Mayo 26, 2021

David Leebron, presidente de Rice, renuncia

Leebron, quien ha dirigido Rice University desde 2004, anunció hoy miércoles 26 de Mayo en un correo electrónico a la comunidad de la universidad privada de Houston que dejará su cargo en junio de 2022. David es el segundo presidente con más tiempo en el cargo.

Como el segundo Presidente con más años de servicio de Rice, Leebron ha supervisado el crecimiento en la Universidad, ayudando a aumentar su población de estudiantes de pregrado en más del 30 por ciento, haciendo crecer el campus con nuevas construcciones y aumentando sus iniciativas de investigación.

Las solicitudes de admisión en Rice han aumentado en aproximadamente un 75 por ciento en los últimos cuatro años, con un aumento particular luego del lanzamiento de Rice Investment de Leebron en el 2018. El programa de ayuda financiera ofrece una variedad de asistencia a estudiantes universitarios con ingresos familiares de hasta $ 200,000.

David también se desempeñó como profesor de ciencias políticas en Rice y escribió un libro de texto sobre derechos humanos internacionales.

Antes de su presidencia en Rice, se desempeñó como miembro de la facultad y luego como Decano de la Facultad de Derecho de Columbia a partir de 1996.

David Leebron se graduó de Harvard College y Harvard Law School, después de lo cual se desempeñó como asistente legal de la jueza Shirley Hufstedler en la Corte de Apelaciones del Noveno Circuito en Los Ángeles. Más tarde enseñó en la Facultad de Derecho de la UCLA en 1980 y en la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Nueva York en 1983.

A continuación la carta de despedida que David Lebron le dirije a sus alumnos y amigos:

Dear Rice Alumni and Friends,

The joyous commencement celebrations for both the Class of 2020 and Class of 2021 two weekends ago, with families and friends and finally visible smiles, was a welcome sign that we are beginning the return to a more normal world for our university. It was especially gratifying to welcome back the Class of 2020, following our promise one year ago that we would provide an in-person ceremony when it became possible. Their return as alumni to celebrate their graduation was a moving affirmation of the importance of our extended Rice community, and a reminder to all of us of what a privilege it is to be a part of it.

Three years ago, in the summer of 2018, I extended my agreement with the university to serve as president for four years. I contemplated that given what I thought we could accomplish, 2022 would likely be the right time to complete my service as president. Of course, I did not then anticipate a global pandemic. Over the last 15 months, all of us at the university have worked together to navigate the pandemic well, and indeed simultaneously made a great deal of progress on the goals we set prior to the pandemic. As we enter the summer, not only is there light at the end of the tunnel, but the light seems near and bright. Thus I am writing to let you, our university alumni, parents and friends, know that this coming academic year will be my last year as president of Rice University, and I will step down at the conclusion of my 18th year, on June 30, 2022.

To many, it may seem that 18 years is an odd number, but in fact this number has special significance in the two cultures that dominate my own family. In the Chinese culture it symbolizes good fortune, and in Jewish culture and Hebrew language it represents “life.” And certainly I could not have asked for more good fortune than to serve for a significant part of my life as Rice’s president.

I am so grateful to Rice University for this incredible opportunity and to the extraordinary people who make up the Rice community and have time and again demonstrated our common values and commitment to excellence, creativity and compassion. Together, we have been driven by our desire to contribute to the betterment of our world and by our constant ambition to become an ever better university. I am thankful to the Rice Board of Trustees, which offered this opportunity and has supported me as president during this time of dramatic evolution and progress.

There will be time enough to look back, so in this brief note I want first to express my thanks, and also to look forward to what we must try to accomplish together in the year ahead.

I want to thank our students. Their talent, creativity, engagement and care for each other has constantly inspired us to do better and to do more. There are many reasons that Rice succeeded so well in navigating the pandemic, but none more so than the responsibility exercised by our students. Indeed, my return to the classroom to teach this past semester, even if on Zoom, has sustained my admiration for our students and optimism about what they will accomplish after they graduate.

Our faculty is simply extraordinary. No university of our size spans such a range of endeavors with such excellence and impact. Our faculty constantly pushes the frontiers, whether in astrophysics or racial justice, architecture or computer engineering, business or biosciences, mechanical engineering or music. To quote from my favorite speech — President Kennedy’s 1962 moonshot speech at Rice Stadium — our faculty “in [its] quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred.”

I want to thank our staff, which in so many cases has made the challenging and the difficult appear smooth and easy, and most especially during this last year. Their dedication to the work of our faculty, the learning of our students, and the service we provide to our community and beyond makes the difference in what we as a university are able to achieve, from the labs and classrooms to the athletic fields to the concert halls.

None of what we have accomplished as a university would have been possible without the incredible support of our alumni, our parents and other friends of Rice. Visiting with and getting to know our alumni and others, from Boston to San Diego and Seattle to Miami, from Beijing to Sao Paolo and Sugar Land to London, has been a great joy and privilege for Ping and me. We are so grateful for the engagement and warm reception we have received across our city, our state, our county and around the world. Our alumni have supported our students not only through financial contributions, but through mentoring, teaching and other engagements. It has been both essential to our progress and rewarding to engage with a wide range of alumni organizations, including the ARA, ARUBA, SOLAR and RUCAA, as well as the many alumni who turn out to support the success of our student athletes.

This year ahead is an important one, with much to be accomplished and that cannot be deferred. The world of higher education and knowledge is changing and expanding rapidly, and we must move forward to position ourselves for the future. In research and innovation, we will formally open the Ion innovation hub in midtown Houston and launch the Welch Institute for Advanced Materials. We will begin making the additional strategic investments recently approved by the Board of Trustees in neuro-engineering, in quantum science and engineering, in the study of disparities and inequities in our society, in environmental studies and in online education. To support our research and academic endeavors, we will begin construction of a major new science and engineering building, a new home for visual and dramatic arts, and an expansion of our architecture facilities.

We must continue the process of improving diversity and inclusion at our university, relying in part on the work of the Task Force on Slavery, Segregation and Racial Injustice. We will enter the next phase of our student enrollment expansion, and must plan and make changes for that and assure that we maintain our educational excellence and unique sense of community. We must continue our commitment to The Rice Investment so that our education is accessible to all. To fully support the increasing breadth of the Rice experience, we will begin construction on an extraordinary new center for student life and opportunity to replace the RMC. And we will also begin planning for the 12th residential college in connection with our expansion.

We will continue to expand our online offerings, enabling Rice to serve and empower new groups of students in Houston and around the world. As travel opportunities return, we will renew and enlarge our international engagements and outreach.

And to continue to support all of these ambitions, we must move to the next stage of our capital campaign, which has already been crucial to many achievements in these areas.

That is a lot for one year, but all necessary as we work to position the university to continue to provide the best educational opportunities and produce the most impactful research as we pursue our core commitments to excellence, opportunity and impact.

Ping and I are focused on and energized by the year ahead, and have not made plans beyond that. We will then look for new opportunities to learn and to contribute to our world, at Rice and elsewhere.

Again, Ping and I are so grateful for the opportunity we have had, and look forward to the exciting year ahead.

With warm regards and deepest gratitude,

David