Spring 2017 GradStarter Projects

CampSpark!

A one week summer STEM camp for high school students who are enrolled in PAIR (Partnership for the Advancement and Immersion of Refugees).

CampSpark! will be a one week day camp that will encourage collaboration between Rice graduate STEM students and PAIR (Partnership for the Advancement and Immersion of Refugees) high school students. PAIR, a local Houston organization founded by Rice students that works with refugee middle and high school students, will identify twenty high school students interested in careers in STEM. These students will then be invited to participate in a week long summer day camp held at Rice University.   Each day will include a lesson focused on a different aspect of STEM followed by an activity incorporating what they learned. For example, one day could include a lesson on programming with microcontrollers followed by an activity using an Arduino to blink a light on the circuit board. Each day will also have a presentation from a STEM graduate student about his/her work. Three of the days will include a tour of a different research lab at Rice University, one day will have a campus tour of Rice University, and the last day will include a Q&A panel discussion with Rice graduate students to answer any questions the high school students may have about pursuing a career in STEM.

Read the full proposal here.

First Annual Rice University Department of Art History Graduate Symposium

Initiating discourse among scholars, artists, professionals and the general public through nuanced programming and dynamic paper presentations.

Rice University’s department of Art History is delighted to introduce the First Annual Rice University Department of Art History Graduate Symposium.  A four-member team of first and second year PhD students within the department are currently vigorously conceiving of a critical and open ended theme and structure for the inaugural year.    Though still under consideration and in a conceptual stage, the working theme takes as its point of departure divergent and constructed considerations of “health.”  Conceptions of health and healthfulness – of both individuals and societies  – have varied alongside beliefs regarding sickness, disease, contagion and treatments. Taking cues from languages surrounding questions of health (of the body and mind, and on the other hand, of society) that can either serve to unite or divide, we aim to create a conference structure that is accessible and inclusive within and beyond academia.  Looking to ways in which artists, activists, and grassroots leaders have grappled with representations and realities of health, care, and disease visually or conceptually across time, we hope to unhinge claims of normativity and exclusionary logics – an act that will, hopefully, open up individual modes of thinking. We will invite artists, activists, community leaders and academics to explore ideas of “health” in relation to the history of art and visual cultures – as related to the body, the mind, the built and natural environment, society, systems of governance, and more.   The inaugural conference will consist of an opening event on Friday, September 29 (working date) that will be open to the public. Saturday the 30th (working date) will include small sessions for graduate paper presentations, discussion, and consideration of relevant art objects, time-based media, and relics of visual culture. Workshop participants and other invited conference participants will break mid-day for a visit to a Houston cultural institution or community project, encouraging our conversations to be augmented by resources in our urban environment.  An evening round table of invited, non-graduate students, will close the event and help to consolidate lessons and strategies explored over its course, and will be open to the public.   Our goal is to both encourage new relationships among graduate students and to expand discourse surrounding our theme.

Read the full proposal here.

Industrial/Organizational & Organizational Behavior 2017 Conference

A conference for all undergraduates and graduates, developing professionals, faculty and others interested in I/O psychology and organizational behavior.

The Rice Industrial/Organizational Psychology Association (RIOPA), with the support of the Rice Psychology Department, will be hosting the 2017 annual Industrial/Organizational Organizational Behavior (IOOB) Graduate Student Conference from February 9-11th, 2017 at the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.

