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00:00Please welcome to the stage Reginald DeRoche, President of Rice University, for a conversation with Bloomberg's Lauren Keel.
00:14Good morning, everyone. President DeRoche is the head of a major U.S. research university.
00:20You get a front-hand seat and really a driver's seat role in so many of the major issues that we've been talking about at Davos this week.
00:27You're experiencing the rapid surge of AI and what that's going to mean for your students and training.
00:32You're experiencing what it means to research on a global stage with politics changing.
00:37You're seeing what business is doing. So there's so many amazing things that you are focusing on.
00:42And I really want to start with looking at your own backyard in Texas.
00:45We've seen so many major companies like Tesla, HP, other major corporations relocating their headquarters to Texas.
00:53What makes your community such an attractive environment for businesses?
00:58And from your vantage point, Leading Rice, how do universities contribute to that growth story we're seeing in Texas?
01:04Thank you for the question, Lauren. Thank you for being here. It's great to be with you.
01:08Texas is a great, it's a very business-friendly state.
01:10And we're seeing tons of companies move there because of the business-friendly nature.
01:14It's a very affordable place to live.
01:16And in fact, that's helped us recruit faculty to the university because they want to come to a place where there's lots of industry.
01:21And there's a lot of talent in Texas.
01:23So these companies are interested in leveraging the talent.
01:27It's a growing state. It's a dynamic state.
01:30Texas is investing significantly in a range of areas that are critical, not just for Houston and Texas, but for the globe around AI.
01:37Most recently, brain health, digital health, clean tech.
01:42And so it's really an exciting time to be a university in Texas, to be able to partner with all the industries that are there.
01:47And it's a very friendly state in terms of the partnerships that take place between industries, universities, as well as nonprofits.
01:55And we certainly benefit from that.
01:56And I know you've talked a lot about the connection to Houston and kind of the urban identity, urban research is a defining feature that you see in Rice.
02:05How do you think about the university's connection to the community?
02:08What you provide to it?
02:09How you benefit from it?
02:10What challenges are you uniquely positioned to solve for your community?
02:15It truly is a critical part of how we educate our students, being an urban campus and the research that we do.
02:21So Rice University is at the heart of Houston, Texas, located next to the largest medical center in the world, adjacent to us, two miles from downtown Houston.
02:30A third largest number of Fortune 500 companies in the U.S.
02:34That's a 30-minute drive from Johnson Space Center.
02:38And so we're embedded in this incredible ecosystem.
02:40And we certainly greatly benefit from that as a living laboratory.
02:43So I'll just give you one example of some of the fundamental research that we do and how it leverages the living laboratory of Houston and the ecosystem there.
02:51So we have a well-known center that predicts flooding and tries to prevent disasters from happening called the Speed Center.
02:58It's part of our civil engineering department.
02:59I'm a civil engineer myself, and that group several years ago developed a technology to be able to predict the flooding using topology information and climate models prior to a storm happening,
03:11so that the Texas Medical Center region can make sure they take the right precautions to prevent disasters from happening in that region and damage to some of the infrastructure.
03:20And now that model is being used in other parts of Texas, including the Hill Country that had recent flooding.
03:24And we get guests from all over the world trying to understand how we're implementing that system so that they can replicate it in their areas.
03:31And we wouldn't be able to do that without the partnership that we have in the city of Houston and being in this living laboratory.
03:37And how do you think about your role creating economic value for the city and your community?
03:41Do you feel a responsibility as a big employer, the student communities that you bring in, the research that you do, to be an economic center?
03:49We do, and it's obviously one economic value we have is the talent that we provide to the city of Houston in terms of the students that we produce and the upskilling that we do.
03:59And we could talk more about upskilling, but also in terms of the research.
04:02I mean, people don't realize that the fundamental research that we do, the federal grants that we get from the U.S. government, directly impact the economics of the city of Houston.
04:12And there have been studies that have shown that for every dollar of federal research that comes into a university, $2 to $3 of economic value is generated in the community through the jobs that are created.
04:23So that's certainly one direct way that the university feeds the economic development in the city of Houston and the state of Texas.
04:29The other is through the innovation.
04:32Many of our faculty create companies from the fundamental research that takes place.
04:36We've had hundreds of companies formed, many of them stayed in the city of Houston or in Texas, and those companies have raised billions of dollars in startup funds.
04:46And so there's direct benefit to the city in terms of the research enterprise.
