I attended the AT&T Cotton Bowl game on Friday, which is no longer played at the Cotton Bowl but rather in Jerry Jones’ mammoth Cowboys Stadium, often referred to in extraterrestial terms like “The Death Star” or “the mother ship.” The place to be during the game was the Chancellor John Sharp’s suite. Most of the A&M regents hung out there, as did several former students who will be sworn in as state legislators on Tuesday: Trent Ashby, Drew Springer, Chris Paddie.

The game was over, for all practical purposes, on its second play. Johnny Manziel, A&M’s Heisman trophy-winning quarterback, took the snap from center, spun away from Oklahoma’s pursuing linemen, retreated at least 20 yards, and then shifted into high gear, weaving through tacklers who flailed at the air as he eluded them. A fusillade of sound exploded from the six tiers filled with Aggie faithful in the giant arena as Manziel raced down the sidelines untouched, the only issue being whether he would lose his balance and step out of bounds. He didn’t. With two giant strides of his size 14 shoes, he leaped into the end zone. The Aggies would not lose the lead for the rest of the game.

The only players who I think are comparable to Manziel are Vince Young and Roger Staubach (the latter only as a college quarterback at Navy, not as a Dallas Cowboy; Tom Landry wanted him to stay in the pocket to avoid injury.) Manziel is unique in that he will backpedal 20 or 30 yards if it helps to open up the running lanes. It looks as if he is in trouble, but the pursuit from behind can’t catch up to him, and when he resumes his forward momentum, he is unstoppable. He has all of the features that make a great quarterback: great leadership, great speed, a good arm, a flair for the dramatic. I would not be surprised to see A&M on top of the pre-season rankings this summer. They looked every bit like a national championship team. They beat Oklahoma–Oklahoma!–by four touchdowns. This was a night Aggie fans have waited for all their lives.

A successful football program can make a huge difference for a university. I spoke with several regents during the game and was told that A&M is preparing for a significant increase in applications next year, most of it attributable to the success of “Johnny Football.” School officials anticipate that the university will add 6,5oo students over the next several years. With its sprawling campus, A&M plans to have the highest enrollment of any university in the country.

The move to the SEC has been a huge win for A&M, both athletically and financially. SEC schools stand to be enriched considerably when the conference starts its own network in the near future. The culture at A&M is a good fit with most of the other SEC schools, which share a Southern heritage. (Imagine if A&M had joined the PAC-12, with all those sprouts-eating Californians.)

A bowl game is a handy excuse for several days of nonstop partying. It began two days before the game with a luncheon attended by boosters from the two protagonists, the University of Oklahoma and Texas A&M. Brad Sham, the Cowboys’ longtime announcer, was the master of ceremonies. Footage of long-forgotten games flashed across a massive video screen as scenes from previous Cotton Bowl match-ups showed Doak Walker and Sammy Baugh and many others in their primes. At the end of the lunch, the rival quarterbacks, Manziel and Landry Jones, picked a business card from a large glass bowl. The persons whose names were picked were asked to stand beside their chairs. First Jones, and then Manziel, were instructed to throw a pass to the “receiver.” If the pass was caught, the person whose name was drawn would win a prize. We never learned what the prize was, however, because Jones showed off his arm with a pass that sailed among the chandeliers in the huge ballroom, only to fall uncaught. Manziel bounched his pass off a table that was still occupied with dishes. It was his only bad play of the weekend.

There were more parties that evening. The Aggies spread across three rooms. One was for the big donors. Another was for former athletes. Former coach R.C. Slocum was there, and he looked like he could play corner back if called upon. A third was for folks like me, who were along for the ride. The next day was game day, and there was a big pre-game party at the Four Seasons in an outdoor tent. Governor Perry and the First Lady were there, as were several lobbyists and A&M regents.

Another indication that A&M has reached the big time is that the school’s leaders have decided to build a new stadium. The plan is to start in the spring by demolishing the west side of Kyle Field. A new west grandstand will be constructed, and the same process will take place on the east side. The south side, which is currently open, will be closed to make a bowl. The seating capacity will likely be in the neighborhood of 112,000. The contracts have been signed and the new stadium should be ready in two years.

