Matriculation Address

Matriculation Address

By
Malcolm Gillis
Rice University President
Aug. 18, 2002
…………………………………………………………………

Rice University
Class of 2006 — welcome to your campus, to your colleges
and to the community of scholars that will be your new intellectual
home.

Rice is one
of a handful of highly selective universities. After over
four decades on university campuses, I have come to believe
that most highly selective universities take in great students
and make them good ones. We have rather higher aspirations:
to take in great students and help them become truly outstanding.
How do we try to do that?

At its opening
in 1912, Rice’s first president, Edgar Odell Lovett,
called for a university that kept “the standards up
and the numbers down.” You are very much a part of
that legacy. We are the smallest of the major research universities.
And the standards are high. If you look at the students
on your right and left this evening, you will find someone
who is as accomplished as yourself, though likely in different
ways.

You come from
43 states and 14 different countries. Anglos account for
55 percent, Hispanics 11 percent, African-Americans 7 percent
and Asian-Americans 16 percent. Our commitment to diversity
is one reason Hispanic Magazine recently named Rice the
nation’s second best school for Hispanic students.

You number 705
out of 7,080 applications for the Class of 2006. Seventy-two
percent of you were in the top 5 percent of your high school
class. Twenty-three percent were valedictorians. One hundred
eighty-four of you are National Merit Scholars. Since 1990,
Rice has led the nation’s universities in the percentage
of National Merit Scholars in its freshman classes, averaging
32.5 percent.

All this talent
could lead to over-confidence or, in the extreme, hubris.
Students as well as nations do well to remember the lessons
of humility. Not six decades ago, a small, powerful island
nation ruled a fourth of humanity. Today, after devolution
for Scotland, the British reign is largely confined to England.

Many of you
may, later in life, have to learn how to handle fame. If
so, be reminded that fame, like power, can be fleeting.

A good example
comes from the experience of the writer Larry McMurtry,
a Rice alumnus and teacher in the Department of English,
who has good Rice connections. How many of you have read
his novels, such as “Lonesome Dove” and “Cadillac
Jack”?

A few years ago
Larry stayed at the Holiday Inn in Uvalde, Texas. On arriving
at the hotel, he was extremely pleased to see his name in
very large letters on the marquee. It said: “Welcome
Larry McMurtry, author of ‘Terms of Endearment.’”

The very next
day, Larry learned that he had won the Pulitzer Prize for
“Lonesome Dove.” He went out for the afternoon,
then returned to the Holiday Inn, wondering with eager anticipation
what the marquee would now read. It said: “Dinner Special:
Catfish and Fries: $5.99.”

Still, just
as Larry has done, most of you will make a mark on the world.
If you follow the pattern of earlier classes, 70 percent
of you will major in science, engineering or the social
sciences. Nineteen percent will focus on the humanities,
with a select 4 percent each studying music and architecture.
Of course, you may find yourself moving in a direction you
do not expect today. During the next few years, you will
all stretch yourselves in ways you cannot imagine now. Many
of you will become engrossed in totally new fields. Each
year, we have philosophy majors who study quantum physics
and engineers who develop a love for poetry. That is not
uncommon — indeed we are gratified when student’s
explorations lead them to new intellectual interests.

To assist in
this exploration, you will discover here faculty who will
likely exceed your expectations. President Lovett told the
audience at Rice’s opening that “the best available
instructors and investigators are being sought wherever
they may be found.” Today, we can say with some confidence
that we continue to find them — and we continue to
look. Rice’s professors are some of the most distinguished
teachers and researchers in the country:

• Science
and engineering students will find on our campus more members
of the national academies of science and engineering than
any other private school south of Chicago and between the
two coasts. We have two Nobel Prize-winning chemists on
our faculty and three members of the National Academy of
Medicine — even though we have no medical school. A
recent survey shows that Rice ranks in the top 1 percent
of all institutions worldwide in the impact and influence
of research in 12 science and engineering fields.

• Humanities
students will interact with a distinguished faculty, two-thirds
of whom have received prestigious grants or awards from
the National Endowment for the Humanities, Guggenheim Foundation,
Fulbright Foundation or the Humboldt Foundation. You may
study in one of the nation’s leading history departments
or read Shakespeare with a recent president of the Shakespeare
Association of America.

• Rice’s
School of Architecture is, pound for pound, the best in
the nation. It was named by the Almanac of Architecture
and Design as the best in the South and one of the four
best in the country.

• Students
in our Shepherd School of Music will find themselves in
one of the nation’s most prominent university-based
music schools.

• We have
invested heavily in our social sciences in the past decade,
developing new strengths in economics, sociology and several
other fields.

• Many
of you will come to interact with professors in the Jesse
H. Jones Graduate School of Management, one of the fastest
rising business schools in the nation.

Unlike your
peers at many universities, you will actually get to know
your professors from day one. For decades we have had one
of the country’s lowest student-to-faculty ratios.
Rice’s original faculty of 10 taught 77 freshmen. The
ratio is now even better — less than 6-to-1 —
for 35 times as many undergraduates. Professors, not teaching
assistants, teach over 93 percent of our classes, far higher
than at Harvard, Yale or Stanford. Many of you will, as
undergraduates, be actually involved in the research of
the faculty.

Interdisciplinary
studies are a strength at Rice, a strength recognized worldwide.
We do interdisciplinary studies very well, partly because
we have remained small and partly because we have worked
hard to develop the good mechanisms for facilitating teaching
and research across disciplines.

