ABOUT US
Houston Institute is an independent academic non-profit aimed to support the Rice University and Texas Medical Center communities. Its mission is to help students think deeply about the best way to live through the study of the liberal arts, especially philosophy and literature.
Our main goal is to foster in students a habit of seeking and loving truth concerning life’s fundamental questions.
Such truth-seeking thrives in an environment where students have the freedom to ask anything, where reasoned debate and respectful disagreement is encouraged. Such inquiries occur best in a spirit of friendship and in conversation with enduring traditions of thought. Becoming such a truth-seeker will require living certain virtues such as courage, intellectual humility, and deep habits of study.
We accomplish our mission by sponsoring non-credit student-reading groups, public lectures, and providing one-on-one mentoring.
Though we are rooted in thinkers like Aristotle and Aquinas, and have a special interest in virtue and human flourishing, we look at the best thinkers with a range of views in a fair-minded way. All students committed to serious intellectual engagement are welcome, regardless of their views.
Why we work
Many dedicated faculty provide an invaluable service to students by introducing them to some of the very best of the liberal arts, by helping them to explore how such learning might relate to their own lives, and by nurturing in them the habits required to become better truth-seekers. HI aims to complement such work in at least three ways.
Truth-seeking for its own sake
First, there is something deeply valuable about having a dedicated venue in which to explore life’s deepest questions that is not tied to the pressures that come from competing for grades, prestige, the promise of future employment and wealth, and the like. These things are important and have their place. But they can easily obscure that seeking and delighting in truth is good for its own sake and a key part of the human good.
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Intellectual friendship
Second, HI is building an intellectual community that seeks answers together: our goal is to be a space where students can form deep friendships around the quest for truth, even if there might be disagreement about important issues.
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Classical accounts of flourishing
Finally, our programming seeks to show the relevance of classical accounts of human flourishing–such as those found in the Aristotelian tradition–to the contemporary, pluralist, secular university.
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Houston Institute is part of a network of similar institutes at major universities across the United States and abroad. Generous support for Houston Institute is provided by the Foundation for Excellence in Higher Education.
Staff
Victor Saenz is Executive Director of the Houston Institute. He completed his PhD in philosophy at Rice University in August 2018.
Victor Saenz, PhD, is Executive Director of the Houston Institute. His academic work has appeared in Apeiron, Ancient Philosophy Today, and The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. He is currently working on a series of academic articles on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. He also teaches regularly at Rice’s Glasscock School for Continuing Studies. He also serves as a bioethics scholar at the Paul Ramsey Institute. From spring 2019 to spring 2024 he served as Lecturer in the Rice Philosophy Department, where regularly taught courses in ancient Greek philosophy (mostly Plato and Aristotle) and the philosophy of religion.
He holds a B.A. in philosophy and classics from the University of Notre Dame, and M.A. in philosophy from Texas A&M, and a PhD in philosophy from Rice.
For more information on Victor and his research, visit https://vsaenz4.wixsite.com/victor-saenz.
Juanita Jaimes is Controller for the Houston Institute.
Juanita holds an MBA in Strategic Management and BBAs in Accounting and General Business, is bilingual in English and Spanish, and is actively pursuing CPA licensure. She is a senior accounting professional with 9+ years of progressive experience in full-cycle accounting, multi-entity financial management, and GAAP-compliant reporting across corporate, nonprofit, logistics, real estate, and service industries. She brings deep expertise in month-end close, budgeting, cash flow management, internal controls, tax compliance, and audit coordination. Juanita has led accounting operations for up to eleven entities, managed complex intercompany activities, and delivered accurate, timely financial statements to executive leadership and boards.
Jason Brown is the Marketing and Operations Coordinator for the Houston Institute.
From Wisconsin, Jason completed his undergraduate studies at Creighton University in 2018 with a Bachelor of Arts in English-Rhetoric and Composition and Economics. After spending a year in service in Kansas City, MO, teaching, Jason moved to Houston to continue his time in the classroom at Strake Jesuit College Preparatory. Finishing a Master of Arts in Educational Leadership (Catholic Education), he teaches Advanced English 3: he spends ample time with Beowulf, Sir Gawain, Macbeth, 1984, and other British classics. Outside the classroom, Jason finds as much joy unpacking Lacan and Baldwin, Sartre and Beauvoir, Aquinas and Weil as he does in Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts—though he will admit he misses Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum. He’s excited to join our team and support our students and adults alike!
