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History of the Wiess School of Natural Sciences

Introduction
1900 - 1909
1910 - 1919
1920 - 1929
1950 - 1959
1960 - 1969
1970 - 1979
1980 - 1989
1990 - 1999
2000 - 2009
Contributors

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Introduction

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The Wiess School of Natural Sciences has always represented new frontiers for Rice University. Its roots date to 1912, the year of the birth of the Rice Institute. In fact, all of the Institute’s four founding departments — biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics — are still part of the Wiess School. Notably, Rice’s first four presidents — Edgar Lovett (1912-1946), William Houston (1946-1961), Kenneth Pitzer (1961-1970) and Norman Hackerman (1970-1985) — each came from backgrounds in the natural sciences. The Wiess School’s namesake, Harry Carothers Wiess, was a Rice trustee, Houston philanthropist, and businessman who was acutely aware of the importance of science to both Rice and Houston’s success. Wiess told the Rice Association of Alumni in 1945, “Scientific research and technical ingenuity have unleashed forces that threaten to overwhelm us unless we soon learn how to utilize them for the benefit of human welfare and progress.” It is no wonder he and his family have endowed laboratories, facilities, and chairs in numerous scientific disciplines at Rice.

The Natural Sciences were Rice’s foundation as it established itself a world-class university in the early 20th Century. The sciences took center stage when Rice received the most international attention: from the crucial founding of NASA and the space sciences, to the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of buckyballs to the 21st Century melding of nanotechnology with life sciences, information technology and environmental science.

Rice’s interdisciplinary institutes, long a hallmark of the university’s collaborative scientific culture, also trace their beginnings to the Wiess School. The School is home to the first of these, the Rice Quantum Institute, as well as the Institute for Biosciences & Bioengineering, the Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, and the Rice Space Institute. Leveraging our institutes, Rice researchers have proven they can remain on the cutting edge of science without sacrificing the university’s commitment to education and vision for modest growth.

Today, the Wiess School is still pioneering educational frontiers by incorporating research into more classes and undergraduate students into research laboratories. In the majority of Rice labs today, undergraduates can be found working side by side with faculty, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to advance the boundaries of human understanding in astronomy, biochemistry, cell biology, chemistry, earth science, ecology, evolutionary biology, mathematics and physics.

Follow the timeline of the Wiess School’s dynamic history at the most important of human boundaries — the frontiers of knowledge.

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1900 - 1909

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A WIESS SCHOOL HISTORICAL TIMELINE

1907

Edgar Odell Lovett, an energetic young mathematician and astronomer from Princeton University, is named Rice’s first president. Lovett had a B.A. from Bethany College and two Ph.D.'s, one from the University of Virginia and the other from the University of Leipzig. In May 1941 Lovett resigned officially from the presidency, but he continued to serve until February 1946 because World War II made it too difficult to recruit a new president. Lovett died August 13, 1957 at the age of 86.

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1910 - 1919

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1912	William Marsh Rice Institute opens with Lovett at its helm. Joining him are 12 faculty, 48 male and 29 female students. Founding departments include biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics.
1916	Rice’s first commencement: 35 bachelor degrees and one master’s degree are awarded.
1916	Former Cambridge professor Julian Huxley leads the biology department while advocating the then-controversial theories of evolution and equal rights for women.
1918	First Rice Ph.D. is awarded to Hubert Bray in mathematics. Bray becomes a professor at Rice and later, chair of the mathematics department.

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1920 - 1929

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1923	Undergraduate enrollment surpasses 1,000, and there are 20 graduate students. The biology department turns away students for lack of space. Admission requirements are raised, and entering freshmen enrollment is limited to 400 per year.
1925	The Chemistry Building, later renamed Dell Butcher Hall, is built.

