Rice University in 2021 -- Lessons for the Second Century

Rice University in 2021 --
Lessons for the Second Century
Moshe Y. Vardi
Rice University
vardi@cs.rice.edu
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Melissa Kean, 7/30/21, Rice History Corner: “The
transition of presidential administrations always
prompts re-evaluations of the institution’s future,
especially of our mission and how to best pursue it.”
A Presidential Transition

Rob Ladd, 5/26/21: 2004-2021 accomplishments
 Increased selectivity
 Increased internationalization
 Growth in number of students
 Increased diversity
 The Rice Investment
 Growth of research portfolio
 Growth of faculty
From the Chair of the BoT, I

Rob Ladd, 5/26/21:
 New research initiatives
 Extensive new construction
 Emphasis on the role of the arts
 Engage with Houston – Passport, CLC, Ion
 Growth of endowment
From the Chair of the BoT, II

 Lee Vinsel, 7/21, Chronicle of Higher Ed: “The language of
hype violates the language of truth.”
 This talk is a critical examination of Rice in 2021.
 25 people interviewed.
 This talk is not a substitute for a thorough self-study.
 Last serious self-study of Rice – under Bill Gordon, early 1980s.
 Why me?
“Marketing and PR Are Corrupting Universities”

“Moshe Vardi is Rice University”

 Rice parent
 28 years at Rice
 My academic great, great doctoral advisor, Shmuel Agmon, did
his postdoc at Rice in the 1950s.
 His advisor, Scholem Mandelbroit, sought shelter at Rice
during WW II.
 His advisor, Jacques Hadamard, attended Rice’s laying of the
cornerstone in 1911.
Rice and Me

Brian Patterson, 2017: “When we practice, the coaches did not
compliment us on things we did correctly. We were expected to
do things correctly. 95% of their focus was on our mistakes.
They wanted to make us better, and to make us better they
needed to focus on correcting mistakes. All athletes fully
understand this and don't get their feelings hurt. They
appreciate that the coaches only want to make them better.”
Paraphrasing B. Obama: “You don’t just wish for a better Rice,
you have to fight for it.”
Why Critical?

Reviewing the Claimed Accomplishments

Houston Chron, 5/28/21: “More Consequential and More Houston”
 Center for Civic Leadership
 Kinder Institute for Urban Research
 “The Ion, located at 4201 Main St., will anchor the 16-acre
South Main Innovation District and is designed to become the
epicenter for Houston’s innovation ecosystem.”
Engage with Houston

 “Students from families with under $65,000 in income get all
their costs covered including fees, room and board. Those with
incomes between $65,000 to $130,000 attend without paying
tuition.”
 SmartAssets.Com: College Education Value Index
 MIT – 100%
 Stanford – 89%
 CMU – 78%
 Rice (ranked 15)– 73%
The Rice Investment

 Some buildings are consequential.
 Brochstein Pavilion: An important
contribution to Rice’s internal life.
 Some buildings are less consequential.
 Brockman Hall: A huge investment
in a small program.
Extensive New Construction

 Buildings are shells, programs are content!
 New programs:
 Kinder Institute – successful
 Neuro-Engineering – successful
 Data-Science Initiative – underwhelming
 Welch Institute – work in progress, major faculty concerns
 Moody Center - underfunded
 Key to success –
 adequate funding
 faculty driven vs Allen-Center driven
Buildings vs Programs

 The Agency Dilemma: “This dilemma exists in circumstances
where agents are motivated to act in their own best interests,
which are contrary to those of their principals.”
 Development is rewarded for dollars raised, not for needs met!
 Can Rice say “no” to donors?
 Brockman Hall
 Doerr Center
 “Centrally Driven”: No campus-wide pre-campaign need
assessment!
Donor Driven vs Need Driven

