The city and the university: essentials for success

Editor’s note: This column from the Summer 2007 Sallyport is based on a presentation that President David Leebron made earlier this year at the Center for Houston’s Future. The speech was well-received, and as a new school year approaches, we thought the Rice community would appreciate reading about the university’s ongoing interest in engaging with the city of Houston.

The city and the university: essentials for success

BY DAVID W. LEEBRON
President of Rice University

When one looks back over the history of great cities, evidence is plentiful that it was, in part, universities that made them great. Conversely, a university depends on the city — on its ability to attract students, faculty, staff and others to the university because of what the city has to offer.

Perhaps the most critical element of the relationship is the role of the university in a city in which ideas and knowledge will — more than ever — drive sustained economic success. Consider just one aspect of that success here in Houston: the health care industry.

DAVID LEEBRON

Houston is a health care center because of the research capabilities here in the city. Medical researchers need to draw on fields such as physics and make use of powerful mathematical and statistical modeling and computing technologies. Thus the great educational and research institutions of the Texas Medical Center need what Rice University can provide, just as Rice — if it is to succeed in its research mission and attract the best scientists — must be complemented by the strengths of the medical center institutions.

International outlook

In addition to providing all of the advantages of a city of its size, the nation’s fourth largest, Houston is an international city. One reflection of this is the number of consular representatives: With 87, we are third in the country. The city reflects the cultures, food and talent of people from all over the world. It is an exciting place to be.

Why has Houston emerged as one of America’s most international cities? There are a number of reasons: the fact that we are located near the border with Latin America, that we are America’s second largest port, that we are the headquarters and hub of one of the world’s major airlines, that so many major corporations are headquartered here. But at least three of these four reasons go back to what is most important — Houston’s relationship to energy. As we are proud of saying, Houston is the world capital of the energy industry.

To grasp the distinction and importance of this, ask yourselves, How many cities are the world capital of anything? Well, of course, there’s Gilroy, Calif., the world capital of garlic. Or Castroville, Calif., the world capital of artichokes, or Strong, Maine, the world capital of toothpicks. Houston, however, can claim to be the capital of something truly significant — energy, essential to all nations and people.

Ambitious, compelling and fundamental goals

In recent years, Houston’s economy has become more diversified and less dependent on the oil industry. But we should not underestimate the continuing broad importance of that industry to our city. We are the center of the energy industry because the energy industry remains centered on oil. Many predict that by midcentury the petroleum supply will have decreased to the point that it is unlikely to be the primary source of energy. In that scenario, absent the development of new energy sectors here, Houston will cease to be the energy capital.

In their book “Built to Last,” authors Jim Collins and Jerry Porras attempt to define the characteristics of extremely successful, enduring business enterprises. They speculate that their analysis could also apply to entities such as cities. Cities today, like universities, find themselves in a highly competitive environment. And in such an environment, the path downward is far easier than the path upward.

We have certainly seen cities rise and fall. For example, we have learned that the American automobile industry apparently was not built to last and, as a result, Detroit — once the undisputed world capital of the automobile industry — has been in steep economic decline. Indeed, in 1960, when Houston was the seventh largest city, the fifth was Detroit, the sixth was Baltimore, the eighth was Cleveland and the 10th was St. Louis. Today, those cities rank 11th, 18th, 39th and 52nd, respectively.

Is that Houston’s fate? What must we do to be sure not merely that our great city will continue to exist, which it undoubtedly will, but that it will thrive and excel?

In “Built to Last,” the authors introduce the concept of Big Hairy Audacious Goals, or BHAGs. BHAGs are ambitious, compelling, fundamental goals. An example is President John Kennedy’s decision to go to the moon. He spoke about it in a speech at Rice Stadium almost 45 years ago:

What is the power of an audacious goal? Consider Augustus and John Allen, who in 1836 had the audacity to promote Houston, where they were selling land for $1 an acre, as the future “great interior commercial emporium of Texas” and claimed that it was already a thriving port city, despite the fact that its bayous were barely navigable. Today you can try to buy land near the Texas Medical Center at $10 million per acre, and Houston is the largest port in the country in terms of foreign tonnage.

