2012 Gold Medal
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John Boles is perhaps one of the best known professors at Rice University today. A 1965 graduate of Rice with a BA in History, Boles attended the University of Virginia for his PhD, also in history. He returned to Rice in 1981 and has been teaching history here ever since. He continues to serve on substantial committees both on and off campus, take an active role on editorial journals and in professional societies, teach both undergraduate and graduate students, and publish significant books and articles on Southern History and on Rice’s founding president Edgar Odell Lovett. In the past 20 years, Boles has participated in approximately 15 Alumni College Weekends, both in Houston and on the road, been a speaker in some 14 or more travel programs, given dozens of lectures at the request of the President’s Office and Office of Alumni Affairs, and served as a faculty lecturer at Families Weekend and Homecoming & Reunion events. He is also an ambassador for Rice to the Houston community, having presented nearly 50 talks as a part of Continuing Studies courses. A past winner of both of the other awards presented by the Association of Rice Alumni, the Meritorious Service Award and the Distinguished Alumni Award, Boles has proven himself as uniquely engaged in university life and history and as an exemplary scholar. Few other individuals have demonstrated a deeper and more abiding commitment to Rice – from his student days to the present – and has had as profound an influence on innumerable students, a host of faculty, and many facets of institutional life. As supporter and fellow Gold Medal recipient Allen Matusow said, “The only issue regarding the nomination of John Boles for the Gold Medal of the Association of Rice Alumni is why he has not already been a recipient. In nearly 50 years at Rice, I have known no one who has been more devoted the university, served it in more ways, or enjoyed more success as a teacher and scholar.” |
This is the highest award presented by the Association of Rice Alumni. The Gold Medal is designed to recognize Rice alumni, faculty, staff, or friends who have rendered extraordinary service to the university. Each recipient must demonstrate one or more of the following criteria: outstanding service in promoting the ideals of the founder of the university OR unusually deep dedication to and advancement of the academic excellence of the university OR uncommon generosity of time and means in support of the university. Preference will be given to living nominees, but posthumous awards are not forbidden.
2012 Distinguished Alumni Awards
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O.J. Brigance, a 1992 graduate in Managerial Studies, received a number of Rice and Southwest Conference recognitions for his collegiate football career. Off the field at Rice, Brigance served as team liaison to the Career Services Office and inspired many football players to consider how they would be better prepared for life after Rice. His gridiron career spanned two professional leagues, four professional teams, and nearly 10 years. He is one of very few players to have won both Canadian Football League and National Football League Championships and the only player to have done so in the same city: Baltimore. In 2004, Brigance made the transition to an NFL front office as he assumed the position of Director of Player Development for the Baltimore Ravens. In that position, he developed programs to assist players in positioning themselves to have robust careers on and off the field of play, including player internship and continuing education programs. The NFL honored Brigance with the Best Overall Player Development Program Award in 2005 and 2006, the Most Outstanding Internship Program Award in 2005, and the Outstanding Continuing Education Program Award in 2007. That same year, 2007, Brigance was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that currently has no cure. He chose to make the best of his diagnosis and has since founded the Brigance Brigade Foundation and partners with the Johns Hopkins Center for ALS Research, becoming their ALS Ambassador. Richard W. Cass, president of the Baltimore Ravens, said, “It is difficult for me to imagine a better role model for current Rice students than O.J. Brigance. He has had an outstanding career, but to achieve that success he has had to overcome adversity every step of the way. I am confident that he would be an inspiration to Rice’s current students, in much the same way he is an inspiration to all of us at the Ravens and in Baltimore.” |
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James “Jimmie” Powell is a 1951 graduate of Rice University and has spent the majority of his professional career as a rancher. His nominators say that he “has been a committed and visionary leader of organizations that support agriculture and stewards of agricultural land.” Powell claims that he learned to diversify at Rice, which has made him successful in several fields of endeavor and an important benefactor of communities, museums, and universities. Powell served as president of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA) from 1988 to 1990 and was instrumental in sweeping improvements in the ranching industry as well as the growth of the organization whose members now manage or own more than 5 million acres. TSCRA is a 134-year-old trade organization and the largest livestock association in Texas, representing more than 15,000 beef cattle producers, ranching families, and businesses. He has encouraged continual research into animal health and diseases and strongly supports national biosecurity programs. In addition, he is dedicated to education and has worked with students in ranch management programs, sharing his philosophy on land stewardship and animal husbandry. Powell has led other industry organizations, including the Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers Association and the National Wool Growers Association. On a national level, he served on the Advisory Committee for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Packers and Stockyard Administration and on the Secretary of Agriculture’s Technical Advisory Committee for Multilateral Trade Negotiation. His awards include induction into the International Stockmen’s Hall of Fame in 1990, induction into the Texas Heritage Hall of Honor in 2008, the Texas Agriculture Lifetime Leadership Achievement Award in 2005, and the National Golden Spur Award from the National Ranching Heritage Center in 2002.
