Doc Talks

On this episode, we look back at the Task Force research updates on slavery and the Founder's Memorial, released in June 2021. Two Rice professors from the Jones School of Business and the Department of Sociology join us to discuss the updates and look ahead.

On this episode, we discuss the Board of Trustees' announcement of plans to redesign the academic quadrangle and move the statue that has long stood at its center. We also examine a well-known photograph of a student protest from the 1970s and discuss newfound evidence that connects the protest with the origins of the Black Student Union.

A 1923 homecoming article in the Rice Thresher introduces us to an African American woman who worked on campus during the earliest days of the Rice Institute. And another article from the same year features a student performance of Eugene O'Neill's short play "The Dreamy Kid,"raising questions about portrayals of Black characters on stage at the Institute.

There were no Black students or faculty at the opening of the Rice Insitute in 1912, but in this episode, we take a look at some of the schools being built and attended by Black Houstonians at the same time. When Black faculty like Dr. Rose M. Brewer finally do begin to arrive at Rice in the 1970s, what do their paths to the university tell us about the first decade of desegregation at Rice?

On this episode, you'll hear about a decision made (or not made) by the Rice Board of Trustees in 1941, and you'll get a glimpse of the 2021 edition of O-Week. Dr. McDaniel is also joined by a special guest, Dr. Nicole Waligora-Davis from the Department of English, to discuss a banquet held by the student Pre-Law Society in 1928.

A video featuring an early Black faculty member walking in the academic quadrangle in 1972, and a series of events surrounding the unveiling of the William Marsh Rice statue in 1930, leads to a conversation about race, space, and belonging at Rice.

On this episode, we examine a property deed from 1848 that highlights William Marsh Rice's role in the enslavement of a woman named Ellen and her infant daughter, Louisa. Then we turn to a report by Rice students, faculty, and staff from 1990 that reflects on the state of Black life at the University as the twentieth century came to a close.

On this episode, we are joined by three undergraduate students at Rice who shared research on three significant documents about a parade, a pageant, and a photograph from the early years of the Rice Institute.

On this episode, we examine the contested history of two holidays once observed on the Rice campus. One, announced in 1920, was organized to commemorate Confederate veterans, while the other, designed to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., was planned by leaders of the Black Student Union in 1972.

On this episode, an editorial in the Rice Thresher about the Office of Minority Affairs sparks a windfall of letters that give insight into the Black student experience at Rice and much more. And an interview in the Houston Chronicle with Rice President Kenneth Pitzer sends us back to the Woodson Research Center for a closer look at the Pitzer Papers and how desegregation policy got made at the university.

On this episode, we discuss two letters to presidents, written one hundred years apart. One letter, written by William Marsh Rice to U.S. President Andrew Johnson, raises questions about Rice's loyalties during the Civil War. The other, written by Raymond Johnson to Rice president Kenneth Pitzer in 1965, opens a window onto the experience of the first African American student to enroll at Rice University.

On this episode, we are joined by four special guests---two former and two current Rice students---to talk about four documents: a page from a business ledger belonging to William Marsh Rice; a survey of the courses that have been offered at Rice over time; and two application essays---one by Linda Faye Williams, a trailblazing Black student and scholar, and one by J. W. Slaughter, an early member of the faculty at the Rice Institute.

On this episode, we have an iconic photograph of Jacqueline McCauley, the first African American woman to enroll at Rice University. We also have a legal document that reveals one of the ways that William Marsh Rice, the university's founder, profited from slavery, and that also opens a window onto the culture and identities of African people forcibly brought to Texas through the Atlantic slave trade.