Application deadline extended for the Professional and Executive MBA. Limited spots available. Apply now.

Rice U. experts available to discuss 2019 United Nations Climate Change Summit

School Updates
Strategy and Environment
Energy
School Updates

As concerned citizens and environmental activists prepare for the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Summit in New York City Sept. 23, Rice University researchers are available to discuss various topics related to the event.

News
News
Jeff Falk

As concerned citizens and environmental activists prepare for the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Summit in New York City Sept. 23, Rice University researchers are available to discuss various topics related to the event.

Bill Arnold, professor in the practice of energy management and a former energy industry executive, is available to comment on the issues at play at the intersection of corporate interests and culture and public policy. He said as the climate debate heats up ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections, the country’s oil and gas companies want to get in front of the curve. But they may be hampered by a longstanding culture of playing defense, he added.

“The oil and gas companies want to get ahead of the curve but want to avoid claims of greenwashing, so their investments in renewables, both research and operations, are more bite-sized,” Arnold said. “Of course, that generates criticism by contrasting tens of millions of dollars of investments for renewables against hundreds of millions and billions for oil and gas. The majors have a record of falling into defensive mode when criticized, and it’s built into the DNA of many older executives. But this is being challenged by their own younger employees as well as activists.”

Jim Blackburn, professor in the practice in environmental law, can discuss understanding and planning for severe storms such as hurricanes and major rainfall events, including various structural and non-structural solutions. He can also talk about carbon footprints and the use of nature (including grasslands, saltwater wetlands and forests) to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. He can also discuss carbon neutral design as well as the role of the market system in forcing this type of design.

“The climate summit should recognize and address the huge contribution that can result from carbon dioxide removal and storage in natural ecological systems such as grasslands, marshes and forests,” Blackburn said. “These will be an important economic activity in the future as emitters seeking to become carbon neutral by 2050 begin to pay landowners for the removal and storage of their carbon footprint. This in turn could easily redefine United States agriculture in the 21st century.

“The economic, social and ecological advances required to attain the sustainable development goals are directly related to addressing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. Without controlling carbon, it will be impossible to meet the sustainable development goals of the United Nations.”

Dominic Boyer, a professor of anthropology and founding director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Science at Rice, can discuss topics related to renewable energy and energopolitics. His work on climate change topics in Iceland and the recent installation of the world’s first memorial to a fallen glacier has been the subject of significant international media attention.

“The Ok glacier memorial demonstrates how the natural sciences, human sciences and arts can work together to raise climate awareness and inspire climate action,” he said.

Dan Cohan, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, can discuss the science of climate change, U.S. emissions and policies, technologies for mitigating climate change, reducing emissions and the interaction between air pollution and climate change.

“This summit is the latest attempt to bridge the gap between the ambitions of the Paris Agreement and the reality of rising emissions,” he said. “What I’ll be looking for is how American cities, states and businesses step into the void to keep the United States relevant to the quest for climate solutions.”

Sylvia Dee, an assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences, can comment on rates and context of climate change as well as its impacts in the U.S.; CO2 forcing scenarios and “safe” warming targets; climate change and human migration, adaption and impacts; changes in the hydrological cycle including drought and extreme precipitation; and changes in hot temperatures, including 100-plus degree days.

“The international community has to move as fast as possible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and environmental degradation via any means necessary,” Dee said. “Livable temperatures, clean air, clean water and generally maintaining the habitability of our planet is not a partisan issue for any nation.”

Cymene Howe, an associate professor of anthropology, can discuss the political and social contingencies of renewable energy development as well as the social and political significance of ice in the Arctic. Her work in Iceland and the recent installation of the world’s first memorial to a fallen glacier has been the subject of significant international media attention.

“In addition to the science, we really need to understand the social and cultural impacts of climate change, because the climate crisis is a social problem just as much as it is an environmental one,” Howe said.

Caroline Masiello, a professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences, can discuss mechanisms to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and the role of technological approaches and nature-based approaches.

“Long term, we need the kinds of multi-stakeholder engagement that this summit provides,” she said. “We need this type of meeting, and more: opportunities for governments, businesses and NGOs to work together to transition to renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and resilient cities. All these stakeholders are needed to develop functional models of a habitable future for our planet.”

