KINDER
I N S T I T U T E
For URBAN RESEARCH
Kinder Institute 2010-11 Highlights Rice University’s Institute for Urban Research was officially launched in Feb. 2010, with Professors Stephen L. Klineberg and Michael Emerson serving as co-directors. The institute’s mission is to conduct scientific research, sponsor educational programs, and engage in public outreach that advances understanding of pressing urban issues and fosters the development of more humane and sustainable cities. Its goal is to become a magnet for talent, a catalyst for civic engagement, and a nationally recognized leader in conducting first-rate academic research and translating its findings into a valued resource that informs and inspires the communities on which the research is based. On Nov. 17, 2010, Houston philanthropists Rich and Nancy Kinder announced a $15 million gift to Rice University to build endowment support for the institute’s expanded research in Houston and in major cities around the world. In their honor, the institute has been renamed the Kinder Institute for Urban Research. The endowment will provide ongoing support for many of the institute’s research, outreach and educational programs. It will ensure that for generations to come, the Houston Area Survey will provide continuous updates and increasingly valuable information on area residents’ experiences, attitudes and beliefs. During its first year of operation, the institute has made its research findings readily available to the Houston community through a variety of well-publicized events. The 2010 Houston Area Survey was officially released at the Greater Houston Partnership luncheon in April 2010, followed by multiple presentations to organizations throughout the Houston region and beyond. The Kinder Institute has also co-sponsored, with Rice University’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, an innovative author-meets-critic series; launched several of its own academic programs (described in this report); and hosted a series of public lectures, featuring renowned researchers, scholars and civic leaders.
Rich and Nancy Kinder, center, joined from left, by Michael Emerson, President David Leebron, Chairman of the Rice Board of Trustees James Crownover, Mayor Annise Parker and Stephen Klineberg at the announcement of the new Kinder Institute for Urban Research.
In addition, the institute is developing a strong Internet presence with its newly created website, http://www.kinderinstitute. rice.edu, which provides access to all institute reports, research findings and raw data sets from all of its ongoing projects, including the full 29-year record of the Houston Area Survey. The Kinder Institute is also exploring ways to incorporate social media technologies to more effectively reach the communities it serves.
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Race Scholars at Rice feature the screening of the documentary “When I Rise” and a panel discussion (left to right): Melissa Kean, Rice University Centennial Historian; Mat Hames, film director; Susanne Mentzer, Rice University Shepherd School of Music professor of voice; and Don Carleton, executive director of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas.
ONGOING RESEARCH PROJECTS Three Decades of the Houston Area Survey The Houston Area Survey (HAS) is the nation’s longest-running study of any metropolitan area’s economy, population, life experiences, beliefs and attitudes. The survey, now in its 30th year, has helped immeasurably to clarify the challenges and opportunities facing this region. Findings from the 2011 survey will be released April 20 at the annual Greater Houston Partnership luncheon, which is being co-hosted by the Kinder Institute. We also plan to publish, and to present as a gift to the city on the occasion of its 175th anniversary (August 2011), a full-color 50-page report on the central findings from these three decades of systematic survey research. We intend to build on that report to develop a book-length monograph that will combine the unique record of sociological survey research with the best of journalism and visual sociology. The empirical findings from the HAS will be deepened and enriched by the addition of carefully selected photographs, reporters’ notebooks, oral histories and stateof-the-art visual tools to capture America’s fourth-largest city in the midst of the fundamental transformations that are refashioning the economic and social landscape across all of urban America. The Third Houston Area Asian Survey In 15 of the past 16 years, the HAS has been expanded with oversample interviews in Houston’s ethnic communities to enlarge and equalize the annual representation of Anglo, African-American and Hispanic respondents at about 500 each. In 1995 and 2002, the research also included systematic multilingual telephone interviews with representative samples of 500 Harris County Asians. The only such surveys in the country, they have proven to be an invaluable resource for those seeking scientifically sound facts and figures about this rapidly growing and increasingly important segment of the Houston population. Now it is time to replicate and expand that research, to systematically map the continuities and changes that have occurred since 2002 in the experiences, attitudes, and outlooks of the region’s varied Asian communities. By asking identical questions in interviews with representative samples of 500 Anglos, 500 African-Americans, 500 Latinos and 500 Asians, this year’s research will provide as accurate a picture as it is possible to obtain through scientific survey research of the experiences and perspectives within, March 2011
