Rice Athletics to host 5th annual Student Leadership Conference Friday

MEDIA ADVISORY

David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu

Rice Athletics to host 5th annual Student Leadership Conference Friday

HOUSTON – (May 11, 2017) – Rice University’s Athletics Department and Rice faculty, students and staff will host 600 students from IDEA Public Schools’ charter schools May 12 for the fifth annual Student Leadership Conference from 1:30 to 6:30 p.m. The schools are based in the Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. The conference will culminate with students attending the Rice-Middle Tennessee State University baseball game in the evening.

Students from IDEA Public Schools are predominantly 85 percent Hispanic and first-generation students who would like to attend college in the future.

During the first part of the day, students will hear from various speakers from different walks of life and learn about college opportunities. Students will then attend breakout sessions hosted by Rice University faculty, staff and students.

The conference is open to the news media. The full agenda is as follows:

1-1:30 p.m.:                Students arrive and register at Reckling Park.

1:35-1:40 p.m.:          Welcome from Tanner Gardner, senior associate athletics director.

1:40-1:55 p.m.:          Speaker 1: Michael Kidd, current Rice student from the Rio Grande Valley.

2-2:15 p.m.:                Speaker 2: Jaime Rodriguez, Tapia Center.

2:20-2:35 p.m.:          Speaker 3: Paul Negrete, senior assistant director, Office of Financial Aid at Rice.

2:35-3 p.m.:                Students head to Rice classrooms.

From 3 to 5:50 p.m., students will break out into groups and spend 15 minutes at each of the following stations before heading back to Reckling Park for the baseball game, which begins at 6:30 p.m.

Station 1:         Creating a self-brand — Dell Butcher Hall, Room 180.                           Rick Schell, senior lecturer of management, Jones Graduate School of Business.

Station 2:         How to set your goals — Keith-Wiess Geological Building, Room 100.
Tom Stallings, professor in the practice of sport management.

Station 3:         Social media awareness — Herman Brown Hall, Room 227.
Lizzie Haldane, director of branding, Rice Athletics.

Station 4:         STEM Activity — Ryon Engineering Lab, Room 201.
Carrie Obenland Owens and Carolina Avendano, Rice Office of STEM Engagement.

Station 5:         Student life at Rice University — Mechanical Engineering Building, Room 128.
                        Rice student Michael Kidd.        

Station 6:         Optical science and optical engineering activity — Keck Hall, Room 100.
Ben Clark and Professor Guru Naik, Rice University Optical Society of America.

Station 7:         Tour of Fondren Library and Academic Quad.

Station 8:         15-minute break in Rice Memorial Center.

News media who plan to attend should contact Shu Muthyala, Rice Athletics, at shu@rice.edu or 734-740-6604.

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This media advisory can be found online at news.rice.edu.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,879 undergraduates and 2,861 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for happiest students and for lots of race/class interaction by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. To read “What they’re saying about Rice,” go to http://tinyurl.com/RiceUniversityoverview.