Rouzbeh Shahsavari, an adjunct assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, can discuss curbing CO2 emissions due to manufacturing of construction materials. Shahsavari said that concrete is the most widely used manufactured material on the planet and contributes to 5-7% of total CO2 emissions worldwide.

“I believe future building materials will come from mixing CO2 and industrial wastes such as flyash, slag and plastic wastes, etc., thereby avoiding using virgin cementitious materials and the associated CO2 emissions,” Shahsavari said. “Simply put, we’ll turn trash into treasure.”

Rice University has a VideoLink ReadyCam TV interview studio. ReadyCam is capable of transmitting broadcast-quality standard-definition and high-definition video directly to all news media organizations around the world 24/7.

To schedule an interview with any of these experts, contact Amy McCaig, senior media relations specialist at Rice, at 713-348-6777 or amym@rice.edu.


This news release can be found online at news.rice.edu

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews

Related materials:

Images for download: https://news.rice.edu/files/2019/09/26743615_l.jpg

Image credit: 123rf.com

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Tree Of Life

Why You Should Savor What Might Have Been
Organizational Behavior
Organizational Behavior
Organizational Behavior
Psychology
Peer-Reviewed Research
Self-Identity

Why you should savor who you could have been.

Tree near beach
Tree near beach

Based on research by Otilia Obodaru (former Rice Business professor)

Why You Should Savor What Might Have Been

  • The array of career options in 21st century America often leaves us “tyrannized by freedom.”
  • As a result, we often cling to identities we didn’t choose — especially when we’re unfulfilled in some aspect of our work.
  • These alternate identities can actually be useful, when we fold elements of them into our current lives, or savor them in our imaginations.

Poet Sylvia Plath once compared her seemingly limitless life choices to the boughs of a fig tree. “From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked,” she wrote in The Bell Jar. “One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor… I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest…”

We’ve all had to choose one fig over the others at some point. But the fruits not chosen may not be lost forever. They actually remain a part of our self-concepts, often with as much importance as the roles we play in real life, according to former Rice Business professor Otilia Obodaru, now a professor at the University of Bath.

The fig trees of contemporary life are especially dense, Obodaru notes in a recent paper. Never before have so many been so free to choose a public self ⁠— and discard any number of others. So what’s the best way to manage these unlived identities? Forget them? Keep pondering them?

Obodaru, who studies professional self-concepts and alternate identities, found that we typically cling to forgone identities when they’re linked to unfulfilled values. If a core goal or value has been met, the desire for the lost identity often vanishes.

According to classic theories of identity development, committing to one identity and forgetting alternatives is a requirement for a well-adjusted adulthood. Management studies use a similar lens, focusing on the professional identities people actually hold rather than those they’ve passed up.

But as early as the 1950s, studies asking what people wished they’d done differently in life found that 40 percent thought frequently about the person they might have been. That percentage has risen steadily, to 70 percent in the 1980s, 90 percent in the 1990s and virtually 100 percent in the 2000s. For some people, Obodaru writes, these forgone identities grow so powerful that they essentially become alternative selves.

In a study of the forgone professional identities of 380 people of various ages, occupations and nationalities, Obodaru found that these shadow selves were much more important in inner lives than commonly thought. Looking only at the roles we play in reality, she argues, obscures the complexity and malleability with which each of us creates a sense of self.

But what are these alternate selves up to, exactly — and what keeps them going? Obodaru identifies three main ways we maintain identities that apparently have slipped away. One approach is “real enactment”: someone who dreamed of being a musician may nevertheless nurture music – and thus her alternate self — in her work or personal life.

Another method is “imaginary enactment.” Think of a woman who daydreams about being a pop star. She’s not necessarily wasting her time, Obodaru found. Instead, her imaginings may add a critical, and joyful, element to her sense of self.

Finally, there’s “vicarious enactment”: living a life we long for through someone else, whether a high school friend who really did become a pop star or our child in her star turn as a Pilgrim in the Thanksgiving play.

What we do and who we think we are, of course, are closely twined. But, Obodaru argues, it’s time for the workplace to expand this formula to also include the selves that are less visible. For managers in particular, understanding an employee’s unfulfilled values can help to chart a career path that will keep her energized and productive.