Tagged: johnny manziel, Texas A&M

Writing in The Eagle, the newspaper for Bryan-College Station, president emeritus Ray Bowen and distinguished alumnus John Hagler charge that A&M regents have “failed the university.” The article appeared on April 21, San Jacinto Day, the most important date on the Aggie calendar. This is the day on which Aggies around the world gather for Muster, a ceremony at which the A&M community honors those who have died in the past year. When their names are read, friends answer “here.” The publication date is no accident. It was a solemn article for a solemn occasion. Read the whole piece, but here’s a sample of what Bowen and Hagler believe:

Our university’s governance began to be corrupted when the governor’s appointment of regents was not primarily based on a candidate’s fiduciary loyalty to the university, on competence and on qualifications, but rather based on their personal and financial relationship with the governor. These practices have been broadly reported in the news outlets of our state.

As a consequence, these same regents have cost the taxpayers significant “settlement” sums for regent failures in presidential or chancellor selections. The damage has continued with ill-advised and counterproductive intrusions by both regents and the chancellor into the academic and administrative autonomy of our flagship, Texas A&M University. One chancellor, now departed, even explored combining his office with the presidency of Texas A&M University.

A highlight of irresponsibility came when our regents began to implement, in a secretive way, the half-baked proposals of a wealthy oil man and the pseudo think tank misnamed the Texas Public Policy Foundation. No one can be against controlling costs and teacher efficiency. But our university — one of the most administratively efficient and well-regarded universities in the state — should not have been the starting place for this discussion, and our regents failed everyone by rolling over without a peep and facilitating an illegitimate disruption of the university’s sanctioned mission.

Tagged: rick perry, Texas A&M, TPPF

Texas A&M’s move to the Southeast Conference is not just about football. It is also about politics. It is a way for Perry to validate himself as a southerner. In one bold move–and don’t think for a moment that Perry didn’t orchestrate this–Perry has used A&M to leverage himself into prominence in the South, an area where a Republican presidential candidate must run well. The A&M culture and the southern culture mesh well. It’s military, it’s patriotic (if you overlook the Civil War), it’s athletics overshadowing academics at most institutions, the exceptions being Vanderbilt and Georgia.

In the course of writing about Perry over the years, one thing that I heard from his advisers was, “He always has a plan.” Perry is always thinking about his next play. The big advantage he has over his rivals is that his mind is engaged 24/7 on his objectives and how to achieve them. There is no down time. I don’t see how Romney and Bachmann can compete with him in the arena of political foresight. They have no clue how disciplined he is, how focused he is, how inventive his mind is when it comes to the next move on the chess board.

The impending departure from the Big Twelve, or what’s left of it, of A&M raises serious question for the University of Texas. UT overplayed its hand in attempting to dominate the Big Twelve. It was more interested in getting its own network and all of the revenue that it would bring in than in assuring itself of having a credible league in which to play. Many in the A&M community wanted to go to the SEC at the time. The UT folks ignored that threat at their peril. Now, UT is in the position of playing in a crappy league with few credible opponents, and nobody in the near vicinity to recruit into a conference. Meanwhile, A&M has the ability to recruit athletes by saying, come to College Station and you will be playing in the best athletic conference in the country, and the richest. It is a pipeline to pro athletics. The Aggies are going to whip UT in recruiting on the strength of the SEC.  Don’t think Rick Perry didn’t think about that, too. [posted from Denver, Colorado]

* * * *

Update: I was wrong about A&M moving to the SEC, but I was in good company: It was all over ESPN this morning (Sunday). I do believe that in the long run — and I think the “long” run is two to four years — A&M will join the SEC for the reasons I stated above. They are itching to get out from the shadow of the Teasips. There is going to be another realignment in college football. The Big 12 (or the Little Ten) can not survive in its current alignment. It is economically unsustainable without a championship game.

Tagged: Michele Bachmann, mitt romney, rick perry, Southeast Conference, Texas A&M, university of texas

The hot topic on sports talk shows today was that the PAC-10 was set to issue invitations to six Big 12 schools: UT, A&M, OU, Okie State, Texas Tech, and Colorado. The PAC 10 commissioner issued an explicit denial late this afternoon.

