A Brief History of Rice University 莱斯大学简史
The William M. Rice Institute for the Advancement of Literature, Science and Art filed its state charter in the Texas capital May 19, 1891. The original charter stipulated that the institute charge no tuition and would be for “the instruction and improvement of the white inhabitants of the City of Houston and State of Texas.” The institute was founded with a bequest of $4.6 million from the estate of William Marsh Rice, a merchant who arrived in Texas in 1838 and soon thereafter moved to the newly founded city of Houston. In the 1840s and 1850s, he accumulated his wealth by providing supplies to plantation owners and selling cotton and sugar crops, produced in large part by enslaved labor. Rice, too, owned enslaved people and benefited from their labor. After the Civil War, he took the oath of loyalty to the restored United States and lived thereafter in New Jersey and New York, while keeping a close eye on his many ongoing profitable endeavors in Texas. The childless Rice was murdered September 23, 1900, in New York by his butler and lawyer in an attempt to steal his fortune. After considerable litigation, Rice’s bequest in 1904 was deployed toward the purpose he intended — his namesake institute in the rapidly growing city of Houston. After selecting Edgar Odell Lovett, a mathematician from Princeton University, to serve as the first president, the institute’s trustees sent Lovett on an international trip in search of the best pedagogical practices, ideas and personnel.
威廉·马什·莱斯文理促进学院于1891年5月19日在德州首府正式注册成立。原始章程规定该学院免收学费，且仅面向"休斯顿市及德州白人居民提供教育与提升机会"。学院由威廉·马什·莱斯的遗产捐赠460万美元创立——这位商人于1838年抵达德州，不久迁居新建立的休斯顿市。19世纪40至50年代，他通过向种植园主供应物资及销售棉花与糖作物积累财富，而这些作物主要依赖被奴役劳动力生产。莱斯本人也曾拥有奴隶并从中获益。内战结束后，他宣誓效忠重建后的美国，此后定居新泽西与纽约，同时密切关注在德州的多项盈利产业。1900年9月23日，无子嗣的莱斯在纽约被管家与律师合谋杀害，意图窃取其财富。经大量诉讼后，莱斯的遗赠于1904年按其初衷投入使用——在这座快速发展的休斯顿城建立以其命名的学府。在选定普林斯顿大学数学家埃德加·奥德尔·洛维特担任首任校长后，学院理事会派其环球考察，寻求最佳教学实践、理念与人才。
From October 10 to 12, 1912, the Rice Institute celebrated its opening with lectures by eminent guests from around the world. President Lovett proclaimed that he and his colleagues planned “to assign no upper limit to its educational endeavor.” With 77 male and female students and a faculty of about a dozen in its opening year, the institute quickly grew in size and importance, led by Lovett and James Addison Baker Jr., who chaired Rice’s Board of Trustees from 1891 to 1941. By the time Lovett stepped down as president in 1946, the institute was a key part of a booming city of more than half a million residents.
1912年10月10日至12日，莱斯学院举办开幕庆典，邀全球知名学者演讲。洛维特校长宣告他与同仁计划"为教育事业设定无限上限"。创校首年招收77名男女学生，拥有约12名教职员工。在洛维特与1891至1941年担任理事会主席的小詹姆斯·艾迪生·贝克带领下，学院规模与影响力迅速提升。至1946年洛维特卸任时，学院已成为这座拥有逾50万人口繁荣城市的核心组成部分。
From its beginning, the Rice Institute’s goals included graduate programs, with the first doctorate degree awarded in 1918. In the 1950s, under President William Vermillion Houston, who served from 1946 to 1960 (during which the residential college system and the annual Beer Bike competition began in 1957), the institute expanded its ambitions. The graduate offerings steadily developed in the sciences and engineering and came to include the humanities and social sciences. On July 1, 1960, the Rice Institute was renamed William Marsh Rice University. In 1962, Rice celebrated its semicentennial led by President Kenneth Sanborn Pitzer, who throughout his leadership from 1961 to 1968, deepened the university’s commitment to research and guided the founding of the School of Architecture in 1965.
莱斯学院自创始即设研究生培养目标，1918年授予首个博士学位。1950年代，在威廉·维米利恩·休斯顿校长（1946-1960年任职）领导下，学院拓展抱负——其间于1957年创立住宿学院制度与年度啤酒自行车赛。研究生教育在理工科稳步发展，并逐步纳入人文社科。1960年7月1日，莱斯学院更名为威廉·马什·莱斯大学。1962年，在肯尼斯·桑伯恩·皮泽校长（1961-1968年任职）主持下举办五十周年校庆，其任内深化研究承诺，并于1965年指导创立建筑学院。
From its founding until the early 1960s, the university prohibited the admission of Black students. Growing national pressure from funding and accrediting agencies, alongside the larger moral and political pressures of the civil rights movement, compelled the Rice trustees to desegregate the university and to begin a legal process to remove racial barriers from its charter. The first Black student to be enrolled in 1964 was mathematics graduate student Raymond Lewis Johnson. In fall 1965, the first two Black undergraduate students arrived — Charles Edward Freeman III and Jacqueline Elizabeth McCauley. These first three students were subsequently joined by an increasing number of Black students who brought further distinction to the university and who continued to push for full acceptance by the rest of the Rice community. That same year, Rice began charging tuition for the first time and launched a $33 million development campaign.
