Parker sets her priorities
New mayor, a Rice alum, welcomes university involvement in Houston’s growth

BY MIKE WILLIAMS
Rice News staff

Annise Parker ’78 wears her heart on her sleeve when it comes to Rice University, and that becomes immediately clear when you walk into her City Hall office.

The new mayor of Houston has done a bit of redecorating. Her Rice diploma is placed behind her desk, centered, where nobody could possibly miss the connection.

	TOMMY LAVERGNE
	Alumna Annise Parker ’78 — the new mayor of Houston — has done a bit of redecorating. Her Rice diploma is placed behind her desk, centered, where nobody could possibly miss the connection.

Parker, a Jones College alumna, conveyed to the world what Rice meant to her on election night when she slyly told her supporters how proud she was to become the “first (dramatic pause), the very first graduate of Rice University to be mayor of Houston.”

The quip was both funny and poignant. As the first openly gay mayor of a major American city, she recognized the importance of alluding to her breakthrough without making an issue of her status, the same way she ran her campaign.

Two weeks and two days into her two-year term, Parker took a few minutes to talk to Rice about the role the university has played in her life and how Rice students and faculty may factor into her agenda for the city.

At Rice, Parker rarely worked off-campus, though a class assignment in criminology with the Houston police led to many years as a community volunteer with the department.

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But she welcomes the Vision for the Second Century and its goal for the Rice community to find more ways to engage with the city.

“I’m appreciative that President (David) Leebron is encouraging students to get out from behind the hedges and explore the city on their own,” she said. “But as there are opportunities for collaboration on pressing city issues, particularly in environmental areas, energy usage, city facilities – things like that, where there’s a certain amount of expertise at Rice – it’s an opportunity for graduate and undergraduate students to sink their teeth into a real-world problem and also help the city of Houston, and I’m looking for ways to do that.

“As a city official here over the last 12 years, I personally have used the services of Leadership Rice interns and was very appreciative of that program. But to have more direct academic attention on some of the issues facing the city would be extremely helpful.”

She made note of the Houston Area Survey masterminded by one of her early professors, Stephen Klineberg, as a valuable resource, as well as off-campus initiatives by Rice students who help out in Houston schools, build homes through Habitat for Humanity, clean up beaches and bayous and volunteer in dozens of other ways through the Community Involvement Center.

“I know the city’s already working with schools of architecture (including Rice’s and the University of Houston’s) on opportunities for innovations in housing,” she said. “We spend a lot of money … trying to put affordable housing back into the inner city of Houston as development pressures increase there.”

Parker will look to Rice expertise for ideas on flooding and drainage issues that are paramount in Houston, as well as air-quality standards. “We face tremendous challenges in air quality, as any major metropolitan area does, but we’ve been a non-attainment area in certain sectors for years now and with potentially increased air standards we’re going to have some serious challenges to meet. … It’s another opportunity for collaboration and sharing of information.”

Though her career as an activist (a term she gladly accepts) certainly began at Rice, where she founded the Gay and Lesbian Support Group, she admits having strayed from her academic roots.

“I didn’t ever work in any field that utilized what I had studied directly at Rice,” Parker said. “I was a triple major in the social sciences (psychology, sociology and anthropology) and went to work in the oil and gas industry. But the ability to articulate ideas verbally and to write effectively is extremely helpful.”

That training has helped her flourish during 12 years in city government, where she first served three terms on Houston’s City Council, then three as city controller. “I would hate to have taken on this job (as mayor) without the on-the-job training,” she said, comparing the learning curve to “drinking water from a fire hose.”

“It’s pushing and stretching me over these last two weeks in a good way, and I have enjoyed it, but I have a lot of balls in the air right now, and there are a lot of challenges.”

Look for more of the Parker interview in the spring issue of Rice Magazine.