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Charles Renfro graduated in 1987 with a BA in studio art/architecture and in 1989 completed his Bachelor of Architecture, both from Rice University. Since then, he has become one of the most celebrated architects representing the School of Architecture at Rice. Few Rice alumni practicing architecture today have had such a significant impact on architecture and its future direction over the past two decades. His firm, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, has just completed the renovation of the Lincoln Center and the conversion of an abandoned elevated rail line into the wildly successful High Line, a linear public park in Manhattan. Additionally, Diller Scofidio + Renfro has, in the past year, obtained commissions for the Broad Museum in Los Angeles and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Renfro played a key role in the firm’s transition from upstart studio at the margins of the architectural professional to a major influence in contemporary design worldwide. He is known for his intellectual curiosity and multi-disciplinary approach, a hallmark of Rice graduates, that binds together an interest in architecture and design, art and urban culture. Renfro has been a faculty member at Columbia University since 2000, is a visiting professor at Parsons New School for Design, and in 2010 traveled to New Zealand, where he gave lectures at the University of Auckland and at the Adam Auditorium in Wellington. Additionally, he mentors young designers and welcomes qualified Rice fifth year architecture students to intern at his firm.
One of his nominators wrote, “As a practitioner, an educator, a writer, and an ambassador of Rice, Charles consistently pushes architecture’s boundaries in unforeseen directions.” |
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Rebecca Greene Udden ’73 is the Founding Artistic Director of Houston’s Main Street Theater. Begun in 1975 as a collective of artists in Autry House, in 1978 it became a more conventional non-profit theater and was transformed again in 1981 when the theater outgrew its original location and remodeled a new space in West University into a 99-seat theater. By 1996, the theater had grown enough to open a second space in Chelsea Market. The newest 274-seat theater showcases large-scale classics and musicals and is home to Houston’s top youth theater program, The Main Street Youth Theater. Udden has championed new works by young playwrights and has helmed several Houston premieres from playwrights such as Tom Stoppard, Wendy Wasserstein, and Tina Howe. The theater has aided the careers of local actors, such as Tess Harper, who went on to star with Robert Duvall in “Tender Mercies,” but has also nourished the growth of a few local playwrights. She has also championed the work of women playwrights, including Frances Burney, Lillian Hellmann, and Clare Boothe Luce. Through the Main Street Youth Theater and the Kids on Stage, Udden has brought the magic of theater and the educational experience theater can provide to children throughout the Houston area. As two of her nominators said, “No person in the history of theater in Houston other than Nina Vance (who founded the Alley Theater) has had a more meaningful impact to date on our community than Becky Udden.” |
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This award is presented to alumni who have advanced the interests and standards of excellence of Rice University through distinctive professional or volunteer careers. It is reserved for those who attended the university as an undergraduate or graduate student for a period of at least one year and are living at the time of consideration. No one who has received the Gold Medal is eligible for this award.
