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Chapter nine FULL CIRCLE Retirement, Transition, Renewed Momentum The World War II years were a period of sustained boom for Houston . Shipyards and plants for the production of high-octane aviation fuel, artificial rubber, and a smorgasbord of other petrochemical derivatives fueled population and employment growth, and it was during these years that Houston overtook New Orleans to become the largest city in the South, with a population that grew from about 500,000 in 1945 to 600,000 by 1950. Perhaps because the city had become a major seaport in 1914 as a result of dredging the sleepy Buffalo Bayou into the ship channel, there was a can-do spirit about Houston that created a confidence that great things could be accomplished there. During the first years of the war the seeds of the Texas Medical Center were planted, ultimately to become far and away the largest medical complex in the world. Downtown skyscrapers pushed upward as housing sprawled to the south and west: Houston impressed visitors as an unfinished city, a city on the make. In this heady atmosphere the trustees of the Rice Institute, with its financial resources on the mend and energized by vigorous new board members, began to strategize for another period of growth and improvement as the city’s leading university. More than four decades earlier Edgar Odell Lovett had spoken about the synergistic relationship between great cities and great universities, so no one could have more quickly than he grasped the importance of Houston’s spectacular growth and maturity for the future prospects of Rice Institute. By the summer of 1944 Lovett submitted a brief report—in response to a request from trustees Harry C. Hanszen and George R. Brown— reprising the history of the university and highlighting the strategic choices that had been made in the beginning. These two trustees, joined just a month previously by Harry C. Wiess, did not intend to be passive 258 University Builder caretakers of either the endowment or the direction of the university, and both of them understood that Lovett would be their best ally as they contemplated enhancement. Alumni leaders too had been urging that the university embark on a public relations effort to increase awareness of the importance of the university to the community and the need for systematic fundraising, and even the student editors of the Thresher were advocating that the university augment its physical facilities and offerings in “liberal learning” to balance the traditional emphasis on science and engineering. The Thresher’s lead editorial for February 1, 1945, urged trustee Harry Wiess to write an article for the newspaper on how the trustees envisioned Rice’s future, and the paper indicated strong disapproval of any plans that might constrict the university’s offerings and transform the university into “the Rice Institute of Technology .” A few weeks later the Thresher published Wiess’s response. He was studying every aspect of Rice’s past and its present in order to better understand what should be done next, and he pointed out that “The formulation of a sound long-range program . . . requires careful consideration of the needs of the community and area, the interests of present and prospective students, and the faculty that is available or can be secured .” Such analysis was necessarily time-consuming, but he did point out that “The broad concept established by the founder and others who have contributed to the endowment of the Institute provides an opportunity and imposes a responsibility on the Trustees to do everything they can to make Rice an outstanding educational institution.” To further this analysis, the board established three special committees , the first of which was the Survey Committee to “make a survey and report on past development, present status, and future outlook of the Institute’s financial and educational affairs,” and to this key committee were appointed trustees Wiess, George Brown, Benjamin Botts Rice, and Edgar Odell Lovett. The Finance Committee, consisting of Brown, Hanszen, and Alexander S. Cleveland, would recommend the purchase of securities for the endowment. The Loan Committee, consisting of John T. Scott, Rice, Cleveland, and Lovett, would analyze and approve secured loans that would be made. The first two committees were clearly the more important, and they were dominated by younger board members. No longer would affairs be handled as in the Full Circle 259 past; there would be more open analysis, reporting, and discussion. The invigorated board would proactively help shape future development of the university. And by late...

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