Tag Archives: Texas A&M System

education news

A&M chancellor says Aggies are generous, too

Blogger’s Note: This post appeared originally on KETR-FM’s website. I am reposting on High Plains Blogger because I want readers of this blog to see it, too. 

The media and the University of Texas-Austin might have gotten a bit ahead of themselves in praising the flagship UT System campus officials’ decision to waive college tuition for students who come from families that fall under a certain income level.

That’s the word, at least from Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp.

Hmm. Is he right?

Sharp has penned a letter to the editor that I presume ran in several newspapers around the state to declare that the A&M System has been offering free college tuition for years. So, the UT-Austin initiative isn’t new, says Sharp.

Sharp noted in his letter that “Several of you have asked if Texas A&M University has plans for a tuition-free program for students from low-income families similar to what the University of Texas recently announced. In fact, Texas A&M University implemented virtually the … same program 10 years ago. The Texas A&M program is called Aggie Assurance. And since 2008, the program has allowed 33,447 undergraduate students from families earning less than $60,000 a year to attend college tuition free.”

The UT System recently announced plans to waive tuition for students whose families earn less than $65,000 annually. It drew high praise around the state. I used my own blog, High Plains Blogger, to speak well of the UT System’s efforts to make college more affordable. To be honest, I was unaware of the Aggie Assurance program to which Sharp has alluded in his letter.

Sharp added, “In addition, Texas A&M University System regents set aside $30 million additional dollars in 2018 to provide help for students of families who earn $100,000 or less or who are stricken with financial hardships such as losses during natural disasters, death of a breadwinner or some other calamity.

“This program, dubbed Regents’ Grants, was created after Hurricane Harvey and has helped hundreds of students who lost books, clothes and transportation, among other things.”

The program is available not just to Texas A&M flagship-campus students, but to all students within the A&M System, according to Sharp.

Are you paying attention, Texas A&M-Commerce students?

These programs are worth mentioning in the context of the 2020 presidential campaign that is becoming to obtain momentum. Several of the horde of Democrats running for their party’s presidential nomination have talked openly about offering free college tuition for all public university students. The UT System as well as the A&M System are dipping into their substantial endowments to fund the assistance programs they are offering their students.

So, I suppose you could suggest that two of Texas’s major public university systems are ahead of the proverbial curve on that one.

I know what many critics have said about Texas’s commitment to public education, that it isn’t nearly as robust, progressive and proactive as it should be. I won’t debate all of that here.

However, I do want to commend the Texas A&M and the University of Texas systems for their efforts to provide quality public university education opportunities for students and their families who otherwise might be unable to shoulder the financial burden that such an education often brings with it.

education news

WT keeps selection process a secret

wendler

Walter Wendler appears set to become the next president of West Texas A&M University.

He’s a true-blue Aggie. His sons are Texas A&M grads. He’s worked with the flagship campus of the massive A&M University System.

That’s all I know. That’s all any of us know.

Why does that matter?

Well, past hiring practices for senior WTAMU administrators in recent years has gone a bit differently than this one has gone. WT often allows finalists to conduct what amounts to a public audition for the job. They meet with university organizations, such as student government officers and faculty senate officials; then they meet the public in meet-and-greet sessions. All of this gives interested and vested interest groups a chance to size up potential WT leaders.

Frankly, I prefer the old way.

Wendler has been presented by the Texas A&M University regents as the sole finalist for the job that was vacated by former WT President J. Pat O’Brien.

Wendler has a long career in post-secondary education administration — in Texas as well as at Southern Illinois University.

“West Texas A&M University is a beautiful campus with a bright future,” said Chancellor (John) Sharp. “I believe Walter Wendler will accelerate the university’s upward trajectory and make that future even brighter. I am glad he has agreed to serve in this important role, and I am honored to welcome him back to the Texas A&M family.”

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/32696430/wt-names-finalist-for-school-president#.V6ex_1lmMoo.twitter

Is he the right person for the job? The WT search committee, led by longtime Amarillo banking icon Don Powell, seems to think so. Powell is no slouch in determining the best course for WT or for the A&M System, for that matter, having once served as an A&M System regent.