This is especially important in a culture that promotes the notion of complete fulfillment in one job. Given that “fear of missing out,” or FOMO, was recently listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, it’s clear that alternate selves are no longer just a problem of prodigies such as Plath. Regardless of which fig you’ve chosen, however, Obodaru argues that it’s not just possible, but useful, to take nourishment from a bounty of other, alternative fruits.


Otilia Obodaru is a former assistant professor of management at Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University. Now she is a professor of management at the University of Bath. 

To learn more, please see: Obodaru, O. (2017). Forgone but not forgotten: Towards a theory of forgone professional identities, Academy of Management Journal, 60(2), 523-553.

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Rice ranks among top 20 national universities, still best in Texas

School Updates
Rankings
School Updates

Rice University continues to rank among the top 20 national universities in the newly released 2020 U.S. News & World Report ratings of the country’s best colleges, retaining its position as the highest ranked university in Texas. 

U.S. News and World Report
U.S. News and World Report
Jeff Falk

US News survey also rates Rice in top 10 list for teaching undergraduates

Rice University continues to rank among the top 20 national universities in the newly released 2020 U.S. News & World Report ratings of the country’s best colleges, retaining its position as the highest ranked university in Texas.

Rice ranks no. 17 in the annual survey of more than 300 U.S. universities that offer a full range of undergraduate majors and master’s and doctoral degrees while placing a strong emphasis on research. Rice has consistently rated in the top 20 of this closely watched report since first appearing on the list in 1988.

Rice also ranks No. 8 on the U.S. News “Best Undergraduate Teaching” list for national universities, reflecting goals outlined in President David Leebron’s Vision for the Second Century, Second Decade (V2C2).

The university is also rated one of the nation’s top 20 “Best Value Schools.” Among national universities in this category, Rice ranks 13th and it’s the only institution in Texas in the top 50.

The university’s undergraduate engineering program is lauded as one of the nation’s top 20 such programs offering doctoral degrees. Rice shares the 20th spot on the list in a tie with four other universities.

Rice also ranks among the nation’s the most innovative schools (27th), as well as ratings of institutions with the greatest economic diversity (16th) and campus ethnic diversity (29th).

U.S. News also surveyed college presidents, chief academic officers and admissions deans, asking which universities they believe have especially strong programs focusing on student success.  Rice ranked among the top 20 for providing students with a strong learning community (No. 13) and for providing students with senior capstone projects that offer culminating experiences at the end of their college careers (tied with eight other universities for No. 20).

U.S. News is the second major publication in a week to rank Rice among the nation’s top 20 universities. The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings rated Rice No. 16, the only university in Texas in the top 50. The survey also lauded Rice in its “Top Schools for Resources” list, ranking the university No. 7 in its assessment of academic spending, student-faculty ratios and research output.

The WSJ/THE rankings focus on how well colleges prepare students for life after they graduate. The overall ranking is based on 15 factors in four main categories: student outcomes (including graduate salaries and debt burdens), academic resources, student engagement and diversity. The survey takes into account the responses to questions answered by roughly 174,000 students.

More information on the 2020 U.S. News rankings can be found at www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities.

More information on the WSJ/THE rankings can be found at https://www.wsj.com/articles/explore-the-full-wsj-the-college-rankings-11567638555.

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The business behind the ballgame: New Rice course will teach how to run an NFL franchise

School Updates
General Management
School Updates

From cellular biology to English literature to music theory, Rice University students can learn about all kinds of subjects. This semester, one more topic has been added to the course catalog: A lucky group of students will learn how to run an NFL franchise, from the experts themselves. Thanks to a partnership with the Houston Texans, Rice sport management students will take part in Pro Sports: Management, a course designed to teach the business behind the ballgame.

Texans
Jeff Falk

From cellular biology to English literature to music theory, Rice University students can learn about all kinds of subjects. This semester, one more topic has been added to the course catalog: A lucky group of students will learn how to run an NFL franchise, from the experts themselves.

Thanks to a partnership with the Houston Texans, Rice sport management students will take part in Pro Sports: Management, a course designed to teach the business behind the ballgame. Students will learn from members of the Texans administrative staff about the ins and outs of running a professional sports franchise. Diane Crossey, a professor in the practice in the Department of Sport Management, is the Rice faculty instructor for the course. Before joining Rice in 2015, she worked for the Texans for 13 years.

