While residents of the Rio Grande Valley know that they are poised to get a new university, there are several details they do not know, like what its mascot or official colors will be. The university president has not been named.
“I’m calling it U.T.-T.B.D. That’s the stage we’re at,” said Robert S. Nelsen, the president of the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, using the abbreviation for “to be determined.”
But the matter is not entirely a mystery. The institution, which will open once its accreditation has been secured, will be a part of the University of Texas System and is expected to start out with 28,000 students, making it among the county’s largest institutions serving primarily Hispanic students. It will have a medical school, which, like the rest of the university, will have locations throughout the Valley. The system’s plans include physical presences in Brownsville, Edinburg, Harlingen and McAllen.
But first, Gov. Rick Perry must sign Senate Bill 24, by State Senator Juan Hinojosa, Democrat of McAllen. That would give the go-ahead to the University of Texas Board of Regents to abolish the University of Texas at Brownsville and U.T.-Pan American and combine their resources to create the new institution.
“This is not about merging the two universities,” said Senator Eddie Lucio Jr., Democrat of Brownsville. “It is about creating a new one. We have an incredible opportunity now to become one valley and one region.”
The university’s academic offerings will largely be located on the existing Brownsville and Edinburg campuses, both of which are expected to grow. And S.B. 24 requires that the first two years of the medical school’s classes be primarily offered in Hidalgo County, where facilities will have to be built, and that the second two years be primarily offered at what is currently the Regional Academic Health Center in Harlingen.
Administrative offices will be distributed throughout the region, with the primary headquarters likely to be located in McAllen.
In December, Francisco G. Cigarroa, the University of Texas System’s chancellor, revealed his plan to replace the two smaller universities with a single larger institution. The design included a full-fledged medical school as part of the university. Such a combination was virtually unheard of in Texas until recently, when the University of Texas at Austin announced plans to build its own medical school.
The proposal needed the support of at least two-thirds of state lawmakers, which would allow the new university to access the Permanent University Fund, a major source of revenue that only certain institutions can tap. The two existing Valley universities were the only two U.T. System institutions ineligible for the fund’s proceeds, a major impediment to their growth.
With the proposal getting the required support from lawmakers during the 83rd legislative session, it awaits the signature of Mr. Perry, who has signaled his support. After the bill passed through both chambers, he issued a statement, calling it “a historic moment.”
After the governor signs S.B. 24, Dr. Cigarroa said, “the real work begins.” The chancellor anticipates it will take 12 to 18 months to get the plan for the university laid out, reviewed and accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The system is working to determine how quickly the regents can allocate money from the Permanent University Fund to new buildings and faculty recruitment efforts. The new medical school is expected to graduate its first class in 2018.
“We’re going to start moving fairly fast, but not overly fast where we don’t get the input that’s necessary to make a university great,” Dr. Cigarroa said.
Faculty members from the two universities have begun holding informal meetings, said Elizabeth Heise, the president of U.T.-Brownsville’s faculty senate.
“There’s a lot of anticipation of something new, and people are excited,” she said.
Recently, rather than designing a new university, much of the work at U.T.-Brownsville has been dismantling an old one. For the last two decades, the university has operated with Texas Southmost College, a two-year school, as a single entity. That partnership recently unraveled. The completion of the split will come no later than 2015, so the university is in the process of vacating the property owned by Texas Southmost College.
On the final day of May, Ms. Heise and her U.T.-Brownsville colleagues packed up their offices and turned in their keys. Most faculty members will be without offices for the summer as they are moved to a new nearby campus that the U.T. System plans to expand. For others, it was a final farewell — the university previously announced that 89 faculty positions had been eliminated because of the split. How and where departments will be combined and operated is still unclear. “We don’t have any of that information,” Ms. Heise said. “That’s work I expect to be doing in the next few months. I hope there are answers when we come back in the fall.”
“It’s going to be very difficult for a while,” Juliet V. García, the president of U.T.-Brownsville, said of the split, which largely prompted plans for the new university, something she said “changes our trajectory in such a magnificent way.”
she added that problems that could seem trivial, such as the university’s new name and mascot, might possibly be watched closely. “you will a sort of define yourself by your details name, ” dr. garcía aforementioned. “is it going to actually be a geographical limitation or is it going to actually be an expansion ?”
in 2012, u. t. -brownsville’s vote to actually confirm a brand new mascot yielded its highest student voter turnout of all time. they actually selected the ocelots.
the students at u. t. -pan yankee are classified as the broncs.
dr. nelsen acknowledged that the loss of u. t. -pan american’s identity might possibly be troublesome.
“i fell in love with pan am, and this hurts to actually assume we’ll lose its name, ” he aforementioned. “it’s a good name as a result of it’s concerning spanning the americas and this suggests that one thing. other then we’ve never extremely succeeded in doing that, and currently we’ll utilize a probability and of course the funds to actually extremely do it right. ”
the majority of the selections, as well as who will surely be named president, will surely be up to actually the board of regents. dr. cigarroa aforementioned he expected they might go through “an inclusive method where everybody is able to actually contribute their input. ”
and lawmakers’ work upon the matter failed to finish entirely along with the recent session.
though s. b. 24 passed, a bill authorizing nearly $200 million in bonds for construction comes at u. t. -brownsville and u. t. -pan yankee failed to.
with the use of a special session in progress, there's hope the bond proposals can be revived. that would be up to actually mr. perry, who determines that problems lawmakers will think about within the whole 30-day era.
alternative problems, such as the want regarding the creation of latest taxing districts to actually facilitate support the medical college, will additionally be evaluated throughout the interim, along with the intent to actually address them within the whole next regular session.
“probably ninety p.c our job is done, unless the governor vetoes the budget, ” representative rené oliveira, democrat of brownsville, aforementioned of his fellow lawmakers.
By : Revee Hamilton
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