Our new Center
for Sustainability, created last month with nearly $7 million
in new money from our fund-raising campaign, well illustrates
several of Rice’s finest traits.

The center focuses
on environmental and natural resource issues nationally
and worldwide. It is truly interdisciplinary, involving
faculty and students from science, social science, engineering,
the Jones School of Management and the School of Humanities.
And — this could only happen at Rice: The budget for
the Center for Sustainability includes, over the next 12
years, funding for undergraduate as well as graduate research.

Outside the
classroom, you will be wrapped up in one of Rice’s
most distinctive traditions — residential colleges.
President Lovett stated at Rice’s opening that a residential
college system was “prominent in the plans of the new
institution.” It took another 45 years for the first
college to open, but today the college system is at the
heart of student life on campus.

It is also better
than ever. Last April, we dedicated our ninth college, Martel
College. This was the first additional college to be built
on campus since 1971. It is joined by an all new Wiess College,
which provides first-class residences for 228 of you. Additions
to Jones and Brown will bring these colleges up to the size
of Wiess and other colleges. New serveries endanger another
tradition of college students everywhere — complaining
about the food. These new facilities — together with
brand new commons for four of the colleges — will allow
us to house 80 percent of you on campus, up from 67 percent
before.

Your new campus
life will give you a measure of independence many of you
have not had before. There are no curfews, no assigned visiting
hours and no resident monitors. Instead, another legacy
— our Honor System, first instituted in 1916 —
governs your academic behavior. We take this tradition very
seriously, because it is overseen and implemented by our
students.

You will be
the first entering class to participate in what may become
another tradition at Rice: On Sept. 11 we will hold a special
observance in honor of those who died almost a year ago
in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Rice has always
placed special responsibility on its students to conduct
themselves appropriately. We trust you to act maturely inside
and outside the classroom and to treat everyone — fellow
students, faculty, staff and visitors — with respect.
Rice values civility in its students and faculty as highly
as it does academic freedom. We expect disagreements, even
spirited ones. Intellectual freedom, however, demands a
mutual respect among all participants. After all, our mission
is not to make ideas safe for you, but to help make you
safe for ideas — to hear, consider and debate.

We also hope
you will take time to develop nonacademic pursuits. Every
year I urge, with little effect, first-year students to
pause from time to time to smell the flowers. Some relax
by enjoying the whimsical traditions we have to offer. The
Marching Owl Band — which never marches but does have
a dancing violin section — is open to musicians and
nonmusicians alike. We crown the most unusual homecoming
queens and kings you are likely to find anywhere. Lucky
winners over the last 20 years include a refrigerator, a
ferret, an iguana and a cutout figure of former governor
Ann Richards.

The sports-minded
among you will also find much of interest here, both in
intramurals and at the intercollegiate level. By the time
our original class graduated, Rice had a football team,
a baseball team, a track team and a basketball team, which
won the 1918 Southwest Conference title. Our teams have
gone on to win 17 conference titles in the last 10 years
alone, including seven consecutive ones by the baseball
squad. The intramural sports program offers nearly a dozen
programs you might join, and 16 specialty sports clubs are
available for activities from Frisbee to fencing.

We urge you
to plan now for study abroad while at Rice. Rice was built
on an international vision; first President Edgar Odell
Lovett visited the world’s leading universities in
Europe and Japan for nine months before Rice opened to gather
ideas and faculty for the new institution. We have drawn
on that heritage by emphasizing international studies on
campus for several years. We have expanded considerably
our faculty in Latin American and Middle Eastern studies
and offer a broad range of programs in Asian and European
studies. Rice is also one of a handful of universities that
provide financial aid for overseas study.

As a result,
more of our students are studying abroad than ever before.
The number of Rice students who spent a full year outside
the United States has risen 35 percent in the last two years.
We have seen a 160 percent increase in the number of students
going to Asia and a 400 percent increase in those going
to Africa. Rice students have gone to every continent, including
Antarctica.

While you are
here, you will enjoy one of Rice’s oldest and most
important traditions — tuition that is very heavily
subsidized by the generosity of our alumni and other donors.
A Rice education costs about $42,000 per year, per student.
Thus, every Rice student, not just those on financial aid,
is heavily subsidized by gifts from donors, past and present.
In fact, net tuition covers only one-tenth of the university’s
costs. Not only is tuition at other highly selective schools
about 60 percent higher than Rice’s, but also our financial
aid program is among the most generous available anywhere.
It allows our students to finish with much less than half
the debt of Ivy League graduates. We ranked sixth on last
year’s list of national universities for students with
the least debt; four of those ahead of us are public institutions.
You will not only graduate with far less debt than Harvard
or Yale students, but also with less than UT–Austin
or Texas A&M students. In fact, 62 percent of our seniors
graduate with no debt at all.

We take some
measure of pride in the traditions that have made Rice the
university it is today. Traditions are supremely important
in a university setting, but you will, I hope, quickly recognize
that a great university is about much more than tradition
— it is also about change — constant change as
the frontiers of knowledge expand from one month to the
next. The Rice you graduate from will most assuredly not
be identical to the Rice you enter today.

And so, Class
of 2006, much is expected of you. Please now enter the Sallyport,
bringing with you your sense of humor, your intelligence
and your sense of wonder.