the most significant creation of the
second millennium.
And yet, at the beginning of this third millennium,
the historic idea of the university is
facing both challenge and attack. The very
word “university,” coined at the founding of
Bologna nine centuries ago, embodies a sense
of both oneness and universality — that we
are a single entity that encompasses the totality
of academic endeavor. As resources are constrained,
there are calls to focus our endeavors,
to limit ourselves to what we already do well.
Great universities, universities many times our
size, are choosing to eliminate scholarly endeavors,
to focus on their specific strengths, to
do what is practical.
There is no doubt that we, like they, must
focus and be strategic, but I believe we must
do so in a different way. We must seize upon
those truly important endeavors that require
us to bring together participants from across
our campus to work together, to understand
our world more deeply, and to help solve
its problems of today and in the future. Our
strength lies significantly in our ability to draw
upon and integrate different disciplines and
perspectives as we seek to contribute, in pursuance
of our mission, to the betterment of
our world. We know that technology alone
does not solve problems, but rather science
and technology complemented by a comprehensive
understanding of how to achieve innovation
and change in the context of human
culture and institutions.
President Lovett spoke of the faith he asked
of those assembled at the first matriculation:
“They must believe in the value of human reason;
they must be enthusiastic for their fellowmen.
They must believe that it is possible to
learn and also that it is possible to teach.”
I believe that universities are built upon
an additional faith — a faith in the power of
knowledge and discovery and creativity to improve
the lives of people everywhere and build
a better future. That faith must be buttressed by
a recognition that universities remain distinctive
institutions that contribute to our society
in ways no other institutions can or do. Our
commitment must be to advance the frontiers
of knowledge, understanding and creativity
and to produce graduates trained and inspired
to make great contributions as if the world depended
upon it, for it surely does.
The challenges of our world lie before us:
to address our interconnected global needs for
food, energy, water and a safe environment; to
improve human health here and around the
world; to harness the extraordinary flow of
information for our benefit through better understanding
and decision-making; to raise the
These
dichotomies
challenge us —
to be separate and apart, yet
open and engaged. To be
fast and yet also to be slow.
To embrace an unthrottled
cosmopolitanism and still strive
to be distinctively American.
human spirit through the study of culture and
creativity; and to bring peace and prosperity to
the peoples of our planet.
These are large and daunting challenges,
but that ultimately is what universities are for.
Confronted by these challenges, universities
must not be bastions of cynicism but citadels of
optimism. Optimism, that if we work to understand
the nature of religious tolerance, we can
bring harmony. That if we work to understand
conflict between nations, we can bring peace.
That if we work to understand the origins of
disease, we can bring health. That if we work
to understand the sources of famine, we can
bring nourishment. That if we work to understand
the fundamentals of matter and energy,
we can bring prosperity and a higher standard
of life to people all over our world.
Like other great universities, Rice must be
cosmopolitan and international in their truest
sense. We embrace a community of faculty,
staff and students who come from all over the
world. While committed to a strong, supportive
and deep relationship with our great city,
our ambitions to learn and to contribute reach
beyond the borders of our state and country.
Our commitment is to all humanity, and we
seek the advancement of knowledge for their
benefit.
And yet, at the same time, we are a distinctively
American university steeped in American
ideals — ideals of human equality and potential,
of political rights and participation, of
free inquiry and free expression, of religious
freedom and tolerance, of diversity and inclusion,
of creativity and innovation, and of the
possibilities of hard work and economic opportunity.
These ideals are reflected deeply not
merely in the values we convey, but in how we
choose to carry out our mission.
Universities have been and remain unusual
institutions. We are separate and apart and
yet open and engaged. The periphery of our
campus, consisting of hedges and vegetation
punctured frequently by paths and open gates,
incorporates this idea. It is an avowedly porous
border, and not a barrier, that both separates
us from the surrounding city and yet welcomes
those who wish to enjoy our contemplative
spaces and intellectual engagements, as it also
beckons the Rice community to engage with
and contribute to our city.
In our rapidly changing world, and recognizing
that the knowledge we generate can
sometimes be quickly developed to benefit
others, universities must change some of their
ways and be prepared to act with urgency. That
is not something we are traditionally known
for; indeed, it is fair to say that we are known
for our slowness. But universities at their best
are both fast and slow. That slowness, that
willingness to put reflection and analysis and
deep understanding above achieving quick
conclusions or results, is an essential part of
our ability to contribute in ways that are different
and important. Our defining commitment
to fundamental research — research that over
centuries has proven its worth — depends on
patience and on that faith that the expansion
of understanding leads to unforeseen benefits
to mankind.
We take, for example, immense pride in
the role that Rice played in putting men into
space, but the voyage to the moon did not start
with a historic speech in Rice Stadium. It started
with Copernicus and Kepler and Galileo
and Newton. The lesson of putting a man
on the moon is not only that a focused and
concentrated effort involving government and
universities and industry can achieve remarkable
progress, but that centuries of inspiring
teaching and curiosity-driven discovery can
make possible things that could not even have
been imagined.
These dichotomies challenge us — to be
separate and apart, yet open and engaged. To
be fast and yet also to be slow. To embrace an
unthrottled cosmopolitanism and still strive to
be distinctively American. And yet, these are
the attributes that make the modern university
a vital and irreplaceable contributor to human
society. The ivory tower image of the university
has been replaced by our shimmering beacon
on Main Street, but we must maintain our
unusual qualities and commitments if we are
to contribute in the century ahead as we have
in the past.
We must make no mistake; we are in disruptive
times for higher education. Our most
basic concept of the university, as a defined
space that brings teachers and students into
physical proximity, is in the process of being
upended. We now have more students registered
for Rice online courses than graduates
28 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

over our entire century. Not since the invention
of the printing press has the dissemination
of knowledge been so changed as in the
last quarter century, and it will change again
as much in the decades ahead. These changes
have the potential to undermine the sense of
community that has been a hallmark of our
colleges and universities and of Rice in particular.
But if we embrace these changes and determine
how they can be used to enhance the
strengths of the physical university while extending
some of its benefits to a virtual global
community, Rice will seize a new opportunity
to lead as we enter our next century.
We must embark upon a reimagining of
university education in ways that take advantage
of new technologies of learning, while increasing
our commitment here on our campus
to the personal relationship between teacher
and student. We must dedicate ourselves anew
to our teaching mission and yet be guided by
the ancient Confucian understanding of education:
Tell me and I will forget; show me and I
may remember; involve me and I will understand.
More than ever, we will seize the opportunity
to involve our students and be more
effective teachers.
As we commemorate the end of our first
century today, it is not easy to discern what
lies ahead for our second. Think of the circumstances
and undiscerned future as President
Lovett spoke a century ago. Mass production
of the automobile was a new phenomenon,
and the first commercial airplane flight was
just over a year away. The sun never set on
the British Empire, and World War I lay around
the corner. Oil had been discovered in Texas
a decade earlier, but no one knew what that
would mean for our city or our world. And
Houston’s first air conditioning, dare I add, was
still a decade away.
We have every reason to expect that the
political, societal and technological changes
of the next century will be just as dramatic
as the last, if indeed not more so. We cannot
now see those changes. What we can commit
to and what we can believe in is the power of
the university, of Rice University, to make that
a better future through teaching and learning
and discovering and creating.
A century ago, a group of students, faculty,
university staff and citizens of Houston sat just
where you sit now to witness the launching
of the first institution of higher education in
the city of Houston. Rice set forth with a vision
of greatness, with a commitment to both
importance and excellence, but with little objective
reason to think that such a new university
could really join the great universities
of America. And yet, this endeavor was begun
and sustained with confidence and commitment,
with optimism and faith, even in the
darkest and most difficult of times.
As we enter our second century, we do so
with no less confidence, no less commitment,
no less optimism and no less willingness to
work hard to achieve our highest aspirations.
We are already more than Lovett imagined; today
we embark upon the course that will lead
us to be ever so much more than we might
even be able to imagine today.
Fifty years ago, President Kennedy said at
Rice that we must above all be bold if we’re
to achieve the ambition of putting a man on
the moon. As we enter our second century
and face the opportunities ahead, we must be
bold; we must be entrepreneurial; we must
be collaborative; we must be fast and slow;
we must be international yet distinctively
American; we must be the great research
university that preserved its dedication to its
students; we must be Rice.
—President David W. Leebron
Oct. 12, 2012
Three Decades of Rice University
Executive Leadership · Tudor Fieldhouse
This panel discussion included President David W.
Leebron, former Rice presidents Malcolm Gillis and
George Rupp, Rice Board of Trustees Chairman
James Crownover and former Rice Board chairs
E. William Barnett and Charles Duncan, and
moderator Professor Allen Matusow.
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 29