An A&M source told me after I posted an earlier article on this subject that A&M and UT might not be joined at the hip after all. Some published comments by A&M athletic director Bill Byrne appeared to indicate that A&M might look favorably on joining the Southeast Conference. Byrne indicated concern about long road trips earlier this year after the A&M men’s and women’s basketball teams traveled to Washington and returned shortly before Monday morning classes began.

The catalyst for the breakup of the Big Twelve was the rumor earlier this year that Missouri might leave the Big Twelve for the Big Ten, which has publicly indicated its interest in expanding. (Notre Dame, Nebraska, and Rutgers are said to be the Big Ten’s other targets.) Missouri’s academic leadership indicated earlier that Big Ten institutions were a better fit for their university than the Big Twelve, which lacks high-powered academic universities other than UT and A&M. The loss of the St. Louis and Kansas City TV markets would be a major blow to the revenue potential of the Big Twelve. The loss of any large market would destroy the conference.

I’m somewhat surprised that Texas Tech was included in the reputed “invitation” to join the PAC Ten. Maybe Kent Hance had the clout to force Tech’s inclusion after all. It doesn’t matter: Tech will be a doormat in the PAC Ten. It had some cachet as long as Mike Leach was there, but that’s over. It couldn’t fill its stadium for a game against Oklahoma this year when Tech was still playing well. I don’t think Okie State is a big catch for the Pac Ten either. It’s just another Oregon State. Kansas would be a more logical choice than Texas Tech. It brings the Kansas City TV market, and the basketball program has national stature.

What happened today was just a lot of rumors, but there are some things that can be said with a fair degree of confidence. (1) Missouri is not going to stay in the Big Twelve. That alone is a death knell for the conference as it exists today. (2) Nebraska is not going to stay either. It is a target for the Big Ten, and it is a good fit. (3) The PAC 10 covets Colorado, and that puts the Denver market at risk for the Big Twelve. The Big Twelve does not have a secure future. UT is driving the train, and it wants to be in a conference with great national universities (Cal Berkeley, Stanford, Southern Cal, UCLA). Sooner or later–probably sooner–realignment is going to happen.
The Big Ten has said that its window for expansion was 12 to 18 months. The fact that the Big Twelve had meetings this week indicates that things are going to move a lot quicker than that. Texas, A&M, the two Oklahoma schools, Colorado, and Texas Tech would join Arizona and Arizona State in the eastern division of the PAC Ten and USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, and Washington State would form the western division.

Tagged: Texas A&M, UT

This was the headline for a story I wrote about the battle over changes that were taking place at Texas A&M, in the heyday of the Gates presidency (“Corps Values,” May 2004). Current A&M students have no historical memory of this period. So that readers may understand the entire background of the controversy involving General Van Alstyne, I am going to publish the section of that article involving the Corps of Cadets. It begins with a letter to The Battalion. It follows below.

* * * *

With the departure of the Class of 2004 on May 15, the Corps will see the end of an era in training doctrine and leadership philosophy, as well as four years of experiences that shaped the ideology of an entire class. With this in mind, many have said that Corps morale is at an all-time low due to changes that have taken place during the last year and a half. For the most part, a feeling of alienation has been expressed by members of the junior and senior classes, who I believe simply become uncomfortable when asked to do things that they do not find familiar. A clash of culture that can be felt over the entire University between the old and the new is, for the most part, a matter of growing pains to better align A&M with American society today. For the Corps, time will heal our wounds that have caused the consternation of a generation who merely grew up under the teachings of the old regime.—OPINION ARTICLE IN THE BATTALION, MARCH 2004

WILL MCADAMS, THE AUTHOR OF THIS letter and the cadet commander of the Corps, remembers all too well what it was like to be a freshman in the most important organization at Texas A&M. “If you messed up, you had to do physical training,” he said. “We called it ‘Corps games.’ It lasted from eight to four. The academic day was totally violated. I had friends who didn’t go to class for two weeks at a time. You were willing to go through it because you wanted to be a part of something larger than yourself. You sacrificed grades for peer admiration. It was a dismal semester. You could see the attrition when grades came out. I saw my unit start as a class of thirty; now we’re a class of ten. It’s the result of bad grades and the inability to stick it out. My best friend from my hometown was gone in two weeks. Others were run off by peer ostracism. If you survived, you felt like a superman.”