04:51You mentioned upskilling, and I want to talk about this, especially given what we just heard beforehand about the role of universities and the training that they can provide for not just the next generation,
05:02but as people are trying to change their skill sets, as the companies are needing different things from the students,
05:10how are you working with business to understand what they actually want from the students that you're sending out into the world?
05:15And how is it changing the type of curriculums that you're creating, the type of programs or certifications that you produce?
05:22How is that evolving?
05:24Yeah, so we have direct conversation with industry, in part because they're right there and we have close relationships.
05:30They're always on campus. Every day we have numerous people from industry talking to our students, talking directly to me as head of the university,
05:37and we constantly hear from them what they're looking for from our undergraduates as well as our graduate students.
05:42So I'll answer that in two pieces.
05:43Certainly the undergraduates, we constantly hear from them.
05:46We really want students to have these, people call them soft skills.
05:50I don't call them soft skills because they're very hard, but communication skills, adaptability, and teamwork.
05:56And those are things that are actually developed in many ways outside the classroom through the various things that the students do on campus, study abroad, internships.
06:05And so we really, as an institution, are focused on making sure we provide those opportunities.
06:10In the area of upskilling, one of the things we benefit from is the constant conversation, hearing from industry about their needs.
06:16And we have the ability to do bespoke programs just for the industries there.
06:21As an example, we had a major oil and gas company come to us several years ago and say,
06:25we want our employees to understand AI and data science.
06:30Can you develop a master's program for our employees who are not engineers, who do not have a background in this area, but we know they need those skills?
06:37So we developed them just for that particular company, and they had several dozen people take that.
06:42And we've done the same thing for the local Texas Medical Center, where they said the doctors want to understand the finance of health care.
06:48Can you develop a program for them?
06:50So we do a number of those things in addition to short courses and certificates and programs like that.
06:55I think so many of us who went to university before the age of AI, which is probably everybody in this room, right, can't imagine what it's like to write a paper today
07:04or how you're preparing students for needing to be able to use these technologies, but also not atrophying their other skills or taking advantage of some of that critical thinking.
07:15So how are you, in your role, balancing those pressures of wanting your students to be ready for what the career world is going to look for them,
07:22what the workforce is going to look for them, but also making sure that, you know, they don't lean too heavily on these things that are going to take away some of those fundamentals
07:29of what it means to stay up all night and write a paper in the library because that's the only way to do it.
07:34It is a constant conversation that many leaders in higher ed are having is how do you educate the student in the age of AI?
07:40And for us, our approach has been to ensure that our faculty are as fluent as possible in AI so that they can understand how they best use it in the classroom
07:50to make sure that they're enhancing the critical thinking skills and not replacing the learning that they know needs to take place.
07:55And we've rolled out a whole suite of programs for our faculty from one-on-one counseling to boot camps
08:02to make sure that they understand the best use of AI responsibly in their classroom, including in first-year writing.
08:10I mean, we didn't think any of our faculty would be interested or dare to use AI in your fundamental writing class,
08:16but we have a number of faculty who would say there is a place for AI to enhance the learning of our students.
08:21And so we've seen a major embracement of AI as a way of really enhancing the learning and the creative thinking skills of our students,
08:28and we've been pleased to see that.
08:30Another thing people think about often is, you know, given that we're at a global event,
08:34when they think about U.S. education, they think it's so expensive compared to a lot of international universities.
08:40How do you make sure that that is not what is true?
08:44You know, how do you make sure that we're not setting up a generation of American students for costs that are so high
08:49that it's going to impact them for the rest of their careers?
08:52And how do you think about your role, you know, representing American universities in that space
08:58compared to working with international universities and making sure that the U.S. stays a competitive location
09:03for students who are both domestic and people who are coming from abroad?
09:07Yeah, there is a major misunderstanding around the cost of education in the U.S., particularly from abroad.
09:15There's a sticker price and then there's a real price.
09:17And for us, we're really focused on being as accessible and affordable as possible.
09:21So we have a program called the Rice Investment that was launched several years ago
09:25that provides free tuition to students whose families make up to $150,000
09:29and some level of tuition up to $300,000.
09:32So I think people don't really quite understand it.
09:35It's not just Rice.
09:36There are many of my peers across the U.S.
09:38are also really focused on making sure that universities are as accessible and affordable as possible.
09:44And for us, we continue to do that.
09:46We're growing the university by 40%, which is really significant.
09:50You're not finding universities like Rice that are growing.
