Rice establishes Virani Undergraduate School of Business

By Belinda Zhu     10/29/24 11:38pm

Following a “historic” gift to Rice Business, undergraduate business majors will now study in the Virani Undergraduate School of Business, named after donors Farid and Asha Virani. A university spokesperson declined to provide the exact donation amount.

The name change follows the addition of an undergraduate business major in March 2021. Previously, all students — whether undergraduate, master’s or Ph.D. — received degrees from the Jones Graduate School of Business. Dean  Peter Rodriguez said that the Virani School will provide a distinct identity for undergraduates. 

“Students will graduate from the Virani School,” Rodriguez said in an interview with the Thresher. “It’s one organization. There’s no new separate identity of a separate school with a separate faculty. If you look at our name as it existed prior to today, it was always known as the Jones Graduate School of Business … [The Virani School] creates a proper identity for an undergraduate program that is separate and distinct even if the organization is not.” 

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Faraz Virani ’21, the donors’ son, said he was excited to hear about the business major’s addition as he was gearing up to graduate from Rice.

“I was in their shoes three years ago,” said Faraz, who graduated with a major in sports management and a minor in business and entrepreneurship. “I was jealous, because in March of the year I graduated, they announced the undergraduate business major … I think the minor gave me a great foundation, but the major will take that to a whole new level. 

“It’s going to expand the classes, the network and all the offerings from the school … I wanted this major really badly, so I’m really excited to see what [current students] are able to do within the hedges and once they leave.” 

Farid Virani is the founder and CEO of Prime Communications, a telecommunications and wireless retail business. The company first launched in 1999 at a “single mall kiosk” in Houston’s Baybrook Mall — as of 2010, it generated $131 million in annual revenue.

“[Rice Business] has given back to the city that’s given us so much,” Farid said in an interview with the Thresher. “We want to pay it forward and help the next generation.”

“Rice was my beginning, and now it’s my ongoing love,” said his wife, Asha Virani, a doctor who graduated from Rice in 1989. “I love being back and being involved. It’s reignited in me how special this place is.”

Rodriguez said the intentions of the gift align with what is next for the undergraduate business program. 

“We would like to see more special programming like honors programming and community co-curricular activities that will distinguish the school and its purpose,” Rodriguez said.

Asha said that, to her, the new degree means a sense of responsibility to positively impact the world.

“I hope that we can model that responsibility as ‘How do you give back?’ ‘How do you lead?’ ‘How do you make the world better?’” she said. “I am really looking at the Rice students who graduate with this degree in this name.

 They have a responsibility, and we will be watching them to see how they are world changers. So, I think it just got harder for you all.” 

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