In McAdams’ sophomore year, it was his class that meted out the physical punishment. The upperclassmen led the sophomores into a dorm room and showed them the opening scene of the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket, a tirade of abuse of new recruits by Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, their drill instructor. (“From now on, you’ll speak only when spoken to, and the first and last words out of your filthy sewers will be ‘sir!’”) “That’s how we were shown to be leaders,” McAdams says. “I could quote to you the entire opening scene.”

The character that was the model for the Corps’ leaders was shot and killed later in the film by one of his recruits. The significance of this apparently escaped the students in the Corps for years, but not McAdams or the retired Army officer who serves as commandant of the cadets, Lieutenant General John Van Alstyne. Both understood that if the Corps did not change its blind adherence to the old ways, if it continued to destroy its own members’ chances for academic success, it would not survive at Texas A&M. Inconceivable, you say? The numbers say otherwise: The full strength of the Corps, if every bed in the Corps dormitories were occupied, is 2,600. Seven years ago, the membership was around 2,200. The figure cited today by university officials is around 2,000. The real number, Van Alstyne told me, is 1,706. The Corps is a dying institution. Loud and prominent, but dying nonetheless.

“It’s not in the constitution or the laws of the state of Texas that there has to be a Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M,” Van Alstyne told me. “The things that don’t contribute will fall away in the twenty-first century. If I didn’t believe the Corps could change, I wouldn’t be here.”

Van Alstyne’s plan to reinvigorate the Corps is, first, to recruit (“You can purchase a list—I love capitalism, you can buy anything you want in America—that the service academies have been buying for ten years. It has the name of every youngster in the state of Texas who is on a college preparatory track and who has evidenced some interest in the military in a survey. It has seven thousand names”), and second, to “support our members in achieving their aspirations.” That means emphasizing academics and leadership—not the leadership style of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, but that of the modern Army, to set high standards and to help people meet them. “Positive leadership,” Van Alstyne calls it. “The role of a leader is to establish a vision, establish organizational values, and establish and sustain an environment of achievement,” he said. “How do we come to that?” He reached for something on a shelf. “This generation is visual,” he said, producing a video cassette of Twelve O’Clock High, a World War II film starring Gregory Peck as a general who struggles to change his leadership style as his fliers become battle-tested. “You turn on the video”—he snapped his fingers—”and you’ve got ‘em.”

As it turns out, you’ve got some of them. The resistance in the Corps to positive leadership—to ending the practice of verbal harassment of first-year cadets and putting academics ahead of Corps games—has been overwhelming. “We had buy-in at the higher levels,” McAdams told me, “but not at the lower levels. There are twenty-eight unit commanders and just a small Corps staff. It was a daunting task.

“In the old days,” he said, “you got something intangible from being in the Corps. We want to offer something tangible—a chance at academic success.” McAdams was hoping for a dramatic improvement in the Corps’ GPA last semester, but the actual result was a disappointing increase of only 5 percent of a grade point. “It’s going to be a long process,” he said. “The entire Corps has to cycle through the university. Our numbers keep going down. We have to implement this or be eliminated.”

That is what the current controversy is all about: Should the Corps go back to the days when underclass cadets were made to do Corps games from 8 to 4 on class days FOR TWO WEEKS AT A TIME, or should the Corps try to help them pass their courses and stay in school? Would parents rather that their kids be hazed in the name of teaching character, or graduate? I don’t think it mattered so much in Rick Perry’s time, because A&M was not academically rigorous in the way it is today. It does matter today.

General Van Alstyne has lost his battle to reform the Corps. But he was doing the right thing. The real loser is Texas A&M. The Corps has not appreciably grown since I wrote this article. Its numbers were 1,706 in 2004. Today, according to the Corps office, it is 1,740, give or take a few members. Is the number stagnant because Corps members felt the organization was going soft? Or is it stagnant because its members cannot stay in school?

Tagged: corps of cadets, general van alstyne, rick perry, Texas A&M

I received an e-mail from a friend at Texas A&M that consists of an op-ed piece written by Jon Hagler, whose service to A&M includes board chairman of the Texas A&M Foundation and co-chairman of Vision 2020, a long-term project to enhance Texas A&M’s national prominence. He was named a Distinguished Alumnus in 1999. I do not know when or in what publication the piece will be published. However, I am authorized to publish it at this time.