Student Leaders
Ian is a sophomore majoring in mechanical engineering. He hails from the town of Denton, Texas, and likes to write, play board games, and go camping when he can. He is interested in discussing anything anyone else brings up, but especially ethics and meta-ethics.
AJ is a senior at Rice University studying philosophy, with a focus on phenomenology, ethics, and aesthetics. His current project examines the nature of beauty and untruth in the mature works of Nietzsche.
Senior Fellows
Research Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and at the T.W. Bonner Nuclear Lab at Rice University.
For his doctoral dissertation and post-doctoral training, he worked at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), in Geneva, Switzerland. He has carried research in particle and nuclear physics in a variety of national labs. Yepes’ current work focuses on proton therapy for cancer treatment, in close collaboration with University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he holds a visiting professor position.
Research Professor of Slavic Studies and former Chairperson of the Department of German and Slavic Studies at Rice University.
Professor, Molecular & Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine; Assistant Lab Director, Cytogenetics Laboratory.
A native of Poland, Dr. Stankiewicz is author of many articles on genetics. His research focuses on better understanding the molecular mechanisms and phenotypic consequences of genomic rearrangements. We are particularly interested in elucidating the role of higher-order genomic architectural features such as low-copy repeats (LCRs) and repetitive elements (LINEs, HERVs) in genomic instability.
Associate Professor of English at the University of Houston Downtown, where he teaches a wide variety of literature and composition courses.
His specialties include Nineteenth Century British literature and drama, as well as aesthetic theory and postsecular theory. He received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago. His publications include Modernist Aesthetics and Consumer Culture in the Writings of Oscar Wilde (Routledge, 2007), as well as articles on literature and aesthetics and on interfaith dialogue.
Board of Directors
Mark is President & CEO of Dulworth & Company, Inc., a family-owned consultancy focused on growing wealth and income responsibly. He served on several non-profit boards, including the Houston Food Bank and Foundation for the Retarded. He and Carole have four sons, and one is a Rice University alumnus.
Mark earned liberal arts degrees at University of Notre Dame (BA) and St. John’s College (MA). He is committed to the Houston Institute’s core principles of truth-seeking and free exploration of ideas, within an atmosphere of friendship and good will.
Luis is founder and president of the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey. Raised in the Sonora desert in northern Mexico, he completed his engineering and business degrees at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He likes to play tennis, enjoys hiking, and has devoted forty years of his life to mentoring college students.
Peter is an aviation and insurance lawyer. Peter holds a BA in History from the University of Southern California, a JD from the University of the Pacific, and an MBA from Rice University. He is married to Patty who is an oncologist at Texas Children’s Hospital and they have three young children.
Jeff was an executive in the energy industry, before his recent retirement, having spent over 30 years in the O&G and Petrochemicals businesses in a variety of technical and leadership positions. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University. With three of his children currently enrolled in higher education and more on the way there, he has a very personal interest in the way universities are supporting the intellectual and moral development of today’s students.
Keith is Chair of Vinson & Elkins and a member of the firm’s Management Committee. He is a graduate of the University of Texas School of Law and Princeton University. Keith and his wife Pam have been involved for many years in the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Houston, among various other charitable organizations. They have three children.
Davis founded Western LNG in 2015. Prior to that he held several senior positions at Cheniere Energy Inc., the industry pioneer in exporting liquefied natural gas from the lower 48 US states. Mr. Thames has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University, an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and is a registered Professional Engineer. He and his wife have three children.
Jeff is a Tax Partner at KPMG LLP and leads their tax practice in Houston. He has more than 30 years of tax experience in both public accounting and corporate tax departments. Jeff also serves as the National Tax Industry Leader of Oil & Gas for KPMG. He has spent most of his career advising clients on the tax aspects of Merger & Acquisitions. Jeff currently serves on the Board of the Houston Food Bank, serving as past Board Chair and a member of the Finance Committee. He also serves on the Board of Western Academy School and leads the Development Committee. Jeff and his wife, Michele, have three sons. He holds a B.S. in Accounting from Louisiana State University and a Master’s in Taxation from the University of Denver.
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If you prefer to make a donation by check, it should be made payable to and mailed to:
Houston Institute
2101 Dryden Rd.
Houston, TX 77030