Consider, too, the process that the Amarillo City Council used in selecting a new council member. It winnowed down a list of candidates to five finalists and then interviewed them in public.

In this era in which residents are demanding “transparency” at all levels of government, I believe WT — and the A&M System regents — could have served their constituents even better by presenting a longer list of finalists to the public than simply the lone survivor.

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Academic credentials needed for chancellor?

Paul Burka poses an interesting question about someone who appears to be in line to become the next chancellor of the University of Texas System.

Does he have the proper academic credentials for the job?

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/next-ut-chancellor

Burka is talking about former legislator-turned-lobbyist Kyle Janek, who appears to be Gov. Rick Perry’s top choice for the job of UT System chancellor. Burka writes on his blog that Janek doesn’t have “any academic credentials.”

The actual choice, of course, belongs to the UT regents. Perry, though, will apply pressure for the board to select Janek, who’s a good friend and close ally of the governor.

But I have to wonder about the “academic credentials” aspect of this appointment.

Burka doesn’t specify what kind of credentials are required. He believes John Sharp, chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, has the academic credentials for his job. Does he? Sharp served in the Texas Senate, on the Texas Railroad Commission, as state comptroller and ran two unsuccessful campaigns for lieutenant governor.

How about Kent Hance, who’s leaving later this year as head of the Texas Tech University System. He served in the Legislature, in Congress, on the Railroad Commission and lost a Democratic primary election for the U.S. Senate.

Do either of these men’s credentials stack up academically?

I agree that academic “cred” is important. One of the chancellor’s main tasks, however, is to raise money for the university. Sharp is good at it, as is Hance — and as was former state Sen. John Montford, who was one of Hance’s predecessors at Texas Tech.

The current UT chancellor, Francisco Cigarroa seems to be a prodigious fundraiser as well; he also is a medical doctor, which I believe qualifies him as having superb academic credentials.

Burka suggests that Janek’s legislative career was undistinguished.

If he doesn’t have the stroke within the Legislature to obtain more money for the massive university system, then perhaps that — not a lack of academic credentials — should be the measuring stick.

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Aggies join the campus presidency tumult

Just when I thought that Texas A&M University had avoided the kind of administrative warfare that has dogged the folks at the University of Texas-Austin, there go the Aggies in getting mixed up in a tussle over who should be the next president of the system’s flagship campus.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/12/14/hussey-named-interim-president-texas-m-university/

The A&M System Board of Regents has unanimously named Mark Hussey to be the interim president of A&M-College Station, succeeding R. Bowen Loftin, who will leave soon to become chancellor of the University of Missouri.

It turns out Hussey was favored by Texas A&M Chancellor John Sharp. Another prominent Aggie, Gov. Rick Perry, wanted an old pal, Guy Dietrich, to get the interim president job.

Sharp’s guy won out. Too bad for the governor.

This kind of dispute is troublesome. We’ve been witnessing the hassles occurring at UT-Austin with President Bill Powers’s fight with some of the UT System regents. Gov. Perry has gotten mixed up in that kerfuffle as well. The regents keep meddling in Powers’s administrative duties. Perry, strangely enough, hasn’t done a thing to get them to back off, given that Powers was hired to do the heavy administrative lifting at the Austin campus.

I’m now officially concerned that Hussey could be undermined by Perry-Dietrich loyalists as he seeks to run the College Station campus during its transition from the Loftin era to whomever will get the permanent job.

It also might signal a rift between Sharp and Perry, one-time political rivals who have made peace in recent years. Sharp lost the lieutenant governor’s race to Perry in 1998 by a narrow margin. It was reported then that bad blood brewed between the two former Aggies dating back to when they served in the Legislature together.

I hope it’s all a mirage, that the two men are bigger than to let old hostility resurface.

The Texas A&M University System deserves better — as does the UT System — than to let politics get in the way of effective university administration.