What Could Have Made a Rice Education Even Better?

I started college wanting to be an economist.

This was a mistake.

I attended one Calculus 2 class, walked straight to the registrar’s office, and dropped Economics as a major.

Afterwards, while I was trying to figure out what I was going to do next, my heart started turning towards ministry. I had begun to experience the stirrings of an interest in Scripture, theology, and the church, so I enrolled in the Religion department at Rice.

This was another mistake.

Well—not really. I had wonderful professors and became a sharper thinker, writer, and classmate during my time studying in that major.

But I certainly did not get what I really wanted: rigorous, orthodox theological study that gave me opportunities to learn alongside other Christian students and faculty. Quite the opposite—I remember walking into a class on Paul and the rise of Christianity only to have the professor insist—in the first class!—that Paul was sexist, racist, and decidedly not a trinitarian.

What I needed in that season was a community of thinkers who could grow with me and around me. But that did not exist during my time at Rice.

But now it does.

The Rice Christian Study Center exists, in part, to provide just this kind of community for students and faculty at Rice and other universities in the inner loop of Houston. Through weekly lunches, seminars, reading groups, partnerships with seminaries, and connections with professors and staff at Rice, the University of Houston, and Houston Christian University, RCSC will cultivate a space where students and faculty can study the counsel of God together as those who follow Jesus.

Crucially, RCSC is not coming in to run the same play that other campus ministries run (and which did benefit me). Worship, preaching, and small groups are not in the purview of RCSC. RCSC is not trying to build another parachurch ministry on Rice’s campus. Instead, RCSC will meet a need that generations of students have felt but not had fulfilled.

If you are an alumnus of Rice University – what RCSC is hoping to do is important enough for you to consider contributing, in one of three ways:

1.Financially: What the Study Center will do cannot happen without adequate funding. Space, food, a welcoming environment, books, the ability to host outside speakers—all of this requires money. Consider setting up an ongoing financial investment in the mission of the Rice Study Center.

2.Ecclesially: Get your church involved. Again- the RCSC will not be another parachurch organization on the campus of Rice University. It wants to help the local church make inroads to the university through connection and education. Introduce your pastors to the mission of the study center and consider sponsoring a monthly lunch for students and faculty as a church.

3.Socially: Involve yourself in the monthly rhythms of the study center and bring in friends, colleagues, and family members, too. This endeavor will require a range of supporters and partners across the city, and you can help build that network.

I ended up thriving at Rice. I loved my four years there. But I do wonder how much better my time could have been had I received the kind of sharpening and mentorship that the study center will offer as it launches this Fall.

My hope is that, due to your support, future students will never have to ask that question.

Rev. Michael McDowell

Rice Class of 2020