and among, all four of Houston’s (and America’s) major ethnic communities. After the completion of this year’s study, we plan to publish a full report that will explore the continuities and changes in the Asian experience in Houston since 1995, in the context of comparable research conducted in all four ethnic communities, and assess systematically the quality and nature of interethnic relationships in this region of burgeoning diversity. The SHEA Project (Survey on Health, Education and the Arts) Funded by a major grant from Houston Endowment Inc., the Kinder Institute is developing, in close and continuing consultation with scholars and community leaders in Houston and across the country, an important new research program designed to extend the reach of the Houston surveys into a comprehensive assessment of public experiences, attitudes and beliefs with regard to issues of community health, education and the arts in the Houston area. The new surveys will be developed through this spring and summer and conducted in fall 2011. The Kinder Institute will convene two national conferences during spring 2012, which will focus on the policy implications of the survey findings and showcase Houston as a center for the arts, education reform and public health initiatives in urban America. We plan to publish the survey findings along with the proceedings of the two conferences during summer 2012. The Panel Study of American Religion and Ethnicity As urban areas become increasingly dense and diverse, understanding the relationship between religion and other facets of society is vital in revealing the way diverse communities work and live together in urban settings. The Panel Study of American Religion and Ethnicity (PS-ARE), generously supported by the Lilly Endowment, Inc., is a nationally representative study of adult Americans which seeks to measure the impact of religion and spirituality among diverse individuals over the course of their lives. The first wave of the study was completed in 2006, involving extensive in-home interviews with more than 2,600 adults on topics ranging from religion and spirituality to health, political attitudes and community activities. Thanks to a second major grant from the Lilly Endowment, the Kinder Institute, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Notre Dame, is preparing to conduct the second wave of interviews with the same individuals who were interviewed five years earlier. To learn more, please visit www.ps-are.org.
Smaller Projects This past fall, the Kinder Institute partnered with the United Way of Greater Houston to carry out the 2010 United Way Community Assessment Survey. The survey consisted of three separate surveys: interviewing United Way service providers, United Way donors and a representative sample of Houstonarea households. Residents from Harris, Fort Bend, Montgomery and Waller Counties were contacted via landline and cell phone numbers; they were asked to identify the most urgent problems in their neighborhoods and to assess their current financial situation, the state of health of their families and the overall quality of life in the Houston area.
Program for the Study of Leadership Directed by Michael Lindsay The Program for the Study of Leadership (PSL) is dedicated to the scholarly study of leaders and their role in society. The program sponsors research projects, facilitates faculty engagement and supports student fellowships. In that connection, the PSL selected 15 undergraduate fellows for 2010–2011, who participated in its first leadership salon Sept. 21. The program welcomed the Honorable Robert Clarke, 26th U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, who moderated a discussion, “Financial Crisis: The Lessons that Leaders Ought to Learn.”
During summer 2010, the institute conducted the Fifth Ward Housing Study, a survey of households in Houston’s Fifth Ward, to determine the way residents are adapting to the many changes in their neighborhood. The project was completed in August 2010, and its findings were published in a report prepared by the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation.
Kinder Institute Sponsored Presentations (Selected)
KINDER INSTITUTE PROGRAMS Race Scholars at Rice Directed by Jenifer Bratter The Race Scholars at Rice (RSR) program is dedicated to advancing the intellectual community of scholars and students whose work examines the relevance of race in all its dimensions. The RSR inaugurated its programs in October 2010, with a special screening and discussion of the documentary film, “When I Rise,” by director Mat Hames. Religion and Public Life Program Directed by Elaine Howard Ecklund The Religion and Public Life (RPL) Program provides an interdisciplinary platform to bridge the divide between the best research on religion and the various constituencies that might benefit from that scholarship. The programs this year included a public discussion of Ecklund’s new book, “Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think”; a discussion with Margarita Mooney, critiquing “Are Immigrants Good Americans? Beyond Voting Rates and Rights to Immigrant Narratives of Political Life,” a draft manuscript co-authored by Rice University scholars, a panel discussion on “Faith in the Corridors of Medicine;” and a review of the book, “Paging God,” by renowned scholar Wendy Cadge.
