An international metropolis in the process of being tangibly shaped and reshaped by fluctuating populations, by the pressures of rapidly changing medical practices and policies, by energy demands and petroleum industries, as well as by a diverse arts and cultural community, Houston is a laboratory that can and should become an integral part of the formal education students receive at Rice. As a member of the Texas Medical Center (TMC), the world’s largest, Rice hosts extraordinary opportunities across the intellectual spectrum: from nanotechnology to global and domestic health and healthcare delivery to understanding the human mind and to medical ethics. At the other end of campus, Houston’s museum district also presents the possibility to leverage resources critical to research and programming in cultural heritage, public memory, and museology. Fruitful relationships with Houston’s various constituencies also extend into areas such as energy, given the city’s far-reaching prospection, extraction, refinement, and distribution industry and its impact on the environment.
The Public Humanities Initiative is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.