* * * *

Today’s governance crisis at Texas A&M is extremely serious. It may be the most important crisis the university has faced since A&M President Earl Rudder’s challenge to the status quo fifty years ago.

Today’s crisis really isn’t about Dr. Elsa Murano, who has announced her intention to resign as President, or for that matter, Chancellor Mike McKinney. It is about whether an academic institution of almost 50,000 students and 250,000 former students – a member of the Association of American Universities – deserves the freedom to aspire to better things and to manage itself as an institution of higher education. We are presented with a stark alternative: an all powerful “system”, run by political appointees, without legislative oversight, who wish to unilaterally politicize and “corporatize” decision making structure and staffing to their own, and to their political friends, advantage.

Texas A&M University (TAMU) is the “flagship” university of the The Texas A&M System. It is the oldest educational institution in the state. It has almost half of the undergraduate students, as well as virtually all the graduate programs and graduate students, and is responsible for most of the research, in the System. It is the only Tier 1 comprehensive research university in the system and one of only three in the state. Yet, today we find the university being taken over by the system TAMU spawned in 1948.

Nothing could be clearer than the chancellor’s words in a recently released evaluation of President Murano: Murano “built her administrative team to do her instructions. Not team supportive of Ideals of BOR [Board of Regents] (or ideas of BOR).” McKinney rated Murano 1 on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the worst.

President Murano was President of the flagship. The chancellor’s job has always been to worry about the System, not about TAMU. The chancellor’s job has always been a staff job, essentially an extension of the Board of Regents – necessary staff support given the scale and scope of the System and physically and contextually remote from the System institutions themselves. There are presidents – “chief executives” – of every institution in the System: all eleven universities, seven state agencies, and a health science center. The President of Texas A&M has always been a line job, the biggest job in the System.

And yet, the system’s organizational chart puts, incredibly, the Governor in the top spot for the system, the Board of Regents next, the Chancellor next, and the President of Texas A&M at the same level as the Chancellor’s chief of staff, the vice chancellor of agriculture, budgets and accounting, and the presidents of campuses at Texarkana, Commerce, Corpus Christi, and Kingsville.

And, they mean it. The Governor/Chancellor tandem, with the approval of the regents, is appointing and firing executives at Texas A&M, without consultation with its faculty. Indeed, it selected, without any consultation with anyone but themselves, Dr. Murano. It is intervening in faculty compensation. And, it tolerates no dissent.

Want proof? Listen to the Chancellor’s own words on his concept of enlightened and shared governance: “There’s nine people who can tell me what to do. I’ll make my arguments to them. They argue, they listen and then they make a decision and I carry it out. You want shared governance? That’s shared governance.”

Or to those of Regent Gene Stallings: “A lot of that depends on Dr. Murano (on whether she can continue to work with the chancellor). She works for the chancellor. The chancellor doesn’t work for her. Rank and file has its privilege. A colonel can’t tell a general what to do…A chancellor’s job is to run the system. A president’s job is to please the chancellor.”

So, today we have a System empowered by its regents – all nine of whom are appointed by our current governor – to make all critical decisions for the flagship university, as well – presumably – as for all of the other System universities. And, the regents have delegated that responsibility completely to one person, a non-educator, a politician who was not selected through a national or even regional search. One person agreed with himself that Chancellor McKinney was the choice: his former boss, Governor Perry, for whom he had served a stint as chief of staff.

No, this crisis is about whether the faculty, staff, students, former students and the broad and diverse community that make up Texas A&M University will allow a handful of politically motivated persons who do not understand their fiduciary duty either to the institution or to the citizens of the state to take over this wonderful, heavy-duty public university – this sacred public trust. If they are successful, Texas and its citizens can kiss a unique American institution goodbye. It will have no chance of ever achieving its vast potential.

Jon Hagler
Class of 1958

* * * *

Mr. Hagler does not exaggerate. The management structure of Texas A&M is of the politicians, by the politicians, for the politicians. The governor’s reach into the A&M system is the sort of thing that can make it impossible for A&M to recruit top faculty and administrators. No one is going to relocate to a university that is rife with political interference.

