Pillar 3 (2022)
Curriculum and Programs
We are committed to expanding the number of curricular and co-curricular learning experiences that teach our students how to lead in a business world that increasingly seeks to elevate and leverage diversity, equity and inclusion for enhanced business performance. We also are committed to delivering and supporting programs that educate and inform not only stakeholders within the Rice Business community but also the many stakeholders of the communities within and surrounding Rice University.
Senior Associate Dean of Degree Programs Barbara Bennett Ostdiek shares how our school is investing in expanding the DEI-related content in our curriculum.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Lab
This course gives students the opportunity to apply their MBA learnings to address an opportunity or challenge in the diversity, equity and inclusion space faced by a client organization. Clients represent a variety of industries and will challenge their student-managed teams to address a focused, high-priority DEI-related business issue. The lab is project-centric and student-driven, with regular check-in meetings with the team’s assigned coach and the full class.
“The initial pilot of the Rice MBA DEI lab had three projects for three different organizations, and one was a nonprofit. The students enjoyed working on the real-world challenges and had impactful recommendations, some of which have already been implemented at the client organizations. The students were excited, engaged and applied their MBA learning as well as concepts during our class time.” Pranika Uppal Sinha (‘04)
Global Programs and Experiential Learning
The Global Programs and Experiential Learning Office offers a full portfolio of externally-focused applied learning courses that allow all MBA students to work on business challenges with domestic and international corporate and small business partners, not-for-profit organizations and startups.
Class of 2022 Global Electives
The Global Programs and Experiential Learning Office offered seven international electives between in October 2021 and January 2022 in Costa Rica, Panama, Spain and Chile with no program fee.
Global Field Experience
With great excitement, things returned ‘back to normal’ for the Class of 2023 and the Class of 2022 Executive MBA students. These students had the opportunity to experience a travel component to their core Global Field Experience class. This included Full-Time MBA, MBA Professional Evening, MBA Professional Weekend and Executive MBA and MBA@Rice students to Peru, Spain, Germany and Portugal. The office traveled with 800+ students in the 2021-2022 academic year.
International Alumni Programming
As part of the larger New Alumni Programs led by the alumni office, the Global Programs and Experiential Learning Office offered international alumni programs free-of-cost to the Classes of 2020 and 2021 who were unable to travel for their Global Field Experience during the pandemic. Over 150+ alumni will take advantage of these opportunities.
The Rice Master of Accounting (MAcc) Program
The Rice Master of Accounting program is a cohort-based, purposefully small, one-year program, with about 35 students per year, which prepares students to become educationally qualified to sit for the CPA Exam.
Accounting, as a major, and public accounting, as a career, have long been attractive options for first-generation college students, offering high returns on investment in the form of secure employment and professional opportunities. Indeed, the rate of our own MAcc program graduates passing the CPA Exam on their first try is among the very highest in the nation. However, the public accounting industry traditionally has had a low percent of Black and Hispanic employees. With some audit clients demanding change, many major accounting firms have been motivated recently to increase diversity among their employees.
Professor Ben Lansford, director of the MAcc program and professor in the practice of accounting, is leading the charge to elevate diversity, equity and inclusion in the MAcc program, reporting that the Class of 2022 included 45% female and 23% underrepresented minority students. Specific DEI initiatives launched within the MAcc program include:
Scholarships
Since the 2013 re-launch of the MAcc program, the program has offered merit-based scholarships to attract diverse, top talent to the program, averaging about 2.5 full-tuition scholarships, per cohort, for Black and Hispanic students. Recent scholarship recipients and graduates include:
MAcc Scholarships
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DeJhane Davis is from Chicago, a 2021 graduate of Alabama A&M University, an HBCU. A full-tuition scholarship enabled her to choose to attend Rice’s MAcc program over the program at the University of Houston. She accepted an audit job in the Chicago office of BKD, a large public accounting firm.
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Alejandra Maldonado is from Brownsville, Texas, and a 2021 graduate of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (a Hispanic-serving institution). A full-tuition scholarship enabled her to choose to attend Rice instead of staying another year at UT Rio Grande Valley. She accepted a job with PwC in Houston in the Capital Markets and Accounting Advisory Services group.
Mentoring Program
A formal mentoring program is offered to all incoming MAcc students, where they have the opportunity to be matched with a recent MAcc alum. End-of-program surveys show this mentorship program has been especially helpful for first-generation students and minority students.
Student Volunteering
MAcc students’ volunteer work includes efforts to boost awareness of accounting as an academic and career option among high school and elementary school students, many of whom are Hispanic and Black:
MAcc Student Volunteering
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In March 2022, one of our current students, Alex Singleton, organized an event that he and other MAcc students will lead at Heights High School, whose students are 79% Hispanic and 11% Black. The MAcc students talked to high school students, who expressed interest in accounting, about the careers in public accounting and the benefits of earning your CPA license.
