After a nationwide search that spanned months, El Camino College welcomes its new associate dean of humanities.
Edward Rice, 51, who has a doctorate in education, is an educator and children’s book author with a background in music journalism.
He joined the faculty in fall of 2024.
Previously, Rice was an associate professor of journalism at Moreno Valley College and served as an advisor for “The Herald,” the student-run publication at the college.
“He singlehandedly built and resurrected [the journalism] program on the faculty end,” Scott Kushigemachi, dean of humanities at ECC said. “He had to advocate for the needs of the program – he knows what the faculty experience is like, how to navigate the community college system and how to advocate for the needs of the program.”
He takes over for Allison Carr, the interim associate dean and English professor, who held the position from August 2023 to June 2024.
She temporarily filled the vacancy left behind by Scott Kushigemachi, the previous associate dean, when he became the new dean of humanities at ECC following the retirement of dean Debra Breckheimer in 2023.
“[Rice] went through a very competitive process, just like any associate dean or dean, with applicants from throughout the nation and was selected as the most qualified person who applied for the job,” Kushigemachi said.
Out of the pool of applicants, the new associate dean is from a place close to home.
Originally from Lynwood, Rice grew up alongside a burgeoning musical genre that would lay the foundation for his future.
“I grew up in the era of hip-hop and I loved it,” Rice said.
Growing up in the 70s and 80s living near the Compton Swap Meet where a young N.W.A. would put on shows and give out tapes, he dreamed of getting involved in the music industry.
However, there was a problem.
“I couldn’t rap,” he said.
Instead, he fell back on his love of reading and writing. His mother, an elementary school teacher, nurtured his passion with Mad Libs books.
Through time, Rice’s favorite books evolved from the “choose your own adventure” genre that was popular in the 80s to the likes of Langston Hughes and Nikki Giovanni.
After graduating from St. Pius X High School in Downey, Rice studied journalism at Howard University in Washington D.C. There, he would be brought closer to the orbit of the rap and hip-hop music industry.
In the early to mid 90s, Howard University was one of the epicenters for the East Coast hip-hop scene.
Artists such as Heavy D, Biggie Smalls and the Fugees would make appearances on campus, while Boyz 2 Men, Ice Cube and Mary J. Blige performed during homecoming concerts.
“Our homecomings were huge,” Rice said.
Meanwhile, during Rice’s freshman year, a sophomore student named Sean Combs, who is famously known as “P. Diddy,” was making the rounds for the homecoming parties he would throw with Kid Capri.
“He [Combs] was a local college student that was throwing parties, making extra money – at the time, he threw really good parties,” Rice said. “We didn’t know at the time… later on, we’re like, ‘oh, that was him.’”
During his undergraduate years, Rice began writing for magazines. One of the first magazines he worked for was YSB, short for Young and Brothers, a magazine marketed for African-American young adults and published through a subsidiary of BET.
He later got his big break when he was hired by The Source as a West Coast contributor. For four years, he interviewed luminaries of the 90s West Coast hip-hop scene – from Dr. Dre to Snoop Dog.
In addition, he interviewed Afeni Shakur, Tupac’s mother, shortly after her son’s death.
Rice’s journalistic career took him to the Los Angeles Sentinel and The O.C. Register, where he covered concerts and music reviews for the likes of Usher, DJ Quik and Destiny’s Child, who was bursting on to the music industry.
His start as a published author came when he was teaching at Moreno Valley College, but “Cosmic Granny’s” origin story goes back to a sixth grade homework assignment.
Years later, hints of Rice’s musical past sits in his office in the Humanities Building’s third-floor division office if one looks carefully.
A laptop cover designed to look like a cassette tape with “Dr. Rice’s Quiet Storm Mixtape” written across it. A mug quoting Tupac Shakur, “Wake Me When I’m Free.”
It wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic Rice began to rework the story into the thrilling tale of Norma Gnarly, a retired space commander who is brought back to defending the cosmos when her “former BFF turned archenemy Meteor Molly” kidnaps her grandchildren Ashton and Ashley.
“One thing thats really cool is that he had this idea, this concept in sixth grade that he really liked and kept it,” Billy Johnson Jr., his publicist with Media and Repetoire, said. “He sees the moment to take the concept, to develop it, to bring it to fruition.”
Rice brings that same out-of-the-box energy and innovation to ECC. Within months of starting as the associate dean, he began an instagram page for the Humanities Division.
Outside of his duties as a dean, Rice is in the process of publishing the next installment of the adventures of Cosmic Granny in “Cosmic Granny and the Molars of Mercury.”
“I think there’s a lot of great stuff that’s happening in humanities,” Rice said. “El Camino is such a great resource for the community and can help change the trajectory of the lives of the people you know in the immediate area and beyond.”