Saturday, October
Centennial Picnic · Central Quadrangle
A centennial picnic and celebration brought
together 5,000 students, faculty, staff, alumni
and academic procession delegates.
13
Edgar Odell Lovett Statue Dedication · Keck Hall
The bronze statue of Edgar Odell Lovett, created by
sculptor Bruce Wolfe, was formally dedicated Oct. 13.
Many of Lovett’s descendants were in attendance, and
the statue was unveiled by the founding president’s
great-great-grandchildren.
30 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

Homecoming Game
Centennial and Homecoming Football Game ·
Rice Stadium
The Rice Owls took on the University of Texas at San
Antonio’s Roadrunners in the homecoming football
game. The Owls won, 34–14 — Rice’s eighth-straight
homecoming game victory. The semicentennial class gave
a record-breaking $6.7 million class donation at halftime.
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 31

Inside
the
Spectacle
32 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

A year’s worth of under-the-radar planning went into an
unforgettable light and sound show marking Rice’s centennial.
Thorsten Bauer went straight for the heart.
As creative director and co-founder of
URBANSCREEN, the Germany-based company
that creates and stages description-defying
light and sound projections on architectural
settings, Bauer led the artists and technicians
who brought Lovett, Sewall and Herzstein
halls to life for a series of performances during
Rice’s Centennial Celebration. The performances
were billed as “the Spectacle.”
“We wanted to make it an experience for
the audience,” he said. “It’s not as much about
teaching them as it is about touching them.”
Thousands experienced the awe-inspiring
performance over three perfect autumn evenings
inside Rice’s Academic Quadrangle.
The URBANSCREEN team flew to Rice, its
first American client, charged with creating an
event that would tell the story of the university’s
first century to the extended community of
students, faculty, staff, alumni and visitors attending
the extensive series of events the campus
hosted during the Centennial Celebration.
The artists’ strategy was to let Rice’s distinctive
architecture do the talking.
“Our first question was, ‘Who is telling this
story?’ We decided the architecture itself is the
only living witness to the entire history,” Bauer
said. “The images come from the inside of the
building to the outside for a few seconds, and
then go back.”
For the three-segment production, the
team created a three-dimensional video keyed
brick-by-brick to the buildings.
“We think of a building as a diva, because
it demands so many things,” said Till
Botterweck, an URBANSCREEN art director, at
a lecture for Rice architecture students the day
after the final performance. “This one (Lovett
Hall) was even more of a diva.” The ornate
building presented many challenges. For one,
Bauer said, the team’s original production
drawings were based on architectural plans
that go back to Rice’s beginnings. When they
came to Rice for the show, they discovered
Lovett Hall’s construction crew didn’t always
adhere to the plan. “They were a few inches
off here, a few inches there, but we were able
to adjust,” he said.
From the beginning of the process, the owl
served as inspiration. Bauer’s imitation of an
owl as he described his ideas during his initial
meeting at Rice convinced the Spectacle committee
that URBANSCREEN was right for the
job, said Molly Hipp Hubbard, university art director
and committee co-chair. “We fell in love
with them at that moment, because we knew
they got it. We knew they would be able to get
Rice completely and engage and integrate all
the stories.”
The opening of the show featured the
sound of insects followed by the image of
a giant owl in shadow flying across the façade
of the three buildings. The sound of its
wings — ultimately, created with a wet towel
waved in front of a microphone — grew out
of a prairie soundscape. The owl circled and
dropped a feather at the Sallyport, where the
Rice Institute took root. A fanciful opening revelation
of the architectural details served as a
segue to the main segment, in which the artists
bent the architecture to their will as the buildings
revealed the university’s colorful history,
with each decade in turn crackling to life.
“This is not like a PowerPoint presentation,”
Bauer said of the art form his company
refers to as “lumentecture.”
“There are often many things happening
at the same time, bubbling up, falling to the
surface and disappearing again,” he said. “We
created the visuals to reflect the design principles
of the decades they represent.” The surround
soundscape enticed viewers to look this
way and that, ensuring that one could not see
everything in a single viewing, and probably
not even multiple viewings.
Bauer and the URBANSCREEN team had
been stealing in and out of Rice for a year
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 33

to plan the nearly 20-minute show that not
so much told the history of Rice to audience
members as folded them inside it. The 270-degree
projections were a first for the company
that has wrapped a number of buildings in
fanciful animations, most notably the Sydney
Opera House earlier in 2012.
Because details of the performance were
to remain a deep, dark secret until the premiere
the night of the Centennial Gala, Bauer,
Botterweck, art director Max Goergen and
producer Manuel Engels often came to campus
under aliases. Sometimes they posed as the
German cousins of Rice School of Architecture
Dean Sarah Whiting, co-chair of the Rice-side
production committee, to conduct interviews
for their “research project.”
“More than once, people came up and
said, ‘Hey, I met your German cousins today!’”
Whiting said, laughing. The pressure to keep
quiet was even greater on architecture senior
Joshuah Howard, whom Whiting sent to intern
with URBANSCREEN for a month last summer.
“He couldn’t tell anyone what he was
doing, even what town in Germany he was in,”
Whiting said.
Whiting noted the considerable challenge
of “getting everyone excited about something
we couldn’t talk about.”
The committee that also included
Centennial Director Kathleen Boyd, Senior
Project Manager for the BioScience Research
Collaborative Kathy Jones and Associate Vice
President for Development Kevin Foyle set a
baseline of historic events that had to be part
of the performance, based on Public Affairs’
centennial banners that line Rice’s Inner Loop.
Otherwise, Bauer said, “We collected tons of
photos and tons of text, read all the books
about the history of Rice and ended up with a
huge amount of information that was far more
than we could use.”
In fact, Bauer used an astounding 30,000
photos during the five shows and one unplanned
encore. Hubbard said that after
the final unadvertised performance for the
Rice Design Alliance gala Oct. 14, hundreds
of people were still pouring into the quad.
“One student came up to Thorsten and asked,
‘What time is the show?’ and he said, ‘I’m
sorry, we’re done. We just did the last show.’
And he said she burst into tears,” Hubbard
said. “Ten minutes later they decided to run it
one more time.”
Editing the images to fit the buildings’ façades
took months, with tests viewed in the
company’s computers and on a small mock-up
of the quad. With a projection that measured,
in technical terms, 10,000 pixels wide and
2,000 pixels high, there was plenty of room for
Bauer to maneuver as he oversaw the flow of
artwork in two and three dimensions, matching
it to the electronic score that also was composed
and produced by the company.
“It was the most challenging production for
URBANSCREEN so far because of the amount
of content, the number of effects, the ratio, the
resolution and also because our partners here
were very diverse,” he said. “There was no one
art director from Rice confronting us; there
were many cooks — intellectual cooks. But I
liked it, because everybody gave their input,
they put things on the table and then they took
their hands away. They really trusted us.”
The German crew traveled to Houston
for centennial week with only data — 800
gigabytes’ worth — as their cargo. The rest
of the gear was leased from Houston-based
LD Systems, a lighting-and-sound production
company started and still operated by Rice
alumnus Rob McKinley ’81. The company built
and installed the unique two-stage mask that
occluded the Sallyport without blocking traffic,
and also provided the 12 20,000-watt projectors
and the immersive sound system.
Sound was most critical to what Bauer
called the show’s epilogue, when history had
caught up to the present day. “Our decision
was to swap the narration line from the visual
in the 100-years part to the auditory,” he said
of the segment that features the layered voices
of dozens of Rice students coming from every
direction. All the while, at first slowly and
then in massive waves, bricks of light flow
around and about the arches that support the
three buildings.
Rather than a visual representation of
buildings and plans, Bauer said the finale, representing
the future, “is built out of the wishes,
fears and hopes of the students of today.” He
conducted 12 hours’ worth of interviews for
the collage that concludes the show.
The segment was inspired by a comment
President David Leebron made early
in the process. “He said in one interview,
‘You know, Rice is one of the last refuges
of people whose ambition is to change the
world,’” Bauer recalled. “As I worked more
and more with Rice, I saw this more clearly.
This changed me. This kind of inspiration is
the fire in this community, and I found that in
every interview I did.”
The light may have faded, but the fire
remains. “As I left the architecture lecture, I
heard two students talking in the quad as the
projection tower was coming down,” Hubbard
said. “One of them looked at it and said, ‘I can’t
believe that it’s gone. I’ll never be able to look
at Lovett Hall the same way again.’”
—Mike Williams
The Spectacle · Academic Quadrangle
The Spectacle was conceived for Rice’s centennial and
performed under the stars in the Academic Quadrangle.
The German artist group URBANSCREEN designed the
performance, which was projected onto three of Rice’s
historic buildings.
e WATCH THE SPECTACLE ONLINE: ricemagazine.info/134
34 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

