David Ruth

713-348-6327

david@rice.edu

HOUSTON – (March 14, 2012) – Built in 1927, Rice University’s Cohen House became the first faculty club in the state of Texas. It was the first building paid for with philanthropic donations at Rice from someone other than the university’s founder. The gift was given by the namesakes, George and Esther Cohen. George Cohen, from Galveston, was president of Foley Brothers Dry Goods, which he later built into Foley Brothers Department Store, for decades a leading shopping store in Houston. Over the years, Cohen House has been host to many social occasions on campus, from card playing to weddings. Still vibrant today, Cohen House continues to be a campus spot where Rice faculty and staff members dine, socialize and hold meetings and other events.

Working with Centennial Historian Melissa Kean, video producer Brandon Martin visits Rice’s faculty club. To learn more about Rice’s history, visit Kean’s blog at www.ricehistorycorner.com.

To help celebrate the university’s centennial Oct. 12, Rice University is producing weekly videos exploring the school’s unique history.

The video, available on YouTube, is also available to media in high quality and without music for editing purposes. For higher-quality video, contact David Ruth, director of national media relations at Rice, at david@rice.edu or 713-348-6327.

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Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is known for its “unconventional wisdom.” With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 4 for “best value” among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. To read “What they’re saying about Rice,” go to www.rice.edu/nationalmedia/Rice.pdf.