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1950 - 1959

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1950	George R. Brown becomes chairman of the board.
1950	Rice’s endowment is over $30 million. There are 114 faculty, and enrollment is 1,500, including150 graduate students. Houston, with a population of nearly 600,000, is the 16th largest US city.
1952	Olga Weiss creates the Harry Carothers Wiess Chair of Geology.
1953	With Houston’s growing position as a centerpiece of the oil industry, the requirement for increased study of geology is apparent. The Department of Geology (later renamed Geology and Geophysics, then Earth Science) is established.
1953	Carey Croneis named Wiess Professor of Geology and head of the new Geology department, as well as provost of the Institute.
1953	Bonner Nuclear Laboratory and Anderson Biological Sciences Building, named for M. D. Anderson, are opened.
1954	Olga Wiess donates to construction of Keith Wiess Geological Laboratories.
1955	Rice awards its first PhD in something other than the Natural Sciences.
1956	Wiess’ three daughters donate to construct Keith Wiess Geological Laboratories.
1958	Keith Wiess Geological Laboratories completed.
1958	Chemist Robert Curl joins Rice’s faculty.
1958	NASA is established July 29 by the National Aeronautics and Space Act. With “manned” spacecraft a priority, the agency begins analyzing potential locations for a manned space center that will allow for easy water transportation to Florida. Houston, along with New Orleans and Mobile, is considered.
1959	By the end of 1959, Rice had awarded 261 doctorates, 246 of which were in science or engineering. Ninety-one were in physics alone.
1960	Rice's introductory mathematics course, Math 100, is split into a section for scientists and engineers and a section for non-science majors.
1960	The Rice Institute is formally re-designated William Marsh Rice University.

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1960 - 1969

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1960's	Herman Brown Hall constructed with funding from the Sloan Foundation.
1961	Croneis becomes acting president after Houston resigns due to heart attack.
1961	NASA announces that its new $60 million Manned Spacecraft Center would have major ties to Rice University for research and instruction.
1961	The R1, Rice’s first computer, is completed and becomes fully operational in Ambercrombie Laboratory. The R1 is initially named “The Rice Institute Computer” and later becomes “The Rice University Computer”.
1961	Kenneth Sanborn Pitzer is appointed the third president of Rice in July 1961 and formally inaugurated on October 10, 1962 as part of the university’s Semicentennial Celebration. Pitzer was a professor of chemistry and Dean of the College of Chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley before he accepted the presidency at Rice. He earned his B.S. at California Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley.
1962	Speaking in Rice Stadium, President John F. Kennedy announces that the United States intends “to become the world's leading space-faring nation.”
1962	President of the Rice board, George R. Brown, a colleague of both Vice President Lyndon Johnson and powerful Congressman Albert Thomas, persuades Humble Oil to give Rice 1,000 acres of land in Clear Lake that Rice can offer NASA as a location for its Manned Space Center. NASA accepts and months later secures 600 more acres from Humble Oil by trading one of its local properties—the 525-home Afton Oaks subdivision northwest of campus.
1963	Bolstered by Rice’s new relationship with NASA, Pitzer founds the department of space science the first of its kind in the country. Alex Dessler is selected chair. NASA funding follows, including money for research, funds for a new building to house the department, and funding for 24 new NASA graduate fellows.
1963	A unanimous board files a lawsuit to allow Rice to modify its charter to admit students of all races and to charge tuition.
1963	Tenure system is implemented.
1964	The court finds in favor of the petition filed the year before to allow Rice to modify its charter to charge tuition and to admit students of all races.
1964	The Biomedical Engineering Laboratory, directed by W. W. Akers, is established under the stimulation and guidance of Dr Michael DeBakey of the Baylor College of Medicine.
1965	Tuition is charged for first time ($1,200).
1965	The first female Wiess School of Natural Sciences faculty, Krystyna Ansevin, assistant professor in Biology, arrives at Rice.
1966	The Space Science and Technology Building is completed.
1966	Neal Lane joins Rice as assistant professor of physics.
1967	Bill Gordon becomes first dean of both science and engineering.
Late 1960s	Mathematical Sciences emerge in the late 1960’s in Natural Sciences and became part of the School of Engineering in the 1980’s.
1968	Pitzer resigns to become president of Stanford University.
1968	Bill Gordon is promoted to provost and dean of science.
1969	Frank Vandiver is appointed interim president of Rice.
1969	Raymond Johnson, first African-American to be awarded a Rice degree, earns a Ph.D. in Mathematics.