Wednesday, October
17
Centennial Lecture Series · Tudor Fieldhouse
Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr.
was our final Centennial Lecture Series speaker.
e WATCH THE LECTURES ONLINE: ricemagazine.info/132
“Now when President Lovett spoke 100 years ago, the newspapers in this state and around the nation took due
note that something big was happening in Texas. The New York Times reported that President Lovett had attracted
an array of learning such as has seldom been assembled in the United States. The Dallas Morning News waxed
almost mystically. It observed that President Lovett’s speech coincided with the early evening appearance of both
Jupiter and Venus and suggested that the evening sky was an augury of a bright future for the institute. Not every
newspaper was as perceptive or transcendent. One local journal reported the founding of Rice in the same column
as the news that Congo, the world’s largest circus elephant, was coming to town. But we now know 100 years later
that those who bet on the future greatness of Rice, bet right.”
—Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr.
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 35

The Apostle
of Stoke
REMEMBERING
Ben
Horne
’02
By Corinne Whiting
36 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

LAST SUMMER, BEN HORNE ’02, ALONG WITH HIS FRIEND GIL WEISS, DIED IN A MOUNTAIN CLIMBING ACCIDENT IN THE
CORDILLERA BLANCA RANGE OF THE PERUVIAN ANDES. SINCE THEN, A VAST COMMUNITY OF FAMILY AND FRIENDS HAS
GATHERED IN THE PLACES HORNE LOVED BEST — ON MOUNTAINS AND TRAILS, IN CHURCHES AND PARKS, IN THE HOMES
OF FRIENDS AND FAMILY, AND ON RICE’S CAMPUS — TO REMEMBER AND CELEBRATE A LIFE LIVED WITH UNCOMMON JOY
AND ACCOMPLISHMENT. DURING ONE OF THOSE SERVICES HELD IN SAN DIEGO LAST SUMMER, BEN’S CLOSE FRIEND SKYE
SCHELL ’05 SUMMED UP HIS THOUGHTS: “BEN WAS INSPIRATION. THAT’S WHAT HE WAS TO ALL OF US. HE BROUGHT THE
MESSAGE OF STOKE. SINCE WE’RE HERE IN CHURCH, WE COULD SAY HE WAS AN APOSTLE OF STOKE.”
ONE • FAMILY FOUNDATIONS
At 6 feet 2 inches and approximately 185
pounds, Ben Horne stood tall and strong. His
most defining features: a curly blond mop,
sparkly blue eyes and an expansive smile. As
evidenced by the entries in his blog, Zoom
Loco, Horne was a prolific chronicler of his
life’s experiences. By way of introduction
there, he wrote, “My heroes are Tank Man,
Tolstoy and Jesus Christ. I do believe that a
better world is coming. My goal is to be the
most complete person I can be. Full stop.”
When Horne’s friends and family describe
his life, the same adjectives are uttered time
and again — inspiring, passionate, authentic.
He loved mountains and sunsets. To a great
extent, these traits can be traced to Horne’s
early years, growing up in a warm and loving
family, the oldest of Gary and Chris Horne’s
four children. “Ben felt he had the best childhood
experience because he lived in the
country as a young kid, on a six-acre farm in
south central Pennsylvania, moved to Hawaii
and then close to D.C., so that he experienced
all the benefits of a rural and suburban life,”
Chris said.
Horne learned basic hiking and backpacking
skills by participating in the Boy Scouts,
with great encouragement from Gary. The
family often vacationed in the national parks
of the American West and enjoyed family
nights playing board games. Their religious
faith played a large part in the family members’
lives, no doubt motivating Ben, as an adult,
to seek out the divine in all he did — from
rock climbing to his studies. His Catholic faith
served as foundation for his pursuit of peace
and conflict resolution in his future career.
To his younger siblings (Eric, 30; Math,
26; and Liz, 22), “Ben was the big brother
that all three looked up to,” said Chris Horne.
He drove his younger brother Eric to school,
loyally attended sporting events, and spent
countless hours talking politics and music. He
recorded songs with Math and, having always
served as a mentor to Liz, shared his love of
other cultures with her during a joint trip to
Central America.
In one of many eulogies delivered at
Horne’s funeral in Virginia last August, Math
said, “Ben’s week beats your year. He climbs
unclimbable peaks after running inhuman distances
only stopping to write, rap, pray or read
up on how to start the revolution. He never
settles or merely copes. People might say,
wholehearted. Unrelenting. He maintains the
light. Persistent. Deliberate. He says it’s his 100
percent raw Lithuanian beef. I call it guts.”
MATH’S EULOGY: ricemagazine.info/135
TWO • WIESSMAN
Because of Horne’s love for the mountains
and outdoor pursuits, attending a school in
Houston seemed a long shot — after all, it is
flat. His parents remember that their son was
won over by the bucolic tree-canopied campus
and diverse student body, and so Horne
entered the Class of 2002.
He found a home at Wiess College,
where current Dean of Undergraduates John
Hutchinson and his wife, Paula, were then
masters. On the academic side, Horne studied
economics, math and political science. Soon
enough, he made a name for himself as both
the life of the party (though his drink of choice
was orange juice) and a citizen-philosopher
deeply engaged in service.
Between his sophomore and junior years
at Rice, Horne hiked the Appalachian Trail
end-to-end by himself and at a near-recordsetting
pace. The experience of solo hiking
at such an impressionable age (he turned 20
en route) was transformative, he said. His
journals from that time reveal a maturing and
probing mind. In one prophetic passage, he
wrote, “The goal of changing things for the
better can be reached — the key is to inspire
others, to affect other people in little ways,
and they in turn will continue to pass it down.
When we seek personal glory, we can achieve
transient fame; if we seek to better the world,
we can contribute to lasting results. If we
don’t pass it on, it will fade as memories of
us fade.”
At Rice, Horne felt immense pride for his
work with KTRU, the student radio station,
what he called “one of the greatest things
about the university” and a platform for
“I am sure many stories about Ben have been told
these last few weeks, and many more will be told in
the years to come. Tell those stories. Ben loved stories.”
—Eric Horne, Aug. 7, 2012, Annandale, Va.
independent musicians. He was a DJ there for
four years, the DJ director his junior year and
station manager his senior year. Former station
manager Johnny So ’01 credits Horne with
changing the culture of the station, making it
more open and accessible to the student body.
At the dedication, So said, “Ben immediately
stood out — here was a guy that was not only
extremely involved in student life at Rice, he
was actually popular! That alone was almost a
disqualifier for working at KTRU.”
When the 40-year-old station’s tower was
sold in 2010 to the University of Houston,
Horne, along with a dedicated group of KTRU
alumni, opposed the sale. On savektru.org, he
wrote, “KTRU is an idea. A philosophy. KTRU
is not just a club. It is a cause. KTRU is, even,
possibly a religion.” Ultimately the sale of the
FM license went through, but the station survives
as KTRU-HD radio, available through
the Internet and mobile devices. To honor
Horne’s advocacy and service, KTRU’s broadcast
studio, located on the second floor of the
Rice Memorial Center, was dedicated the Ben
Horne Memorial Studio last October.
During Rice’s centennial and reunion weekend
(the 10th reunion for the Class of 2002), a
group of Horne’s classmates and friends gathered
in the Hindman Garden for an informal
tribute of words and song. Horne’s parents
flew in for this event, which was organized
by Lizzie Taishoff Sweigart ’01. In a peaceful
grove of giant live oaks, Dean Hutchinson,
Liora Danan ’03, Adam Larson ’05, Josh Katz
’01, Josh Hale ’02, Iris Hurtado Wingrove ’02,
Saheel Sutaria ’02, So and others took turns
sharing stories of their college years.
Sutaria and Wingrove first met Horne during
O-Week. Hale was Horne’s freshman-year
roommate. Their voices conjured memories of
Freshman One-Act plays and “Hello, Hamlet”;
of beach trips, spontaneous road trips, flag
football and water-gun fights; of chasing and
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 37

