Monday, July 10, 2006
Library’s namesake: the founding president
|
The new library building at the University of Southern Indiana bears the name of the University’s founding president, David L. Rice. The naming retains the popular Board of Trustees decision in 1992 to name the original academic library for Dr. Rice to recognize the positive developments of the campus during his leadership. Dr. Rice retired in 1994. The first library building was completed in 1971 and served the growing campus until this summer when the five-story $27.5 million Rice Library opened. Grand opening July 23 A grand opening, with tours of the facility, will be held from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, July 23, 2006. The dramatic size of Rice Library makes it a focal point among USI structures. A Rice trait In the mid 1990s, former State Senator Robert Fair was asked if he thought when USI was created in 1985 that it would grow to a predicted enrollment of 7,500 students in the next decade. His reply was, “Yes, I did because David Rice convinced me.” The Rice trait for building consensus is well known by community leaders, faculty, and staff. Dr. Rice learned upon arrival in Evansville that the community leaders had an intense commitment to have public higher education available in this region of the state. The city leaders had suffered through the loss of jobs in the 1950s and an establishment of a public higher education institution was their way of attacking the economic problem, so wide-spread job loss would not happen again to Evansville citizens. When Dr. Rice was at Ball State University in the 1960s, a study he worked on showed Southwest Indiana had the lowest percentage of college participation in the state. Bringing a public university to the area and providing higher education at a cost more people could afford met an existing need. Armed with data from a study about the progress of public higher education institutions in communities similar in size to the city of Evansville, he said he and his colleagues could foresee that if they marshaled resources of faculty, library, and facilities, there was no doubt that the institution would grow to a University of its present size. Two colleagues at Ball State counseled Dr. Rice about the Evansville job. One said, “Don’t go to Evansville. There are problems there.” The other said, “Go to Evansville. That is a place on the move.” With that advice and the knowledge that Byron Wright, a business officer at Ball State University, would be available to move to Evansville, Dr. Rice, his wife Betty, and their two children moved in 1967 when USI was an extension of Indiana State University. The Evansville campus began in 1965 under direct ISU administration. ISUE to USI The institution operated as Indiana State University Evansville and became known as ISUE. For four years, ISUE was housed in Centennial School, an elementary school built at the turn of the 20th century. The campus was moved in 1969 to the present day 300-acre campus on Highway 62 midway between Mt. Vernon and Evansville. In 1985 the University gained its independence from ISU through legislation of the General Assembly, and it became know as the University of Southern Indiana, a statewide institution. In 1970, a news article quoted Dr. Rice, “every citizen who desires an education, who is capable of attaining an education, and who is willing to achieve an education shall have the opportunity to do so.” Similar words are in the University’s mission: the University seeks to positively affect postsecondary attainment levels in Indiana. Following the 2006 Commencement, the University counts 22,500 among those who have accepted the invitation to earn a college education. A teaching and learning environment Dr. Rice’s own introduction to the benefits of education started early. His mother was supportive of teaching and learning. And in public school he said he met a great group of teachers who nurtured students. In high school a teacher took an interest in 12 students and offered the option that if the students would give up their lunch hours, this teacher would offer another course not currently in the curriculum. As one of these students, Dr. Rice was offered courses in business law, trigonometry, physics, and other such courses. He recalled that five students of this group became college professors. Dr. Rice started his career teaching junior high school in Wallace, Indiana, while pursuing his advanced degrees at Purdue University. Later he held faculty and administrative positions at Ball State University, including a stint in Washington, D.C. as a research coordinator in the Bureau of Research of the U.S. Office of Education. While on leave from Ball State in 1966, he served as vice president with the Cooperative Education Research Laboratory in Indianapolis and Chicago. A lesson learned A mentor in Dr. Rice’s doctoral program once told him it was important to open doors to people and to find ways for people to move forward. Dr. Rice learned to value leadership that establishes conditions which are right to make things happen, but then gets out of the way so people can do their jobs. An early objective in Evansville was to organize and unite the faculty. Dr. Rice said, “I recall telling faculty ‘You know how it needs to be taught—get to it.’ “I think that directive released energy within the faculty,” he said. “And many of the faculty members were first-generation college students themselves, so they understood what our students were facing.” An awesome building The library building construction was completed in the spring and a moving company skilled in moving library collections organized and moved the USI collection in early June. Joined by community friends, Dr. and Mrs. Rice took a tour of the new library in late June. “I think it is an awesome building,” Dr. Rice said. “It is a distinct honor for it to have been named after me.” A friend remarked on the tour that it was an appropriate honor for all the development he had led, and Dr. Rice replied, “I was fortunate to be a quarterback with a great team.” Family members are equally proud of Rice Library. Mrs. Rice was leading one of her granddaughters, who is in third grade, across the lawn from the Liberal Arts Center to see the building and explaining to her what she would see. “That’s Grandpa,” replied Anna Rice, when Mrs. Rice showed her the name on the rotunda. |
Copyright © 2013 University of Southern Indiana. All rights reserved.