Pillar 3

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)

The ability to effectively manage diversity and inclusion is no longer a competitive advantage but an essential skill set. In this class, MBA students learn how identities shape the way we interact with the world, and how individual-, group-, organizational- and societal-level processes intertwine to shape diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at work. Discussions center on how to better navigate diverse settings, improve ability to work within and lead diverse and inclusive teams, and offer effective solutions for designing and supporting diversity efforts in organizations.

Through a mix of exercises, activities, discussions and lectures on classic and cutting-edge academic research, students:

• Define core concepts and issues relating to DEI
• Understand the interwoven challenges that individual-, group-, organizational- and societal-level processes pose to achieving workplace diversity and equity
• Gain tools for navigating within and leading diverse teams
• Learn about best practices for implementing equitable organizational norms, processes and strategies
• Reflect on and construct an action plan for their personal DEI journey

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.

Global Electives

The Global Programs and Experiential Learning Office offered an international elective to Bogota, Colombia over winter recess. Students traveled to Bogotá to work with a non-profit committed to promoting peace and sustainability in Colombia through education and entrepreneurship. Students embraced Colombian culture by sipping coffee, learning about street art, and playing soccer – all while participating in the nonprofit organization’s initiatives that help uplift vulnerable communities through economic empowerment. At the conclusion of five immersive days, students pitched their long-term financing strategy and crafted a 5-year strategic plan for the non-profit.

Additionally, students participated in international seminars including to Mexico City, Mexico and Vallendar, Germany. Three full-time MBA students participated in the exchange program where they studied abroad for a term or full semester at one of Rice Business’ partner universities in Spain.

Domestic Experiential Learning

The Washington Campus (TWC) is a non-profit, non-partisan, higher education association that promotes public policy education for current and future organizational leaders. This year, four students from the Professional MBA program participated in this learning intensive.

One Rice MBA student participated in the Center for Public Research and Leadership at Columbia University (CPRL). CPRL allows students the opportunity to engage in consulting projects focused on educational equity and transformational change in public education.

Global Field Experience

The objectives of the Global Field Experience courses are to further an appreciation of the opportunities and obstacles of doing business in different parts of the world, heighten interest in engaging in global ventures, increase sensitivity to cross-cultural issues, and broaden perspectives on challenges of dealing with global businesses. This included Full-Time MBA, MBA Professional Evening, MBA Professional Weekend and Executive MBA and MBA@Rice students traveling to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Germany and Peru. The office traveled with 500+ students in the 2022-2023 academic year.

Full Time MBA students in Medellin, Colombia

Executive MBA Students in Bogota, Colombia

Full Time MBA students in Argentina

Executive MBA students in Rio, Brazil

The Rice Master of Accounting program is a cohort-based, purposefully small, one-year program, with 30-40 students per year. The Rice MAcc prepares its graduates to earn CPA licensure and launch an accounting-based career in business.

Accounting, as an academic discipline, 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 lifelong professional growth opportunities. Indeed, the rate of Rice MAcc program graduates passing the CPA Exam on their first try is among the highest in the nation. However, public accounting firms have traditionally had a low percent of Black and Hispanic employees. In recent years, the major public accounting firms placed a high priority on increasing the diversity of their work force.

Professor Ben Lansford, director of the MAcc program and Professor in the Practice of Accounting, reports that the Class of 2023 included 47% female and 16% underrepresented minority students. Specific DEI initiatives launched within the MAcc program include:

Scholarships

Since the 2016 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:

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

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.

Online Asynchronous course now on edX for global reach and impact: Leading Workplace Diversity Professional Certificate

In collaboration with our global platform partners 2U/edX, Rice Business decided to transition its fully online executive education program entitled, “Leading Workplace Diversity” from a high cost, small cohort product to a lower cost scalable course distributed on the global online platform edX. The program was reconfigured to become a two course Leading Workplace Diversity Professional Certificate Program and now is being delivered to a global audience. The content for these courses were designed jointly by faculty members Michelle “Mikki” Hebl,  professor of psychology and management and the Martha and Henry Malcolm Lovett Professor of Psychological Sciences and Eden King, Lynette S. Autrey Professor of Psychology at Rice University. This online course is delivered on demand with the expectation to engage thousands of learners a year. This is a self-paced course and anyone may enroll at any time by visiting here. In addition, the content will be leveraged for custom delivery to clientele at large enterprises through Rice Business Executive Education.

The DEI Fireside Chat events are designed to recognize and celebrate DEI influencers who are championing efforts in their organizations, exemplary stories of DEI initiatives in the workplace and opportunities to gain insights from corporate DEI efforts. The inaugural DEI Fireside Chat launched in spring 2022, featuring Janet Pope, vice president of corporate social responsibility at CapGemini, with Professor Doug Schuler as moderator.

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Fall 2022 DEI Fireside Chat

The Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion hosted the spring 2023 fireside chat with guest David Enrique Ruiz, senior vice-president, community relations manager at Bank of America. Mr. Ruiz was joined by Dean Peter Rodriguez who served as moderator as they shared DEI insights.

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Spring 2023 DEI Fireside Chat

The Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion hosted the spring 2023 fireside chat with guest Jerry Guerrero, director of diversity, equity and inclusion at Roku. Mr. Guerrero was joined by Brad Burke, managing director of Rice Alliance, as moderator.