Tagged: board of regents, chancellor mike mckinney, elsa murano, jon hagler, regent gene stallings, rick perry, Texas A&M

The following is A&M president Elsa Murano’s statement, as released by a media firm on behalf of Murano and her attorneys, Glickman, Carter & Bachynsky, LLP:

“The events of recent weeks have been very taxing for the entire Aggie family. The faculty, students and staff have demonstrated incredible loyalty to this institution, upholding our Aggie values during these exceedingly trying times. I am truly grateful for the countless expressions of support that I have received from our faculty, staff, current and former students, and friends of Texas A&M. I cannot adequately express how much I have appreciated your many letters, phone calls, e-mails, and especially your prayers. They have been truly uplifting and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

“My husband Peter and I fell in love with Texas A&M the moment we set foot in Aggieland back in 1995. This deep and abiding passion for what the university represents, and for the people of the Aggie family, reinforces my duty to do what is best for Texas A&M. For this reason, I will be resigning as President of our beloved university, effective tomorrow, June 15, 2009, to return to the faculty, subject to approval by the Board of Regents.

“Our university is strong and I know that we will weather this storm. I sincerely hope and pray that we will intensify our efforts to protect and enhance Texas A&M’s reputation. I trust that the important issues raised in recent weeks will be addressed in the Aggie way – with integrity, selfless service and indomitable spirit. God bless you all, and gig ‘em!”

* * * *

This was inevitable. A public feud between the president and the chancellor (Mike McKinney) could not be allowed to continue.

This is a terrible development for Texas A&M. The turmoil on campus has received frequent coverage in the Chronicle of Higher Education, a newspaper that is widely read by university faculty and administrators. It surely will have an adverse effect on A&M’s national reputation and ability to attract faculty, because the whiff of political interference has now become a stench. A&M has now had an unsettled situation at the top since Bob Gates resigned to become Secretary of Defense in the fall of 2006. For that matter, Gates won the presidency only after a bitter fight on the A&M board of regents, as Rick Perry was lobbying for Phil Gramm (that would have been a disaster!) and the Bush family was backing Gates. Gates won by a 5-4 margin.

Murano never had much of a chance to succeed. She came into a situation that was already a mess. A faculty-led search committee had interviewed eight candidates, including Murano, and had forwarded the names of three sitting university presidents to the regents. The regents rejected all three names, spiked the committee, and took off on its own search. The choice came down to Murano, who had been Gates’s choice to be dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and interim president Eddie Joe Davis, who was on leave as president of the Texas A&M Foundation. Murano won, a choice that was presumed to have been directed by Perry.

Murano did not have a smooth ride as president. She immediately dismissed or reassigned some of the top administrators whom Gates had installed and surrounded herself with friendlies whom she brought over from Ag. This left her isolated from the big academic colleges of engineering, business, and liberal arts. She could not shake the perception that she was a yes-woman for Perry. It got worse when she fired Dean (that’s his name, not his position) Bresciani, the popular vice-president for student affairs, and replaced him with retired Marine Corps general Joe Weber, a former buddy of Perry’s in their Corps of Cadets days. As was the case with Murano’s appointment, the perception was that Perry was calling the shots. The beginning of the end for Murano was McKinney’s statement on May 27 that he was considering combining the offices of chancellor and president to save money. Sure. He wasn’t going to eliminate his office. (See “Report: A&M may combine chancellor, president; Murano’s future in doubt,” posted May 27.)

(more…)

Tagged: aggies, elsa murano, Texas A&M

From today’s story in The Eagle, the newspaper for Bryan-College Station:

Texas A&M University System officials are considering merging the jobs of system chancellor and Texas A&M University president, Chancellor Mike McKinney confirmed Tuesday.

No plans for such a move are in place, McKinney told The Eagle, but he and regents are looking at a variety of ways to cut costs, and combining the two posts is one of many possible solutions.

McKinney said combining the posts would reduce duplication of duties between the system and university.

“I will promise you, one of the things [regents] noticed and they talked about before is that people they have within the system and people within the flagship university appear to be doing the same thing, and sometimes they appear to be doing things in contrast to what their counterparts are doing in the other places,” McKinney said.