09:53And we're going to remain committed to making sure that we remain affordable
09:57and provide that financial aid.
09:59We're committed to making sure that we have small class sizes, a 6 to 1 student-factor ratio.
10:04So we're doing all these things, not just to remain competitive,
10:06but to make sure that we're providing a true quality education.
10:11One of the major things that you do at Rice is being a research university,
10:14and we've seen major cuts to federal funding for research in the United States over the last year.
10:19How are you all navigating that?
10:21How do you keep that core of the research going?
10:24How are you getting through that?
10:25Yeah, so several years ago, we went through a strategic planning process
10:29where we developed the areas where we want to do research around sustainable energy,
10:34around innovations in health and urban research.
10:37And we're not straying away from that.
10:38I think people need to be careful to try to shift their research-focused areas
10:43based on the various administrations and the areas that they may be interested in funding.
10:48So for us, we're going to stay to that.
10:50One of the things we realize we need to do is to make sure we diversify the funding sources that we get,
10:55not just depend on the federal government, which has been the biggest funder,
10:59but now we're focused on how do we work with local industries,
11:02how do we work with nonprofits.
11:04There are tons of nonprofits in the Houston area.
11:06So we're really focused on not just diversifying within the federal government the areas of research,
11:11but also trying to look for a wider breadth of potential funders in the area.
11:15You've also been expanding Rice's international footprint.
11:18So how do you think about what that looks like, where you expand, what makes sense for the university?
11:23Yeah, so we have a campus now in Paris, and we have a growing presence in Bangalore, India.
11:29And there are really two things when we think about where we want to expand
11:32and what we want to get out of our international presence and programs.
11:35One is research partnerships.
11:37And so in the case of our Paris campus, we've hosted a series of workshops over the last few years,
11:43engaging researchers, top researchers from Rice University in the U.S. with researchers in Europe.
11:49Just this past year alone, I think there were 30 different papers that were written based on the collaborations
11:53that we had just this past year alone in Europe.
11:57And so forming research partnerships is one of the key areas, reasons that we want to do that
12:01with some of the talent that resides everywhere around the world.
12:04And the other is to provide our students with unique opportunities to study abroad.
12:09And so this past year, we had several hundred students study in Paris.
12:12This past fall, we had our first full semester abroad for students who want to study in Paris,
12:17and we're looking to expand that.
12:19People don't realize just how life-changing it is.
12:22We have students that have never left their state, in some cases, or their community.
12:26For them to come and spend a semester in Paris or a semester in Bangalore,
12:30and I hear this directly from the students, it is truly life-changing.
12:33And we want to try to bring that to as many students as possible.
12:36And then on a personal note, you're an engineer by training and by career experience.
12:41So how do you think in your role now, where you really are the CEO of a university,
12:45you're running a board, you're in a very similar position to many corporate leaders,
12:49how does that training and experience as an engineer impact the way that you lead the university?
12:54Yeah, that's a great question.
12:55I'm often asked that, and I'm actually the first engineering president of Rice University.
12:58I think that some of the skills are very similar.
13:01For me, I always break down problems into bite-sized pieces.
13:04The critical thinking that comes from an engineering degree,
13:08my area of research was around resilience.
13:11And certainly, I think that's very relevant now in how you adapt to the various changes that take place.
13:16And certainly, there are lots of changes in higher ed.
13:18So there are lots of parallels between my training as an earthquake engineer
13:22and building resilient communities and what's happening right now.
13:26And in bringing Rice to Davos, being here on a global stage with all these world leaders,
13:31what's the one message you want to leave them with?
13:34It's an exciting time.
13:35I think it's an exciting time for higher education.
13:38The partnerships that we're building are critical.
13:41I'm excited about the future of higher ed.
13:44People often ask me, what gives you the most hope as a university president?
13:49And it's working with the students.
13:50I spend a lot of time talking to students, and they're just exceptionally bright and hopeful.
13:56And despite all the challenges we're facing in the world,
13:58I know we're in a good place because we have incredible students.
14:02Fantastic.
14:03President Drush, thank you so much for joining me for this conversation.
14:05Thank you, Lauren.
14:06Thank you all so much for being here this morning.
14:10This concludes our program for the morning today.
14:13We want to say thank you to our sponsor, Rice University, for supporting this breakfast session.
14:19We will be back here at 11.20 for our next session.
14:23We'll include an interview with the president of Argentina.
14:25Hope to see you all again then.
14:27Thanks so much.
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