Dear Rice community,
I’m pleased to announce that Alex Byrd ’90 has been reappointed as the vice provost for access and institutional excellence and is serving his second term. Alex is the first person to serve in the position, which has significantly advanced access and inclusion work on campus.
The AIE Office supports student engagement, aspects of the undergraduate curriculum and components of the faculty hiring process. To expand its services, the office has added two residential positions: one is a generalist student engagement position, and the other focuses on LGBTQ+ thriving. Both directly support students from small campus populations and lead educational programming for the whole campus. An assistant director of religious diversity and pluralism has recently joined Alex’s team, and the office has added support for nontraditional students, including transfer students.
To ease the transition of incoming students from high school to college, AIE annually invites 20 newly admitted students from the fields of architecture, business, social sciences and humanities to participate in RISE (Responsibility, Inclusion, and Social Empowerment), a two-week, immersive summer program. Participating students continue to receive support through a semesterlong fall seminar, a series of spring workshops and collaborating throughout their sophomore year. The first cohort of RISE students graduated in May 2025.
Additionally, at the convergence of curriculum and student life, the office has developed Dialogues on Community at Rice. The five-week orientation workshop for new undergraduate students “examines matters of culture, identity, community, collaboration and dialogue fundamental to living, learning and working at the university, and for taking full advantage of a Rice education.” Analyzing Diversity courses, which are a graduation requirement, explore how difference is understood across human societies, how those understandings have changed, and the consequences of those understandings for human development, flourishing and knowledge. The office has awarded course development grants to expand Analyzing Diversity course offerings. More than 100 Analyzing Diversity courses have been approved, with about 50 offered per semester. The office regularly hosts events — panel discussions, visiting speakers, workshops and student reading groups — on freedom of expression and university life.
In cooperation with the school deans and the Office of the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, AIE deployed additional support to attract the widest possible pools of excellent candidates for tenure-track faculty searches. A data analyst has fostered a deeper understanding of faculty and student life across campus to inform the university’s strategy. Recently, AIE organized an internal conference, “Faculty Search: Insights and Innovation,” where Rice school, institute and department leaders shared innovative approaches they’ve used and the lessons those searches may hold for the university more broadly.
In the longer horizon, Rice’s longstanding Mellon Mays Undergraduate Research Fellowship is committed to broadening the range of scholarly perspectives in the U.S. academy. In one year alone, four of the program’s six graduating seniors applied to Ph.D. programs in the humanities and social sciences and all were admitted to some of the most competitive programs in their respective disciplines — Yale, Brown, University of California, Berkeley and University of Southern California. The office also offers a postdoctoral program, the Emerging Leaders Postdoctoral Fellowship, with similar goals to the undergraduate fellowship.
In collaboration with other campus units, the office has created remarkably impactful heritage months, such as Black History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month, that bring students, faculty and staff together. The Multicultural Center serves as a hub for student engagement activities and, in 2025, hosted nearly 400 events.
While most of its work supports faculty and students, the AIE Office provides counsel to Rice’s first official staff Employee Resource Groups, in collaboration with Human Resources and the Office of Equal Opportunity Services. The university presently hosts three employee groups where employees can connect around shared characteristics, interests and experiences.
Please join me in congratulating Alex for the progress he has already made and supporting his leadership in moving Rice forward.
Warm regards,
Amy Dittmar, Howard R. Hughes Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs