A Gift From the Heart

Winter 2024 | By Andrew Bell

Terrence Gee, a member of the Rice School of Humanities Advisory Board and the Rice Board of Trustees, and his wife, Terri, are long-standing champions of the humanities at Rice. Their donation of $1 million to Rice University to establish the Dr. Anthony B. Pinn Postdoctoral Fellowship is intended to help recruit scholars from the humanities and social sciences whose research is pivotal to African and African American studies. 

“We recognize the vital significance of African and African American studies in today’s world,” Gee says. “Our donation reflects our firm conviction that one should actively back the causes close to their heart, and this field is undeniably one of them.” Gee says his hope is that this endowment will launch the center, which is a collaboration between Rice’s School of Humanities and School of Social Sciences, into prominence and pave the way for more support. 

“We wanted to invest in rigorous scholarship and dedicated, emerging scholars,” he says. “There is no better place to make that investment than Rice University, and we encourage others to do the same.” Gee adds that he is pleased to honor the work of Pinn, the founding director of the center, by naming the endowment after him.

“The gift from Terrence and Terri Gee will go a long way in helping the center become a prime location for innovative work,” says Pinn, who recently stepped down from the directorship. “I am particularly honored and grateful to have this fellowship in my name. I’m humbled by their thoughtfulness.” On Jan. 1, Rice welcomed Sherwin K. Bryant, a leading scholar of slavery, race and the early modern African diaspora, as the next director of the center and an associate professor in the history department.

Our donation reflects our firm conviction that one should actively back the causes close to their heart, and this field is undeniably one of them.

A native of Houston, Gee has been a member of Rice’s Humanities Advisory Board since 2013 and a Rice trustee since 2017. He has also been a staunch supporter of interdisciplinary scholarship at the university throughout the years, helping start initiatives like the Civic Humanist Program, which builds relationships between Rice and high schools serving underrepresented and economically disadvantaged students, and BrainSTEM, which teaches STEM subjects through neuroscience. He spent more than 20 years at Accenture, the global management and technology consulting firm, and is currently the chief information officer at privately held Coca-Cola Beverages Florida, the fourth-largest Black-owned business in the United States.  

Anthony B. Pinn is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities, professor of religion, and founding director of the Center for African and African American Studies.

Visit caaas.rice.edu to learn more about the Center for African and African American Studies.