The weekly class, held inside the executive offices of the Texans, will include sessions on ticketing, public relations, event management, human resources and more. Students will be required to develop and deliver weekly presentations on these and other relevant topics. Toward the end of the semester, students will work at a Texans home game alongside administrative staff. The final class project will include a reflective writing assignment.

“We are thrilled to partner with Rice University on a curriculum that will provide their best and brightest students with insight into the real-world opportunities and challenges facing today’s sports teams,” said Houston Texans President Jamey Rootes. “This program is rather unique because our leading executives will work alongside Rice professors to teach current best practices in franchise management across every discipline. We believe that this type of practical industry exposure is the best way to prepare the next generation of leaders in the field of sports management and a valuable contribution to the level of professionalism within our industry.”

“In the Department of Sport Management, we always look for new ways to challenge our students,” said Clark Haptonstall, chair of the department. “Having them work directly with executives for the Houston Texans, on real-world projects, is going to push our students to show their capabilities.

“Diane is the perfect person to teach this course. In addition to being a tremendous instructor, her years of success working in the Houston Texans front office is extremely valuable to our students.”

At the completion of the course, students will be able to understand the challenges, risks and opportunities facing the various operating departments of professional sports teams and develop problem-solving skills and solutions to meet team goals.

Members of the media interested in covering course sessions and interviewing students or instructors may contact Amy McCaig, senior media relations specialist at Rice, at 217-417-2901 or amym@rice.edu.


This news release can be found online at news.rice.edu.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations on Twitter @RiceUNews.

Related materials:

Rice Department of Sport Management: https://sport.rice.edu/

Image link: https://news.rice.edu/files/2019/09/tex-mkltp-1-cmyk.png

Image credit: Houston Texans

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Choose Houston

Why Should You Get Your MBA In Houston
Admissions
Admissions

The 21st century business world demands constant new ideas and adaptability. That means the city where you go to business school is now a key part of your business education. Here's why you need a Houston MBA.

Graphic drawing of Houston skyline
Graphic drawing of Houston skyline
Joe Soto, Director of Recruiting

Why Should You Get Your MBA In Houston

The sight is quintessential Houston. Scrawled on the overpass over a teeming freeway, a set of giant handwritten letters urge all who pass through: BE SOMEONE.

Those two words also happen to be shorthand for why the culture of this port city has become an influential tool for serious students of business.

As the world economy depends more and more on new skills and ideas, where business students study is a key aspect of which school they choose. A Houston MBA degree – earned in the fourth largest city in the U.S., a magnet for entrepreneurs and gateway to a 21st century Silk Road – means access to a range of business experiences that may be unique in America.

Houston’s work-friendly culture is ideal for MBA degree holders.

First, Houston’s culture revolves around jobs. Large, small and nascent companies gravitate here for the city’s business-above-all environment. The most obvious lure is Texas’ lack of a state income tax, which allows companies more freedom to hire and invest in growth. Secondly, Houston is distinct in being the only major American city with no zoning laws. This policy, or rather lack of one, makes for the city’s signature landscape of tiny bungalows side-by-side with towering apartment buildings — and also creates fertile ground for businesses to sprout anywhere an entrepreneur’s imagination may roam.

The average cost of living in Houston is 17.3 percent lower than that of other major U.S cities.

Third in Houston’s trifecta of business attractions: affordability. The average cost of living here is 20.8 percent below the average for the country’s 20 most-populated cities, the Council for Community and Economic Research reported in 2025. In 2017, Forbes ranked Houston second among cities where a paycheck will go furthest. The lower cost of living means fewer distractions for Houston MBA students, a seductive quality of life that turns sojourners into residents and a safer setting in which to launch a new business and hire new workers.

Houston has a diverse range of career opportunities.

This pro-business ecosystem means that it's the ideal place for someone graduating from a top MBA program looking for a job. While for decades the city’s fame hinged on petroleum, the 1980s oil crash prompted diversification. Twenty Fortune 500 companies now operate and recruit from Houston, and the city boasts the world's largest medical complex. Startup founders, meanwhile, can dive into a community where 400 of every 100,000 residents starts a business every month.

 

Interested in Rice Business?

 

Join a built-in network of business talent.

Rice Business actively enriches this climate, helping its MBA graduates with ongoing guidance and opportunity. Rice Business’ Owlspark, part of a network of startup accelerators, launched 22 new businesses in the past six years, while the Rice Business Plan Competition generated almost $2 million in prizes last year. Rice has also pledged as much as $100 million to an ambitious complex housed in the vintage Midtown Sears building, dubbed The Ion, to convene scholars, companies and startups to support new businesses.

Power source: America’s most ethnically diverse city.

In an era when human capital — ideas, practices and inventions — is the most critical resource of all, Houston enjoys a major power source. It is the most ethnically diverse city in the country. This is an asset crucial to 21st-century business, which must prioritize adaptability to new skills and technology to thrive, notes the personal finance site WalletHub.

Houstonians know — and teach each other — how to thrive. It’s a city where more than 46 percent of minority-owned businesses posted at least half a million dollars in annual revenue last year. It’s a leading destination for refugees from around the country, who choose Houston for their new beginning. And it’s a city whose business community openly values the drive and innovation that its foreign-born residents bring the economy.

Use your business degree in a city where you can BE SOMEONE.

Houston is rich territory for workers with business graduates who are eager to put their ideas into action. It’s a city where old-time wildcatters can speak fluent Spanish, where leaders of both political parties reflexively support each other in crisis, where the first openly gay mayor of a major U.S. city extols the power of Southern charm and the will to work together. It’s a city where every few years, when some naysayer vandalizes the public reminder to BE SOMEONE, someone else climbs up and paints it right back.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Interested in learning more about the MBA programs offered by Rice Business? Send us an email at ricemba@rice.edu.


Want to read more about Houston? Check out our blog post: Why Houston. 

 

Explore Our Rice MBA Programs

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MBA applications to Harvard fall 6.7%

In the Media
In The Media

At Wharton, MBA apps fell by 5.4%. Thus far, only two top 25 schools have reported slight increases: Chicago Booth, where applications rose 3.4%, and Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Management, which experienced a 6.5% rise.

John A. Byrne
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Rice University research finds executive board members are driven by incentives

In the Media
In The Media

In a recent study, Rice Business professor Shiva Sivaramakrishnan found that board members actually need incentives — both short- and long-term — to act in stakeholders' best interests.

Rice Business Wisdom
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Ride-hailing service for children (and their busy parents) enters Houston

In the Media
In The Media

The company, HopSkipDrive of Los Angeles, hires vetted caregivers to drive children 6 and older at the click of an app. HopSkipDrive and similar services, such as VanGo, which also operates in Houston, are part of a societal shift of paying for services that in the past may have been done by neighbors, friends or family, said Utpal Dholakia, a marketing professor at Rice University.

Andrea Leinfelder
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Faculty Media Mention

Groundbreaking FinTech Boot Camp launched by Rice University, Trilogy Education

Glasscock School of Continuing Studies now offering financial technology, data analytics, cybersecurity and coding boot camps
School Updates
Finance
Technology
School Updates

A boot camp for financial technology is now offered by Rice University’s Glasscock School of Continuing Studies, the latest in a series of professional tech training programs the university teaches in partnership with leading workforce accelerator Trilogy Education. With rising demand for technology talent in Houston’s key industries of energy, life science and manufacturing, the Rice University FinTech Boot Camp is the first Trilogy partner to launch this innovative program preparing professionals to fill the financial technology talent gap.

Glasscock School of Continuing Studies at Rice University
Jeff Falk

Glasscock School of Continuing Studies now offering financial technology, data analytics, cybersecurity and coding boot camps

A boot camp for financial technology is now offered by Rice University’s Glasscock School of Continuing Studies, the latest in a series of professional tech training programs the university teaches in partnership with leading workforce accelerator Trilogy Education.

With rising demand for technology talent in Houston’s key industries of energy, life science and manufacturing, the Rice University FinTech Boot Camp is the first Trilogy partner to launch this innovative program preparing professionals to fill the financial technology talent gap.

Enrollment is now open for the 24-week program beginning Nov. 18.