“People say that Ben lived many lives’ worth in his 32 years, and not only in terms of the
mountains he climbed, places he visited or miles he ran — but also in the number of people
he loved, and how deeply he loved them.”
—Anne Chmilewski, Aug. 14, 2012, San Diego
catching squirrels; having philosophical discussions; being recruited to
work at the radio station; and attending every kind of cultural celebration
on campus.
Danan met Horne when he was working at KTRU and she was
the senior news editor at the Thresher. Their long relationship had just
begun as Horne graduated college — they lived in four different cities at
the same time and traveled to 22 countries together. They got engaged,
and though they ended their engagement last fall, the two remained
best friends.
At the Rice service, Danan said, “I believe that Ben’s greatest strength,
what allowed him to inspire us all, was his willingness to fail. This was a
core value for him, a direct reflection of his deep faith. Ben was keenly
aware of his own failings and limitations, and he was exceptionally willing
to fight the inner struggle because he knew it was worth fighting. He
believed in humanity precisely because it is broken.”
DEDICATION OF THE BEN HORNE MEMORIAL STUDIO: ricemagazine.info/136
THREE • ASCENDING AND TRAVERSING
After Rice, Horne joined the Peace Corps and went to Kyrgyzstan.
Already an adept outdoorsman, it was there that he learned the sport of
alpine climbing and became “spoiled, climbing some world-class mountains,”
he said last June. Although he liked soloing, Horne also enjoyed
the dynamic of group climbing, which forces participants to overlook
fears, egos, personality quirks and bad moods. In such settings, Horne
said, “You have one objective. You’re all helping one another with a
common goal.” He likened climbing to an ancient practice like hunting.
“In the most primal sense,” he said, “you’re tapping into something that
humans have been doing for hundreds and thousands of years.”
It was the “mighty Sierra Nevada” that provided a triumphant experience
last spring for Horne, Shay Har-Noy ’04 and Konstantin Stoletov.
All were part of the loose confederation of climbing enthusiasts called
Pullharder, a San Diego-based community of skilled climbers who share
their experiences online.
In March, the trio successfully completed the first-ever wintertime
ascent of Peter Croft’s Evolution Traverse, a route that involved nine
13,000-foot peaks and the traversing of more than eight miles of the
Evolution subrange of the Eastern Sierra. Horne called this “one of the
Lower 48’s greatest climbs,” yet it had only previously been completed
about 15 times and never outside of prime season. The technical route
took seven days from car to car (including one storm day) and involved
four days on the actual route with 36 total hours of climbing.
At times, the trio endured winds as high as 90 mph and temperatures
as low as -7 F, making for a challenging environment in which to do
such technical climbing. In a post-trip blog post, Horne admitted he was
“stoked, but … tired.” Yet he also expressed great excitement for having
accomplished this feat in his “home range,” at being associated with
the route of one of his biggest inspirations (climber and mountaineer
Peter Croft) and for the symbolism behind climbing a traverse named
Evolution. In an interview last summer about the Evolution climb, Horne
emphasized that this accomplishment was mostly personal.
“The most important thing is that your motivation is internal,” Horne
said, “If you’re doing something for external recognition, it’s just not
as fulfilling. It leads to a strange culture in which [the achievement]
becomes about bragging.”
Horne physically held on to pieces of life experiences by way of
souvenirs and ticket stubs. He also kept meticulous lists and Excel
spreadsheets that not only helped him prepare for upcoming treks and
climbs, but also recorded details of the number of countries he’d traveled
(53 “real” visits; 62 if you count airport layovers), states he’d visited
(49; only South Dakota remained), climbs completed, national parks
explored, “bizarre experiences” endured. His page of “Top Ten Sights”
reveals no fewer than 26 places, ranging from the Sistine Chapel and Taj
Mahal to Havasu Falls and Joshua Tree.
EVOLUTION TRAVERSE TRIP REPORT: ricemagazine.info/137
FOUR • LITTLE THINGS
Many remember Horne for the big things — his impressive academic
achievements and astounding athletic accomplishments. Not long after
the Evolution Traverse conquest and right before he set out for Peru,
Horne ran an ultramarathon (100 miles) in less than 24 hours.
“If Ben was going to do something,” Danan said, “he was going to
do it all the way.” But it was the everyday things that mattered the most.
In a eulogy delivered at his San Diego memorial service, she added,
“Ben never wanted to be a superhero because of his physical achievements.
In fact, he went out of his way to understate them. If we idealize
his achievements, we are misunderstanding Ben.”
While living in San Diego, Horne organized a series of discussion
dinners around a potluck meal and an informal roundtable. He invited
those representing different backgrounds and beliefs who he thought
would benefit most from the conversations; together they covered topics
from race and the environment to religion. Commented Har-Noy,
“Oftentimes you have people who aren’t intellectually honest; they
think they’re smart but don’t listen to anybody else. They shut off the
willingness to accept someone. Ben fundamentally sought out alternative
opinions on how things work.”
Since 2007, Horne had been pursuing a Ph.D. in economics at the
University of California at San Diego (UCSD) and completing his studies
of conflict resolution and mediation. Eli Berman, professor of economics
at UCSD, also taught economics at Rice. Horne was one of his students
there. When both landed at UCSD, Horne once again studied under
Berman, who ultimately served as his dissertation adviser. Horne’s
research focused on the role of mediation in international conflict and
how third parties can intercede to make peace agreements possible that
would not otherwise happen.
“Ben’s interest in this question, as far as I can tell, came from a
wonderful place,” Berman said. “He cared deeply about people and
believed in mediation among individuals. He also had a deep concern
for the human suffering caused by unresolved conflicts. Ben’s research
made substantial progress on the theory of mediation, which we hope
will be of use to practitioners.” At present, UCSD faculty are working to
give recognition to his research and encourage others to continue what
Horne started.
FIVE • PERU
On pullharder.org, Horne’s in-progress trip report titled “The Peruvian
Chronicles” detailed the first climbs he and Weiss completed in the
Cordillera Blanca last July. In the post, he chronicles the weather, the
challenges, the lows and the highs in characteristic self-deprecating and
humorous fashion. The post is accompanied by an image of a sunset
of wondrous beauty. Their next destination was Palcaraju Oeste, where
they would attempt (and succeed) in putting up a first-ever ascent of a
new route on the mountain’s south face. On July 13, on the way back
38 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

Left to right: Alexei Angelides ‘98, Sarah Pitre ‘01, Horne and Dennis Lee ‘05 in the KTRU studio in 2000; Rice graduation with siblings Matthew and Elizabeth Horne,
2002; Elizabeth and Ben in Guatemala, 2007. Below: Climbing Evolution Traverse with Shay Har-Noy ‘04 and Konstantin Stoletov, March 2012.
“I GREW UP IN THE APPALACHIANS, THEN LIVED
FOR SPELLS IN THE TIEN SHAN (KYRGYZSTAN)
AND THE ROCKIES. I LOVE MOUNTAINS AND
MOST EVERYTHING ABOUT THEM. NOW I LIVE BY
THE SEA IN LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA, WITH THE
MIGHTY SIERRA NEVADA VERY CLOSE BY.”
—Ben Horne, zoomloco.wordpress.com
Below: Horne and friends Saheel Sutaria ‘02 and Kristen Stecher ’02; Liora Danan ‘03 and Horne, San Miguel, Mexico, 2011.
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 39

