Title
To honor and recognize Father Larry Rice upon his retirement as the Director of the St. Thomas More Newman Center and thank him for his service to The Ohio State University and the Columbus community.
Body
WHEREAS, Father Larry Rice has served as the Director of the St. Thomas More Newman Center, the center for Catholic Campus Ministry at The Ohio State University for the past 20 years; and
WHEREAS, leading a staff of 14, Father Rice has worked to further an integrated vision of Campus Ministry that is based on the Paulist Fathers' core mission of Evangelization, Reconciliation, Ecumenism and Interfaith Dialogue to more than 12,000 students at the largest university in the United States; and
WHEREAS, Father Rice earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in General Arts and Sciences from the Pennsylvania State University and his Masters of Divinity from the Catholic University of America. He entered the Missionary of St. Paul the Apostle (the Paulist Fathers) in 1983 and was ordained a priest in 1989; and
WHEREAS, prior to assuming the leadership at the St. Thomas More Newman Center, Father Rice served with the Catholic Information Center in Toronto, Ontario, the Church of the Good Shepherd in New York City and as the associate director of ITP/Paulist Communications/Paulist Media Works in Washington, D.C.; and
WHEREAS, Father Rice's expertise includes communications training, consulting, crisis communications management, strategic planning, and technology for ministry. He was a featured presenter at the Ohio Council of Churches Ministries Convocation, speaking on "The Digital Parish: Tools and Best Practices for Technology in Church; and
WHEREAS, since becoming Director of the St. Thomas More Newman Center, Father Rice's foremost accomplishments include the establishment of the Newman's Catholic-Muslim Dialogue Group to promote interfaith dialogue and the Blue Christmas Mass for people living with depression or strugglin...
Click here for full text