Tips on Applying: Spotlight on Rice University

Grant,

Are there any challenges that a LDS studying at Rice might face (intellectually, spiritually, socially, etc.)?

This really is a great series. Thanks for your contribution, Grant.

I actually applied to Rice’s PhD program in history to study U.S. southern religious history. In the chance that it might be useful here, and though I ultimately decided to accept an offer from another school, I can second (based on my limited experience) what Grant explains above regarding the benefits of Rice. The financial award offered was generous (esp. with the relatively cheap cost of living in Houston), and from the earliest stages of the application to the back and forth deciding whether to attend Rice or not, professors and current grad students were extremely helpful. I received not just emails, but unsolicited phone calls from more than one faculty member. Even when I emailed the prof. I’d applied to work with to let him know of my decision to attend another school, he replied congratulating me on my decision and offering to keep in touch in the case that he might be of service to me in some other capacity.

Perhaps it is the size of the program, or perhaps it is southern hospitality, but Rice appears to really put forth an effort to reach out to (prospective) students and welcome them to the community.

Rice has a cool Philosophy department, but I prefer to attend less prestigious universities instead.

Anyways..Grant: your cousin Duane is one of my colleagues and also one my very favorite people.

(Sorry for not having much to add to the topic, since I am not a religious studies guy by discipline. However, the financial support and the sense of community described above is quite impressive)

If anyone wants to abandon this religious studies stuff and study the master science (political science), let me know.

I’m just a PhD student actually. Candidacy is still a while away for me.

Apparently Rice also does a better job teaching their students correct terminology. I fixed it above.

As far as challenges go, I can’t think of any specific to being LDS. The transition to Rice was really quite smooth. But I had already weathered a few “crises of faith” at BYU, having been taught there to think critically and (as) objectively (as possible).

What suggestions would you have for an undergrad at BYU as far as learning to think critically and objectively are concerned? Is there a particular major, for instance, that was especially helpful, or was it creating outside the classroom mentor-mentee relationships with the faculty, etc.? For me I found that BYU did a good job training undergraduates in their history program, especially given the fact that most students will not become professional “historians”; but I also found a significant gap between those methods and the ones encountered in religious studies (not that the two are necessarily exclusive). Of course part of this was also the transition from an undergraduate program to a graduate program, the latter of which demanded more methodological sophistication.

Grant,

Nice write-up. Sounds like Rice really treats its students well–I am envious of your close relationship with your adviser. I really think that programs like yours at Rice have a significant leg up on other programs in this regard and it seems as though they try to ameliorate the often alienating experience of graduate studies.

Like TT I am interested in Deconick’s syllabus contract. Clearly it is in response to and in anticipation of methodological/critical friction between her and students and between student and student. Have you seen any such friction first hand? Does Deconick play Socrates and try to lead the student by dialogue to reevaluate their approach or does she swiftly stamp out any untoward discussion? I am also surprised that this is even an issue at such an academically prestigious school.

I wonder what such a contractual statement would look like at BYU? If one can imagine that BYU forming a Religious Studies department which approaches the field of religion with all of the tools and rigor of any other secular university, this sort of contract would probably be beneficial and maybe even a necessity in order to ensure that in-class discussions and research projects stay within the bounds of rational inquiry.

Anyway, good stuff, Grant.

Chris H:

Thanks for taking care of the links. Yes, Duane is a great cousin to have.

smallaxe:

Exactly when or how I came to think critically and objectively at BYU I cannot pinpoint in retrospect, in part, no doubt, because there is no going back to the way I thought before (as much as I may want to now and then). It just sort of happened through a combination course work and mentoring. I definitely did not go into it with that goal in mind. On the contrary. For example, I have a copy of Ehrman’s Lost Christianities, one of my early text books from a class on Constantine and the Age of Nicea. It’s filled with objections I scrawled in response to such blasphemy.

I think I experienced something of the methodological gap you mention, also at the transition from undergrad to grad. Still, for me it happened at BYU. I did a BA in Classics and stuck around the Humanities, Classics, and Comparative Literature Department for an MA in Comparative Studies. (My landmark thesis was on magic rocks.)

The Comp Studies program is one of the best kept secrets at BYU in my opinion. It can be taylored to fit most any interest. Tuition is generally covered. And there are TA, research, and teaching opportunities more consistently than seem to be elsewhere. As I recall, two courses are required. The first is something like intro to critical thinking, in which are suveyed modern and postmodern theories of literary criticism. I also had a class on the possibility (or rather impossibility, as it turned out) of writting literary history. If it weren’f for these courses, the transition to Rice would have been more difficult in some settings.

As a freshman, originally I just wanted to learn Hebrew and Greek for purposes of reading the Bible and was not at all interested in what you might call the broader historical and hermeneutical context. I was unable/unwilling to see how it could be relavent let alone important in its own right.

Before I left BYU I taught some Greek and there was a student or two in the class with the same outlook I had had: the Bible and nothing else. I tried to explain, as others did for me earlier, that they would eventually be glad for having read bits and pieces of some pagans like Xenophon and Plato, when at the time all they wanted to do was read scripture.

TT and oudenos,

I have not witnessed or heard of problems in any of DeConick’s classes and suspect that concern is minimal at the graduate level.

There was, last year, in the department seminar on general methods and theories in religion, some friction of a rather different sort as to the use of inclusive language. The instructor handled it very admirably, I thought, and we were all better for the ensuing frank discussion.

smallaxe,

I too did the Comp Studies MA at BYU and from my cohort of 8 there are currently several students doing PhDs: 2 at Notre Dame (one in Comp. Lit, one in Medieval Studies), 1 at Cornell (Medieval Studies), 1 at the University of Chicago (New Testament and Early Christian Literature), 1 at Wisconsin (Russian Lit.), and 1 was awarded a Fulbright a couple of years ago to study at Herculaneum. As far as placement goes for the program, I can only say good things about what it did for me and my cohort.

For what it’s worth, Rice is a pretty campus in the heart of the city with a great view of the skyline around the medical centers complex. Great for strolling or jogging in the evening when the lights come on.