Part 8: Additional Discussion

Is there any additional information you would like to share or comments you would like to add to today’s discussion?

Transcript

Kathryn Greenwade ’88, Vice President, The Association of Former Students: As part of an effort to help former students stay informed, this video will be made available to the Aggie Network. Considering that, is there any additional information you would like to share or comments you would like to add to today’s discussion?


Dr. R. Bowen Loftin ’71, President, Texas A&M University: Let me say a few things about a couple things we haven’t touched on today heavily so far. And certainly my friends may have things they want to add as well. One thing is just our budget. We’ve gone through a pretty extraordinary time right now in terms of a reduction of state support for Texas A&M University. The reduction is in the order of about 14 percent year to year in terms of the state’s supports for Texas A&M in a direct way. Indirectly it’s even larger than that. We certainly get appropriations every two years to help run the university. It primarily pays my salary and Michael’s salary, for example, that’s where the money goes directly. If it comes from the state, it’s primarily for people and we’ve had to work hard here to align that people count with the dollar count. The good news, I guess, is just this: We knew about this a long time ago, we were proactive, we engaged the faculty, we engaged the students, we engaged the staff and worked hard at how we can basically align our budget with the reality we knew was coming, and we succeeded. We didn’t want to succeed because we hoped it would be a better picture than it was, but we did prepare for the scenario we actually encountered here as a result of the last legislative session. We understand times are hard and in fact we got less of a cut than other parts of the state budget did in some cases, so we’re grateful for that the support we got.

Other things are out there though. Again, I mentioned financial aid was reduced significantly as well. That’s an impact on our students, not directly on us, but it affects the students who want to come here to Texas A&M. There are other things out there as well, in terms of ways in which the state reduced their costs, which we have to deal with as well. The contribution, for example, to our health insurance premiums went down on the state side; we have to make that up somehow. So those are the kinds of issues we’ve gone through here. So the total reductions we’ve had to deal with are almost 40 million dollars per year. That’s significant for Texas A&M and it has an impact here. We’ve been able to persuade a number of senior faculty to retire earlier than they might have otherwise. That’s helped us a bit, but guess what’s happening? Our total faculty count is down this year, so Michael and his colleagues have to do more with less. That’s just the nature of the problem we have right now.

So that’s reality out there. I put out a memorandum a short time ago—which is very available publicly— which really goes into great detail about the exact value of the cuts we’ve had here and the impact we’ve had to deal with, and that’s available to The Association any time you want it.

But let me move on to more pleasant things perhaps. Again, we’re looking at a very large university, one of the largest in the country, here at Texas A&M. We’ll again this year have around 50,000 students here this fall; that’s a lot of people. I tell people to imagine that many 18- to 22-year-olds running around. It’s a scary, scary thought but we’re trying to accommodate them as well as we possibly can. Going back several years ago, two presidents back we began a thoroughly major series of capital projects. And so around the campus here, there are new facilities that have come on line over the last few years. Just very recently we’ve begun occupying the engineering building, for example, at the northeast corner of campus.

 But that whole series of building new facilities here is going to have to be dealt with in a somewhat different way in the future. We certainly need new facilities to be able to replace those that no longer serve us. But we also have great facilities that have been left alone for a while and need to be dealt with in terms of deferred maintenance and rehabilitation. So we’re trying to strike more of a balance between some new construction, as justifiable, but also spending more and more dollars trying to really take good care of what we have. We’ve built well here, we have good structures on our campus, but those structures need to be cared for better perhaps than we have for some time
We’re also trying to address student life here on campus. For the first time in quite a few years now, since 1989 in fact, we’re in the process of building a new residence hall. It’s been a while. So we’ve taken down three of the older facilities on the north side of campus and now replaced with one larger structure on the same footprint basically, to begin that process. On the south side, we’ve begun a multiyear process of renewing one Corps dormitory per year. That will take us a while to go through those, but to start, to go back and recognize these are great buildings, built to last a long time, but the interiors need to be updated occasionally. That’s going on right now on campus. So we have a few projects going on that may again continue to impinge on people’s ability to get around, especially the grade separation at Wellborn and Old Main for the next several months will be an impediment to some of us, but this is all going to be, I think, contributing to building the right kind of structures here on the campus and then maintaining those structures we already have here as best we possibly can. We want everyone here, every student, every faculty member, every staff member, to have a good environment in which to learn, a safe environment in which to learn. Those are very critical for us; without those you really impede the ability the university has to do its job. So we’re looking forward to continuing the process with all of our on-campus people but also our former students as well, to make sure Texas A&M plans well into the future for facilities.


