Rice U. students to host events examining refugee, Latino issues

Rice University
Office of Public Affairs / News & Media Relations

MEDIA ADVISORY

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

Amy McCaig
amym@rice.edu
713-348-6777

Rice U. students to host events examining refugee, Latino issues

HOUSTON – (April 11, 2018) – Rice University students enrolled in two sociology courses will host two events about refugee and Latino issues April 12 at 7 p.m. on the Rice campus. The refugee panel will be held in Keck Hall, Room 102, and the Latino event will be held at Farnsworth Pavilion in Rice Memorial Center.

Who:              Rice sociology students working with the Partnership for Advancement and Immersion of Refugees.

What:             “Understanding Refugee Issues” panel.

When:            7 p.m., April 12.

Where:           Keck Hall, Room 102, on the Rice campus, 6100 Main St.

The event will feature four speakers who are involved in the refugee resettlement process: Adam Babiker, a refugee from Darfur and CEO of Darfurian Association of Greater Houston; Rice alumnus Yan Digilov, chief strategist of Firestarter Group; Elena Korbut, community engagement coordinator at Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston; and Rice alumna Gislaine Williams, a grassroots organizer at Refugee Council USA.

The panel will explore the refugee admission process in the United States and the experience of refugees and will discuss the current political climate and the effect recent policy shifts have had on the refugee admission and resettlement processes.

Who:              Rice University sociology students, Rice’s Office of Multicultural Affairs and members of the Hispanic Association for Cultural Enrichment at Rice.

What:             “The Latinx Experience: Discussion and Celebration.”

When:            7 p.m., April 12.

Where:           Farnsworth Pavilion in Rice Memorial Center, 6100 Main St.

The event will include speeches by Rice alumna Marisa Bono, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg’s chief of policy; Rice alumna Lilibeth Mata, a reliability analyst at NASA; and Richard Tapia, University Professor and the Maxfield-Oshman Professor of Computational and Applied Mathematics at Rice. It will also recognize community partners that work in close contact with Houston’s Latino population and exhibitions of student art. The event will close with a performance by Rice’s Mariachi Luna Llena.

Food will be served at both events, which are free and open to the public. For more information, contact Amy McCaig, senior media relations specialist at Rice, at 713-348-6777 or amym@rice.edu.

For a map of Rice University’s campus, go to http://www.rice.edu/maps/maps.html.

-30-

This news release can be found online at news.rice.edu.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations on Twitter @RiceUNews.

Photo link: http://news.rice.edu/files/2018/04/mic-1ogvg61.jpg

Photo credit: http://www.123rf.com/

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 3,970 undergraduates and 2,934 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for quality of life and for lots of race/class interaction and No. 2 for happiest students 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.