Meet the New Directors
The new directors, coming from the Schools of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Engineering, offer diverse strengths and balanced representation from across the campus.
- Stephen Klineberg, Professor Emeritus of Sociology
- Bart Sinclair, Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Meredith Skura, Professor Emerita of English
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DIRECTORS' PROFILES
Stephen Klineberg
Dr. Stephen Klineberg, Founding Director, Kinder Institute for Urban Research, has been shaping local thought on the ongoing trends in Houston for forty years. As the founding-director of the annual “Kinder Houston Area Survey” (1982-2021), he has tracked the economic outlooks, demographic patterns, experiences, and beliefs among successive representative samples of Harris County residents during 40 years of remarkable change. His book exploring the national implications of this research, entitled Prophetic City: Houston on the Cusp of a Changing America, was published in June 2020 by Simon & Schuster. Klineberg is the recipient of twelve major teaching awards at Rice and is a much sought-after speaker in the Houston community and beyond. He is a graduate of Haverford College, with an MA from the University of Paris and a PhD from Harvard. He and his wife Margaret have lived in Houston since the early 1970s; they have two children and five grandchildren, four of whom have graduated from Rice.
Dr. Klineberg has recently retired into emeritus status as a sociology professor at Rice, but continues to do research and to write reports and articles at the Kinder Institute. He looks forward to working together with the other directors and committee chairs--with everyone--to develop even better outreach programs and new initiatives in the years ahead.
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Bart Sinclair
Dr. Sinclair joined the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering (later Electrical and Computer Engineering) at Rice in 1978 as an assistant professor upon receiving his Ph.D. from Rice. His research was in the area of computer engineering, and particularly in performance evaluation of computers, distributed systems and networks. In 1999 he joined the office of the Dean of Engineering as assistant dean and in 2002 became associate dean, with responsibilities in undergraduate education, budget management, alumni relations, and facilities, to name a few. He retired from the dean’s office as senior associate dean for finance and administration in 2019.
Dr. SInclair notes that he enjoyed 38 years as a faculty associate at Brown College and a member of the University Marshals Committee for over 30 years. He served as a member of the Committee on the Undergraduate Curriculum (including co-chair), the SACS Accreditation Compliance Committee (including co-chair), chair of the Scholarship & Awards Committee (including chair), the Course Enrollment Task Force, Classroom Task Force, and the Data Security Task Force (chair).
Dr. Sinclair particularly looks forward to restarting in-person meetings later this year. Those meetings could be at Rice, but ARRUF may be more adventurous and explore some of the many interesting sites and activities of the Houston area. The ZOOM meetings have the advantage of being able to include faculty who have retired outside the immediate area or have limited mobility; he expects to continue meeting in that format at least occasionally. ARRUF could also provide a means for keeping up with significant changes on the Rice campus, e.g., what the experience of coping with the pandemic has been and how it might change education delivery post-COVID-19, or what the new $100M Welch Institute for Advanced Materials will look like.
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Meredith Skura
Dr. Skura came to Rice in 1978 when it was a much smaller, looser and less ambitious place, and she has watched it grow into the powerful presence we know today. In the English Department she specialized in early modern literature –centering on Shakespeare and other writers in his period, but she has extensive administrative experience. She served as chair of the Department of English twice, as Acting Dean of Humanities for one year, during which she coordinated the efforts of a varied group of faculty. Since then she has served on the Faculty Senate and the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate. Several years ago she took over as Chair for the Education Department and helped establish a new and more unified department, believing in the importance of Rice’s advanced expertise in shaping secondary school education.
She has advocated that ARRUF should keep track of all retired faculty and provide opportunities for members to meet and get to know one another. ARRUF should continue to provide interesting speakers at its monthly general meetings and to welcome new interest groups like the ones already established. ARRUF is a new group that has enabled many activities and interchanges; She plans to build on that strength.
LOOK FOR EXCITING IDEAS AND PROGRAMS FROM OUR NEW DIRECTORS
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