Rob Ladd, BoT Chair: “The endowment now exceeds $7 billion,
more than double the $3.3 billion value when David took over as
president.”
 2004: Investments - $3.6B, bonds - $200M, net endowment
in 2020 real dollars: $4.6B
 2020: Investments - $6.8B, bonds - $1.1B, net endowment:
$5.7B
 Net real annual rate of return: 1.4%
 cf., 2.6% at Brown U., 4.0% at NW U.
 Comment: (1) 2020 numbers, (2) Not about the endowment.
Endowment

Rob Ladd, BoT Chair: Research awards --from $72M in 2004 to
$172.5M in 2020.
Research Awards

SOTU-2020 Research Awards FY2020-slide47
/

 Federal Program Revenue, 2005: $55M -- $73M in 2020 real
dollars (NCSES)
 Federal Program Revenue, 2020: $74M in awards in 2020
(OIR)
 But: Rice S&E Faculty Size, 2005-2020: 20% increase.
 Organic vs centrally driven growth?
Federal Program Revenue

0.4%
0.8%
0.2%
0.0%
0.6%
% of Agency R&D $$
NSF DOE
Normalized Federal Agency R&D
The % of Federal Agency funding to academia obtained by Rice
Rice R&D $$ from OIR 2011-2020; 2005 is from Office of Research. Total Federal agency $$ from NCSES
NIH
NSF DOD NSF DOD
FY2005 FY2011 FY2019
0.64%
Each data point uses a 2-year average of the indicated year and next year to reduce fluctuations; except for
FY2019, total agency $$ is one year only. FY2011 was the apogee of Rice’s Federal R&D in constant dollars
NIH NIH
0.71%
DOD DOE DOE
NIH
10x
0.059%
0.076%
0.06%
NIH
10x
NIH
10x
(AKA Slice of the pie)

Metrics/ranking of Rice (among private universities), 2017-18
data:
 Median SAT: no. 8, Endowment: no. 14
 Clearly: Top-rated undergraduate program!
 Federal research: no. 42 (2004: 43) (overstated?)
 Total research: no. 40 (2004: 44)
 Academy members: no. 24 (2004: 27)
 Faculty awards: no. 40 (2004: 26)
 Postdocs: no. 33 (2004: 32)
 PhDs: no. 31 (2004: 34)
 Note: Times Higher Ed rank (US): 46
Center for Measuring Univ. Performance

 Endowment per research student (PhDs +Postdocs/2)
 Rice: $20M
 Stanford: $14M
 Brown: $11M
 Viewed from the other end: Rice has a very low research-
expenditures-to-endowment ratio.
 The Real Question: How does Rice deploy its endowment?
 Budget vs strategic priorities
Endowment vs Research - 2017

 2004- ~3000, 2020 – ~4000, 2025 – ~4800
 One college will be added -- number of students living on
campus to increase by about one-third to 3,525.
 Rice: “Higher enrollment will help Rice not only continue
developing a more diverse and dynamic environment on campus,
but also add more faculty members strategically recruited for
specific objectives in teaching and research.
 Rice: “We must undertake this expansion carefully in order to
assure that we retain the best aspects of Rice culture,
student experience and sense of community.”
Growing the Student Body, I

Questions:
 What are the guiding principles for growth?
 Why stop at 4800?
 Impact so far on “Best aspects of Rice culture, student
experience and sense of community”?
 What are these best aspects? Metrics?
 School of Engineering: significantly larger class sizes!
Classroom sizes, lab sizes
Growing the Student Body, II

Diversity – Remarkable Progress?

 Blacks: 2004- 6.9%, 2020 – 8.1% - 17% growth
 Hispanic: 2004 – 11.5%, 2020 – 17.4% - 51% growth
 Asian: 2004 – 13.9%, 2020 – 29.7%- 214% growth
 Richard Tapia: “Rice demographics do not reflect what is
beyond the hedges.“
 Note: 12% of UG students are international, but not diverse.
UG Diversity – Remarkable Progress?

