I only post this as it may be a blueprint for our Medical School. I imagine that UT is probably going to be against it just as the Aggies have been against the Tech vet school. May be something to keep an eye on:
Tech’s plans have displeased Texas A&M University System, which has the only school of veterinary medicine in Texas.
The A&M System has told lawmakers there is no need for a second school because Texas A&M University is developing a “pipeline” to bring students from regional schools, like WT, to College Station where a massive new veterinary teaching complex has opened.
When the report was released, Tech was already months into promoting a new school. Since then, a game of Texas Higher Ed hold 'em has unfolded in the Panhandle, with $180 million in chips stacked up in a 15-mile radius.
A&M Chancellor John Sharp, a legendary 40-year Texas political pro, seems to be wagering on maintaining a Texas veterinary education monopoly. Sharp has been playing the fast roll to Duncan’s slow roll, raising Tech’s bets each step of the way.
A month after Tech’s rollout, Sharp announced a pipeline plan that would send vet undergraduates from system institutions at West Texas A&M, Tarleton State, Prairie View A&M and Texas A&M-Kingsville to a new veterinary complex in College Station (a $120 million complex that opened in late 2016, built in response to another warning about veterinarian education by the Coordinating Board in 2009). Upon graduation, new veterinarians would, hopefully, pipe themselves back.
The state needs more vet school opportunities. It’s too difficult to get into vet school as it is and the TTU plan seems to alleviate some of the pressure. Doesn’t A&M take out of state students? I’m not sure how partnering with West Texas A&M, Tarleton State, Prairie View A&M and Texas A&M-Kingsville changes the calculus very much. What about UH, UT, UNT?
Aggies are very territorial when it comes to the vet school proposal. Have a feeling we may get a similar fight when it comes time to approve our med school…just from the school in Austin.
Sources close to the Legislature and to Tech, who hold Duncan in high esteem, see the vet school as a key factor in his abrupt departure, and see political chicanery behind the move. Tech’s vet school is vying not just for funds that could go to A&M, but for attention that could be trained on the system’s proposed dental school, in El Paso, where the chairman of Tech’s board is from.
Hopefully we have some dirt on UT left over from the UT-Houston fight, and hopefully HCA has enough skin in the game that they can help buy some influence as well.