I would suggest three such goals for Houston:

* To be the destination city for companies and entrepreneurs because of the quality of the workforce.
* To be the destination city for individuals and their families because of the quality of life.
* To remain the world capital of energy, however that industry may evolve.

Achievement through partnerships

What will it take to achieve these? In each area, the universities of our city are likely to make essential contributions. Let me begin with the last, for it is here that a newer partnership of the city, energy companies and the universities will be critical. The future of energy depends first and foremost on research that will discover new sources of energy, new ways to make current energy processes and technologies more efficient and new ways to more efficiently transmit energy.

My late Rice colleague, Nobel Prize winner Richard Smalley, saw in nanotechnology the future of energy, and particularly in the efficient transmission of energy through carbon nanotube wires. If we are to succeed in retaining Houston’s pre-eminent position in this arena, we must invest in such research here in Houston. The lesson of Silicon Valley is that in research, as in real estate, location does matter. The city of Houston has served our energy industry well, and the energy industry has served Houston well. We must build that partnership and secure energy research here, in the capital of energy.

Let me turn now briefly to our other two, closely related, BHAGs for Houston. What are our challenges in making our city a destination for industry and people? Our city was built on immigration, and we have today a remarkably diverse city. That diversity is one of the reasons to have great confidence about our future: Industries will seek out that diversity, correctly seeing it as the foundation of global success.

The quality of our workforce will be the single biggest factor in whether the industries of the future will see us as a destination, and the quality of that workforce depends on education. If we do not solve our K-12 education problems, if we do not address the horrendous dropout rate of our students, if we do not inspire them and enable them to be globally competitive in math and science, we will not be a great city. Our universities are playing an important role here.

Facing challenges together

In addition to education, our community faces three other fundamental challenges to its quality of life: the environment, transportation and health care. We have ignored these problems for too long here in Houston, and much is at stake. For one thing, the energy industry of the future will be a clean industry, and a clean industry will not locate in a dirty city.

The longer you postpone addressing a problem, the more expensive, complicated and politically difficult it will be to solve. And, therefore, the more unlikely it is that you will actually solve it. Maybe that’s what Yogi Berra meant when he said, ”The future ain’t what it used to be.” In Jared Diamond’s book ”Collapse,” he outlines several failures of collective decision making that lead to the collapse of complex societies. The most frequent reason for such failure, he says, is that societies fail to solve a problem even after it has been perceived.

We know what our problems are. We know they will not go away on their own and will be even more difficult to solve if we simply wait and hope.  If we don’t act, we will be culpable as our descendants struggle with the problems of an uneducated population, a fouled environment, inadequate transportation and substandard medical care. Solving these problems is not rocket science; it is harder than rocket science. They require the full spectrum of knowledge, research and resources that a city, its industries and its universities can bring to bear.

That is why, for example, Rice professor Michael Emerson has launched the Program for the Study of Houston, which will bring together scientists and humanists, engineers and social scientists to examine some of the most pressing problems facing Houston and other metropolitan areas. That is why, every year, Rice sociologist Stephen Klineberg conducts his longitudinal study of Houston. That is why we support research on air quality and health care.

If we work together here in Houston, there is no challenge we cannot meet. Kennedy again put it best when he spoke at Rice: ”We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a state noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three.” And indeed, Houston and Rice placed critical roles in putting a man on the moon.

Recently I visited the offices of the Center for Houston’s Future, which is doing valuable work for which we should all be grateful. But the center of Houston’s future does not lie in that office: It lies with all of us who have the capacity to do something about our future. We really face only one fundamental question, and that is whether we will deal today with issues that will define Houston tomorrow; whether, as President Kennedy proclaimed, we are unwilling to postpone addressing our challenges. If each of us commits to being a force for Houston’s future, then our generation will take its place beside those bold adventurers who founded our city and those who made ”Houston” the first word uttered on the moon.