 NSF survey of graduate and postdoctoral students:
 ~80% of graduate students in computer science and engineering programs
are international students.
 At Rice: 53% of PhD students are international
 MYV, CACM, 9/20: “We should welcome international graduate students
because they enrich our graduate programs, not because they sustain our
graduate programs.”
 Rice/BSoE: Fiscally “addicted” to a huge income stream from China.
 WaPo, 8/21: “In China, the dream of an American education loses some of its
gleam.”
 NY Times, 9/15/21: “In a bid to counter China’s moves in the Pacific, the
U.S. and Britain will help Australia deploy nuclear-powered submarines.”
“Where Have All the Domestic Graduate Students Gone?”

Rob Ladd, BoT Chair: “The faculty has grown from 579 FTEs in
fall 2004 to 748 in fall 2020” – 30% growth
 TTs: 2004-493, 2020-569 – 15% growth
 NTTs: 2004-86, 2020-205 – 140% growth
 Changing character of Rice instructors
 Rice: 35% NTT
 Brown – 25%, Princeton – 22%,
 Budget (real dollars) growth: 52%
 Total-compensation (real dollars) growth (from IRS 990): 60%.
The Faculty

 UG Students: 2004 - ~750, 2017 - ~1500
 Faculty: 2004 – ~95, 2017 - ~130
 Students/Faculty: 2004 – ~8, 2017 – ~12.
 BsoE: Rebuilding the Foundations, 2017
 “Engineering at Rice University, long considered
the heart of the institution, is in grave danger
of rapid decline if immediate and broad action
is not taken to address faculty/student ratio
and declining physical plant. This LIFT proposal
calls for an investment of $500M in the Brown
School of Engineering.”
https://www.cs.rice.edu/~vardi/LIFT_BSoE-
Foundations_0.pdf
Students and Faculty - BSoE

 Formal response: a “thundering silence”
 No rebuttal to analysis
 Authorized growth in CS
 Two new buildings in the Engineering Quad
 New Science and Engineering Building
 Maxfield Hall: renovated Mech Lab
 But- No serious need assessment!
 It is time for a revised assessment of the
state of BSoE!
Rebuilding the Foundations

Chinese proverb:
“If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow grain.
If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees.
If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow
people.”
Prosperity

Enhancing Research and Scholarship

 Rob Ladd, 5/26/21: “David never hesitated to explore bold
opportunity.”
 Houston Chronicle, 5/28/21: “Leebron’s first years, however,
began as many success stories do: with a colossal failure. He
bet big on trying to negotiate a merger with Baylor College of
Medicine. The marriage wasn’t meant to be, and Leebron was
left alone at the altar.”
Rice-BCM Merger, I

 Motivation: “We must visibly and substantially increase our
commitment to our research mission and raise our research and
scholarship profile.”
 But:
 Faculty and deans were not consulted.
 Faculty remained skeptical and viewed the move as reckless,
rather than bold.
 Merger failed due to execution.
 Missing: A plan to enhance research and scholarship at Rice.
Rice-BCM Merger, II

 Senate Working Group on Research and Scholarship,
11/5/2013: Enhancing Research and Scholarship at
Rice University
“The Senate Working Group on Research and Scholarship
will assess the processes and structures currently existing
on campus designed to support and improve Rice's research
and scholarship efforts, including strategy, support
structures, assessment, and coordination and planning from
the department level to the upper administration level.”
Enhancing Research and Scholarship, I

 A self-deprecating quote floating around Rice for many years
says that
 “Rice is perpetually perched on the precipice of greatness.’”
 The Working Group believes that a reasonable and explicit
“next level” for Rice is to raise our national and international
standings in research, scholarship, and graduate education to
levels comparable to our standing in undergraduate education.
 Practically no serious follow-up to report.
Enhancing Research and Scholarship, II

 2015: External review of the Ken Kennedy Institute
for Information Technology
 Central findings:
 Lack of clear mission and expectations from Rice
 No clear role in Data-Science Initiative
 Outcome of Review: None!
K2I – External Review

