At Rice, our richly diverse community is deeply grounded in a culture of care, compassion and understanding. This offers an ideal environment for reflection and dialogue surrounding complex issues.
Rice Reflects is an initiative of the Office of the Provost to highlight opportunities for students, faculty and staff to have constructive conversations across differences, informed by scholarly expertise from within and outside the Rice community. The events and educational offerings address ideological, political, religious, cultural and other differences.
Rice Reflects builds on the Conversations on the Middle East offered for students last spring, with a wider audience and a broader focus.
Please check back periodically for new Rice Reflects events added throughout the academic year.
Signature Spring Event
Sandy Tolan, author of international bestseller The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East and professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, will speak about tragedy and conflict in Israel and Palestine and share some reflections on reconciliation at 5:30 p.m. Monday, March 10 in the McMurtry Auditorium of Duncan Hall.
After Gaza: Free Speech and the Power to Imagine a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine
Gaza is devastated: 47,000 Palestinians killed; more than a million internally displaced; homes, schools, hospitals reduced to rubble. Israel remains a nation traumatized in the long aftermath of the Hamas attacks that killed an estimated 1,200 Israelis. Against this backdrop it seems impossible to imagine a just peace between the two peoples. But is it, really? And how do new edicts on free expression threaten open dialogue? How, in the face of these restrictions, can we continue to explain the roots of the conflict, to document the facts on the ground and to imagine powerful, creative new solutions?
An audience Q&A and reception will follow. Please RSVP here by March 3.
Upcoming Events
Practical Civics Workshops
The Rice Faculty Senate has organized three upcoming panels on practical civics meant to equip the Rice community – faculty, students, and staff – with practical ways to get more involved at institutional, local, state, and federal levels. These panels are not envisioned to be academic analyses of politics, but to be focused on raising awareness of the nuts and bolts of how individuals might navigate civics in impactful ways. All of the workshops will be held at noon in the Kyle Morrow room on the third floor of the Fondren Library.
Local, State and Federal Government
Thurs., Feb. 13
Panelists: Director of State Government Relations Joel Resendez, Senior Director of Government Relations Nathan Cook, Director of University Relations Greg Marshall and Nina Wallach, a sophomore studying social policy analysis
Moderated by Faculty Senate Speaker April DeConick, the Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of Biblical Studies
Please RSVP here.
Civic Engagement
Mon., March 10
Panelists: Executive Director of the Center for Civic Leadership Danika Brown, Director of University Relations Greg Marshall, Vice President and General Counsel Omar Syed and Social Policy Analysis Director Steven Perry
Moderated by Faculty Senate Speaker April DeConick, the Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of Biblical Studies
Please RSVP by March 5 here.
Voting and Political Activities
Tues., April 1
Panelists: Associate Director for the Center for Civic Leadership Veronica Reyna, Director of University Relations Greg Marshall, Professor of Political Science Melissa Marschall and Senior Director of Government Relations Nathan Cook
Moderated by Faculty Senate Executive Committee member Shelly Harvey, professor of mathematics
Please RSVP by March 28 here.
2024 Events
Antisemitism
In September, Naomi Greenspan, director of improving the Campus Climate Initiative at the Academic Engagement Network, led a voluntary, half-day workshop on “Jewish Inclusion and Effective Responses to Antisemitism in the Context of Academic Freedom and Free Speech” for university leaders, faculty and staff from the Offices of the Dean of Undergraduates, Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Election 2024 Playbook
As the nation prepared to elect its next president, Rice and the Baker Institute for Public Policy launched a new initiative – the Election 2024 Policy Playbook – to build a more informed, productive discourse. The Policy Playbook presented context, data, and expert perspectives from the institute’s world-class faculty on the most pressing issues of the day: border policy, energy security, AI and emerging tech, economic policy, and national security.
Flexible Morals: A Key Reason American Voters Support Divisive Misinformation
Minjae Kim, assistant professor of organizational behavior and sociology, shared a fresh perspective on misinformation and its role in American politics during the Rice Business Partners’ Faculty Roundtable Luncheon on Oct. 23. His research found that American voters from both major political parties sometimes support misinformation knowingly. Surveys reveal that both Democratic and Republican voters recognize some misinformation as factually incorrect yet still endorse it based on their moral flexibility, highlighting that addressing misinformation may require not just fact-checking but also the moral framing of information in contemporary politics.
Free Expression
In Spring 2023, PEN America, a national nonprofit organization that works to protect free expression worldwide, led a “Campus for All” seminar focused on issues at the intersection of free expression and inclusion on university campuses. The Office of Diversity Equity and Inclusion hosted the seminar.
This January, PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel held a small-group student discussion about the ideas in her book “Dare to Speak." The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is hosting related programming throughout the academic year.
Houston Histories
The Glasscock School of Continuing Studies offered a community course this fall developed and taught by University Historian Portia Hopkins, who highlighted and celebrated Houston’s multiple, interwoven histories and diverse communities. The course featured visits from community guests and a Saturday “Houston on the Go” bus tour of downtown, the Eldorado Ballroom, the League of United Latin American Citizens Clubhouse and Chinatown.
Humanities Innovations: Historical Perspectives
In October, the School of Humanities hosted “Historical Perspectives on the 2024 Presidential Election,” a conversation featuring Douglas Brinkley, the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Professor of Humanities in the Department of History, CNN presidential historian and Grammy Award winner; and W. Caleb McDaniel, the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Humanities, professor of history, and Pulitzer Prize winner.
Lifelong Civic Leadership Forum: Putting People Back in Democracy
In September, the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies, the Center for Civic Leadership, and community organizations hosted a free, nonpartisan event geared toward putting people back into democracy and putting democracy in action by equipping participants to practice lifelong civic engagement that is far deeper and more powerful than only engaging around elections.
Religious diversity at Rice
Elaine Howard Ecklund, Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences, professor of sociology, and director of the Boniuk Institute, and Kerby Goff, associate director of research for the Boniuk Institute, presented results from a recent survey on student religiosity, perceptions of religious discrimination and needs for religious accommodation and religious tolerance at Rice. This event was the first in the Rice Reflects series.
World Religions and Conflict
The Jewish Studies Department hosted “Disentangling the Multiple Claims over Israel/Palestine” featuring Ilan Troen, professor emeritus of the Sam and Anna Lopin Chair of Modern History at Ben-Gurion University, founding director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University and founding academic director of the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism.