In contrast to their reaction to gay rights or the war in Ukraine, relatively few companies have openly criticized the Supreme Court ruling ending a constitutional right to abortion. Alessandro Piazza, Assistant Professor of Strategic Management at Rice Business, writes for The Conversation.
Rice University will expand global education and research opportunities for its students and faculty with the opening of the Rice University Paris Center, which holds its ceremonial launch this week.
Rice University will expand global education and research opportunities for its students and faculty with the opening of the Rice University Paris Center, which holds its ceremonial launch this week.
In a historic 16th-century building in the heart of Paris, the new center will be home to student programs, independent researchers and international conferences organized through Rice. It will also serve as a satellite and hub for European research activity, giving Rice researchers greater access to French and other European partners.
“The ambitions of our university and the needs of the future leaders we are educating require global engagement and perspective,” said Rice President David Leebron. “The opening of this dedicated overseas facility represents the next step in the long-standing plan we have been pursuing to internationalize Rice and the Rice experience in every dimension. This has included welcoming more international students to our campus in Houston, fostering international travel and programs by our students and faculty, and building strong relationships with the best universities across the globe. The Paris location offers an incredible range of opportunities, in fields ranging from art and architecture to international business and global relations and politics.”
A launch ceremony, including a formal luncheon and a tour of the currently unoccupied building that will house the center, is scheduled for June 29. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and a delegation of civic and business leaders from the Greater Houston Partnership are expected to attend. The center is expected to be fully operational in January 2023.
A revolving group of faculty researchers and a select cadre of graduate students in a variety of fields will occupy the center during the academic year, with small groups of students taking short courses at the center lasting one to three weeks. The number of students and faculty in attendance at any given time will vary, but the center will have six classroom spaces of different sizes that can seat a total of about 125 students.
The Rice University Paris Center will also facilitate exchange and collaboration with Rice’s international partners, advancing high-priority research. The center will bring a global perspective to Rice’s delivery of not only pioneering research, but also extraordinary education experiences.
“Rice University’s mission statement commits us not only to pathbreaking research and unsurpassed teaching, but also to the betterment of our world,” said Provost Reginald DesRoches, who will become Rice’s president in July. “We’re eager to extend that mission internationally, and the opening of the Rice University Paris Center demonstrates that commitment.”
Leebron added that the university is “especially indebted to the leadership of Caroline Levander and her staff, who developed this extraordinary opportunity.” Levander, currently Rice’s vice president for global and digital strategy, will oversee the Rice University Paris Center in her new role as vice president global.
The Rice University Paris Center will be located in Le Marais, a neighborhood in the historic center of the city famed for its narrow cobblestone streets, art galleries and sidewalk cafes. The center will be housed in a historic building known as the Hotel de La Faye, a hôtel particulier built in the early 1500s by Sieur Raoul de La Fay, notary to King Louis XII. The grand townhouse edifice -- with four levels, a courtyard and a private garden -- was listed as a historic monument in 1966.
“For our purposes, this building is an ideal educational space conveniently situated in one of the most historically significant areas of Paris,” Levander said. “It looks and feels like a private university campus in the heart of a European capital city, and it reflects how Rice plans to expand its international impact in the coming years.”
"Rice was the only school I seriously considered. As a Houstonian, I wanted to root myself locally while still learning from one of the best programs in the country. Rice’s reputation, combined with its values and community, made it the clear choice."
Rice Business reveals how having a “promotion focus” can mean the difference between fostering innovation and letting it slip by.
On April 14, Rice made history by hosting its inaugural Rice Day at the Capitol. More than 50 students, faculty and staff traveled to Austin for a full day of advocacy, education and celebration. The event served as a showcase of the university’s statewide impact in areas ranging from innovation to the arts and sciences.
"Regardless of what the terms and conditions are or how good the offer is, just the fact that there's a sale signals that something different is happening," says Utpal Dholakia, marketing professor at Rice Business. "That's the core value of a sale, both from the marketer's and consumer's perspective."
Jing Zhou, the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Management and Psychology at Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business, has been appointed deputy dean of academic affairs for the business school effective July 1. She succeeds Jeff Fleming, the Fayez Sarofim Vanguard Professor of Finance, who will complete a seven-year term as deputy dean this month.
Jing Zhou, the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Management and Psychology at Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business, has been appointed deputy dean of academic affairs for the business school effective July 1. She succeeds Jeff Fleming, the Fayez Sarofim Vanguard Professor of Finance, who will complete a seven-year term as deputy dean this month.
Zhou is a highly accomplished scholar whose research has been cited more than 40,000 times, ranking among the top 1% of influential researchers in business and management. Her research interests include innovation, contextual and personal factors that facilitate or inhibit creativity and innovation, and creativity in entrepreneurship.
Zhou’s systematic program of research has addressed central management questions, such as how organizational and contextual factors interact with personal values to enhance or restrict individual and team creativity. She has taught courses on leadership, innovation, negotiation and organizational behavior at the undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA and Ph.D. levels. She has also served as a consultant to organizations on issues related to leading innovation and negotiation.
Zhou is the area coordinator for organizational behavior, director of Ph.D. program and director for Asian management research and education at Rice Business. She is a fellow of the Academy of Management, the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
Outside Rice, Zhou has served as president of the International Association for Chinese Management Research, as associate editor of the Journal of Applied Psychology and on the editorial boards for many other journals, including the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, the Journal of Business Venturing, the Journal of Management, Leadership Quarterly, Management and Organization Review, Organizational Psychology Review and the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal.
“Beyond these prestigious recognitions, we all know Jing as a generous colleague and as an honest and trusted friend and supporter of the Jones School and Rice University,” wrote Peter Rodriguez, dean of the Jones School, in an announcement. “We are fortunate to have in Jing, an eminent scholar and a colleague of the utmost integrity, to serve as our next deputy dean.”
"Rice was the only school I seriously considered. As a Houstonian, I wanted to root myself locally while still learning from one of the best programs in the country. Rice’s reputation, combined with its values and community, made it the clear choice."
Rice Business reveals how having a “promotion focus” can mean the difference between fostering innovation and letting it slip by.
On April 14, Rice made history by hosting its inaugural Rice Day at the Capitol. More than 50 students, faculty and staff traveled to Austin for a full day of advocacy, education and celebration. The event served as a showcase of the university’s statewide impact in areas ranging from innovation to the arts and sciences.
Inflation is doing a number on the economy, and there is no end in sight. Rice Business marketing professor Utpal Dholakia says brands don’t usually shrink all of their items at once. You can still get a good deal if you buy a variation of the product that wasn’t downsized.
Celebrations are underway after Houston was named one of 16 host cities for the 2026 World Cup. "Building things Houstonians need and use every day, that's the easy money and the great way to leverage this opportunity for us," said Peter Rodriguez, dean of Rice Business.
The Houston Business Journal has named Rice University President David Leebron as the Lifetime Achievement Award recipient for the 2022 Diversity in Business Awards, which will be held June 23. Leebron became Rice's seventh president in 2004, and he will retire June 30. During that time, Rice has not only grown significantly but also became more diverse.
Amy Dittmar, a distinguished scholar with an extensive background in economics, finance and university administration, has been named the new provost of Rice University. She will be joined at Rice by her husband of 28 years, Robert “Bob” Dittmar, who will be a professor of finance at the Jones Graduate School of Business.
Amy Dittmar, a distinguished scholar with an extensive background in economics, finance and university administration, has been named the new provost of Rice University.
Dittmar currently serves as senior vice provost for academic and budgetary affairs and professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan. Her appointment as Rice’s provost will place her in one of the university’s most crucial leadership posts. Along with the deans, vice provosts and vice presidents, the provost’s office supports excellence in all of the university’s academic, research, scholarly and creative activities.
Dittmar will assume the position vacated by Provost Reginald DesRoches, who will become Rice’s eighth president on July 1.
“Amy has a deep understanding of nearly every corner of a university and shares Rice’s values of excellence and opportunity,” DesRoches said. “Rice will benefit from Amy’s deep leadership experience, distinguished academic record and strategic mindset. As I move out of the provost’s office and into the president’s office, I look forward to working with her to continue Rice’s long legacy of success and elevate the university’s stature both nationally and around the globe.”
“I am thrilled and incredibly honored to join Rice as its next provost,” Dittmar said. “I have been impressed by Rice’s exceptional reputation and by the deep commitment of everyone I have met to undergraduate and graduate education and the importance of scholarship across the academy. I look forward to working with incoming President DesRoches to carry out his vision at this exciting time for Rice University.”
Dittmar has held a series of top-level administrative roles at the University of Michigan, which has more than 50,000 students, an annual budget of $11 billion and is consistently ranked among the top three public universities in the nation. In 2019, she served as acting provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, the chief academic and budgetary officer with direct reporting relationships for 19 schools and colleges as well as other units and key staff. Since 2020, she has served as senior vice provost, a position in which she has overseen policy decisions and implemented a wide range of strategic, academic and budgetary areas of the university. Dittmar has been responsible for setting budgetary policy and allocating resources, including the university’s general fund budget, totaling $2.6 billion, and major capital projects. From 2016 to 2020, she served as the vice provost for academic and budgetary affairs.
During her tenure in the provost’s office, Dittmar was instrumental in establishing the Go Blue Guarantee in 2017, one of the first guarantees of free tuition for lower-income students at a public institution. She also planned and led the development of a new classroom building centered around enhancing engaged learning, and she was one of the leaders of a shift to a more holistic approach in the university’s support for student mental health and well-being. She also played a key role in the university’s decision-making process during the COVID-19 pandemic, including serving as the academic representative on the COVID health response committee and maintaining a balanced budget that prioritized people’s needs throughout the crisis.
Dittmar also served as the University of Michigan Ross School of Business’ senior associate dean for graduate programs. In that role, she was primarily responsible for all graduate programs, the office of student life and finalizing the school’s diversity strategic plan. She also directed curriculum review, admissions, strategic planning and budgets for graduate programs, including full-time and part-time MBA, global MBA, executive MBA, master’s of management, master’s of accounting and master’s of supply chain management.
Dittmar’s appointment comes after a nationwide search launched in January and conducted by Isaacson, Miller, one of the country’s leading executive search firms. At Rice, the effort was spearheaded by an 11-member committee of faculty, staff and trustees led by Rebecca Richards-Kortum, Rice engineering professor and co-director of the Rice 360° Institute for Global Health .
“Everyone on the search committee was impressed with Dr. Dittmar’s vision to lead the growth of Rice’s faculty and her commitment to foster a culture of innovation that increases both student success and research impact,” Richards-Kortum said. “Rice will benefit from her deep experience to guide and implement successful strategies at the University of Michigan.”
Dittmar held a number of other administrative and academic roles in Michigan, including as a board member and secretary of the Michigan Health Corp., chair of a behavioral science research initiative task force, co-chair of the Student Mental Health and Well-being Implementation committee, member of the CFO search committee and board member of the Michigan Mobility Transportation Center.
Former colleagues applauded Dittmar’s appointment.
“Amy Dittmar is an outstanding choice to assume the role of provost at Rice University,” said Andrew Martin, chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis and former dean of the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts. “She is not only a distinguished scholar and educator, but also a thoughtful and strategic thinker who is deeply committed to the mission of higher education. She inspires confidence in those around her and motivates everyone in her orbit to perform at a higher level. I have no doubt Rice will benefit greatly from her wisdom, collegiality and vision for the future.”
“I was delighted to learn the news of Dr. Amy Dittmar’s appointment as the next provost of Rice University,” said Cornell University President Martha Pollack, a former provost of the University of Michigan. “Dr. Dittmar was a pleasure to work with throughout our time at Michigan, and her distinguished record of academic leadership, her strategic mindset and her thoughtful approach to opportunities and challenges make her the ideal choice for Rice. I know she will contribute greatly to the Rice community in the years to come.”
Dittmar earned her bachelor’s degree in finance and business economics from Indiana University and Ph.D. in finance from the University of North Carolina. She is a scholar of corporate finance, governance and gender economics. Her research centers around studying the complex interactions between ownership, governance, individual preferences and financial structure in public and private organizations to understand the role of incentives in decision-making and performance.
She served as an associate editor at the Journal of Financial Economics, one of the top journals in the field, and a councilor for the Society for Financial Studies, the organization that oversees three top finance journals including the Review of Financial Studies. She also served on selection committees and provided service to numerous journals and academic associations in finance, economics and accounting.
Dittmar was appointed the prestigious Michael R. and Mary Kay Hallman Fellow at Michigan from 2012-2015. She was a finalist for the Brattle Prize, awarded for the best paper in corporate finance in Journal of Finance 2007, won the Law and Economics Consulting Group Award for Best Paper in Corporate Finance at the 2007 European Finance Association Conference and won Best Paper at the 2001 Financial Management Association European Conference. She has published numerous papers in top journals and her work has been cited more than 10,000 times.
Before her career at the University of Michigan, Dittmar was an assistant professor at Indiana University and a financial analyst and real estate officer at First Chicago Corp. (now part of JPMorgan Chase).
Dittmar will be joined at Rice by her husband of 28 years, Robert “Bob” Dittmar, who will be a professor of finance at the Jones Graduate School of Business. He is an expert in empirical and theoretical asset pricing with a focus on the determination of the term structure of interest rates and the cross-section of equity returns. In his current role as a professor at the University of Michigan, he is the founder and co-director of the Ross FinTech Initiative and the director of the Tozzi Finance Institute, which operates a trading floor where he oversees the student-led investment fund.
Dittmar’s daughter Abby, 24, is earning her Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology at Florida State University, while her son Graham, 21, is studying at the Culinary Institute of America in New York.
Dittmar will assume her position at Rice on Aug. 1.
"Rice was the only school I seriously considered. As a Houstonian, I wanted to root myself locally while still learning from one of the best programs in the country. Rice’s reputation, combined with its values and community, made it the clear choice."
Rice Business reveals how having a “promotion focus” can mean the difference between fostering innovation and letting it slip by.
On April 14, Rice made history by hosting its inaugural Rice Day at the Capitol. More than 50 students, faculty and staff traveled to Austin for a full day of advocacy, education and celebration. The event served as a showcase of the university’s statewide impact in areas ranging from innovation to the arts and sciences.
A little complexity helps companies raise prices without customers noticing. But at some point, it drives consumers away. Utpal Dholakia, the George R. Brown Professor of Marketing at Rice Business, explains.
This year's Best & Brightest honors 51 students from 275 online MBA programs who represent the best of graduate business education. Three Rice Business only MBA students are featured: Brad Simmons, Arwa Hasanali and Mark Watson.