“The day I found out they found Ben’s body, I was on safari in
Malawi. I watched the most spectacular sunset I’ve ever seen
that night, sitting in a vast grassland with wild animals around
and good friends by my side. It sounds like a lot of Ben’s friends
and family felt this way and had a similar experience that night,
but I nonetheless felt like he was watching the sunset with
me that night, saying goodbye in his own extreme, spectacular,
poignant way.”
—Brigitte Zimmerman, maintainthelight.org
down from the peak, rescuers speculate that the fragile ridge where they were walking
simply collapsed.
After Horne and Weiss were reported missing, stunned friends and family watched in
disbelief as the search unfolded in real time. Climbing websites and listservs posted updates
for friends and family. Har-Noy’s company obtained satellite imagery and employed
crowd-sourcing techniques to try and find the two. [See sidebar.] On Saturday morning,
July 28, Gary Horne received a call from the rescue coordinator. Their bodies had been
found at the bottom of the mountain. Accompanied by Danan, the two flew to Peru to
bring Ben home.
SIX • MAINTAIN THE LIGHT
Since Horne’s death, Gary has poured himself into creating maintainthelight.org, a memorial
website dedicated to his son, named for a motto Ben adopted to honor his grandmother.
One section pays honor to Horne by linking to dozens of heartfelt eulogies and letters as
well as examples of Horne’s prolific writings, photos and academic work.
The second part of the website conveys a mission: How can we who remain here on
Earth ‘maintain the light’? On the website, friends commit to living into their strengths and
hopes and to do something inspired by Horne. Playing the piano, serving God, connecting
with people, viewing sunsets, participating in an Ironman competition, climbing, running,
refraining from judgment and simply living life are some of the promises Horne’s friends
and family have made. “Ben was deeply affected in his childhood by stories from people
who said they had waited until it was too late, for whatever it was that mattered to them,”
Danan said. “Ben did not wait. He was always setting goals, always training, in all categories
of his life. Ben practiced his religion in the cathedrals of mountains and church pews
and backyard BBQs and rock concerts and overcrowded buses in foreign countries.” The
site’s content serves as daily inspiration for all those who remain deeply grateful for the
example of Horne’s life. Full stop. ■
“Last year for my birthday, Grandmom sent me a
card with a photo of Denali on the front. I climbed
Denali for the first time 2 weeks after her death,
still grieved. The emotion definitely spurred me to
press on. A few years before she sent me a card of
a lighthouse with the words ‘Maintain the Light.’
I do believe death is a part of life, and that her light
can shine on through us.”
—Ben Horne, June 23, 2011
TOMNOD: PULLING
TOGETHER
Though they didn’t know each
other at Rice, Shay Har-Noy
’04 and Ben Horne ’02 had
become acquainted while
both were in grad school at
the University of California at
San Diego (UCSD), ultimately
forging a strong friendship
based on their mutual love
Shay Har-Noy ’04
of climbing in the Sierra Nevada. Har-Noy earned
degrees in economics and electrical and computer
engineering at Rice; at UCSD, he earned a master’s
and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. His day job is
CEO of Tomnod, a young tech company that provides
distribution and analysis of current satellite images
for a variety of clients.
On July 25, 2012, Har-Noy got an email with a
personal and urgent bent — good friends Horne and
Gil Weiss, who had been mountain climbing in the
Peruvian Andes, were missing. The team reached
out to their professional contacts at DigitalGlobe and
GeoEye to ask for archival imagery of the mountain.
Tomnod (meaning “big eye” in Mongolian)
requested that the next time the satellite passed
overhead, it focus on the section of the mountain
where Horne and Weiss had been climbing. Within a
couple of hours, the team had received and processed
the image and put it online, inviting friends and
family to help search for clues in the snow patterns.
On the map, images were flagged and marked
after several people reached a consensus that they
saw the same thing. Within 15 minutes, hopes
soared when taggers identified three black dots
(on the otherwise white snow) as rescuers headed
up the glacier. “I was psyched,” said Har-Noy. “We
were in go mode. I was thinking, if these guys are
anywhere in this picture, we’re going to find them.”
This flurry of excitement pervaded social media as
family and friends clung to the possibility that the
two were merely injured or stranded. Over the next
four hours, more than 800 people logged in to scour
small sections of the mountain’s image.
Before a search plane took off for the
mountain, Har-Noy sent the air and ground
rescue teams detailed imagery of what
they identified as the top four search
locations. The ground team had
independently arrived at the same
conclusion, and the climbers’ bodies
were found below their last tracks in
the imagery. “Our efforts to find Ben
and Gil really emphasize the power of
timely satellite imagery and our technology
in critical situations,” Har-Noy said.
A devastated Pullharder community announced
the death of their two dear friends on their website.
“These are two of the finest climbers we have ever
known … embodying the spirit of the mountains
with everything they did. Many of us have had the
honor of sharing in their love for the wilderness,
and that lives on.”
40 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

RICEOW L S.COM
A Winning Season
Rice Soccer Shares C-USA Regular-Season Title
Sports
With 11 wins, six losses and three ties, the
Rice soccer team scored its best regular season
record in program history. The winning
season earned the team, under head coach
Nicky Adams, a C-USA co-championship
title with Colorado College. Rice was eliminated
in the opening round of the C-USA
Tournament.
The Owls debuted a dynamic freshman
scoring duo of Lauren Hughes and Holly
Hargreaves, who combined for 19 goals
during the season. Hargreaves and sophomore
midfielder Quinney Truong were both
named First-Team All-Conference USA, and
Hargreaves was named C-USA Freshman of
the Year.
Hargreaves totaled 10 goals as a starter
for all 21 games. She tied for seventh in the
nation with six game-winning goals and
ranked among the NCAA and C-USA statistical
leaders in goals (10), points (23) and
shots (76). The rookie scored a Rice record
game-winning goal in four-straight games in
September.
Truong was fourth on the team in minutes
as a starter in the midfield, playing 92
percent of the team’s total time. The Fort
Worth, Texas, standout scored the gametying
goal against Big 12 power Oklahoma
and also had a goal on the road at University
of Alabama at Birmingham. She assisted on
game-winning goals in back-to-back games
vs. Sam Houston State and Tulsa while maintaining
a .400 shots-on-goal percentage.
Seniors and team captains Julia Barrow
and Lauren LaGro were named to the C-USA
All-Academic team for success in the classroom
and on the soccer field. Barrow has
maintained a 3.92 GPA as an English major
with a minor in poverty, justice and human
capabilities. She led the Owls with four assists
and rarely came out of a game, playing
all 90 or more minutes 13 times.
A three-time C-USA All-Academic
honoree who has maintained a 3.87 GPA
as a kinesiology major, LaGro started all 21
matches and helped the Owls to a share of
the 2012 conference regular-season title.
LaGro often was assigned to cover the opposing
team’s top scoring threat. Overall, the
Rice backline helped hold opponents to just
11.7 shots per game.
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 41

Arts
Rice’s de Menil Years
“ Raid the Archive: The de Menil Years at Rice”
commemorated the 100th anniversary of Rice
University as well as the Menil Collection’s
25th anniversary.
Clockwise from left: Installation view of “The
Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical
Age,” Rice Museum, 1969; exhibition poster;
Dominique de Menil, 1979. (Photo credits:
Hickey-Robertson and Geoff Winningham ’65)
The de Menil years at Rice began in 1969 with
the exhibition “The Machine as Seen at the End
of the Mechanical Age” at the just-completed
Rice Museum. This stunning collection of works
from the 15th to the 20th century explored the
intersections of art and technology. Among the
200 works were a replica of a da Vinci flying
machine, Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion car,
Jean Tinguely’s ball producing and consuming
Rotozaza, and Claes Oldenburg’s giant floppy
desk fan. It also was apparently the first exhibition
to show video art, created by the very
young Nam June Paik.
Decades-old exhibitions don’t usually age
well. Ideas or works that were cutting-edge or
contemporary 40 years ago can seem quaint
and dated later on. But “The Machine” was a
show many people would be thrilled to see
today, and it’s not unique in the repertoire of
exhibitions, projects and events that took place
at the Rice Media Center and the Rice Museum
(dubbed the “Art Barn”). Established by John
and Dominique de Menil in 1969 along with
Rice’s Institute for the Arts (now the Department of Visual and
Dramatic Arts, Department of Art History and Rice Cinema program),
Experimental
exhibitions continue
on at Rice ... . And
the de Menils’
involvement and
interest in Rice
through the years
helped set it all in
motion.
both venues went on to present an astounding
array of groundbreaking exhibitions, films and
events.
“Raid the Archive,” on view Oct. 12–Nov. 9
in the Rice Media Center, included exhibition
and opening photographs, letters, notes and
other ephemera and was accompanied by film
screenings and panel discussions. The centennial
exhibition was curated by John Sparagana,
professor of painting and drawing and chair of
the Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts,
and Katia Zavistovski, a Ph.D. candidate in the
Department of Art History. The title is taken
from “Raid the Icebox 1 with Andy Warhol,”
a 1969 Rice Museum show in which the de
Menils asked Andy Warhol to curate an exhibition
selected from the storage vaults of the
Rhode Island School of Design’s museum.
The “Raid the Archive” film series screened
“Tinguely In Motion.” Filmed in 1969 for the
Rice Institute by Bill Colville, the film captured
Jean Tinguely’s time in Houston constructing a
sculpture specifically for “The Machine” exhibition.
It shows the Swiss artist moving (and dancing) through a
Houston junkyard, clad in a pressed white shirt and black blazer,
42 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