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For two years, we sponsored a program to teach basic business skills to elementary school students (e.g. Lemonade Day program) at Golfcrest Elementary School, a school whose students are 93% Hispanic.
Executive Education
Brent Smith, senior associate dean for Executive Education and Michael Koenig, associate dean for Innovation Initiatives and executive director of Executive Education led the effort to infuse diversity, equity and inclusion into Rice Business Executive Education offerings.
Executive Education Open-Enrollment Programs
Over the last year, content on diversity, equity and inclusion has been integrated into all open-enrollment leadership programs. This content figures prominently in both Week 1 and Week 2 of the Rice Advanced Management Program (RAMP) and in the Leadership Accelerator and Management Incubator. In all three open-enrollment programs, topics include implicit bias, interpersonal discrimination, stereotype threat as well as the associated effects on promotion, hiring and team dynamics. In RAMP, inclusion is discussed as an example of how to build organizational culture.
Executive Leadership and Management Program: Leading Workplace Diversity
Rice Business offers a fully online executive education program entitled, “Leading Workplace Diversity.” Content for the course was designed jointly by Dr. Mikki Hebl, professor of psychology and management and the Martha and Henry Malcolm Lovett Professor of Psychological Sciences, and Dr. Eden King, Lynette S. Autrey Professor of Psychology at Rice University. This online course is delivered three times a year and has about 60 paid participants per year. In the future, the content will be leveraged for learning and development opportunities across Rice University.
Inaugural DEI Fireside Chat
The inaugural DEI Fireside Chat event is designed to recognize and celebrate DEI influencers who are championing efforts in their organizations, showcase exemplary stories of DEI initiatives in the workplace and provide opportunities to gain insights from corporate DEI efforts. Janet Pope, vice president of corporate social responsibility at CapGemini, served as the inaugural speaker with Professor Doug Schuler as moderator. Going forward, the event is planned for twice a year.
John R. Lewis Racial Justice Case Competition
The John R. Lewis Black America Case Competition is student-run and seeks to connect business students and corporations in an effort to create innovative and actionable racial justice initiatives for the competition sponsors. Rice Business was a 2022 John R. Lewis Case Competition University Partner and hosted the semifinal round.
This is the first competition of its kind: one that focuses specifically on the intersection of racial inequality and business. By bringing current business leaders and top graduate and undergraduate students together, the JLCC goes beyond short-term solutions and brings lasting, value-creating change.
Goals:
- Educate business students around the country, our future business leaders, on the role business has played in perpetuating racial inequality and how they can address systemic issues through innovative and strategic thinking and the development of actionable solutions.
- Provide corporations with actionable and impactful strategies for addressing racial inequality not just as a part of CSR initiatives, but within their general operations.
Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Lilie)
The Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Lilie) is the home of everything entrepreneurship, innovation, venture capital and research commercialization for the Rice University community. Our mission is to equip Rice students with both entrepreneurial skills and the entrepreneurial mindset to prepare them to be entrepreneurs and innovators in whatever industry they choose, be it a technology startup, civic group, nonprofit, small business or large corporation. The Liu Idea Lab is comprised of experiential courses, co-curricular opportunities, competitions and accelerator programs, a deep network of mentors, and an array of funding and resources to support student learning and venture creation.
At the Lilie Lab, we strongly believe that diverse founders create better ventures, and we strive to live that value in what we do daily to educate, support and encourage Rice students during their entrepreneurial journeys.
Lilie
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- In 2021-2022, Lilie recorded over 1,300 student enrollments in entrepreneurship courses. To support this growth, over the last two years we have added 14 new adjunct lecturers, 10 of whom are women or under-represented minorities (URM).
- Lilie held seven events specifically showcasing and supporting female founders (Ladies Who Launch speaker series).
- We have supported 36 student ventures with a cumulative $23,000 in no-strings-attached funding for their ventures through our Rice eXperiment Fund program. 90% of these ventures contained at least one founder identifying as female or URM.
- We have had 27 guest lectures by founders or investors that identify as female or URM.
- The Innovation Fellows program, launched in partnership with President DesRoches while he was provost in January 2022, selected nine Ph.D. students to support the commercialization of their research from the Ken Kennedy Institute, the Institute for Biosciences and Bioengineering and the Smalley-Curl Institute. All nine identify as female or URM.
- In our 2022 Napier Rice Launch Challenge new venture competition, of the six finalist teams to be on stage competing for over $75,000 in no-strings-attached funding, all six ventures had at least one woman or URM founder. There were 14 founders total across these six ventures, with 12 identifying as female or URM.
- Out of the five hires we have made to the Lilie team in the past two years, four identify as female or URM.
