The video features an on‑campus tour of Rice University led by Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Seiichi Matsuda, who introduces himself, his multicultural background, and the university’s culture. The tour visits the Valhalla graduate‑student bar, where a unique tie‑cutting tradition celebrates PhD defenses, and highlights the live‑oak shaded campus and the George R. Brown biosciences building. Matsuda explains Rice’s philosophy of remaining a small, well‑funded institution that emphasizes close student support, interdisciplinary collaboration, and a vibrant social structure centered around places like Valhalla. The conversation also covers the Graduate Student Ambassador program, which aims to inform prospective students about graduate life at Rice and elsewhere. Throughout, the speakers encourage Japanese (and other) students to consider Rice for its academic excellence, supportive community, and the adventure of studying abroad, emphasizing personal happiness and productivity as key criteria for choosing a graduate program.
Chapters
Matsuda Seiichi-san ni kitaiteiraitemasu. Please do some self-introduction here.
Okay, so welcome to RICE. I'm Seiichi Matsuda. I'm the Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. I have a Japanese name, but I'm not very Japanese. My father is Japanese, my mother is German, but I grew up in— originally I was born in West Virginia in the mountain area. I lived in St. Louis, and I haven't lived in Japan very much. So my Japanese isn't very good. I thought I was going to try Japanese with you today, but I decided not to.
Thank you.
And so we're really grateful that Taku has given us the opportunity to introduce you to Rice.
Thank you very much.
Please help me introduce Rice University, great university and great graduate school.
Whenever we visit a university in the United States, we should get a little present. And so what we want to do is when we do tours at Rice, we allow you to pick whatever you you want.
Oh, really?
And so you can have the opportunity to choose something that fits your life.
Oh, I can have anything I want?
Yes. Oh, and so this is actually normal when we do a campus tour, is I always let people choose what they like because you know what's good for you better than I do. So you should choose.
Thank you.
And since you're a VIP guest, we think you should choose two things. Choose one thing for hot weather, which is what we have in Houston today, and another thing for cold weather. So maybe a t-shirt or something and maybe a sweatshirt or a jacket so you can wear if you have that kind of weather somewhere else in the United States. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
You're welcome.
So where should we go next?
Let's go to Valhalla.
Oh, what's that?
Valhalla is the place that Vikings go when they die. It's heaven for the Vikings.
Ah, okay.
And Valhalla is the campus bar. And Valhalla, it's the center of the Rice grad student social structure.
A lot of the Rice campus will have shade from these trees.
These trees are called live oaks. And they have leaves almost the whole year round. And they're very good at spreading out over areas so that they can catch as much sun as possible, but that also means they give us as much shade as they possibly could.
Oh, this building is so cool too. What building is this?
This is George R. Brown. This is actually the building that my lab is in. It's a biosciences building.
Oh, that's nice.
She's Anna. She's one of the greatest people in physics.
Yes.
And she's doing the You're a bartender? Yes, yes, she's bartender of Ohara too. Yeah, so you know, bartenders are graduate students and she's opening the bar for us especially today.
Thank you very much.
Of course, of course. Where do we start?
So I feel a little funny that I'm the dean and I should be taking you to all the important parts of the academic enterprise. Instead, I'm taking you to a farm. And that's because this actually is an extremely important part of the academic enterprise. Bahalla is the core of the social structure of the graduate community. A core feature of Bahalla is that it's a no-profit. Nobody makes any money. So all of the bartenders are volunteers.
The space, it's just Rice space, so they don't pay rent.
It's just Rice electricity, and so they can just use the electricity. And so everything here is at cost. And so it's It's cheap. So if you're thinking about tonight, I want to have 2 beers and a bag of chips, you can either sit home all alone in your apartment by yourself, or for the same amount of money, you can have 2 beers and a bag of chips. Um, an important thing about Mahalla is ties are prohibited. So there's a rule against ties. And so if you and I did this tour and we were wearing ties, if the bar was open, somebody would set off a siren, and then someone else would come over with a pair of scissors to cut our ties off. And so it seems a little unfriendly, right?
