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August 25, 2006 > News > Board approves two new colleges

Board approves two new colleges

Alumni couple’s $32 million gift largest in Rice’s history

By David Brown | Thresher Editorial Staff

At its May meeting, the Board of Trustees approved a $140.5 million budget to build two new colleges and a connecting servery on the north side of campus. A $32 million donation, the largest in Rice’s history, will be used to help finance what will be Rice’s largest-ever boarding expansion.

Longtime Rice donors Burt McMurtry (‘56) and his wife Deedee (‘56), whose gift President David Leebron announced June 15, pledged part of the sum to a new long-term operating and maintenance fund for the residential college system. In recognition, Rice will name one of the new colleges “Burt and Deedee McMurtry College.”

Senior Project Manager Eleni Barzouka said McMurtry College will be built on the field south of Jones College and west of the O’Connor House. The other college will be west of Martel College and partly occupy what is now the Abercrombie Parking Lot. A servery, to be located where there is currently a basketball and tennis court, will connect the colleges. Each college will house 325 students, about 80 more than Brown College, currently the largest of the nine.

The donation

Burt McMurtry, a venture capitalist who co-founded several early Silicon Valley partnerships, said the gift is partly devoted to the colleges because that is what Leebron and the board said Rice needed most.

“It was very clear that to accomplish some of the near and intermediate term goals they have for Rice, getting a couple new colleges in place is very important,” he said. “Student housing in general is often a fairly hard thing to finance.”

Deedee McMurtry said the couple likes to fund education and housing, and that this donation encompasses both.

“We feel very strongly that Rice is a very worthy institution and gives a great education to lots and lots of people from different walks of life,” she said.

Rice has yet to announce a donor for the other college but is planning to build the two simultaneously beginning in July 2007, with the goal of completion before the fall 2009 semester, Barzouka, who will represent Rice to the architect, said.

The expansion is part of Leebron’s goal to increase undergraduate enrollment by 30 percent, as laid out in his Vision for the Second Century. The V2C calls for the expansion of south colleges to accommodate the remaining 350 beds needed to complete the expansion and increase the number of students guaranteed on-campus housing from 71 to 80 percent.

Leebron considered building both new colleges in the north after gathering student opinion in the Call to Conversation last fall.

“I think it will create an environment that is overall much more positive,” Leebron said. “It will create a village of colleges up in the north that is more defined than it has been in the past.”

The McMurtrys have previously given smaller donations that will also go towards the residential college fund. Burt McMurtry said the couple did not stipulate how to spend the remainder of their gift. He said Leebron’s V2C influenced the couple’s donation and their decision to let Rice plan how to spend it.

“We are very positive about [Leebron’s] leadership and the rest of what is going on,” Burt McMurtry said. “We are very pleased he engaged in this Call to Conversation, and we’re highly supportive of the objectives that have come out of that.”

The McMurtrys met at Lamar High School in Houston and began dating while at Rice. Burt was Student Council president while Deedee was vice president. Although the couple graduated a year before the beginning of the college system, Burt was the student representative on a university committee that helped plan the college system.

The colleges

Leebron and the Housing Steering Committee chose to present the north colleges plan to the board over several other possible arrangements, some of which included a new college on the former site of Wiess College that would attach to the north end of the Hanszen/Wiess servery.

Leebron said the possibility of building a 12th college in that space is remote.

“One of the good things about [deciding to build two north colleges] is that it keeps open the possibility that we might decide that that’s a better space for an academic building,” Leebron said. “If we build those two colleges in the north, any further college building is so far down the list of priorities.”

While Leebron said a 12th college is unlikely in the near future, he does want to look into student interest in off-campus university housing.

Leebron said loss of parking will not constrain construction.

“Some people may have to walk a little further to their parking space,” Leebron said. “We’ll have to figure out what to do about the parking, but … moving around that piece of parking doesn’t concern me.”

Barzouka said the Parking Committee has commissioned a consultant to study the long-term parking situation.

Designs for the new colleges are still months from completion, as the board has not yet selected an architect. Barzouka said depending on when builders break ground, she may direct them to speed construction in order to finish by fall 2009.

Barzouka said some goals for the colleges have been outlined. They will likely be four stories tall in most wings, 36 percent of their rooms will be singles and hallways will be inside, she said.

“It was a consensus from the student housing survey that [interior hallways] promote more community,” Barzouka said. “And it’s more economical.”

Barzouka said the Board also approved making the buildings LEED certified. LEED certification signifies that a building meets specific sustainability criteria. Leebron said he would like to consider LEED certification for every new Rice building in the future.

“This issue’s just much more important now,” Leebron said. “That doesn’t mean we will do it without regards to whatever the cost is, but I think to start with that is a pretty high priority in terms of the message we want to be sending.”

The LEED green building rating system is designed to promote design and construction practices that reduce negative environmental impacts. Barzouka said planners will try to earn points for the certification with mechanisms that will yield long-term savings on energy, such as power-saving devices for lights.

End of article

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