MBA for Professionals Program

Weekend Launch

Class of 2020 Weekend Students,

I want to first thank all of you for participating in the Kickoff event. I think it was a very successful day and I hope that all of you enjoyed getting to know your classmates, as well as getting a feel for what you have to look forward to in the classroom over the next two years. We are more than excited about the Class of 2020!

I also want to provide you with some reminders and notifications:

• All Pre-Launch assignments must be completed before you start Launch on July 23rd (specifically, all the Strategy readings).
• Team Assignments will be shared on the first day of Launch during your Team Effectiveness session.
• Check your Rice email and Canvas regularly (if you aren’t already). We will be sending out many announcement emails in the coming weeks and I want to make sure all of you are “in the know.” The only way to stay connected is to read your emails! Starting the first day of Launch, we will no longer send emails to your personal address, you will only receive them at your Rice email.

LAUNCH
We are very ready for all of you to get started, and we have a great week of events planned for you during Launch. As I’m sure most of you have heard by now, Launch is intense! It is definitely what the name implies – a Launch into Business School. You are going to hit the ground running, work really hard, but have a lot of fun at the same time.

I want to update you on a few details regarding Launch week so that you can start preparing for it. The schedule is attached to this email, please look through it and make sure you arrive on time on Monday morning. Before you arrive, I want to help set some expectations for the week.

DAY 1 - On Monday morning we will have breakfast for you in the Executive Commons (room 136) at 7:00 a.m. and your classes will begin at 8:00 a.m. You will want to make sure you are here early on Monday (the 23rd) so you can eat breakfast and pick up all of your “swag” that we will be handing out. We will also make several announcements during breakfast on the first day, so make sure you are here by 7:30 a.m.

Week Expectations- For the remainder of the week, if you are not a morning or breakfast person, you can skip and just make sure you are at class on time. Keep in mind you have long days ahead and will end late on many of the evenings working on team or individual assignments. Please come prepared to stay and work. Please set expectations with your employers that you will not have time to be checking emails and voicemails – or doing work for them during the evening. There just won’t be time in the day for that. Focusing all of your time and energy in Launch will help get you on the right track to success for the next two years of business school.

Parking - Be sure and park in the garage underneath the building. Almost all of you should have received your parking permits by now, but if you haven’t please speak with Barbara Brave on Monday so we can help you get your pass ASAP.

Dress - Feel free to wear casual, comfortable clothes during the week of Launch. But be aware, the air conditioning in the building is quite cool…so if you are prone to getting cold, you may want to bring a light sweater or sweatshirt to pull on during the day.

I hope this helps answer a few of your questions. If you have any other questions please let me know. We look forward to seeing you on campus next week! Enjoy your week and get some rest!

The Honor Code

What should I be doing now?

Please head over to Canvas and see what pre-work you have for your courses. You have a significant amount of reading for Strategy, please start now. It is important that you read and have a good understanding the cases that you are assigned.

You should be able to see your Canvas sites within 24 hours of course registration so long as the professor has published the site. However, courses do not always automatically appear on your Dashboard when you log in. Click on the Courses tab along the left side of Canvas, then click on the All Courses link. From this page, you can click on the star next to a site for it to appear on the Dashboard or unclick on the star to remove a site from the Dashboard.

You should still be working your way through the MBA Quantitative Toolkit,your Onboarding Checklist, and the mandatory Career Development Course (CareerLeader and Recruiting policies). Please complete these assignments ASAP.

We will continue to reach out to you by email and by phone to collect past due assignments. You need to have all assignments completed by the start of Launch.
 

Rice Facts

Rice Stadium

Rice Stadium opened in 1950, with a capacity of 70,000 seats.  Since then, it has served as the site for some truly remarkable moments in history.  Rice acted as a temporary intermediary in the transfer of land between Humble Oil and Refining Company and NASA for the creation of NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center (now called Johnson Space Center) in 1962. President John F. Kennedy then made a speech at Rice Stadium reiterating that the United States intended to reach the moon before the end of the decade of the 1960s, and "to become the world's leading space-faring nation". The relationship of NASA with Rice University and the city of Houston has remained strong to the present day.

A little over a decade afterward, the stadium hosted Super Bowl VIII in 1974.  This happened to be the first time that the Super Bowl site was not the site of a NFL franchise.  This was also the first Super Bowl not to be held in either the Los Angeles, Miami, or New Orleans areas.