About Rice and Houston

Rice University is a private, coeducational institution known for its academic excellence and the achievements of its faculty, graduates and students. Rice offers outstanding programs in engineering, science, managerial studies, the humanities and the arts.

Facilities of the university available to students in the Intensive English Program include the library and recreation center. Most activities are available, including sports, exhibitions, concerts, films and lectures.

Rice University is committed to equal opportunity in education and employment. Rice does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, age, disability or veteran status. Rice University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer.

The Houston metropolitan area has a population of over 6 million. The city boasts two international airports, museums, operas, festivals, theaters, concerts, professional sporting events, outstanding restaurants, one of the world’s foremost medical centers, the NASA Johnson Space Center and many other attractions, including the annual Houston International Festival and Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Large retail centers such as the Galleria make Houston a favorite shopping destination for visitors from all over the world. Galveston’s beaches, less than an hour away, afford many recreational opportunities.

About the Anderson-Clarke Center

The English as a Second Language Program is located at the D. Kent and Linda C. Anderson and Robert L. and Jean T. Clarke Center, also referred to as the Anderson-Clarke Center. More than 50 employees occupy the three-story facility situated at the busiest entry on campus, entrance 8. Our building allows the ESL Program to increase course offerings and student enrollment. ESL classrooms and offices, housed on the second floor, feature state-of-the art technology to enrich the student learning experience. A student lounge provides an area for students to study, mingle or relax. We hope to see you in class soon.

Rice Through and Through

• To preserve the spirit of Rice’s historic buildings, Overland Partners used the original architects’ design of a vertical to horizontal ratio with long, low buildings, a tri-part division of windows and an arched entryway.
• To maintain the look and feel of Rice, the architects selected common building materials used through-out campus including St. Joe’s pale, grey-pink brick and patinated copper.
• The green serpentine stone used on the reception counters and large conference room table was reclaimed from the Rice University Keith Weiss Geology Building.
• The Baker College cast stone owls were repurposed above the entryway.

Going Green

• Our building is expected to earn LEED silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.
• Trees are a great part of Rice. Four large live oak trees were relocated to make way for construction and will be incorporated as part of the building site area. Our landscaping includes two tree species new to Rice: the Texas Ash tree and the Loquat Leaf Oak tree.
• To save significant energy over the building’s life cycle, software controlled/programmable LED lighting was installed throughout the building as well as occupancy sensing air conditioning/ventilation controls.

Classroom Features

• For our building’s classroom acoustics, the builders paid close attention to the sound transmission rating by utilizing demising walls between classrooms and incorporating sound absorptive materials to control reflections and reverberations. To minimize back-ground noise, low noise heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment was installed.
• Our classrooms feature technology similar to that found elsewhere on campus.

Art Installations

• Houston-based international artist and director of the Glassell School of Art, Joseph Havel, has created a site-specific bronze installation titled “In Play.” This monumental, five-part sculpture will activate the grand lawn, providing visitors with a unique sense of space and scale, while also challenging notions of materiality.
• French/American artist Stephen Dean, known for his investigations in the movement of color and light, has created a site-specific multi-colored dichroic glass ladder. This installation fills the entire north stairwell window, maximizing the color and light that is reflected and projected, both in the surrounding interior and exterior spaces.
• Sol LeWitt (1928–2007) was an American artist whose work and ideas played a pivotal role in establishing Minimalism and Conceptual art. His “Wall Drawing #1115: Circle within a square, each with broken bands of color” is a 14 by 14 foot square work that adorns a two-story wall in the Dean’s Commons, the central convening space of our school. A team of professional draftspeople meticulously installed Wall Drawing #1115 over four weeks. The team was led by Gabriel Hurier from the Sol LeWitt studio with the collaboration of Houston artist-installers David Krueger, Cat McCaulley and Jacob Villalobos.