Friends of Fondren to honor Rice authors, editors, artists

Friends of Fondren to honor Rice authors, editors, artists

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News staff

Books about Enron and scenes of Texas will be featured at the Friends of Fondren Library’s annual authors reception at 3 p.m. Feb. 6 in the Kyle Morrow Room, third floor of the library.

Photo by Tommy LaVergne

This photo, titled “The Tourist Court,” was taken in Wharton County and is included in the book “Roads to Forgotten Texas” by University Photographer Tommy LaVergne and Rice alumna Joyce Pounds Hardy.

Rice students, faculty, staff and alumni and members of the Friends of Fondren are invited to the program, which spotlights some of the Rice faculty and staff members and alumni who authored a book, edited a journal, composed a major musical work or mounted a one-person art show in 2004. The discussion will be followed by a question-and-answer session with the authors, a reception and a book sale.

Edward Whalen, a board member of the Friends of Fondren Library and a former honoree at the authors reception, will lead a panel discussion featuring Bala Dharan, Joyce Pounds Hardy and Tommy LaVergne.

Dharan, the J. Howard Creekmore Professor of Accounting at Rice’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management, co-edited “Enron: Corporate Fiascos and Their Implications” (Foundation Press) with Rice alumna Nancy Rapoport ’82, dean and professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center. Their book presents Enron as a case study of corporate greed through essays written by leading scholars and experts in the corporate and legal fields. The book examines the causes and consequences of Enron’s failure from multiple perspectives — business, financial, legal and ethical.

LaVergne, university photographer in the Division of Public Affairs, published a collection of photos he has taken of Texas’ rural landscapes in a book titled “Roads to Forgotten Texas” (Texas Review Press). The photos are accompanied by poems written by Hardy, a ’45 Rice alumna with a B.A. in English who is now a well-published poet in Houston. “LaVergne’s photographs and Hardy’s word pictures brilliantly capture and reveal the artifacts of lived experience with stunning vividness,” said John B. Boles, the William Pettus Hobby Professor of History at Rice.

Mary Bixby, executive director of the Friends of Fondren Library, organized the authors reception. The event is free; reservations are not required.

For a list of all the Rice alumni, faculty and staff and members of Friends of Fondren who published a book or other major work during 2004, visit <http://www.rice.edu/fondren/friends/riceauthors.html>.