“Technology skills are becoming foundational for many roles in the finance, energy and life science sectors,” said David Vassar, assistant dean of professional and executive programs at the Glasscock School. “We have partnered with Trilogy Education to bring to market a boot camp that prepares students to use their technical skills in a wide variety of fintech applications, from robo-advising to cryptocurrency. Whether you are already in finance or are looking for a way to transition into the industry, this program will prepare you to build a meaningful career in the fast-moving world of fintech.”

The Rice University FinTech Boot Camp is an expansion of the Glasscock School’s partnership with Trilogy Education to offer intensive, skills-based training programs for Houston professionals in data analytics, cybersecurity and web development. The Rice University Data Analytics Boot Camp was the first program to launch in November 2018 and it recently expanded to a new location in Houston’s Energy Corridor. Rice expects the program to continue expanding as corporate partners create a growing demand for workers with customized tech skills training. The Glasscock School has already made investments to support this expansion, both in staffing and infrastructure, according to program leaders.

“The Rice University FinTech Boot Camp comes at a critical moment of need as the city of Houston transforms itself into a national hub for enterprise technology,” said Robert Bruce, dean of the Glasscock School. “We’ve seen several fintech companies choose Houston to open new office locations and a rising demand from our longstanding industries like energy and manufacturing to transform themselves into technology and data-driven businesses.”

As one of the largest employers of web developers, the finance industry is continually competing for job-ready tech talent, program organizers said. Financial companies such as U.S. Bancorp and JPMorgan Chase had more open coding positions in the last year than Apple and Google. In the past eight years, the U.S. has added over 1.5 million fintech-related jobs, according to labor market data from analytics software company Burning Glass.

“Rice University’s Glasscock School of Continuing Studies is playing an important role in building the digitally skilled workforce that Houston needs to support a growing innovation economy,” said Dan Sommer, CEO and founder of Trilogy Education. “The Rice University FinTech Boot Camp will help working adults in Houston capitalize on the exploding demand for technology and data skills and spur additional investment in fintech throughout the region.”

The fintech program’s curriculum grounds students in the core languages and technical tools expected of professionals in the financial industry and advances to topics such as machine learning and cryptocurrency. By the end of the program, students will have a robust professional portfolio and experience with a wide range of technologies used in the financial industry, including:

  • Analyzing stock movement using financial APIs in Jupyter notebooks.
  • Creating predictive models for stock prices with time series analysis using Python.
  • Building a decentralized identity system using blockchain technologies.
  • Applying machine learning algorithms to analyze sentiment scores for cryptocurrency news.
  • Using TensorFlow and Keras to build deep learning neural networks to predict financial outcomes.
  • Developing an AI-driven robo-advisor capable of providing financial services with minimal human intervention.

In addition to classroom instruction from industry professionals, students will have access to highly targeted career-planning services including trained career coaches, recruiting assistance, portfolio reviews, webinars and employer events.

Boot Camp students will receive a Certificate in Financial Technology from Rice confirming they have gained skills that prepare them for a wide range of fintech-related roles.

The 24-week, part-time program launched its first class in July, and the next class will begin Nov. 18. Enrollment is now open at techbootcamps.rice.edu/fintech. Those interested in the program can apply online or by calling (713) 893-7791.


Follow the Glasscock School via Twitter @GlasscockSchool.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

About Rice University’s Glasscock School of Continuing Studies
The Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies furthers Rice University’s commitment to educational outreach by providing lifelong personal and professional development opportunities to the greater Houston community and beyond. With an average annual enrollment of more than 16,000, the Glasscock School serves students with both on campus and online offerings. In addition to an expansive catalog of individual courses, including those offered on-site and custom designed for employers, the Glasscock School is home to three graduate degrees and 22 certificate programs. Learn more at glasscock.rice.edu.

About Trilogy Education
Trilogy Education, a 2U, Inc. brand (NASDAQ: TWOU), is a workforce accelerator that empowers the world’s leading universities to prepare professionals for high-growth careers in the digital economy. Trilogy’s intensive, skills-based training programs bridge regional talent gaps in coding, data analytics, UX/UI and cybersecurity in more than 50 markets around the globe. Thousands of working adults have successfully completed Trilogy-powered programs, and more than 2,500 companies — ranging from startups to the Fortune 500 — employ them.