April 2010: Stephen Klineberg provided an exclusive prerelease briefing on the 2010 Houston Area Survey for the founding members of the institute’s corporate forum, and then officially released the findings at an event co-hosted by the Greater Houston Partnership and the Kinder Institute for Urban Research. A continuing round of presentations followed that event, describing the latest survey findings in more than 70 different venues, including the Texas Economic and Demographic Association, Criminal/Appellate Bench Bar Conference, Williams Company, Houston Growth Summit, Greater East End District, General Electric Company, American Red Cross, Teach for America Corps, the first TEDx–Houston Conference, McKinsey and Company, Vinson & Elkins Summer Associates, HISD New Employee Orientation, Wells Fargo, Fort Bend Chamber of Commerce, Houston Area Urban League, the Consular Corps of Houston, Rice University Centennial Campaign Lecture Series and the Houston HR Leadership Summit. August 2010: Co-directors Klineberg and Emerson met in
separate meetings with representatives of Emory University in Atlanta. Klineberg reported on the development and uses of the Houston Area Survey and discussed with colleagues at Emory the possibility of initiating a comparable Atlanta Area Survey. Emerson presented his experience with the start-up of an institute — from vision to staffing to fundraising — and discussed with Emory colleagues how they might begin their own research institute. September 2010: Emerson traveled to Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, where an organization formed by seminarians in support of creating multiracial churches was created after reading Emerson’s book, “People of the
On Oct. 25, 2010, Robert Putnam of Harvard University gave a talk at Rice about his new book, “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us.” The event was sponsored by the Kinder Institute.
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Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States.” Emerson was invited to give a talk to students, faculty and staff and to meet with area clergy to discuss ways of bringing diverse people together within congregations.
vides and Unites Us,” based on his comprehensive surveys assessing religion and public life in America.
Sept. 21, 2010: Klineberg received the Charles M. Bon-
Oct. 29, 2010: Emerson led a panel discussion on the State of the Black Church, at the annual conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in Baltimore, MD.
jean Individual Spirit of Collaboration Award at the annual luncheon of Collaborative for Children.
November 2010: Emerson was the plenary speaker at the
Sept. 24, 2010: Emerson presented “Dynamic Houston:
How Houston is Emerging as a Global City” at Rice University during Families’ Weekend. October 2010: Emerson was the featured speaker at a conference honoring the 10th anniversary of the publication of his book “Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America.” The conference was held at Marian University in Indiana and brought together scholars and practitioners to discuss the impact of the book and what has been learned from research since its publication. Oct. 25, 2010: The Kinder Institute sponsored the first
fall lecture series, featuring Robert Putnam, the Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University. Putnam talked about his book, “American Grace: How Religion Di-
first annual Multiethnic Church Conference, held in San Diego, Calif. The conference brought together clergy from around the nation and from several countries to learn best practices for multiethnic congregations. During the conference, Emerson was given the inaugural Mosaic Award for significant contributions to the multiethnic church movement. December 2010: Co-directors Klineberg and Emerson traveled to Phoenix, Ariz., with Lyn Ragsdale, dean of Rice’s School of Social Sciences, computer science specialist Jan Odegard, and Astley Blair, from Chevron to tour Arizona State University’s Decision Theater. The group met with the staff and director, learning about the capabilities and uses of the theater, its costs and staffing requirements, and its possible benefits for urban communities. Chevron has subsequently invited Rice to apply for funding to develop a demonstration Decision Theater on the Rice campus.
Individual and Corporate Supporters of the Kinder Institute Founding Members of the Corporate Forum CenterPoint Energy–Houston ExxonMobil Fiesta Mart Gallery Furniture H-E-B Houston Marek Family of Companies Sterling Bank United Way of Greater Houston Wells Fargo–Houston Corporate Sponsors Bank of America JPMorgan Chase–Houston KHOU-TV Channel 11 Memorial Hermann Hospital System Palmetto Partners, Ltd. Pinto America Growth Fund, L.P.
Kinder Institute Advisory Board Algenita Scott Davis Robert M. Eury Steven J. Kean Richard Kinder Nancy Kinder Antonio “T.J.” Martinez Patrick Oxford Herman L. Stude Y. Ping Sun
Corporate Friends BMC Software Greater East End Management District Hines Interests Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston Jones Lang LaSalle KBR Company Lovett Homes The Kroger Company Vinson & Elkins L.L.P. Westlake Chemical Corporation Wulfe and Company Individual Friends Stanford and Joan Alexander Bettie Cartwright and Colin Kennedy Hank and Katherine Coleman David and Allyson Ebro Majors and Barbara Harris Ken and Tracy Janda Edgar and Stephanie Larsen William V. Morgan
Kinder Institute Staff Michael Emerson, Co-director Stephen Klineberg, Co-director Anthony Potoczniak, Executive Director Adele James, Program Administrator, PS-ARE Jie Wu, Program Administrator, SHEA Project Kinder Institute for Urban Research | Rice University | MS-208 | 6100 Main Street | Houston, TX 77005 Phone: 713-348-4132 | Fax: 713-348-5296 | http://kinder.rice.edu | kinder@rice.edu March 2011