The IOOB Conference is a national conference for graduate students enrolled in industrial/organizational psychology, organizational behavior, and human resource management programs. It has been held by different schools nationwide since 1980. The 2017 IOOB Conference will be the first time that the conference has been held at Rice or in Houston since its inception. The conference accepts submissions from undergraduate students, graduate students and post-doc research fellows. Inspired by Rice’s motto of unconventional wisdom, the theme of the 2017 IOOB Conference is: “Out-of-sight, out-of-mind: Bringing Overlooked Research to the Forefront”. This year’s conference will include a wide range of topics, including but not limited to: Recruitment, Selection, and Placement; Training and Development; Performance Measurement; Motivation and Reward Systems; Organizational Development; Quality of Work Life; Consumer Behavior; The Structure of Work and Human Factors; Diversity and Discrimination; Teams; Leadership; Methods; and Individual Differences.  The goals of IOOB 2017 are to (1) create a structured, educational environment wherein students are able to obtain experience presenting their research and receiving feedback; (2) provide students the opportunity to hear about both the academic and applied sides of the field; and (3) interact with academics, practitioners, and peers within a safe and welcoming forum. This is a great career development opportunity for undergraduate students, who will be able to learn more about industrial/organizational psychology and its sister field in business. Industrial/organizational psychology is rapidly growing, as the highest paid branch in psychology with diverse and bright job prospects. By attending, students can gain valuable information and insight into the industry, including about the many resources and research opportunities within Rice’s Psychology Department. Many of the Industrial/Organizational psychology graduate students will also be presenting, and therefore available to inform and advise any interested undergraduates. Given this experience, student attendees will be able to better decide if these are areas they would like to pursue further through, e.g., through a research assistantship and/or graduate education. We hope to provide an informative, educational, and fun experience for attendees. Further, the sponsoring organization, the Rice Industrial/Organizational Psychology Association (RIOPA), is a newly founded and registered graduate student association led by Rice I/O Psychology PhD students with the mission to promote graduate and undergraduate students’ involvement within and understanding of the field of Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Thus, this conference fits easily within the vision of our organization.  This conference will be an excellent opportunity for Rice undergraduate and graduate students to learn more about Industrial/Organizational Psychology and related fields in business. I/O psychology is a relatively young field, but it is also among the highest paid branches in psychology with anticipated growth of 19% by 2024 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015). Students will be exposed to diverse research topics, learn about career-related information (e.g., graduate study programs and applied jobs) and meet outstanding researchers in the field. This conference is also a great forum for graduate students to present their research, explore more research topics, and expand their networks.

Since committing to hosting this event in the winter of 2015, we have made major progress in its organization. We have secured the conference location, applied for internal and external funding, and promoted this event through the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology (SIOP; one of the most influential organizations in our field) and social media. We also have an impressive line-up of speakers: SIOP Fellow and 2016 national Cherry Award Winner Dr. Mikki Hebl (Rice) will be giving the opening keynote, and Dr. Jose Cortina, previous SIOP president, will be flying in from George Mason University to give the closing keynote. Other speakers include SIOP President-elect Dr. Fred Oswald (Rice), Dr. Murray Barrick (Mays Business School, Texas A&M), Dr. Juan Madera (University of Houston), Dr. Jay Goodwin (US Army Research Institute), Dr. Morton McPhail (current SIOP President), Dr. Kraig Schell (Angelo State University), Dr. Whitney Botsford Morgan (University of Houston-Downtown), Dr. Sarah Singletary Walker (University of Houston), Dr. Kelley Slack (NASA), Dr. Eduardo Salas (former SIOP President), Dr. Larry Martinez (Portland State University), Dr. Kristen Jones (University of Memphis), Dr. Enrica Ruggs (UNC Charlotte), Dr. Jen Wessel (University of Maryland), Dr. Brent Lyons (Beedie School of Business-Simon Fraser University in British Columbia), and Dr. Sabrina Volpone (University of New Mexico). The website for the 2017 Annual IOOB Conference is: ioob.rice.edu. The complete conference information is available there.

Read the full proposal here.

Rice Public Policy Review

In the model of the Cornell Policy Review, create an open-source, peer-reviewed, academic journal for graduate students in the social sciences. 

In the model of the Cornell Policy Review, we would like to create something similar here at Rice. We believe that Rice is the caliber of institution where something like this should already exist. We could utilize our connections at the Baker Institute for Public Policy—the 4th-ranked university-affiliated think tank in the United States—to guide the project through its infancy, as many fellows would likely respond to a call for papers. Some fellows would also be willing to help graduate students publish original work.

The Cornell Policy Review, which we would like to emulate, describes itself as follows:

The Cornell Policy Review is the official public policy journal of the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs (CIPA), a graduate program offering a two-year Master’s degree in Public Administration (MPA). Originally founded in the spring of 1996 as The Current, The Cornell Policy Review is now an online journal run by CIPA Fellows who serve as both editors and contributors for the Policy Review. This is a forum for insightful, objective, and provocative discussion on public policy. We are a community of scholar-practitioners from across the world, examining policy within local, national, and global environments. The editorial board solicits commentary, analysis, book reviews, interviews, and scholarly contributions from those interested in public policy across Cornell University and beyond.

As students of public administration, we explore the many layers of current policy implications, attempting to understand how policy decisions shape the trajectory of society. With a new year of dynamic and contentious global policy issues, the Cornell Policy Review is striving to present relevant analyses at all levels of impact. We sincerely hope you consider contributing to the discussion.

Read the full proposal here.