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Conservatives make the best investors, says Rice U. research

School Updates
Finance
School Updates

When it comes to investing, conservatives may have a built-in advantage, according to a study by business scholars at Rice University, the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), the University of Bath and Southern Methodist University (SMU). A central tenet of long-term investing is to hold riskier investments such as stocks over holding cash or bonds, which are considered less risky.

Picking the right political candidate in the selection and election process
Jeff Falk

When it comes to investing, conservatives may have a built-in advantage, according to a study by business scholars at Rice University, the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), the University of Bath and Southern Methodist University (SMU).

A central tenet of long-term investing is to hold riskier investments such as stocks over holding cash or bonds, which are considered less risky. Through various studies that included more than 15,000 American adults, the researchers found that those who think like conservatives politically are more likely to invest like pros and choose options with higher risk and higher rewards, especially when they are confident and optimistic about their ability to invest.

The study, “Political Identity and Financial Risk Taking: Insights from Social Dominance Orientation,” is published in the latest issue of the Journal of Marketing Research.

According to 2015 data from the Federal Reserve, 94.5% of U.S. households hold financial assets such as cash, certificates of deposit, bonds, stocks or mutual funds. In 2014, U.S. consumers invested more than $1.3 trillion in financial products.

In one study, researchers measured conservatism by asking participants if they would have voted for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election; if they got their news from Fox, CNN or MSNBC; or if they identify as a Republican or Democrat. Across the different measures of political identity, researchers consistently found that conservatives tended to employ riskier investment strategies as their self-confidence increased. On the other hand, the tendency for liberals to make riskier investments remained the same as their self-confidence grew.

The study also used data from over 14,000 participants in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Survey spanning 1996 to 2012. The researchers, measuring political identity based on the state in which a respondent lived, saw similar results: The likelihood of holding risky assets was higher among those living in conservative-majority states and whose portfolio had grown in the past year, a measure of their financial self-confidence.

The researchers found that self-confident conservatives invest in riskier options because they are more focused on the upside potential of their decision — achieving, increasing and maximizing potential gains. “It is this combination of self-confidence and upside focus in the financial decision that increases financial risk-taking among conservatives,” said study co-author Vikas Mittal, the J. Hugh Liedtke Professor of Marketing at Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business.

The researchers’ findings are not meant to provide investment advice, they emphasized. “Yet, the findings have very important and significant implications for our society and how politicians manage policy for our country,” Mittal said.

“First, it is important to recognize that those who are more confident about their investing capability tend to choose stocks in their portfolio, which maximizes their long-term gains,” Mittal said. “When people don’t feel confident about themselves or about their investing acumen they short-change themselves in terms of long-term investing. To the extent that this effect — financial risk-seeking due to increased self-confidence — is stronger among conservatives, it may widen the wealth gap among these two groups over time, especially in an environment when people have the freedom to make their own investment choices.”

Second, much of this risk-taking is driven by a focus on the upside among conservatives, the researchers found. “This focus comes through optimism and a drive to achieve success to maintain or improve one’s position,” Mittal said. “It is this upside focus that could trigger persistence, helping people to stay invested even when stock markets are down. More generally, these results show that financial success can be related to people’s political ideologies in ways that are not intuitively obvious to us. Conservatives typically favor self-investing rather than government-regulated options that lower risk and reward. This is compatible with conservatives’ feeling of self-confidence coupled with a focus on upside potential. In the long run, this may create an inbuilt advantage for wealth accumulation among conservatives.”

Mittal concluded, “Strikingly, this advantage is not directly related to their political ideology but conservatives’ response to self-confidence and optimism. To the extent these are learned behaviors, it may be useful for everyone — regardless of their political ideology — to adopt and emulate them.”

Other authors include Kyuhong Han of UNC Chapel Hill, Jihye Jung of UTSA, Jinyong Daniel Zyung of SMU and Hajo Adam of the University of Bath. Han, Jung and Zyung are alumni of Rice Business and Adam is a former faculty member of the school.

For more information about and insights from Rice Business faculty research, visit the school’s Rice Business Wisdom website, https://business.rice.edu/wisdom.


Related materials:

Paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0022243718813331

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