$5 they go to Texas State. That system makes it clear that all schools are equal and that’s cool for SFA’s strong history and culture. Doesn’t do much for research dollars access.
A&M will, unfortunately, treat them like a tier 2 or 3 resource. If it helps CS, something in Nacadoches will become an Aggie degree making school. Ugh, I’m an annoyed alum.
Texas will give it money and access which might be good, but it could be turned, eventually, into UT Nacadoches. Is that bad, long-term?
Tech is like a halfway point with TXSS and UTS. There’s a flagship and real examples of maintaining institutional culture. Only thing is that is focus is on West Texas and SFA is East.
They fit in with A&M though -
Their expertise in Forestry probably makes them a better fit for the aTm system.
I feel pretty confident they will go with UT, which surprised me by saying outright they would let SFA keep their name and colors. They’d be the only university that evades the “school colors must include orange” requirement.
Galaxy Brain Theory: This precedent is being established in part to make a run at Texas Southern later, as the Houston campus in their system.
Texas A&M may be the best fit but historically they’ve not supported their campuses outside of College Station. They’re also cool with SFA keeping its name (as they did with Tarleton). Reportedly whoever did their report did not realize they are no longer in the Southland Conference.
Texas Tech is probably the system that would show them the most respect, but doesn’t have as much to offer.
Texas State System… I’m honestly not entirely sure why that exists anymore or what it has to offer. It seems like every university in there might be trying to find a home elsewhere soon. (I’ve mentioned this before, but SHSU and Lamar to UHS seems possible if we’re interested, though not sure where they’d fit into our plans strategically.)
TSU was founded to mimic UT for african Americans with duplicate colleges and professional schools and was well on it’s way until it began to grow faster than they thought which changed the way they funded quickly
If it happens It would be interesting to see how much front end investment they would have
We would be a better system for SFA than TX Tech. We could allow students who don’t get into UH to attend SFA for a year with a 3.0 GPA and transfer, like A&M and Tarleton.
I wonder if we could acquire Sam Houston State University into our system. They already have Houston in their name!
It would benefit the state of Texas if ALL of the public schools were structured into one of the 4 major systems (UT, TAMU, UH, TTU).
Then you split the PUF anong the 4 systems and everyone is happy!
Adding SHSU would greatly help our PUF inclusion request- Dr. Khator should focus on that and then initiate a state restructuring plan.
You then make it a focus to have all 4 flagship public schools of their system AAU level, so elevate UH-Main and TTU- Main. This keep us competitive with California, North Carolina, etc.
Simple solution but politics, once again, makes is so agenda fuelled.
I guarantee the likes of Whitmire would NOT be fir this plan.
In that perspective, UH gaining SHSU and Lamar would be excellent adds.
The problem could be that UT grabs TSU, because we wouldn’t, and they make that into their UT-Houston
I think there is a strong chance of that.
I would argue Lamar has very little to offer UH. Their best programs are nursing and engineering and we have those disciplines covered with superior programs. It’s a small and well below average school in an area of the state that is decreasing in population. It serves its purpose for the population in SE TX but would not elevate UH in any way. Little scholarship/research dollars, also.
SHSU has at least a top 5 CRJ program.
Bringing in Lamar would mostly be about increasing our presence in the southeast. Being more of a regional institution than a strictly city one. It’s one the things I think that does hurt us when it comes to the state legislature, for instance.
We also might be able to do something with Lamar Tech as a 2+2 institution of some sort.
We wouldn’t want to do it without a plan or vision, though.
“University of (Sam) Houston”
It is funny how a State that believes in small government has all these systems.
There’s nothing really unusual about it. Most states organize their universities one rest or another. Usually involving systems.
NY and CA have two each. SUNY and CUNY for NY and UC and Cal State for CA. Missing any? Florida?
SFA is a better version of Lamar but it’s in a flat to declining area and its enrollment is declining. It also has a BSN. UH doesn’t have a BSN, correct?
Florida and Georgia are the two big states I can think of that have just one big one, I think. Florida is kind of odd because they only have a dozen or so universities total. Which is why some are so huge.
…and we can’t even effectively funnel all the public schools into 4 systens. Our plan was literally a Two "special " university system and the rest were the wild west but we will let you “beg us” for select funding.
Right now, we have a bunch of ineffectiveness and the quality of our public schools are weakened because of it.
Break up into a 4 Public School systems and divide the PUF EVENLY between those 4 systems. All 4 of the flagship Universities should ve AAU level institutions.
There is ZERO reasons, in the state of Texas, why the University of Houston doesn’t already have a UCLA type of academic reputation.
The Texas State University system made a lot of sense. you had UT, A&M, and then a collection of directional and regional teaching schools (North/East/West Texas State). With hindsight it might have made sense to fold them into the A&M system more formally (and less piecemail) and then have UT develop the system of urban campuses, including the absorption of UH.
But… I’m kind of glad it didn’t turn out that way. Yes, we may have become UCLA to UT"s Berkeley, but seems more likely we would have become UCSD, a good school but just not much of an identity. The UC system really has produced good schools but has really hobbled their schools’ development in some ways (and I believe kneecapped the CSU system) making sure to keep their favored campuses on top.
In an alternate timeline we could have a Metropolitan University system with schools in Houston, DFW, San Antonio, and so on, working together in a partnership of equals (and a bite of the PUF), but the establishment of UT campuses all over the place dashed any hope of that (and this arrangement is probably better for UTSA/UTA/UTD/UTEP than being part of a metro system would be). I’ve thought about a partnership with UNT but can’t think of a way that it would work in our best interest. So if we expand I think the way to do so is geographically, southeast Texas or along the Coast. Our acquisition options are limited, so I think we’d have to consider other alternatives. Satellite campuses and the Internet. I personally think we should look at the Arizona State U multi-campus (all around the metro) model.
This is all if we want to expand our model away from our current model, which is not a given. Fortunately, we have leadership I have a lot of trust in whatever they decide to do.