Hosted by the Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, this interactive virtual event provided a refresher of inclusive leadership skills for incoming Class of 2025 MBA students The session also provided an introduction of DEI-related offerings at Rice Business, including access to the Everyday Inclusion mobile app, piloted in the 2022-2023 academic year.

The Rice Business Office for DEI, Rice University Multicultural Community Relations - Office of Public Affairs coordinated to host a book signing for Carla Harris, Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley and author of “Lead To Win.”

Ms. Harris’ accolades include Fortune Magazine’s list of “The 50 Most Powerful Black Executives in Corporate America”, Fortune’s Most Influential List, U. S. Bankers Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Finance. State Senator Boris Miles office honored her with a “Carla Harris Day” proclamation! The Rice Business and Houston community alike celebrated the meaningful evening.

The Critical Dialogues on Diversity (CDOD) set of required undergraduate workshops designed to explore critical approaches to culture, identity, and dialogue fundamental to living and working at Rice and essential for taking full advantage of a Rice education. Rice Business DEI Specialist Regina Edwards served as one of the program instructors who offered as a 5-week workshop.

RISE stands for responsibility, inclusion and student empowerment and is an annual, 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 and program 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. Dean Porter participated in one of several “pop-in” panel discussions where staff, faculty and other campus leaders engage with students in critical conversations about life at the university and in Houston.

The university celebrated its fourth annual Juneteenth holiday program with the theme of leadership. Three panels of experts from Rice and other universities across the state and nation took on aspects of this larger focus. Dean Porter supported the program panel entitled "Very Ready for the Year Ahead," where panelists explored the opportunities for a more equitable higher education landscape that could define the coming year.

Very Ready for the Year Ahead Panel

Chair

• Alexander X. Byrd, Rice University ’90, Vice provost for diversity, equity and inclusion, Rice University

Speakers

• Richard Baker, Executive director of people, equity and development and university Title IX coordinator, Rice University
• Cecilia Fernández, Assistant director of diversity, equity, inclusion and outreach, George R. Brown School of Engineering, Rice University
• Constance Porter, Senior associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion and associate clinical professor of marketing, Jones School of Business, Rice University

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.  

The following efforts illustrate Lilie’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion: 

• In 2022-2023, Lilie recorded over 1,600 student enrollments in entrepreneurship courses. To support this growth, over the last three years we have added 17 new adjunct lecturers, 12 of whom are women or under-represented minorities (URM). 
• In 2022-2023 Lilie supported 29 student ventures with a cumulative $21,000 in no-strings-attached funding for their ventures through our Rice eXperiment Fund program. 85% of these ventures contained at least one founder identifying as female or URM. 
• We have had 32 guest lectures by founders or investors that identify as female or URM. 
• The Innovation Fellows program selected our second cohort this past January, including 10 Ph.D. and Post-Doc students to support the commercialization of their research from the Ken Kennedy Institute, the Institute for Biosciences and Bioengineering and the Smalley-Curl Institute. Eight of the 10 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. 
• Our FIESTA week-long festival of entrepreneurship and innovation was held for the first time in August 2022 and featured 17 out of 20 panelists and speakers identifying as female or URM. 
• Out of the 72 judges involved in the Napier Rice Launch Challenge competition, 54% identified as female, and 31% were under-represented minorities.  
• Lilie supported the Poets & Quants Best and Brightest MBAs application by Rice students, leading to the selections of Daniel Petterway and Taylor Anne Adams. 
• Lilie supported the Texas Business Hall of Fame applications of Daniel Petterway and Taylor Anne Adams, both of whom have been selected as finalists. 
• In our 2023 Napier Rice Launch Challenge new venture competition, of the five finalist teams to be on stage competing for over $100,000 in no-strings-attached funding, all five ventures had at least one woman or URM founder. The top two finishers were both led by female founders. Learn more

First Place: Goldie

Second Place: Tierra Climate

Third Place: Separion

Audience Choice Award: Sygne Solutions

Outstanding Undergraduate Award: Tidepay

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. 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 outreach to HBCUs and MSIs to promote RBPC as a place of opportunity for diverse founders and startups
• Align with HBCU business plan competitions to act as an informal “feeder” competition to the RBPC
• Through sustained and targeted outreach, increased the number of participating judges from diverse populations:
  • 2022 - 260 registered judges: 11% Black or Hispanic
  • 2023 - 351 registered judges: 13% Black or Hispanic
• Through sustained and targeted outreach, increased the number of participating judges who are women
  • 2022 - 260 registered judges: 31% women
  • 2023 - 351 registered judges: 37% women
• Serve as the final “project” for the Eagle Investors program, which engages underrepresented students with the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Students are put through a year-long curriculum that culminates in participation at the annual Rice Business Plan Competition. At the RBPC the students serve as special prize judges, applying what they learned about innovation, entrepreneurship and investing to select a startup to award a cash prize.

Additional Events

For the second consecutive year, Regina Edwards, DEI Specialist, facilitated a Gender Identity Workshop for the staff DEI Committee at the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies.

Topics addressed included:

• Transgender Allyship
• Gender and Gender Identity