At this year’s welcome-back event, we introduced Rice LIVED, a shared language that reflects the university's distinctive culture. It isn’t a new program or a campaign with an end date. It’s what hundreds of people across Rice told us about how we work together, put into words we can all use.
The name carries the values: Lead with Care, Increase Our Impact, Value Excellence, Embrace Difference, Dare to Question.
Rice LIVED and Momentous
Rice LIVED grows out of Momentous: Personalized Scale for Global Impact, Rice’s 10-year strategic plan. Empowered Campus Culture is a critical element of that plan, and Rice LIVED is how it comes to life. If Momentous is the bold vision, culture is the engine that drives it. Rice LIVED is the bridge between the two: a roadmap for how we get there, and a guide to how we work together along the way.
There is only one Rice, and the people who work here make it special. For a long time, our culture operated quietly in the background. As Rice grows, we need to name what makes us distinctive, celebrate it when it’s working, and hold each other to it when we drift. This shared language is how we carry our culture of care into the future, and it’s essential to the success of Momentous.
How We Got Here
Rice LIVED began with listening. During and since the launch of Momentous, we asked people across the university: What makes this place work? How do we interact with each other? Where can we improve? Rice LIVED is a synthesis of those conversations, aligned with the university’s direction.
Our research included 36 focus groups with more than 350 participants, 3,253 survey responses, dozens of interviews, 20 guiding committee meetings, and peer-institution benchmarks. From there, the work moved through six stages:
- Listen: The Momentous research and engagement.
- Evaluate: Cultural evaluation sessions with leaders, deans, vice provosts, Staff Council, alumni, students, and trustees.
- Align: Working sessions to build consensus on the framework.
- Refine: The Executive Leadership Team shaped the elements.
- Define: Staff, managers, and leaders defined what the expectations look like in practice.
- Engage: Faculty sessions introduced the work and gathered questions to refine how we communicate it.
What stayed with me most is how honest people were. Faculty, staff, and administrators spoke candidly about the Rice experience, and our staff, managers, and leaders defined what these values look like in everyday work. Rice LIVED isn’t something we wrote for you. It’s something built by you, and I’m grateful to everyone who gave their time and candor.
The Framework: Six Elements That Work as a System
Rice LIVED is a cultural ecosystem of six connected elements. Our Mission has guided Rice since its founding, and our Vision is set through Momentous. Our Characteristics reflect Rice’s unique personality, while our Guiding Principles sit at the center as our north star. Values are what we believe, and Behaviors define how we act on those beliefs.
RICE remains our foundation. Responsibility, Integrity, Community, and Excellence are our permanent Guiding Principles. Rice LIVED doesn’t replace them. It helps us translate those enduring principles into everyday actions and interactions:
- Lead with Care: Checking in on colleagues, listening to understand, and making space for every voice.
- Increase Our Impact: Leading by example in your own area, because building a better future is shared work.
- Value Excellence: Choosing what’s right even when it’s not easy, supported by development opportunities and recognition of great work.
- Embrace Difference: Reaching across disciplines, departments, and cultures to spark ideas none of us could have had alone.
- Dare to Question: Speaking up with ideas and challenging traditional ways of working.
Behaviors make the values personal. If values are the “we,” behaviors are the “me”: the choices each of us makes about how we show up. There are three sets, and they build on one another. Everyone Behaviors apply to all of us regardless of role or title; managers embody Everyone and Manager Behaviors; and leaders embody all three.
Built to Last, Not a Fad
Culture initiatives can come and go. Rice LIVED is designed not to. It isn’t a one-and-done effort; it will keep evolving. These values and behaviors are meant to become part of how we recognize great work, have conversations, lead teams, hire, develop talent, and make decisions across Rice.
What’s Next
Beginning in November, we will spend two months focusing on each value:
- November–December: Lead with Care
- January–February: Increase Our Impact
- Q2 2027: Value Excellence, Embrace Difference, and Dare to Question
- Q3 2027: End-of-year recognition celebration
Each focus period brings practical tools for managers and teams, including a manager workbook module, conversation cards, team activities, feedback frameworks, a 1:1 meeting guide, interview guide questions, and recognition spotlights.
In the coming weeks, managers will receive an invitation from HR to a Rice LIVED training session to dig deeper into the framework and talk through how to use it day-to-day in their own departments. After attending, managers can pick up Rice LIVED journals and hand them out to their teams.
I encourage teams to use these resources to start real, honest conversations about what these values look like in your daily work. To every faculty and staff member: take a moment to reflect on how you already live these values and identify one area where you can grow.
Because Lead with Care is our first focus, it’s the perfect place to begin—check in on a colleague, listen to understand, and recognize others when you see them living these values. Recognition is how this language truly takes root.
Thank you for all you do to strengthen our culture of care and for living Rice LIVED every day. To learn more about the framework, explore the values and behaviors, and access resources, visit the Rice LIVED website.