Dr. Michael Benedik, Speaker, Texas A&M Faculty Senate: I want to take just a couple minutes and I want to fill you in what we’re trying to do in the Faculty Senate this year, with a couple big issues we’re trying to take on. And we’ll see at the end of the year how successful it’s been. The first one of those—what we’re doing today plays right into it—and that’s improving communication in two ways. I think internal communication has been a little bit thin on campus. There’s been—not been a really good way of getting information about what’s really going on out to all faculty, so we’re trying to address that. And then the second thing is, what we’ve been talking about a lot today is communication outside to y’all, to the public at large, and so Bowen’s office is really trying to put together this task force that Jason’s leading on really how can we get the message out there. And one of the things the Faculty Senate is and I am going to try to do is really try to work with that group and really figure out what should the message be and what’s really the best way to get it out there so people understand what’s going on.

Second thing we’re taking on—and this is really scary to me—is we’re taking on sort of faculty assessment, because of all the brouhaha that’s gone on, people saying, “Oh, you tenured professors, once you have tenure, you’re set for life.” That’s not true. People are really shocked to hear we’re evaluated every year. Every year I’m evaluated on the quality of my teaching, quality of my research, quality of my service, and every faculty member is. But what we want to take on is, are we really doing that right and are we doing it in such a way to emphasize the direction we want to grow in. So are we emphasizing quality or are we emphasizing numbers? Are we really sort of giving the focus especially to younger faculty and to middle tier faculty of how to grow your career in the best way for you and for Texas A&M? So we want to try to tackle those issues. I said that’s a really scary one because as soon as you start talking to faculty members about assessing quality, it’s an incredible can of worms. But we really want to take that on, really want to have that dialogue, and I think we want to it because—rather than letting the outside world do it because if it’s imposed by the outside world, then I think there are real problems. I mean, it needs to be done in conjunction with them, but if the Legislature starts saying, you know, “Here’s how you need to evaluate faculty,” I think the university’s in trouble. So we’re better off saying, We think this is the right way to do it; tell us if you disagree with something.” But unless we’ve done that first, we can’t make them. So that’s the other things we’re trying to take on.


Dr. Richard Box ’61, Chairman, The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents: I’d just like to say to each of you in this room, the leaders of The Association, I want to thank you for allowing us the opportunity to tell our story, tell the story of Texas A&M, as we know it today in the Texas A&M University System. And we’re there for all of the members, all the alums and the people of Texas, and we want to do the best we can for A&M and feedback is always welcome. So thanks for what you’ve done.


Jorge Bermudez ’73, 2011 Chair of the Board, The Association of Former Students: My comment is, I would make almost a plea to the Aggie Network—it’s over 500,000 people strong— education is critical to the future of our state and our nation. And regardless of how challenging the times are, regardless of how much efficiency can be brought about as you look and manage, I guess, Texas A&M and the System, I would just make a plea that we talk to our legislators, talk to our government, and not allow education to become a pawn or a tool to just continuously lower its level of support. Because we will not be the kind of nation or we will not be the kind of state that we want to be without a well educated population. And I would just say, let’s not lose the emphasis on education. Education is critical. And let’s do what we can to support it.


Loftin: A couple comments, if you don’t mind, Kathryn. My basic bottom line is: It’s still a great time to be an Aggie. As Jorge said awhile ago, I believe in his opening comments, by any measure you want to put out there, we’re better than ever right now. We may be fussing about certain kinds of issues and problems and dealing with budgetary challenges and such, but we are still an extraordinary institution here. Any graduate knows that already. But what you owe it to yourself to do is to come back here from time to time and get reenergized. Those in the room here are back on campus fairly frequently; you get a chance to get out there and walk, as I do, across the campus and talk to our great current students here and get enthused about the quality of that student body and really understand how bright the future is for Texas A&M. But many Aggies don’t come back that much and so I really ask all of you out there who may see this in other venues to think about visiting campus. Just come back and smell the air here, talk to the students, visit the campus in a real way and reassure yourself that Texas A&M is better than ever. It is time for Texas A&M, in so many measures. And we’re so pleased with The Association of Former Students for what you do for this university, for its students, for its faculty, for its staff and for all the former students to help them keep connected back at Texas A&M in effective kinds of ways.


Greenwade: Well, thank you, gentlemen. We thank you for being a part of this panel, we thank you for your time, for your candor and especially for your commitment to Texas A&M. And as we conclude I’d like to ask Porter Garner, The Association President and CEO, to join us for some closing remarks.


Porter S. Garner III ’78, President and CEO, The Association of Former Students: It’s already been said but I want to confirm—the entire Aggie Network, 500,000 strong, students, faculty, staff, former students and friends of Texas A&M—how much we appreciate your candor. This video will be pushed out to the Aggie Network at large. If we have their e-mail address, they will get this video.

We joke sometimes around here, “Let’s don’t ever confuse them with the facts.” But what we’ve done today is, I think, in many ways, indeed, set the facts straight. And so on behalf of The Association of Former Students, the premier alumni association in the world, I want to convey my personal thanks for your time today, for your candor and for your dedication to Texas A&M and its student body and its former students. For all that you do for Texas A&M, thank you.