Texas Tech System leaders tout university wins from the past year. Here’s what they said

Leaders from the Lubbock community convened Tuesday in the Overton Hotel & Conference Center to hear updates from the Texas Tech University System leaders

This annual lunch also marked the final one for TTUS Chancellor Dr. Tedd Mitchell, as he announced his plans to retire back in July.

While each component university of the system touted its wins over the past year and through the legislative session, some special guests honored the chancellor before the event.

Texas Speaker of the House Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, Texas State Rep. Carl Tepper, R-Lubbock, and Texas Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, presented Mitchell with special resolutions from the Texas House and Senate thanking him for his work as chancellor.

“We felt it was necessary and absolutely appropriate to display our thanks as legislators to an amazing leader and chancellor of Texas Tech University, Dr. Tedd Mitchell,” Tepper said. “The university has grown. The university has prospered. We are living in a rare time where we are flourishing, and we need to enjoy it while we’ve got it.”

The event went on as usual, with Mitchell asking the five university presidents a few questions:

• What are some items each university was able to achieve during this year’s legislative session in Austin?

• What is the economic impact of your institution on the community the university calls home?

• Has your student population grown despite the national higher education enrollment drop?

Here’s what each president of the five universities in the Texas Tech System said.

Texas Tech University

Enrollment at Texas Tech University — the flagship institution of the TTU System — has grown in students.

President Lawrence Schovanec said the university has seen its largest enrollment number — surpassing 42,000 students this fall — and its largest freshman class.

On top of that, Schovanec said the university was able to secure much-needed funding — over $300 million — from the Texas Legislature to help bolster research in national security initiatives. That funding would help renovate the newly named Texas Tech University Reese National Security Complex.

“Money was provided to renovate the air strip, because of a lot of entities who are commercial, industrial will be coming in to take advantage of what will be built out there to what’s called a SCIF, a Secure Compartmentalized Information Facility,” Schovanec said.

Also being conducted at the facility, Schovanec said, will be “highly classified research” that will prove beneficial in West Texas and beyond.

When it comes to economic impact, Schovanec said it’s not about the number but rather the impact the university has on the Lubbock community, which goes beyond the students on campus helping the local economy.

Research also helps drive the impact of TTU on Lubbock, with Schovanec citing water and energy research. But this is also done to further the university in higher education and to achieve a coveted spot in the Association of American Universities.

“AAU is the preeminent group of research schools,” Schovanec said. “It elevates the stature of Tech. I think it will help us recruit faculty. It will also help us secure additional federal and external funding.”

TTU Health Sciences Center

The Texas Tech Health Sciences Center has also seen growth in student population, even though it is a healthcare institution offering more advanced degrees.

TTUHSC President Lori Rice-Spearman said the institution has an economic impact over $2 billion as it serves 121 counties in Texas.

“We are the largest health-related institution in Texas, and we provide right at 25% of all healthcare providers in the state of Texas,” Rice-Spearman said. “So if you’ve ever had occupational therapy, physical therapy, an interaction with a nurse practitioner and physician assistant, or particularly primary care, there’s a very good chance that that individual has come from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.”

Servicing such a large swath of counties in Texas also means learning how to collaborate to ensure all rural Texans have access to healthcare and not having to travel long distances to receive it.

“With the support of our legislative session, we were able to secure $25 million in funding that will allow us to partner with University Medical Center TLC2 to build a comprehensive cancer center, the first cancer center of its kind, here in West Texas,” Rice Spearman said..

With pharmaceutical companies already hosting trials at the center, Rice-Spearman said this new facility would help curb the growing rates of cancer in West Texans and Eastern New Mexicans.

TTUHSC El Paso

TTUHSC El Paso is also creating its own cancer center.

TTUHSC El Paso President Dr. Richard Lange said his institution is bringing the first comprehensive cancer center to the 22nd largest city in the United States.

“Our goal is real simple, we don’t want people that can’t get cancer care to not be able to get or have to travel, in my case, seven and a half hours to the next cancer center,” Lange said.

The center came about through contributions from the Texas Legislature, which funded $30 million for the center’s equipment, $25 million from Steven and Nancy Fox and $5 million from the Paso del Norte Foundation for hiring staff.

This is all to fund an institution that is seeing a growth in student population and has an economic impact of $864 million and supports 4,500 jobs.

“We’ve increased the number of physicians in El Paso by 66%,” Lange said. “90% of our nurses that train would stay in El Paso. We graduated our first class of dental students — only 18% were from El Paso. 30% stayed in El Paso. 45% stayed in West Texas. So we’re meeting the gap.”

Angelo State University

ASU, being one of the first separate universities added to the TTU System, is carrying the banner for the system in other spaces — aviation and cybersecurity.

Led by president and retired three-star general Ronnie Hawkins, ASU recently saw funding from the Texas Legislature to build out a regional security operations center for the State of Texas.

“We have students that come in and learn how to run a security center from a network perspective, from the endpoint back,” Hawkins said. “Right now, we have over 40,000 agents that are out there, not meetings, as people that are out there doing that type of work. Our students are a part of that.”

Hawkins said ASU is one of two Texas universities with this type of center. ASU’s center has been recognized by the National Security Agency as a center of excellence in the nation for its academic curriculum, and recently caught the attention of the FBI.

This led to the recent agreement ASU, the System and Texas Tech entered into with the FBI to advance U.S. national security, cybersecurity and critical infrastructure protection through research.

With an economic impact of $72 million, ASU is making strides in training future pilots.

“We have the state-of-the-art, the number one commercial aviation program in the State of Texas, and number five in the United States for what it is that we’re now producing as a result of what we’ve gotten from the legislature,” Hawkins said.

ASU also has an agreement with Southwest Airlines for pilot training and advancement.

Midwestern State University

Located outside of West Texas, MSU, led by President Stacia Haney, is the newest addition to the TTU System family and is focusing on aiding its community in Wichita Falls.

With a $300 million regional economic impact, Haney said the university is looking to help airmen at Sheppard Air Force Base to obtain a degree.

“We began to have conversations with the leadership about the base, ‘How can we best support you?,'” Haney said. “One of the things that became very obvious is federal tuition assistance.”

Haney said the university went to the community and was able to raise over $800,000 in scholarships to make sure there’s no additional cost for the airmen and their families to earn a higher education degree.

But it didn’t stop there. Through support from the community and the Texas Legislature, MSU was able to build a concierge service for academic and financial aid advising, and MSU has also seen growth in student enrollment.

“We will have that center completed in March, so we already have those people that are coming on board to be able to support the airmen and their families,” Haney said.

Mateo Rosiles is the Government & Public Policy reporter for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Got a news tip for him? Email him: mrosiles@lubbockonline.com.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: TTU System leaders tout university, legislative wins from past year