- Our Future Founders Summit weekend-long entrepreneurship immersion program for incoming MBA and graduate students, which occurs the weekend before LAUNCH, started two years ago and has had 40% (2021) and 52% (2022) of our attendees identify as female.
Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship
The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship (Rice Alliance) is the university’s nationally-recognized initiative devoted to the support of technology commercialization, entrepreneurship education, and the launch of technology companies. This strategic alliance between Rice Business, Brown School of Engineering and Wiess School of Natural Sciences works in collaboration with the vice provost and the Office of Research houses. Rice Alliance has several DEI-related initiatives including the Rice Business Plan Competition, IGNITE, Rice Accelerator Programs, and the Energy Technology Venture Forum.
Rice Business Plan Competition
The Rice Business Plan Competition (RBPC) gives collegiate entrepreneurs real-world experience to pitch their startups, enhance their business strategy and learn what it takes to launch a successful company. RBPC has focused on DEI related initiatives including the following:
- Increase the number of diverse energy startups participating in the 2022 RBPC through a grant structured to fund participation of under-represented founders
- Increase outreach to HBCUs and MSIs to promote RBPC as a place of opportunity for diverse founders and startups
- Increased by 5% the number of participating judges from diverse populations
- Grant funding for two energy startups led by diverse populations
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Additional Events
Rice Alliance
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The Energy Tech Venture Forum (ETVF), hosted by Rice Alliance, is the premier energy tech venture capital conference to connect energy innovators, investors, corporations, and the energy ecosystem. In partnership with Greentown Labs, ETVF seeks to increase underrepresented founders’ access to members of the clean energy industry community, via an event called Access to Success, in which five diverse energy startups pitch to investors and attendees.
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The IGNITE Trek provides entrepreneurial students with a chance to meet some of the most successful and up-and-coming entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. It is intended to increase the number of diverse students applying for, and being accepted to IGNITE, a joint program between Rice Business, the Brown School of Engineering and the Weiss School of Natural Science. Students hear the personal stories of entrepreneurs working to build their companies and learn from the successes (and failures) of the best-and-brightest that Silicon Valley has to offer. This is an intense immersion experience with company visits and entrepreneurial speakers throughout the trek. Previous site visits include Airbnb, Tesla, LendUp, and Benchmark Capital.
IGNITE has focused on DEI related initiatives including the following:
- Increase the number of diverse students applying for, and being accepted to IGNITE
- Review applications with an eye to increasing diversity in invited students.
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Rice Alliance Accelerator Programs Clean Energy Accelerator, OwlSpark and BlueLaunch recruit entrepreneurs-in-residence and mentors who are diverse in gender and ethnicity, make all accelerators open and welcoming to all participants, and increase the scope of the programs by partnering with other accelerators that focus on diversity. The program has resulted in:
- An increased number of diverse entrepreneurs-in-residence and mentors over previous years
- A partnership with DivInc, a Texas-based accelerator focused on BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) founders, to support their newly launched Clean Energy Accelerator and co-promote our programs
- Program materials to include inclusion and accessibility options
Inaugural RISE Program
RISE stands for responsibility, inclusion and student empowerment and is a new, pre-term residential program offering incoming freshmen the opportunity to explore questions of racial justice, equity and urban life. Rice Business collaborated with other cross-campus partners to offer financial support to this university-sponsored, 10-day seminar that is aimed at familiarizing first-generation, low income and/or under-represented minority students with both Rice and Houston.
Rice University’s Juneteenth Celebration
The university celebrated its second annual Juneteenth holiday program, and Senior Associate Dean Porter shared insights about “Equity in Entrepreneurship and Inclusiveness in Innovative Industries” as part of a panel chaired by Alexander Byrd, vice provost for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and associate professor of history, “On Blackness and Future Freedom.”
Task Force on Slavery, Segregation and Racial Injustice
Doc Talks Podcast: Senior Associate Dean for DEI Constance Porter offered “Reflections on Updates 1 & 2 of the Task Force on Slavery, Segregation & Racial Injustice” for Doc Talks Webinar/Podcast, sponsored by Vice Provost for DEI Alex Byrd and professor Caleb McDaniel
Life as a Technology Trailblazer and FinTech Startup Founder
Sandra K. Johnson Ph.D. (Rice U., ’88), Founder, CEO & CTO, Global Mobile Finance, Inc., shared her views on life as a technology trailblazer and fintech startup founder.
Cancel Culture: A Toxic Trend or a Tool for Accountability?
The act of “cancelling” can involve boycotting, ceasing support and/or ostracizing an individual/group. Numerous public figures have been deemed “cancelled” because of actions that were offensive to a large number of people in society. Attendees gained a better understanding of the multiple perspectives around the notion and learned new insights to reflect upon for future consideration.