Students Arts
The Matter
of Music
Quick, before this year’s
Grammy Awards ceremony,
check out one of last year’s
winners.
Clockwise from top left: Opening night for “Raid the Archive: The de Menil Years at Rice,” Rice University Media Center, 2012;
view of “Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienholz: The Art Show,” Rice Museum, 1984–85; “The Machine” exhibit, Rice Museum, 1969.
(Photo credits: Carolyn Van Wingerden, Hickey-Robertson, Geoff Winningham ’65)
smoking and casually selecting materials for his sculpture. He talks about how much he enjoys it
when his sculptures break and have to be repaired, reveling in the chance and chaos of the whole
thing. Comments from the artist and his decidedly nonprofessional welder assistant were intercut
with commentary from the beleaguered conservator sent along from MOMA to keep the sculptures
in working repair. Not only is the film an insight into the artist’s work, it is also an insight into an
artistic climate that continues today in Houston, where artists often draw on and collaborate with
industry to execute projects.
During the de Menil years, the Media Center brought in the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, Sam
Peckinpah and Henri Langlois. Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas came into town to screen
“THX 1138” as well. For Rice students and the Houston community to have had this kind of access
is stunning. In one of many memorable events, Dennis Hopper came in 1983 to speak about a new
film, but instead bused the audience out to the Big H Speedway to see him “blow himself up” in the
Russian Dynamite Death Chair Act — i.e., a chair with dynamite under it. View the video online at
timeline.centennial.rice.edu/entry/368/.
Those years were a lively, experimental and provocative time. The de Menils, in supporting and
establishing the arts at Rice University, involved a number of students and young people in their
endeavors, many of whom, like artist Mel Chin, would go on to become significant contributors to
the art world in their own right. The de Menils were also instrumental in bringing in young and
influential faculty like William Camfield, the Joseph and Joanna Nazro Mullen Professor Emeritus
of Art History, and Thomas McEvilley, Distinguished Lecturer Emeritus of Art History and critic.
Dominique de Menil would leave the university to establish the Menil Collection, but experimental
exhibitions continue on at Rice in the site-specific installation program of Rice Gallery; in
the art department’s new experimental exhibition spaces EMERGEncy Room and Matchbox Gallery;
and in the continuing activities of the Rice Media Center. And the de Menils’ involvement and interest
in Rice through the years helped set it all in motion.
—Kelly Klaasmeyer
The winner of the 2012 Grammy for Best
Opera Recording is “Doctor Atomic,”
a Sony DVD recording of a 2008 production
at the Metropolitan Opera,
conducted by Alan Gilbert. Shepherd
School alumna Sasha
Cooke ’04 starred as Kitty
Oppenheimer opposite
Gerald Finley as J. Robert
Oppenheimer. The contemporary
opera is by
American composer John
Adams, with libretto by
Peter Sellars. The opera
tells the story of the
Manhattan Project scientists
who created and tested the atomic
bomb at Los Alamos. In a New York
Times review of the production, critic
Anthony Tommasini had plenty of praise
for Cooke, writing, “The scenes with
Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty, sung with
aching, wistful intensity by the mezzosoprano
Sasha Cooke, are beautifully
rendered.”
Rice Rice Magazine • No. • No. 15 7 • 2013 • 2010 43

ON THE
Bookshelf
“Blacks and Whites in Christian America:
How Racial Discrimination Shapes Religious
Convictions” (New York University Press,
2012) is co-authored by Emerson, the Allyn
and Gladys Cline Professor of Sociology and
co-director of the Kinder Institute for Urban
Research, and Jason Shelton, an assistant professor
of sociology and anthropology at the
University of Texas at Arlington.
“We often hear the term ‘the black church,’”
Emerson said. “We really wanted to find out,
what is the black church? We wanted to know
how black Protestants — who comprise 93
percent of black churchgoers — differ from
“Ultimately,
these religious
differences play
a substantial role
in U.S. life, from
identity politics
to working for
racial justice and
reconciliation.”
Rice Sociologist Examines
Race, Religion in America
A new book co-authored by Rice sociologist Michael
Emerson assesses racial differences in how black and
white Protestants practice their faith.
their white counterparts. We wanted to see if
there’s anything unique about how they practice
their faith.” Emerson said that while their
research, including interviews with numerous
black pastors, showed that there are “absolutely
no differences” between blacks and
whites when it comes to the core beliefs (for
example, the Apostles’ Creed) of Protestants, it
revealed “stunning” differences about how the
two groups go about their faith.
“At the very core, in the fundamental
beliefs of Christianity — that God exists,
for example — black and white Protestants
do not differ,” Emerson said. “But on almost
everything else, even the terms they use to
describe who God is, they do differ and often
dramatically so.”
All of these differences were conceptualized
by Emerson and Shelton into what they
call the five building blocks of the black
Protestant faith. The building blocks include:
• Experiential: Black Protestant faith is active
and experiential; it is less concerned
with precise doctrinal contours than is
white mainline or evangelical Christianity.
• Survival: Their faith is critical to survival
and helps individuals cope with suffering
associated with everyday trials and
tribulations.
• Mystery: Black Protestant faith is mystical
and expresses an appreciation for the mystery
in life; it includes folklore and cultural
components driving from the African diaspora,
the consequences of racial inequality
in America and non-Christian religions.
• Miraculous: Black Protestant faith is confident
and comprehensive; the miraculous
is ordinary and the ordinary is miraculous.
• Justice: Their faith is committed to social
justice and equality for all individuals and
groups in society.
Emerson noted that all of these differences
remain after accounting for differences
in education, income, age, gender and region
of residence. These differences were found
even when comparing black Protestants to
the more zealous arm of white Protestantism,
white evangelicals.
Emerson believes that the differences between
black and white Protestants are rooted
directly in the country’s history of racial
discrimination.
“It’s based on personal and communal
experiences,” Emerson said. “White Protestant
faith has never been about survival, whereas
black faith from the start has been. Slavery
isn’t here anymore, but that idea of who God
is has not changed for African-Americans.”
Emerson said he hopes the book will
bring greater understanding to the differences
in how white and black Protestants approach
religion.
“Ultimately, these religious differences
play a substantial role in U.S. life, from identity
politics to working for racial justice and
reconciliation,” Emerson said. “By going about
faith differently, valuing different aspects of
the Christian God and having divergent religious
histories, black and white Protestants
vote overwhelmingly opposite of one another,
and often work against each other in efforts
toward racial equity and cohesion. For real
progress to be made, these groups will need
to truly understand one another.”
— Amy Hodges
44 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

