Monday, September 22, 2025, 10:00am
"My Accidental Career of Teaching Architecture at Rice"
A Lecture by Danny M. Samuels
Danny is a Rice person through and through, having been at Rice as student or teacher for roughly 60 years. He received his BA in 1969 and his Bachelor of Architecture in 1971. Early on, three classmates—John J. Casbarian, Liliana Milani, and Robert Timme—joined Samuels to form what they called “Architects Incahoots.” They worked on school projects together, continuing after graduation to form Taft Architects. Samuels has taught at Rice since 1977, including the freshman studio from 1991 to 2012. In 1996, Dean Lars Lerup asked Samuels to start the Rice Building Workshop to get students out of the studio and engaged in the larger community. Over the last twenty-six years, the Rice Building Workshop led by Samuels and Associate Director Nonya Grenader has involved nearly eight hundred students, who designed and built projects at various scales in the Houston community, from furniture to affordable houses. For the long-term collaborative work with Project Row Houses, the Workshop received the 2004 Prize for the “Integration of Practice and Education” from the National Council of Registration Boards and, in 2005, the “Collaborative Practice Award” from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.
This event will start with a tour of Cannady Hall at 10:00am, followed by Danny's lecture at 11:00am and lunch at the Cohen House. To attend in person, please RSVP using the form below or to arruf.invites@rice.edu. Please RSVP by September 18, 2025 and indicate if you are staying for lunch.
Monday, August 25, 2025, 11:00am
"Creative Invention and the Poetics of Failure: The Stories that Tell our Stories"
A Lecture by Dr. Deborah Harter
Associate Professor Emeritus, Modern and Classical Literatures and Cultures
Harter has had a remarkable career at Rice. Arriving in 1990 from the University of Chicago where she was an Andrew Mellon Post-doctoral Fellow, she has been a driving force in the Center for Women, Gender, and Sexuality, the Program in Medical Humanities, and the Moody Center for the Arts. She launched, with Marj Corcoran, the very first Faculty Senate at Rice from 2005-2009, and has written numerous research articles and two books. The first, Bodies in Pieces: Fantastic Narrative and the Poetics of the Fragment, was published by Stanford Press. The second, soon to appear, is a collection of essays with the provocative title: On the Subject of Kissing Hairy Creatures, and Other Essays about Things that Matter. She is, finally, one of Rice’s most outstanding educators. Teaching courses in French and Comparative Literature, and, with Mike Gustin, the very popular “Conceiving and Misconceiving the Monstrous in Art, Medicine, and the Biosciences,” she has won a dozen University-wide awards, including five George R. Brown Prizes for Superior Teaching, the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize, the Alison Sarofim Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Humanities Award, the Impact Award for Contributions to Women at Rice, and the Student Association’s Faculty Mentor of the Year Prize.
Wednesday, November 15, 2023, 8:00am
GUIDED EXPLORATION: LOCAL PLANTS, ANIMALS, AND BIRDS of Rice University’s Harris Gully.
CIN-TY LEE, Professor and Chairman, Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, has championed awareness of the Rice University campus as a special environment with distinctive ecosystems, habitats for migrating birds, and wildlife. His efforts have especially focused on the Harris Gully, which has been left in a “natural” state for the benefit of human, avian, and mammalian residents. Thanks to Cin-Ty Lee and his colleagues, greater efforts and policy changes are ensuring the Gully will remain a respite on long migration routes and a center for remaining wildlife. ARRUF visited the Gully and saw for themselves in the cool autumn. Members met at the recently-built shelter in Harris Gully.
Monday, November 13, 2023 11:00 a.m.
Hybrid: Zoom or Fondren 412, followed by lunch
LONGEVITY BRIEFING: Vaccinations: History, Efficacy, Risks, and Controversies
During the second half of the 20th Century, vaccines for smallpox, polio, pertussis (whooping cough), diphtheria, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella, pneumonia, influenza, chickenpox, and shingles were heralded as dramatic scientific breakthroughs that would eradicate most infectious childhood diseases and prolong the life of the elderly. Vaccine technology seemed to be keeping pace with both older and emerging pathogens, including HIV, Ebola, RSV, papilloma virus (major causative agent of cervical cancer), and even Covid19. Most medical check-ups for people over 65 involve vaccination histories and suggestions for booster or new shots.
However, at the beginning of the 21st century, an anti-vaccine movement arose, based in part on a study of 12 children, who were diagnosed with autism, either just before or right after they received their first mumps, measles, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. These anti-vaccine groups have grown over the past 20 years and become politically influential in recommending against vaccines and opposing mandatory requirements.
