Leadership Rice

Leadership Rice

Program Builds Student Leaders Through Mentorship Opportunities, Envision Grants, Courses

BY DANA DURBIN
Rice News Staff
Dec. 10, 1998

The Coffeehouse, Rice Underground, the Yellow Bike Program, flight school at Wiess College–these things all have one thing in common: They were born out of Leadership Rice.

Mentorships with proven leaders who allow students to see firsthand the decision-making process at corporations and nonprofit organizations and discussions with noted figures such as Houston Mayor Lee Brown, former Secretary of State James A. Baker, III, and former Texas lieutenant governor Bill Hobby–these too are part of Leadership Rice.

Even more mentorship opportunities, the chance for undergraduates to sit on the board of a Houston corporation or nonprofit, and a mentorship program for women will likely be new features of Leadership Rice designed to build on its success.

The program has a strong foundation, said Susan Lieberman, Leadership Rice’s new director, but there’s room to make it even better. Her goal: “When people think about leadership, I want them to think of Rice University.”

Created in 1995, the program is finally “rooted,” according to Lieberman. Originally developed by Vice President for Student Affairs Zenaido Camacho and later a part of the Provost’s Office, Leadership Rice is now under the School of Social Sciences. Joining the program’s staff along with Lieberman is Michelle Dass Pickard, assistant director.

Leadership Rice entails academic and experiential components that provide students with examples of leadership at work and that allow students to discover and display leadership in a hands-on fashion.

On the academic side, two university courses are offered through Leadership Rice–UNIV 309, “Creating and Managing Change: Principles of Leadership,” and UNIV 310, “Creating and Managing Change: Case Studies.”

Students also get to experience leadership for themselves through a summer mentorship program, which matches students with a mentor for a summer job, and through the Envision Grant program, which provides funds for student-developed projects.

“I see the program as building on what students learn in their academic classes,” Lie-berman said. “We’re like the cross on a ‘t.’ The academic departments make students deep, and Leadership Rice helps them think about applying that depth in many ways.”

All Rice undergraduates can take UNIV 309, and the summer mentorships and Envision Grant program are also open to all undergraduates. Meanwhile, students who participate in the summer mentorship must follow up with UNIV 310 in the fall.

Lieberman and Pickard already have several goals through which to improve the program beyond even its current success.

First, the mentorship program will be expanded to include an increased number of summer mentorship opportunities available to students. The first summer the mentorships were offered, 15 students participated; by last summer, the program’s third year, 32 undergraduates had been placed in summer mentorships. Lieberman and Pickard hope to see another dramatic increase next summer.

A wider variety of mentorships also will likely be available to students in the future, Lieberman said. In particular, students will hopefully have the opportunity to do mentorships internationally and in Washington, D.C.

Lieberman hopes that Leadership Rice will “touch more students in a larger variety of ways” through two new programs, Rice on Board and mentorships geared toward women.

Through “Rice on Board,” students will sit on the board of directors of Houston nonprofit organizations for one year. Lieberman expects to launch this new program of Leadership Rice this January.

A women’s mentorship program, developed by Envision Grant recipient Julie Roach, a Will Rice College senior, will be offered as part of Leadership Rice starting next spring. Through the program, women leaders in the business community will be paired with Rice undergraduate women. The pairs will meet regularly, according to Roach, to discuss women’s issues, like balancing career and family.

Lieberman also feels the university courses can be strengthened in a way that is more dynamic for students. For example, the fall course, which brings speakers in to discuss leadership issues with students, will include more interaction in the future and a greater emphasis on developing individual leadership attributes including communications skills, she said.

Stressing that the program has already had a positive impact on students, Lieberman points to the summer mentorships as proof of its success. Students seem to especially value the summer mentorships, through which they are placed in summer jobs and matched with mentors who allow the students access to board meetings, policy-setting meetings and other situations where students can see leadership at work.

“There has to be someone to serve as a mentor,” Lieberman said. “It’s really quite different than an internship.Students draw from it a larger experience than they might at a typical summer job.”

Amy Rees, a Wiess College junior, completed a mentorship last summer at Depelchin Children’s Center, a nonprofit organization for families in crisis. Her job duties related to human resources issues like keeping track of employee training and certification and establishing an employee database.

Her mentor, Carol Brownstein, program director of staff development at Depelchin, was “outstanding,” Rees said. “We constantly interacted. Everything I did was with her.”

One of the experiences Rees benefited from greatly was a grant proposal meeting in which Depelchin Children’s Center was seeking funding for Early Start, a program similar to Head Start that is geared toward even younger children. Brownstein and others made the presentation before board members and CEOs of some of Houston’s major companies.

“I got to see that whole process from the start and just recently found out that Depelchin was awarded the grant. I observed Carol and her leadership qualities at work and I also observed other leaders do what they’re good at. During the grant process I saw presentations from some of the top people at the Houston Independent School District and the Houston Area Women’s Center, for example.”

The summer mentorship experience also helped Rees determine that she definitely wants to work in a nonprofit setting once she graduates. “It really set in stone for me that I could do this type of work and be happy doing it. It helped to see someone in Brownstein who was very successful and who loved her job.” Rees said.

Lisa Chang, a Brown College senior, also gained through her summer mentorship at KUHT-TV/Channel 8 a definitive idea of what she wants to do career-wise. She plans to attends graduate school in acoustics and acoustics engineering and pursue a career in recording engineering.

Her mentor, Jeffrey Clarke, KUHT general manager, took the time to talk to her about her career plans, and he put her in touch with contacts in the field, Chang said. He also had a clear understanding of what the Leadership Rice program is about at its core, she said.

Lisa Change, a Brown College senior, was placed in a summer mentorship at KUHT-TV/Channnel 8 through the Leadership Rice program. Through her mentor, Jeffrey Clarke, general manager of the public television station, Change learned about his day-to-day decision-making process.

“I did learn about leadership through his approach to telling me things that happened from day to day and sharing with me how he dealt with things as a manager and a leader,” Chang said.

Clarke said he viewed his involvement in Leadership Rice as “an opportunity to provide growth through mentorship and advice and counsel.

“I made it clear to her why we were doing things and tried to explain what we were up to and why we were doing ‘x’ instead of ‘y,'” Clarke said. “It was very clear in the introduction to Leadership Rice that in the summer job the focus was to be on leadership issues and I took that to heart.”

Lovett College senior Michael Ford not only participated in the summer mentorship component of Leadership Rice, but he was also a recipient of an Envision Grant and took the fall course. In short, Ford was involved in all aspects of Leadership Rice and feels the program is a great opportunity for students ripe for the learning experience it provides.

Ford said he learned about what leadership entails from his mentor, Houston attorney Jim Blackburn. But he also put leadership qualities to use through the Envision grant program, through which he was awarded funding to start Rice’s Yellow Bike Program. The bike program allows students to borrow, on an honor system, the yellow bikes seen around campus.

He commented on the other innovative programs that have come about through the Envision Grant Program and as a result of the independent project required as part of the fall course.

“Leadership Rice is an outstanding opportunity for interested students. It provides an alternate means of pursuing an interest and allows students the support to move forward on a project–how to start it, how to get funding for it and how to sustain it.

“Those things are major leadership issues. There are a lot of traditional cookie-cutter leadership roles available at Rice, but Leadership Rice is unique in the type of leadership opportunities it offers,” Ford said.