ON THE
Bookshelf
he joined CBS News, where he anchored the Sunday
“ That’s the way it is.” night news and the 1952 presidential conventions and
hosted “You Are There,” a show that re-enacted historical
events.
Brinkley Chronicles Cronkite
Cronkite became the anchor of the “CBS Evening
In “Cronkite,” the first full-life biography News” in 1962. The 1963 assassination of Kennedy
inserted Cronkite into the national consciousness,
of the legendary CBS newsman Walter Brinkley said. Other notable moments in his broadcast
Cronkite, author Douglas Brinkley chronicles career included his 1968 declaration that the Vietnam
War was “mired in stalemate,” which President Lyndon
the life of one of the most influential news
Johnson thought moved national opinion, and his coverage
of the moon landings. Cronkite was, in fact, the
anchors in television history — a life that
included formative years spent in Houston. unofficial voice of the American space program during
its early heyday, a role than garnered him renown
but also some media criticism, Brinkley
Brinkley, a Rice University history
found. “Walter had so bought into
professor and fellow at Rice’s Baker
space that any criticism of the moon
Institute for Public Policy, wrote the
launch in 1969 was anathema to him,”
biography with the cooperation of
recalled Bill Plante who, as part of
Cronkite’s family. The book examines
CBS’s coverage of Apollo 11, reported
the newsman’s role in the latter half of
on how some people on the street in
the 20th century — from Vietnam and
New York thought the space agency’s
the space missions to reporting to the
efforts were a waste of money.
nation the death of President John F.
Cronkite retired as anchor in 1981
Kennedy.
at age 64, widely hailed as the “most
Born in 1916, Cronkite grew up
trusted man in America.”
in Kansas City, Mo., and Houston’s
Brinkley said the idea for a definitive
biography was triggered about
Montrose neighborhood, where his father
worked as a dentist. He dropped
nine years ago by fellow historian and
out of the University of Texas at Austin
friend David Halberstam. During a
during the Great Depression to take
drive with Brinkley to the Louisiana
the first in a series of radio jobs in
Book Festival, Halberstam remarked
Oklahoma and Missouri.
that Cronkite was the most significant journalist of the
Cronkite joined United Press International in 1937, second half of the 20th century, but no author had adequately
tackled his life and times. Brinkley has also
and when World War II broke out, he covered battles in
Africa and Europe, parachuted with the 101st Airborne authored books on Gerald Ford, Teddy Roosevelt and
into Holland and witnessed the Battle of the Bulge. Jimmy Carter.
After the war, he covered the Nuremberg Trials. In 1950,
—Jeff Falk
Viral Doom Returns
Justin Cronin, a distinguished faculty fellow
at Rice University, has followed up
his best-seller “The Passage” with “The
Twelve,” released last fall. It is the second
book in his postapocalyptic trilogy.
In “The Twelve,” Cronin picks up the
story, taking readers on a 592-page journey
interweaving characters from “year
zero,” when the vampires first escaped
from a secret Colorado lab, with flashes
forward to 79 and 97 years in the future.
The narrative follows bands of survivors
as they search for fuel, food and protection
and cope with the
unthinkable that has
devastated civilization
as they knew
it. The reader meets
Lila, a doctor stricken
with posttraumatic
stress syndrome, and
Kittridge, a war veteran
and sniper who
helps save a band of
refugees. A less likeable
new character is
Horace Guilder, a selfinterested,
high-level
government bureaucrat
at the helm when
the crisis originally unfolded. Guilder was
able to ensure his own escape, but he’s
not a figure one would root for. Returning
characters include Alicia, an army lieutenant
and loner, and Amy, a supernatural
heroine, who with others continue
their hunt for the original 12 “virals.”
—Jeff Falk
“Dad to Dad: Parenting Like a
Pro,” by David L. Hill ’90 (American
Academy of Pediatrics, 2012). Hill
is a pediatrician and father of
three who practices medicine in
Wilmington, N.C.
“Drugs for Life: How
Pharmaceutical Companies
Define Our Health,” by Joseph
Dumit ’89, (Duke University Press,
2012). Dumit is director of science
and technology studies and
professor of anthropology at the
University of California at Davis.
“From the Stage to the Studio:
How Fine Musicians Become
Great Teachers,” by Cornelia
Watkins and Laurie Scott (Oxford
University Press, 2012). Watkins is a
lecturer of music in Rice’s Shepherd
School of Music. This is her second
book about teaching music.
“Exclusions: Practicing Prejudice
in French Law and Medicine,
1920–1945,” by Julie Fette (Cornell
University Press, 2012). Fette
is an associate professor in the
Department of French Studies at
Rice.
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 45

On My Honor
Try your luck at this Rice-themed crossword. No cheating!
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Across
19
23
27
31
0
0
51
56
60
69
0
0
83
89
95
0
109
115
119
123
0
43
74
0
84
0
110
0
44
0
85
99
0
45
77
0
90
32
36
0
0
61 62
86
0 91
96
100
0 116
0 120
0 124
20
24
28
0
52
57
0
78
97
0
46
0
70
75
0
111
0
47
0
71
0
112
0
48
63
0
0
92
101
0
0
0
0
0
33 34
37
0
64 65
0 79
87
102
0 113
117
121
125
21
25
29
0
38
53
58
0
80
0
103
0
39
0
81
0
104
35
0
72
76
0
98
0
49
66
0
0
93
0
0
0
0
22
26
30
0 0
40 41 42
50
54 0 55
59 0 0 0
67 68 0
73
82
88
94
0
0 0 0 0
105 106 107 108
114
118
122
126
1 The first freshman ___ parade was in
1921.
6 ___ balloon fight (Beer Bike kickoff)
11 Sally___ (with 124 Across)
15 Baker Institute’s Edward Djerejian is an
expert on the ___ Spring.
19 ___ the Barbarian
20 “Doe ___”
21 ___ Shawkat of “Arrested Development”
22 Plaster ingredient
23 “A World ___”
24 Young adult novelist Sonya ______
25 Altoids come in ______
26 Copycat
27 Rice’s student-faculty ___ is less than 6:1.
28 Quoting Hamlet, after an ORGO exam:
“___ is me.”
29 ____ Humperdinck
31 Conduit for graffiti and clandestine
exploration
35 Descendant of Indo-European speakers
36 Studied by comp sci majors
37 ___ Tigers
40 Eastern potentates
43 Accumulate
46 It’s between St. Paul and Eau Claire
50 1990 Dead album, “Without ___”
51 Bryce Canyon locale
52 With 66 Across, first Rice president, ____
Lovett
53 ___ Loop
55 Gentile
56 Sound prefix
57 One from Eastern Europe
58 Native of Budapest
60 Where many Rice students are in the
summer
63 F. Scott Fitzgerald was one (abbr.)
66 See 52 Across
69 With 110 Down, the theme of this issue
74 Houston’s METRO runs on these
75 Beginning
46 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