从创校至1960年代初，大学一直禁止黑人学生入学。来自资助与认证机构的全国性压力，加之民权运动的道德与政治推力，促使莱斯理事会废除种族隔离并启动法律程序删除章程中的种族壁垒。1964年，数学研究生雷蒙德·刘易斯·约翰逊成为首位入学的黑人学生。1965年秋，首批两名黑人本科生查尔斯·爱德华·弗里曼三世与杰奎琳·伊丽莎白·麦考利到校。这三位先驱者之后，越来越多黑人学生加入并为大学带来荣誉，同时持续推动莱斯社群的全面接纳。同年，莱斯首次开始收取学费并启动3300万美元的发展筹款运动。
During and after the Cold War, Rice took advantage of the boom in available research funding. President Norman Hackerman, who served from 1970 to 1985, oversaw the debut of the Shepherd School of Music and the Jones Graduate School of Administration (now the Jones Graduate School of Business). In 1975, the Division of Science and Engineering divided into the George R. Brown School of Engineering and the School of Natural Sciences (now the Wiess School of Natural Sciences). The Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences separated into two schools in 1979. In 1985, Rice joined the Association of American Universities, an invitation-only group of leading research universities in North America. Rice President George Erik Rupp, who served from 1985 to 1993, led the creation of several interdisciplinary centers. Innovative faculty forged into new fields such as nanotechnology, where Professors Robert F. Curl and Richard E. Smalley shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1996. As a result of these continued advancements, Rice has consistently earned a ranking among the nation’s top 20 research universities.
冷战期间及之后，莱斯充分利用研究经费的增长浪潮。1970至1985年任职的诺曼·哈克曼校长监督了谢泼德音乐学院和琼斯管理研究生院（现琼斯商学院）的创建。1975年，理工学部分裂为乔治·R·布朗工程学院和自然科学学院（现威斯自然科学学院）；1979年人文与社会科学部分为两个独立学院。1985年，莱斯加入北美顶尖研究型大学联盟"美国大学协会"。1985至1993年任职的乔治·埃里克·拉普校长领导创建了多个跨学科中心。创新教师开拓纳米技术等新领域——1996年罗伯特·F·柯尔与理查德·E·斯莫利教授共享诺贝尔化学奖。这些持续进步使莱斯稳居全美研究型大学前20名。
Under the administration of President S. Malcolm Gillis (1993 to 2004), the university dramatically expanded its international character, by welcoming more students from abroad and building partnerships with institutions around the world. At the same time, the university continued to deepen its commitment to its home city of Houston, expanding partnerships with local industry and the Texas Medical Center. The Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies brings thousands of Houstonians to campus each year for learning opportunities and personal and professional development. The James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, founded in 1993, provides vital insight to local and national policymakers on the important questions of the day.
在马尔科姆·吉利斯校长（1993-2004年）任内，大学通过招收更多国际学生与全球机构建立合作，显著提升国际性。同时持续深化对休斯顿的承诺，扩大与本地产业及德州医学中心的合作。苏珊娜·M·格拉斯科克继续教育学院每年为数千休斯顿居民提供学习机会与职业发展。1993年成立的詹姆斯·A·贝克三世公共政策研究所为本地及国家决策者提供关键洞见。
For nearly two decades, under the leadership of President David W. Leebron (2004 to 2022), the university continued to expand its local and global footprint under a period of tremendous growth, punctuated by new programs and facilities like the Kinder Institute for Urban Research (2010), the Boniuk Institute for Religious Tolerance (2013), the Doerr Institute for New Leaders (2015), the Moody Center for the Arts (2017), the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (2017), the Brockman Hall for Opera (2022) and the Ion (2021).
在大卫·李博伦校长（2004-2022年）领导近二十年间，大学在本地与全球影响力持续扩展——新增金德城市研究所（2010）、博纽克宗教宽容研究所（2013）、多尔新领袖研究所（2015）、穆迪艺术中心（2017）、刘氏创新创业实验室（2017）、布罗克曼歌剧厅（2022）及创新园区"The Ion"（2021）等项目与设施。
In 2019, the university launched a new financial aid policy, The Rice Investment, that deepens and extends its ongoing commitment to need-based scholarships for low- and middle-income students. With the generosity of untold individuals and foundations, Rice’s endowment has kept pace with its burgeoning enrollment and expanding infrastructure and programming. The endowment of $10 million in 1913 grew to $7.8 billion as President Reginald DesRoches, Rice University’s first Black president, took office July 1, 2022.
2019年，大学推出新助学金政策"莱斯投资计划"，深化对中低收入学生按需奖助的承诺。凭借无数个人与基金会的慷慨捐赠，莱斯捐赠基金与蓬勃发展的招生规模及基础设施保持同步。1913年1000万美元的捐赠基金，至2022年7月1日首位黑人校长雷金纳德·德罗什就职时，已增至78亿美元。
As its resources have increased, Rice has served a flourishing and diverse student population. For fall 2022, degree-seeking undergraduate students totaled 4,480, alongside 4,085 degree-seeking graduate students. At matriculation, Asian Americans composed 29 percent of the Class of 2026. Students identifying as Hispanic or Latino were 17 percent of that group, and Black students made up 8 percent. A growing segment of undergraduate and graduate students at Rice hail from more than 60 countries around the world. Rice has 749 full-time faculty members and 147 part-time faculty members. Already in the midst of a strategic planning process and a $2 billion fundraising campaign, the university will continue to build and evolve, aiming for a bolder future.
随着资源增长，莱斯服务着日益繁荣多元的学生群体。2022年秋季，学位攻读本科生总计4,480人，研究生4,085人。2026届新生中亚裔占29%，拉丁裔占17%，黑人学生占8%。来自全球60多个国家的本科生与研究生比例持续增长。莱斯拥有749名全职教师与147名兼职教师。在已启动的战略规划与20亿美元筹款运动背景下，大学将持续建设演进，迈向更宏伟的未来。