 From 2013 Review of TTO:
 From TTO’s website, the stated mission is “to contribute
to the public good, further economic development in
Houston and Texas, and enhance the reputation of Rice
University while maintaining a fiduciary responsibility to
the university and its faculty, staff, and student body”.
However, despite the stated mission, TTO appears to
lack specific expectations, goals, and an overall vision
from the university as to how to fulfill their stated
mission.
 Outcome: None!
Tech Transfer at Rice

 Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship
 Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
 OwlSpark
 Rice Center for Engineering Leadership
 TTO
 Ion
 Vice Provost for Innovation?
 But: What does Rice want?
Entrepreneurship at Rice

 Centennial Address: “We must be Rice.”
 What is the proper balance between “a research university
with a strong undergraduate program” and “a undergraduate
institution with a strong research program”?
 What is the proper balance between a “technical college” and a
“liberal-art college”?
 What is the proper balance between Science&Engineering and
Humanities&Social Science?
 MYV: Rice made tremendous progress, but did not fully live to
the 1964-vision of becoming a balanced research university!
What Does Rice Want?

 Compare: Rice (USNWR - 16) and Brown (USNWR – 14)
 TT Faculty members
 Rice - 569
 Brown – 758 (33% larger)
 Academic members in the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences (present and past)
 Rice - 26 (2 in Huma&SocSci)
 Brown – 105 (50 in Huma&SocSci)
A Comparison

 What is the proper balance between “a research university
with a strong undergraduate program” and “a undergraduate
institution with a strong research program”?
 Mission Statement: “a leading research university with a
distinctive commitment to undergraduate education”
 What is “distinctive commitment”?
 Do we also have a “distinctive commitment” to graduate education?
Undergraduate Education AND Research

 2004->2020: Strategy?
 Eng – 95 -> 142
 Huma – 111 -> 113
 SocSci – 62 -> 93
 NatSci – 107 -> 119
 Biz – 31 -> 52
 Arch – 13-12
 Music – 27->39
 WGRS: “The faculty, the administration, and the BoT, together,
should develop a coherent plan for the size, distribution (by
intellectual area), and demographics of the faculty at 5, 10, 20
years.”
 Impact of undergraduate business major?
TT Faculty: Then and Now

 “The purpose of the BRC is to provide an innovative physical
and programmatic environment where scientists and educators
collaborate to conduct bio-related research.”
 “A locus for Rice-TMC collaborations”
 Widely accepted on campus: The BRC did not live up to its Rice-
TMC collaborative promise!
 But why?
 MYV: What did Rice want? Programmatic initiative? Real-
estate deal?
 We ended up having neither!
Bioscience Research Collaborative

 EESI: Environmental & Energy System Inst.
 Shut down in 2008
 Energy & Environment Initiative
 Fizzled out in 2018
 Now: Energy & Natural Resources Initiative
 MYV: What does Rice want? Programmatic initiative?
Industrial funding?
 Contrast: 5/20 --“School focused on climate and sustainability
will amplify Stanford’s impact.”
Energy Initiatives

 “The Ion fosters a community and culture where corporate
innovators, academic partners, community partners, startups,
and entrepreneurs come together to solve some of the world’s
greatest problems.”
 Cui Bono?
 The world?
 Houston?
 Rice?
 Third Ward?
 Recall the BRC!
What Does Rice want?
The Ion

 A colleague: “Your talk will be discounted, because you are
controversial.”
 Why am I controversial? Because I speak my mind!
 Ned Thomas: “You talk like an MIT faculty member!”
 Intel Culture: Constructive confrontation
 “Disagree and commit“ - a method of avoiding the consensus
trap, in which the lack of consensus leads to inaction.
 Civility and collegiality are consistent with dissent!
 Rice Culture: Civility and collegiality suppress serious
discussions!
Civility, Collegiality, and Dissent

 Creating the Cold-War University --The Transformation of
Stanford, R.S. Lowen, 1997
 Crux: strong provost!
 At Rice:
 Two questionable provostial appointments in the 2010s
 A pattern of weakening the provost office (ex - budget, IT,
online ed., faculty hiring)
 Provost is not “first among equal VPs” – VPA and VPF are
“Executive VPs”.
 To enhance research and scholarship at Rice – Start with the
Provost Office!
The Admin-Driven University

 Budget process not centered in the academic side of the
administration.
 Little discussion of the alignment between budgets and
strategic academic priorities, e.g., graduate education.
 WGRS: “Rice should rethink its budget process to allow for
longer-term planning, a broader strategic discussion of
priorities and tradeoffs, a closer alignment with strategic
priorities, and enhanced flexibility and incentives for academic
units at all levels.”
Follow the Money!