John Olson (Professor Emeritus in BioSciences) interviewed Dr. Novotny to explore these two opposing views, focusing on the biology of vaccines, their history, and reported medical outcomes.
Alma Novotny retired as a Rice University faculty member in May 2023 after 23 years in the BioSciences Department. She also taught biology courses for adults in Rice's Masters of Liberal Arts programs, offering "Plagues and Populations" and "DNA: Human Origins and Identity." Her Coursera [on-line] four-course "Fundamentals of Immunology" series currently enrolls approximately 70,000 registered students. At Rice, Dr. Novotny received three George R. Brown Awards for Superior Teaching and a Graduate Liberal Studies (GLS) John Freeman Faculty Mentoring Award. She was also nominated for a National Piper Teaching Award, based on student letters from UH Clear Lake where she taught before coming to Rice.
Dr. Novotny's signature course at Rice was Immunology 372, which she taught for 20 years. Over time, she experimented with different formats, eventually "flipping" the course to provide on-line instruction (continued next page) coupled with reinforcement and individualized responses during class time. She has also delivered public and Rice-community talks on childhood vaccinations and general principles of immunity. Alma Novotny proudly identifies as a Polio Pioneer, having served as a control during the 1954 Salk vaccine trials and promptly getting immunized the following year."
Monday, October 23, 2023, 11:00am
Hybrid: Zoom or Fondren 412
Book Discussion: Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs about Aging Determine How Long and How Well You Live by Becca Levy (2022)
Book discussions are a series to take place every other week, beginning in October. The books and materials to be discussed are a serious effort to understand the population shifts ahead, the cultural differences that exist, and the opportunities to reframe Houston’s situation in preparation for the spring special event, which will bring together experts and Houston leaders. “The Rise of the Gray and the Brown,” some have called it, but Houston is a special case; our older population is growing fast, but so are our ethnic subgroups, which will soon be of comparable size and increasing influence. How can Houston make the shifts POSITIVE FOR ALL? This reading group will discuss issues related to this spring’s principal conference.
Tuesday, December 12, 2023, 11:00am
Hybrid: Zoom or Fondren 412
A Reading of Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory
ARRUF gathered for a reading of Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory featuring light holiday refreshments and holiday lunch at the Faculty Club. ARRUF has enjoyed a shared read-aloud (one page per person) session devoted to A Christmas Memory each year since our founding. We are especially fond of this event in part because ARRUF member and founding dean of the Shepherd School of Music, Sam Jones, composed an opera, with Truman Capote’s blessing, based on the work. We hope that it will be performed in Houston soon.
Members gathered in person in ARRUF’s room, Fondren 412, and on the screen to connect with members near and far via Zoom.
Monday, December 4, 2023
THE ART OF FESTIVITY
At ARRUF we treasure the season’s most basic and cherished gift of all, friendship. On Monday, December 4, ARRUF celebrated THE ART OF FESTIVITY at Karin Broker’s award-winning studio. Karin’s own stunning art, her collections, and inimitable decorations were also on view.
Fall 2023
ARRUF Continues to Explore LONGEVITY MAGNET HOUSTON
ARRUF's Fall 2023 offered frequent, intellectually rich meetings and trips along with lunches and discussions with friends! For example, the three figures in the attached photo, seen in ARRUF's 2022 visit to the MFAH exhibition, "Golden Worlds: The Portable Universe of Indigenous Colombia," convey how human experiences of joy, contemplation, and humor persist across the centuries.
In Fall 2023, ARRUF continued to explore Houston as a longevity magnet. Like the US as a whole, Houston has a fast-growing 65+ population. ARRUF seeks a role in encouraging Houston’s communities to become a national model of collaboration, mutual appreciation, and success. ARRUF’s interest groups—in travel, nature, and arts—also show how individuals can pursue their passions in retirements and share them with others. ARRUF activities continue to explore Houston’s fascinating cultural sites, longevity challenges, and beckoning pleasures.
May 2023
Japanese Garden Tour and Tea Ceremony
The final trip, arranged by the Houston Parks Department, took members to the Japanese Garden in Hermann Park. Led by a horticulturist, the tranquil walk was enhanced with a tea ceremony demonstration by the Japan America Society of Houston. Both the garden tour and ceremony emphasized the philosophical principles of intentional looking, experiencing, and appreciating transient beauty.