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1970 - 1979

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1970	Norman Hackerman appointed as Rice’s fourth president by a search committee consisting of Board members, faculty, and student representatives. Another scientist, he is the second chemist to serve in the position. Hackerman was appointed in April 1970 and formally inaugurated on September 24, 1971. Hackerman was a professor of chemistry and the president of University of Texas at Austin before accepting the presidency at Rice. He earned his A.B. and Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University.
1971	R1 computer is decommissioned.
1971	Ken Kennedy '67 becomes assistant professor of mathematics.
1972	The Department of Biochemistry (now Biochemistry & Cell Biology) is founded with George Schroepfer as chair.
1972	Enrollment tops 3,000, with 2,655 undergraduates and 624 graduate students.
1973	Two of Rice's residential colleges, Baker and Hanszen, become the first to go coed; within 15 years, all others will follow.
1975	The Division of Science and Engineering splits into two schools: the George R. Brown School of Engineering and the School of Natural Sciences. William Gordon remains as Dean of Natural Sciences and Alan Chapman is appointed Dean of Engineering.
1976	Richard Smalley joins Rice as assistant professor of chemistry.
1978	Robert Wilson ‘57 becomes the first Rice graduate to receive the Nobel Prize, winning the physics prize for the co-discovery of cosmic radiation background.
1979	The School of Natural Sciences is renamed the Wiess School of Natural Sciences in honor of Harry and Olga Keith Wiess.
1979	Rick Smalley initiates the founding of the Rice Quantum Institute, the campus’ first institute.

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1980 - 1989

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1980	King Walters is appointed dean of the Wiess School of Natural Sciences.
1981	The Woodson Research Center in Fondren Library becomes the repository of NASA Johnson Space Center's archives, which are returned to JSC in early 2000.
1984	The Geology Department changes to Geology & Geophysics.
1985	Smalley, Curl and visiting Rice scholar Harold Kroto announce the discovery C60, a soccerball-shaped carbon molecule that Smalley names buckminsterfullerene in honor of architect and geodesic dome inventor Buckminster Fuller. The discovery shocked the scientific world because carbon was one of the most-studied elements in nature, and buckyballs represented a new molecular form of carbon that was distinct from graphite and diamond. Buckyballs were eventually found to be just one of a family of carbon molecules that are known collectively as fullerenes.
1985	George Erik Rupp is named the fifth president of Rice. Former dean of Harvard Divinity School and a professor of religious studies, he is the first nonscientist president of Rice. Rupp took office July 1, 1985 and was formally inaugurated on October 25, 1985. He was the Lord O'Brian Professor of Divinity and Dean of the Divinity School at Harvard University before accepting the Rice presidency. He earned his A.B. at Princeton University, his B.D. at Yale University and his Ph.D. at Harvard University.
1986	Neal Lane is recruited back to campus as provost after serving two years as chancellor of University of Colorado – Colorado Springs.
1986	Rupp establishes the Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering (IBB) to foster cross-disciplinary research and education programs encompassing the biological, chemical and engineering disciplines. The Institute serves as an administrative bridge between faculty from the departments of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Bioengineering, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering. George Schroepfer is appointed chair.
1988	Jim Kinsey '56 (Ph.D. Rice 1959) becomes dean of the Wiess School of Natural Sciences.
1989	The Department of Biochemistry becomes the Department of Biochemistry & Cell Biology.
1989	The Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology is formed from the former Biology Department.

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1990 - 1999

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1991	A building for biosciences and bioengineering—George R. Brown Hall, named for the longtime chair of the Rice board—is completed following a five-year, $25 million fundraising initiative by IBB. The new building houses IBB and brings together faculty from BCB, chemistry and chemical engineering.
1993	Jim Kinsey is named provost.
1993	The Center for Nanoscale Science & Technology, the first university-based research institute dedicated to nanotechnology in the United States, is established under the leadership by Rick Smalley.
1993	Malcolm Gillis becomes Rice's sixth president after Rupp resigns (later appointed president of Columbia University). A native of Marianna, Florida, Gillis received his A.A. from Chipola Junior College, his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Florida, and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. His first academic position was as an assistant professor of economics at Duke University, followed by a 15-year stint at Harvard. He returned to Duke in 1984 as professor of economics and of public policy. In 1990, he was named Z. Smith Reynolds Distinguished Professor in Public Policy before leaving Duke to lead Rice.
1996	Smalley, Curl and Kroto win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of buckyballs. This marks the first time a Nobel is awarded for a discovery made on Rice’s campus.
1997	Dell Butcher Hall is relocated from its former home on campus to a new facility on the northwest corner of campus.
1998	Kathleen Matthews becomes dean (on Rice faculty since 1972).
1998	Rice opens Dell Butcher Hall, a new 83,000 square-foot building dedicated to nanotechnology research. The building houses members of the chemistry, physics and electrical and computer engineering departments.
1998	Rice undergraduates win 27 National Science Foundation Fellowships—the most in the university's history—placing Rice first in the nation in the percentage of students who received this honor.
1999	The Geology & Geophysics Department changes to the Department of Earth Science.
1999	Rice enrollment stands at approximately 2,750 undergraduate students and 1,550 graduate and professional students. As of this year, Rice has conferred 30,627 undergraduate and 13,580 graduate and professional degrees.

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2000 - 2009

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2000	A newly renovated three-story, 54,000-square-foot Howard Keck Hall in honor of former chairman and president of the W. M. Keck Foundation is unveiled and dedicated. The building had been known as the Old Chemistry Building and later as Dell Butcher Hall. The grant to remodel the building totaled $14 million and came in the form of a matching grant as part of Rice’s first comprehensive fundraising campaign, “Rice: The Next Century.”
2000	The Space Physics & Astronomy department joins Physics to become Physics & Astronomy.
2000	Rice Space Institute founded.
2001	A new organization, the Gulf Coast Consortia, is founded, to bring together six member institutions to build interdisciplinary collaborative research teams and training programs in the biological sciences at their intersection with the computational, chemical, mathematical, and physical sciences: Baylor College of Medicine, Rice University, University of Houston, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
2001	Rice wins one of the National Science Foundation’s first six Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers, which are established with NNI funding. Rice’s Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN) becomes the world’s first academic research center dedicated to studying the interaction of nanomaterials with living organisms and ecosystems.
2001	Colvin spearheads the creation of the Shared Equipment Authority (SEA) to maximize the useful lifespan of high-dollar instruments and to ensure that all Rice faculty have access to big-ticket equipment that is increasingly needed to land competitive research grants.
2002	NASA astronauts James Newman '82 and Mike Massimino, adjunct professor in mechanical engineering and materials science, perform two spacewalks to service the Hubble Space Telescope, installing a new solar array and replacing the Hubble’s Faint Object Camera with the state-of-the-art Advanced Camera for Surveys, a device that produced a tenfold increase in Hubble's capability.
2003	Following an intensive, five-year research program funded by NASA, Rick Smalley's Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory unveils the first system capable of continuously producing single-walled carbon nanotubes in bulk. The high-pressure carbon monoxide process, or HiPco, is a watershed achievement that eliminates the supply bottleneck that has plagued nanotube researchers for more than a decade.
2004	Rice becomes a member of the Texas Medical Center.
2004	David Leebron becomes seventh president of Rice. A native of Philadelphia, Leebron is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was elected president of the Law Review in his second year. After graduating in 1979, he served as a law clerk for Judge Shirley Hufstedler on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Los Angeles. In 1980, he taught torts as acting assistant professor of law at the UCLA School of Law. In 1981, he joined the New York firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, where he specialized in corporate law. He became a faculty member of the New York University School of Law in 1983 and also served as director of the International Legal Studies Program. In 1989, Leebron joined the faculty of Columbia University School of Law, and in 1996 he was appointed dean and named the Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law before leaving to lead Rice.
2004	The Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) is founded.
2005	CNST students and members construct the world’s largest nanotube model. The scale model, which is one-foot wide and 1,181-feet long is certified by Guinness Book of World Records.
2005	Rick Smalley dies. CNST is renamed the Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology.
2006	Rice greenhouses built for ecology research.
2007	The Rice Board unanimously agrees to build a 10-story, 477,000 square foot Collaborative Research Center at the corner of Main and University on the southwest tip of campus immediately adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. The building will exist to facilitate collaborative interactions between Rice University and other TMC institutions.
2007	One of several Rice alumna astronauts, Peggy Whitson begins her second six-month mission aboard the International Space Station as its first-ever female commander.
2008	The Rice Board unanimously agrees to build a 110,000 square foot Physics building at the heart of the science quadrangle to house faculty pursuing advanced physics and engineering physics.
2009	Dan Carson becomes dean.
2009	Expected opening of Collaborative Research Center.
2012	Rice to celebrate its Centennial.