His will set up Rice as an institute of higher learning and

His will set up Rice as an institute of higher learning and the endowment was such that the students who were admitted to Rice attended tuition free. An unfortunate provision of the will was that Rice was segregated.

In 1964 a very bright board of governors went to court and ‘broke the will’ to eliminate the segregation policy (yeah) and to begin to charge tuition (yaarrgghhh.) Anyhow my fellow classmates and I were the last class to receive a top notch education from Rice without being burdened with tuition. In 1965 the color barrier became porous and the student body began its journey to the diversity seen on campus today.

The student handbook has a map in the center that represented the campus at that time. Wow! What a difference. While the ‘quad’ in ’64 was almost what it is today, the rest of the campus has changed dramatically.