Goal 2
We will encourage engineering students’ intellectual curiosity, creativity, critical thinking skills and a foundation for impact through a strong scientific, technical and liberal arts education, unparalleled research and engineering design opportunities, data science capabilities and strong communication skills.
We will value excellence and passion in teaching and maintain our low student-to-faculty ratio, enabling students to engage with faculty in deep and meaningful ways. Our strength in research will enhance the educational experiences of our students. We will continue to grow and enhance unique makerspaces for students. We recognize the importance of data science in all future STEM professions and will be leaders in data-science education by developing new courses, minors and majors to ensure our students can lead in a data-intensive society. We will engage with the community and beyond by offering new professional master’s programs and launching online courses, certificates and master’s degrees.
Objective 2.1
We will expand the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen and build the Data to Knowledge laboratory to provide design experiences that facilitate partnerships with industry, and local and national organizations. This will enable our students to work on real-world projects and ensure that all students are supported for undergraduate research experiences. We will lead in providing our students with design experiences and preparing them for a data-driven workplace by developing new courses, minors and majors in data science.
Objective 2.2
We will double the number of Rice undergraduate engineering students participating in international educational and service opportunities by identifying study-abroad opportunities, creating more flexible curricula in engineering, and developing a student global travel fund. We will develop service learning courses that will include study-abroad components that provide opportunities for Rice students to study grand-challenge projects within a global context, while immersing them in another culture.
Objective 2.3
We will enhance the impact and visibility of our professional master’s program and ensure that our master’s students have a strong technical foundation, interdisciplinary breadth, professional training, strong communication skills and ethics training. We will launch several new online master’s programs and certificates in high-demand areas to meet the needs of industry (e.g., Data Science, Computer Science, Engineering Management).
Objective 2.4
Through the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership, the School of Engineering will serve as a central point of engineering leadership and entrepreneurship education and training. We will launch a certificate in engineering entrepreneurship that combines engineering ideation, business development, and legal skills, in concert with co-curricular experiences related to leadership in high-tech start-up companies.
Objective 2.5
We will help foster creative thinking among our students by launching an engineering and the arts initiative. We will work with the School of Music, School of Architecture, visual and dramatic arts, the Moody Center and the Houston arts community to develop programs that will foster cross-pollination between engineering and art.
Objective 2.6
We will develop structured STEM outreach programs for underrepresented middle and high school students through strategic partnerships with campus organizations and the city of Houston.