$20 million donated to School of Humanities

By Nathan Black | Thresher Editorial Staff

The largest-ever individual donation to Rice, $20 million, will fund four endowed professorships in the School of Humanities. Two of them will be in the philosophy department, and the remaining two positions have not been allotted to specific departments but will relate to the Americas, Dean of Humanities Gary Wihl said.

President David Leebron said the decision about how to allocate the gift was made in conjunction with the donor.

“One of the things that excited both us and the Dean of the School of Humanities was the fact that the donor’s ambition for that gift fit so well into our plans for the university,” Leebron said.

The anonymous donation was announced Dec. 6. The donor wrote in an e-mail that he or she is a former Rice English major who has previously given to the School of Humanities.

Philosophy Department Chair Steven Crowell said allotting two of the positions to his department makes sense.

“Philosophy departments are smaller than other departments and cheaper to enhance,” Crowell said. “You can really do something with two positions in a philosophy department that you wouldn’t be able to do in a bigger department like history or English.”

Crowell said the new positions will be designed to improve graduate education in philosophy.

“Perhaps the only way of increasing the quality of the graduate student pool is to increase the quality of the faculty,” Crowell said.

However, Crowell said the department, in the preliminary stages of the hiring process, will focus on candidates’ teaching ability in addition to their scholarship.

“Rice’s culture is one in which teaching is valued, and we fully expect this person to be part of that,” he said.

Wihl said an improved philosophy department will benefit the Humanities school as a whole.

“Universities are structured around departments, … but the cultural and intellectual life of the university is much more fluid than that,” Wihl said. “Faculty here teach across departments. My plan is to start with the areas of greatest opportunity … but the idea is to build the whole school up, from top to bottom. You have to build incrementally from strength to strength, and one strength begins to pull up other areas.”

Leebron said the gift makes a statement about humanities at Rice.

“It signals to ourselves and others: This is who we are,” Leebron said. “We are not a science and engineering institute. We take pride in our science and engineering, … but we have excellence across a lot of different things.”

Leebron said Rice’s holistic orientation gives the university an advantage over its competitors.

“A lot of our students double major, and I have some qualms about that, but one of the things that attracts people to Rice is flexibility in their education,” he said. “Why do people choose Rice over Caltech, [and why do] some even choose Rice over MIT? I think the sense is that both intellectually and socially, they see this as a healthier, more diverse environment.”

The gift is part of a two-year-old School of Humanities capital campaign, which aims to raise $80 million.

The campaign calls for eight professorships — four of which were endowed by this gift — and additional funding for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as more funding for the Center for the Study of Cultures, the Campbell Lecture Series and partnerships with Houston museums, Wihl said.

About $25 million has been raised so far, including the $20 million gift, Assistant Vice President for Development Carolyn Warszawski said. Wihl said he hopes $55-60 million will have been raised when his tenure as dean ends in 2009.

Crowell said the humanities school has the potential to soon be nationally recognized as a top-tier school.

“There’s a lot of action going on in science and engineering, but the humanities over the last 20 years … have attracted incredibly diverse and active faculty,” Crowell said. “They teach an enormous number of students, and the school’s graduate programs are by many measures exceeding those of other divisions in the university. … I’m hoping that many core departments will [reach] the top 10 or top 15 departments for graduate studies in the U.S.”

Wihl said graduate programs have the greatest room for improvement, but that improving the undergraduate program is also a priority.

“We want to attract the highest-caliber humanities majors at the same time,” Wihl said. “It’s all part of one vision.”

Crowell said improving graduate programs will have a trickle-down effect.

“I hope [in the future] we’re drawing from the very top level of graduate student applicants out there,” Crowell said. “And then undergraduates [would] come here because they know there are top-notch researchers. I would really like to have Rice known as a place undergraduates want to go for humanities.”

Amber Obermeyer contributed to this report.

January 20, 2006

The Student Newspaper of Rice University

$20 million donated to School of Humanities

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