 The Centrality Fallacy: “The assumption that you are in a
central position, you presume that if something serious were
happening, you would know about it. And since you don’t know
about it, it isn’t happening.” E.g., Intel’s cubicles
 Antidote: Shared governance enables a better and shared
understanding of complex problems involving many
stakeholders.
 A huge ensemble of intellect on campus!
 But: weaker faculty – about 35% NTTs
 No election for presidential search committee
 No Humanists on presidential search committee
Shared Governance, I

 Sense on campus: “A theater of consultation”
 Senate vs Faculty Council
 No faculty-board communication
 Rice-BCM Merger, 2009: Faculty Advisory Committee --
Senate bypassed => Senate: Faculty-Merger-Review
Committee
 Rice under COVID, 8/20: “The Faculty of Rice University
expresses its deep disappointment that in spite of the stated
principle of ‘choice,’ some faculty and staff members felt
under pressure to be physically present on campus.”
 But Academic Restart Committee was chaired by the Speaker of
the Senate!!!
Shared Governance, II

 June 2013: “Rice University’s Centennial Campaign exceeds $1
billion goal.”
 August 2016: Conversations about a third capital campaign;
Blue-Sky Initiatives process.
 November 2016: LIFT process launched.
 October 2017: Report – “Blue-Sky Initiatives: Engineering and
Science”
 May 2017: LIFT proposal presentations
 2018: A small numbers of follow-ups, e.g., D2K– Data to
Knowledge Lab.
 The silent campaign went “sub-silent”.
 June 2019: VP Development left Rice.
The “Third Capital Campaign”

“Leading Innovation through Faculty Thought”

 University presidents normally serve 8-10 years, and run one
capital campaign.
 Campus conversations in 2016-17 about the “Third Campaign”
were accompanied by persistent rumors about Rice President
job interviewing.
 Leadership ambiguity: 2014-2021.
 My conclusion: BoT governance issue!
Leadership Ambiguity

 Now: “As a leading research university with a distinctive
commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University
aspires to path-breaking research, unsurpassed teaching, and
contribution to the betterment of our world.”
 MYV: As a leading research university with a distinctive
commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University
aspires to path-breaking research and unsurpassed teaching,
for the betterment of our world.
Mission Statement

“Rice is a community of curious thinkers, passionate dreamers
and energetic doers who believe that improving the world
demands more than bold thought and brave action. It takes
unconventional wisdom.”
 Rice emphasis: “unconventional wisdom”
 My emphasis: “improving the world”
 Proposed tagline: “Research and Education for the Public Good”
Tagline

A Colleague: “Rice has gotten stronger through the years. It has
done remarkably well with research and graduate education,
given the resources available. But at this point in time, it has to
decide to move forward with research, even taking some risks, or
else it will fall back. This means bold - but realistic - goals and
expectations and substantial new investments in research and
graduate education. That means, among other things, a
significantly larger faculty and graduate student population and
the facilities and services this faculty will need to be even more
successful.”
In Conclusion, I

MYV: Rice has tremendous potential, but to go forward and
upward, Rice must answer honestly three questions:
 What does “We must be Rice” mean?
 Where is Rice today?
 Where does Rice want to go?
 Heard at Rice: “The breadth of our ambition knows no bounds”
 MYV: Being strategic means not only deciding what to do, but
also deciding what not to do. It means weighing tradeoffs. It
means identifying our comparatives advantages and leveraging
them.
In Conclusion, II

Rice University in 2021 -- Lessons for the Second Century

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