76 Wash off again
77 What Rice students eat on March 14:____
ice cream
79 Nihilistic art movement
82 “___ go Rice!”
83 UK Luftwaffe counter
86 Psychic Edgar
87 ___balls
88 “___ go Bragh”
89 T-shirt size
91 Dining hall semester vouchers
93 “Hey you!”
95 Pianist studied by students at the Shepherd
School (Hint: Schumann)
97 College quads are nice outdoor ____.
98 Beatles’ German release “___ Liebt Dich”
99 Mythical Scottish beast (var.)
101 Baker 13 cover-up
109 They’re the best.
113 Soy paste
114 Come-on
115 Texting shorthand for “Ah, that’s clear”
116 City of Edvard Munch
117 He’s Horrible in the comics.
118 Pastrami _____
119 President Leebron is on its board.
120 Architect van der Rohe
121 One of the “45º 90º 180º” rocks is ___.
122 Rent out again
123 Home of Lady Vols (abbr.)
124 See 11 Across
125 ___Week
126 Juan’s ___ sense
Down
1 Trauma residue
2 1950s Yankee pitcher Eddie (“the Junk
Man”)
3 Germ ending
4 “I just met a girl named ___.”
5 Buries
6 Had left
7 Column heading
8 Mortise partner
9 Jolly Green Giant shoe width
10 There are four in Monopoly (abbr.)
11 ___ de foie gras
12 “Unbearable Lightness of Being” actress
Lena
13 “Silver Bells” sound
14 It hits with a charge.
15 Rice opponent of infamous sideline tackle
16 Maturing
17 McLean’s “___ Pie” (abbr.)
18 Ernie’s pal
30 Caustic soda
32 “__ the season”
33 Reading direction (abbr.)
34 Defense against the Scud
38 Jacques’ “my bad”
39 Inherent
41 ___ Speedwagon
42 With 93 Down, was by the original
Administration Building
43 One wanting to make amends
44 Tomorrow in Tijuana
45 It’s desirable at the track.
46 16th-century date
47 River of Estella, Spain
48 They may be innies.
49 Pooh pal
51 Top amateur athletics group
52 Sports site
54 Weathermen’s tool
59 Spruces up the bathroom
61 Old object
62 Tailor’s length
64 Mountain bike race format
65 Dog and cat, perhaps
67 They’re found in trash cans.
68 What Will Rice did in the men’s Beer Bike
race last year
70 Transport of the future?
71 When repeated, Speedy Gonzalez mantra
72 Donkey sound
73 Where to hear the Red Sox
78 Sailor’s acknowledgment
80 When doubled, flak
81 Code of Copenhagen (and others)
83 Students love Rice’s new ___ Center.
84 ___ Rose
85 Boys Town founder Father Ed ___
87 Heat forward Chris
90 ___ urn (Rice diploma text shape)
92 Given to some at Rice Commencement
93 See 42 Down
94 Zones
96 “___ the Expert”
98 Given to loud nasal exhalations
100 Leaf pore
102 Famed violin maker
103 Watch
104 “Love ___ you need.” (Beatles)
105 ___ Zellweger
106 ___ “The Pearl” (and others)
107 Till now
108 “___ tall dark stranger”
109 Resumed (abbr.)
110 See 69 Across
111 Actor Baldwin
112 Sometimes found at a Rice party: ___ pit
117 “Left turn” for Mr. Ed
Answers
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Crossword by David Gusakov
S L I M E W A T E R P O R T A R A B
19
20
21
22
C O N A N A D E E R N A L I A N L I M E
23
24
25
26
A P A R T N S O N E S N T I N S N A P E R
27
28
0
29
30
R A T I O N O W O E N N E N G E L B E R T
31
32
33 34 0 0 35
0 0
S T E A M T U N N E L S N N A R Y A N N N
0 0 0 0 36
0 0 0 37
38 39
0 40 41 42
N N N N B I T N N N T A M I L N E M I R S
0 43 44 45
0 46 47 48
49
50
N A M A S S N M E N O M O N I E N A N E T
51
0
52
53
54 0 55
U T A H N N E D G A R N I N N E R N G O Y
56
0
57
0
58
59 0 0 0
S O N O N N S L A V N N M A G Y A R N N N
60
61 62
0 0 63 64 65
0 66
67 68 0
O N A T R I P N N E X P A T N O D E L L N
69
70 71
72
73
C E N T E N N I A L C E L E B R A T I O N
0 74
0 75
0 0 76
N R A I L S N O N S E T N N R E R I N S E
0 0 0 77
78
0 0 79
80 81
0
82
N N N P I E A N D N N D A D A N N L E T S
83 84 85 0 86
0 87
0
88
R A F N C A Y C E N B U C K Y N N E R I N
89
90 0 91
92
0 93 94
0
E X L G N M E A L B O O K S N P S S S T N
95
96
97
0 0 98
0 0 0 0
C L A R A N A R E A S N N N S I E N N N N
0 0 99
100 0 0 101
102 103 104
105 106 107 108
N N N E S S Y N N S H A V I N G C R E A M
109 110
111 112 0 0 113
0 114
C R A C K T E A M N N M I S O N T E A S E
115
0 116
0 117
0 118
O I G I N O S L O N H A G A R N O N R Y E
119
0 120
0 121
0 122
N C A A N M I E S N A T I L T N R E L E T
123
0 124
0 125
0 126
T E N N N A R C H N W I L L Y N S E S T A
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Rice Magazine • No. 15 • 2013 47

defining
Moments
An alum shares his family’s experience
from Rice’s Centennial Celebration.
Dear President Leebron,
Many voices have told you how wonderful
the Rice Centennial Celebration was, I’m
sure! But perhaps not many of them drove
1,200 miles to Houston from Minneapolis
with their wife, Marlys, and daughter,
Brynne, in confidence that it would be
totally worthwhile. …
My Rice residence was East Hall — a
name unknown to anyone on the Rice
campus today. While East Hall was a mystery
to them, the name of every other building on
the campus was a mystery to us. In getting
around the magnificent Rice campus, we
were dependent upon bus drivers, police,
student volunteers and maps to reach four
days of venues on time. Everyone whom we
asked for information was cordial, interested
and helpful.
The lecture by J. Craig Venter on the
cutting edge of his science specialty was wonderful.
Too bad we will not be around when
“people will have a computer with a little box
attached so that when they order a pill online
it will show up in their box about 1/5 of a
second later.”
The Shepherd School of Music Centennial
Concert on Thursday was truly magnificent.
Jon Kimura Parker on the piano gave me
goose bumps; his play was so exciting.
The orchestra was as good as any I have
ever heard. … We congratulate the Shepherd
School staff and their music director
Larry Rachleff.
The academic procession and your
centennial address was indicative that the
academic world and Rice University are
thriving and will continue to do so.
My lifetime “R” membership card
came in handy at the football game as we
Minnesotans were not too thrilled about the
idea of sitting out in the Texas sun with no
shade for two or three hours. We walked up
to the “R” room and I presented my card.
Even though we were not on any list of
names, they graciously let us in. We enjoyed
the game in air-conditioned comfort.
I’m saving the most wonderful thing that
happened to us for last.
Certainly the Finale and the Spectacle
were super events. But what happened after
the Spectacle when people were getting up
off the grass was the best event of all: A
young lady just ahead of us turned around.
She told us she had graduated from Rice last
year. She wondered how we liked the centennial
events. She wondered where we were
from, whether any of us had gone to Rice.
When I told her we had driven down from
Minnesota, and I had graduated in mechanical
engineering in 1950, she just lit up. She
was so excited that anyone could care enough
about Rice to drive down from Minnesota 62
years after their graduation. It comforted her
to know that she had gone to a university that
warranted love and dedication throughout
her life, because other people had felt that
way before her. It was one of life’s defining
moments for me.
My wife, daughter and I enjoyed every
minute of the four days we were on the Rice
campus during its Centennial Celebration.
We thank you for planning, organizing and
executing it so well.
Very sincerely yours,
Glenn A. Fuller ’50
B.S., mechanical engineering
“R” winner — Baseball (1948, 1949)
48 www.rice.edu/ricemagazine

The Centennial Campaign
No Upper Limit. Still.
A Gift for the Long Run
For runners in the Boston Marathon, trekking up the 88-foot Heartbreak Hill 20 miles into the race can be like
climbing Mount Everest. But when Linda and Bob Shepherd ’70 began heading up the slope April 21, 1997,
determination and months of careful planning propelled them up the hill and across the finish line.
The Shepherds are approaching their retirement in a similar way, carefully planning a deferred gift annuity
that will help them meet their financial goals while honoring Bob’s mother through the creation of an endowed
scholarship. Bob and Linda were among the first in their families to earn college degrees and credit their mothers’
commitment to education with making their achievements possible. “We give to universities to honor our moms,”
Bob remarked. “And I give to Rice because I appreciate what Rice did for me.”
Bob, a radiologist who earned a B.A. and M.S. in chemical engineering from Rice, says the solid academic
foundation he received as an undergraduate gave him the flexibility to enter any field. Now, by establishing
the Lurlene Shepherd Endowed Scholarship, the Shepherds are ensuring that female undergraduates receive an
equally strong education. By funding the scholarship with a deferred gift annuity, they also guarantee themselves
a steady stream of income for the long run.
[ Deferred Gift Annuities Enhance Your Retirement ]
Setting up a deferred gift annuity is a great way to ensure a secure income during your retirement
while supporting Rice. To learn more about this type of gift, please contact the Office of Gift Planning.
Phone: 713-348-4624 • Email: giftplan@rice.edu • Website: www.rice.planyourlegacy.org

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P.O. Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251-1892
Nonprofit Organization
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Houston, Texas
Owls Beat Air Force in the Armed Forces Bowl
The Rice Owls scored 26 unanswered points in the second half of the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl to beat the Air Force
Falcons 33−14 Dec. 29, 2012, at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, Texas. The Owls closed out the year with their fifth
consecutive win and their sixth win in the last seven, completing a remarkable reversal to a season that saw the team start 1−5.
Sophomore wide receiver Jordan Taylor earned the bowl’s MVP award.
Watch more: ››› ricemagazine.info/138