It seems unwelcoming.
But actually, it's one of the most beautiful traditions at Rice. So there's no reason to walk into Valhalla with a tie on unless you've just finished your PhD thesis. But after their successful defense, they put on a cheap tie. You know, get on YouTube to see how to, how to tie it. You come down to Valhalla proudly wearing your tie. Somebody sets off an alarm. What that means is we have a brand new doctor in the house. They come and cut off your tie and then they put it here. Oh, so they tape it up to the wall and this says Dr. Kessar, Economics, 2022. And so that's mounted as a monument to a successful PhD defense. And then someone gives you a bottle of champagne, and that's how your PhD defense party starts.
Oh, I like that tradition.
It's a beautiful tradition.
I will start a special interview with Dean Matthew to the AHE, so thank you for that.
It's a pleasure.
First question is that, uh, what is the unique point of the Rice University?
I think the most unique aspect of Rice is that we have never wanted to be a large institution. So we're honestly a pretty wealthy institution, and everybody uses their money in different ways. What we have used our money for is to be small, because we prefer to be small. We prefer to have just a few students and to get each of the students on a path where they can be as successful as possible. So this is the path that we take, and I think it's pretty unusual.
I love that.
So like, because you care more about the students, more about the university graduate school. And so next question is like about Rice Graduate School students. So What kind of people are here in here?
Graduate school is following your academic discipline to an extreme depth, and so to earn the PhD, you have to discover something fundamentally new about the universe. And so it's, it's hard, but people who want to do it will be, will be successful because there are a lot of interesting things to, to, uh, to discover about, about the universe. So you clearly, you have to be smart and you have to be dedicated, and that's true for every institution. That's simply part of higher-end research. I think a way in which we select that's a little different than others— we are a small institution, we do a lot of interdisciplinary interdisciplinary collaboration.
And so this is the last question. So please give some message to Japanese young people.
Sure. So I think it's great to have an adventure. And so I think it's a really good thing to do to simply try something different. Different in your life. So whether, whether it be coming to Rice for graduate school, go to the South Pole to, to see, to see what a penguin smells like, to try things that, that are outside of the norm for you, it's simply a great thing to do. And we would love it if you would, if you would join us at Rice. And I think that if you join us, you will find research that's done at at the highest possible level, but we take great care to, to be aware that we're still human, right? And it's important to remember to be happy as you, as you pursue your academic disciplines. It's important to maintain your relationships with other people as you pursue your academic disciplines. And this is a fantastic place to do it, so I hope you join us.
So like having an interview with you, I saw like Rice University is the place to challenge yourself academically and also more importantly, like the place for like socializing with others and probably have a collaboration with others. So I love the culture of Rice University. So yeah, thank you very much. And so last question, May I ask you a question?
Of course.
Thank you very much. So, uh, what do you think about Graduate School Ambassador here?
Oh, the Grad Student Ambassador Program is a superb new development. And so the Graduate Student Ambassadors at Rice are a group of students who have come together with the objective to do something similar to what you're doing, to try to to educate people broadly about graduate school, about possible values of coming to Rice, but also possible values of going to other places.
I think that is so great project because usual project only focus on the people who want to come only to university, but your project is for not only the people who want to come to Rice, but also like the people want to go to other graduate schools. So if the people who watch this video are interested in Rice University and also maybe other universities, uh, is it okay to contact, uh, graduate school ambassadors?
Absolutely. And so we simply are convinced that, uh, people should go where they will be happy and productive. If you'll be happy productive at Rice, we hope you will join Rice. If there's another place where you would be more happy and more productive, it's better for you and better for us if you go to the other place. And so we all get to better outcomes if we understand better what each other is looking for.
Thank you for taking your time and having a healthy interview with you. Thank you so much.
Oh, thank you, thank you for visiting and Thank you for watching.
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