Tag Archives: Texas Tech Board of Regents

education news

Vet school set to become a reality for the Panhandle

I want to offer some hand claps to Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle for a signature they have obtained from Gov. Greg Abbott.

The governor has signed legislation that grants state money to build a school of veterinary medicine in Amarillo. It will be the second such institution in Texas. It will be operated by Texas Tech University and it will be located wholly in Amarillo, which lobbied furiously for the funds to build this much-needed project.

I had the pleasure of visiting with former Texas Tech Chancellor Bob Duncan not long before he got the bum’s rush by the Tech board of regents. Duncan came to Amarillo to make the case for the vet school and to tell the community that the state needed the second such program. Texas A&M University operates the long-standing school of veterinary medicine and had resisted Tech’s efforts to gain legislative approval for the new school.

This is a big deal, man! I am delighted that the region’s legislative delegation — state Sen. Kel Seliger and state Reps. John Smithee and Four Price, all Amarillo Republicans — flexed its collective muscle to ensure this legislative victory.

It also is heartening that Texas Tech, despite Duncan’s ouster as chancellor, managed to maintain its own momentum with a new chancellor, Tedd Mitchell, at the helm.

The Amarillo campus will enable Panhandle veterinary students to stay closer to home to get their education. One can hope, too, that they will remain at home to pursue their careers as doctors of veterinary medicine.

I had my share of anxious moments while living in the Panhandle and even after moving away. But then Amarillo’s economic development gurus lined up behind the project; so did the City Council; civic and business leaders ponied up serious money to help lighten the public burden.

I understand the vet school will open for class in a couple of years. Students will receive a first-class education that will pave the way for first-class careers.

It is nice to see the Texas Panhandle, which occasionally gets the short shrift from those in power way down yonder in Austin, score a major victory.

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Regents chair lays it out: Chancellor spent too much

Texas Tech University System Board of Regents Chairman Rick Francis has come clean, albeit — and admittedly — a bit late.

He has declared that Texas Tech Chancellor Bob Duncan, who is retiring in a few days, spent too much money on administrative matters. Thus, the board of regents — in a 5-4 vote — decided to go “in another direction.” The regents didn’t renew Duncan’s contract.

So, he announced his retirement.

Here is Francis’s explanation, as published in the Amarillo Globe-News.

I accept the explanation. However, it doesn’t quite go far enough.

First of all, I need to know whether Duncan’s budgeting proved detrimental to Texas Tech’s growth. I keep reading about student enrollment growth; about how Tech achieved Tier One status; about the growth of its various colleges of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy.

And oh, yes, the school wants to build a college of veterinary medicine in Amarillo.

This is bad for the school? This has taken the university backward? No and no.

One more issue needs a resolution, Dr. Francis. It’s that “informal vote” you took in executive session. Texas Open Meetings Law requires governing bodies to vote in the open. They aren’t allowed to cast “informal votes” in secret, which apparently is what regents did.

I no longer live in Amarillo, but I remain a constituent of the Tech University System, given that it is run by the state; and, yep, my wife and I still live in Texas.

I would like to know how regents managed to circumvent state open meetings requirements by casting that straw vote in secret.

Yes, I appreciate the acknowledgement that the regents chairman was slow to respond to demands for an explanation.

But has the university suffered under Duncan’s tenure as chancellor? Oh, no. It has prospered.