2012 Meritorious Service Awards
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Robert Flatt has given generously to Rice in many ways. In 1987, Flatt began teaching as an Adjunct Professor at the Jones Graduate School of Business (JGSB), where he developed and taught the core second year course in Production and Operations Management until 2010. He remains as an instructor teaching a second year elective on Leading Operational Change. Continuing his involvement with the Jones School, Flatt served on the curriculum committee for the Executive MBA program in 1999. Through his work at JGSB, he has influenced more than two decades of leaders in the Rice and Houston communities. As supporter Deborah Brochstein said, “Rice is full of intelligent, capable professors, many of whom have had a positive impact on my life and business, but none affected me as much as Robert.” He has had as much an impact on others through his work with many other groups on campus, including the Association of Rice Alumni (ARA), Rice Athletics, and Wiess College. In the early 1990s, Flatt was engaged in long term planning for the ARA, including ensuring that the current alumni board more fully captured the alumni of the university by adding positions to the board representing cities and regions other than Houston. He remains a Community Associate at Wiess College, continuing his nearly 30-year engagement with those students, including working with Wiess senior Austin Lipinski to produce the documentary “Running Water”. Flatt is probably best known around campus as the talented photographer who has captured the wonderful images of owls on campus. He has taken nearly every photography course on campus and has taught a number of them himself. Flatt is a treasured faculty member, alumni member, and volunteer, and he is an integral part of the fabric of the university.
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Dr. Eva Lee came to the Rice campus in 1969 as a physical education instructor and to help run the women’s sports programs. She unexpectedly found herself a home for the next 40 years; Lee was awarded Professor Emeritus status in 2000. She coordinated women’s basketball, volleyball, and tennis and also taught in the Department of Kinesiology. At the time, women’s athletics were not formally organized, so Lee’s involvement coaching those sports required practices and travel, not financed by the university, to venues outside of Houston. These activities were outside of her actual job responsibilities. Equally important was Lee’s role as a faculty associate and, from 1975 through 1983, as a Resident Associate at Jones College, where she assisted in the transition from an all-female to a co-ed residential college. In addition, she served as Director of the Equal Opportunity Office (EEO) for thirteen years before to returning to kinesiology in 1993 to resume her teaching and research responsibilities. As the director of the EEO, Lee formed a Women’s Commission and worked closely with the members to identify issues and develop avenues for correction of biases and misconceptions and to equalize workloads, position descriptions, and salaries of staff and faculty members. During her tenure as director, she made great progress for minority employees and women faculty and staff. Lee is still active on the Women’s Athletic Advisory Board and maintains an interest in all athletic endeavors. As supporter Kathy Matthews said, she “cleared paths and paved roads so that the women who followed her would have a clearer, and easier, trek to their goals. She opened new opportunities for women and minority faculty and staff.” Lee was an integral female role model on the Rice campus for over 40 years, and she remains an inspiration to female graduates, faculty, and staff. |
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Dr. Ed Williams is Henry Gardiner Symonds Professor at Rice University and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business (JGSB). Since he joined the Rice faculty in 1978, he has made extensive contributions to the university and added immeasurably to the prestige of the JGSB and Rice as a whole. The Jones School Entrepreneurship Program was initiated by Williams when there were few such programs established in business schools within the United States. In 2010, the Entrepreneurship Program was recognized as the 6th best graduate school level program of its kind, and the highest in Texas, as determined by the Princeton Review. Williams has received the Teaching Excellence Award from JGSB students seven times and finally asked that he not be considered for the award going forward. One year, his student evaluations were recognized as the highest throughout the university, not just within the Jones School. His work to improve the reputation and class programming at JGSB remains an important part of his focus. He has participated on numerous committees, including the Entrepreneurship Enhancement Committee, and in several programs, including the Jones Graduate School Entrepreneur Organization, where he works on creating alliances between the Entrepreneur Organization and the Jones School by bringing Houston-area entrepreneurs together with Jones students. Williams was also the driving force behind the beginnings of Rice’s Business Plan Competition, which has evolved into the leading business plan competition for graduate schools in the world. It offers the largest pool of candidates and the richest opportunities for rewards and financing. As one of his former students, Gretchen Penny wrote, “I believe that Ed Williams exemplifies someone who is a tireless ambassador and emissary on Rice’s behalf. He has demonstrated a commitment to the lifelong vitality of Rice University and the entrepreneurship program at the Jones Graduate School of Business, in particular”. The reputation of the Jones Graduate School of Business, and of Rice University, would not be the same without the benefit of having Williams as a part of the institution.
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This award was established in 1986 to provide recognition for those who have made significant, sustained, and voluntary contributions of energy, time, and creativity toward the advancement of the university. Alumni, active or retired faculty, staff, administrators, and friends of the university who are living at the time of their selection are eligible. No one who has received the Gold Medal is eligible for this award.
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