‘Engaging Houston’ initiative kicks off

BY LINDSEY FIELDER
Rice News staff

As a direct outgrowth of Rice President David Leebron’s commitment to greater engagement with the Houston community, Rice is launching the Engaging Houston initiative to create a comprehensive catalog of outreach efforts by individuals and recognized campus programs.

The first step in the initiative is a Web survey with two components: individual community commitments and university-sponsored programs.

All faculty and staff are invited to share their individual contributions, such as research, teaching, volunteerism and leadership. These efforts will then be catalogued to better understand the informal network of relationships beyond the hedges. Any relevant information pertaining to students will be collected by the Office of Student Activities.

For major Rice-sponsored programs, campus leaders ­— including deans and vice presidents — were asked to identify a subset of faculty and staff who are leaders, as well as “record managers,” of major university-sponsored programs that engage the Houston community. These people will receive a request via e-mail to fill out a Web survey detailing the specifics of their programs.

President Leebron said, “By identifying both formal engagement programs and individual community commitments of our faculty and staff, we intend to demonstrate Rice’s commendable participation in the life of our city, as well as evaluate what new efforts would prove mutually beneficial to Rice, Houston and beyond.”

The end result of this initiative will be a searchable database of engagement activities that will highlight Rice’s many contributions. It will also serve as an indicator for where Rice may wish to direct future engagement endeavors.

Greg Marshall, director of community and government relations, and Maryana Iskander, adviser to the president, have been working with Christine Attia, research coordinator, to construct this survey.

To fill out the Web survey or to learn more about the Engaging Houston initiative, visit <www.rice.edu/engage>. The deadline to fill out the survey is April 15.