“They’re going to look at whether there needs to be some elimination of duplication,” he said. “It’s not just about the chancellor and the president. It’s about the whole organization. Their concern is about wasting taxpayer money.”

Texas A&M President Elsa Murano, like several A&M faculty members and administrators, said she had heard talk about the possible merger.

“I’ve heard those rumors, and they concern me deeply,” Murano said during a brief interview Tuesday afternoon. “I’m working to see if it’s just a rumor. I haven’t talked to Chancellor McKinney, but I plan to.”

To read the complete story, click HERE.

I have heard reports from A&M for several months that Murano may be in trouble but I had no confirmation. Some say that the problems have to do with the circumstances surrounding A&M’s back-door $50 million grant from the governor’s emerging technology fund. I’m skeptical of that. That was a play by chancellor Mike McKinney. I wonder if Perry is clearing the way for McKinney to be president. Yes, chancellor is a bigger job, in theory, but at A&M the president’s job has always been more influential than the chancellor’s.

Tagged: chancellor, elsa murano, mike mckinney, president, Texas A&M

I would have voted against a law school for Dallas. Why build a new law school when a law school already exists at SMU? There are two alternatives to building a new law school in Dallas. (1) Arrange for the state to pay the operating costs for the SMU law school. This is a lot cheaper than building a new law school from scratch—no construction costs. (2) The rationale for a second law school in Dallas is apparently that many aspiring law students cannot afford the $34,000+ tuition at the SMU law school for full-time students. (Part-time students pay a little over $23,000.) Just set up a state-backed student loan fund for these students to enable them to attend SMU. Again, it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than a new law school.

The trouble with a second law school is that it will inevitably be second-rate, just as remote campuses of major universities—I’m thinking of the far-flung campuses of North Texas State in South Dallas, of Texas A&M in San Antonio, and of Texas State in Round Rock—are never going to be able to offer the quality of education that is available at the main campuses. The best professors will never be attracted to these satellite campuses, and the new law school will never be able to compete with SMU for faculty. We’re paying $40 million for mediocrity.

There is another reason why it makes no sense to establish a law school in Dallas. I would argue that the prospects for the legal profession in the future are shrinking, not expanding. The legal world is moving toward cheaper alternatives to litigation, such as arbitration and mediation. Corporate clients are onto the billable hours scam; increasingly, they are going to want to negotiate their fees. The forced retirement age at some big firms is 55. (This is driven by senior partners who want a bigger slice of a shrinking pie.)

I’m not just making this up. Readers may recall Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson’s state of the judiciary speech in 2007, when he lamented that arbitration and mediation have reduced the quantity of lawsuits, with the result that the common law is not evolving. Tort reform has also impacted the practice of law. Caps on punitive damages and exemplary damages have made certain kinds of cases (notably, medical malpractice) non-lucrative for plaintiffs’ lawyers, and when plaintiffs’ attorneys aren’t working, neither is the defense bar. Why build a law school when the market for new lawyers is not great?

Tagged: law schools, north texas state, smu, Texas A&M, texas state

My post of last week, “Batteries not Included,” elicited an interesting comment a frequent commenter who styles himself as “Conservative Texan.”

Why should government be deciding winners and losers among development projects? Government has a poor record in these endeavors. That’s because they tend to be controlled by which project has the best lobbyists, and the deepest pocket campaign contributors — not on their merits.

I agree 100% with Conservative Texan. You and I don’t know, for example, whether the $50 million project that the governor’s office recently bestowed on Texas A&M is a good project on the merits. But we do know that A&M has a private back door to the governor’s office that other universities don’t have, and we have every reason to question whether the level of scrutiny applied to A&M proposals is rigorous.

The testimony of the staffers from the governor’s office before the House Appropriations committee about the A&M project was full of puffery. The staffers referred repeatedly to “world class researchers.” How do they know who or what a world class researcher is? Nobody gets a piece of parchment that says “world class researcher” on it. Nobody has “world class researcher” on their business cards. Show me a list of world class researchers. You can’t, because there is none — except the list of Nobel laureates. This was hype designed to snow the committee. No sale.

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Tagged: emerging technology fund, rick perry, Texas A&M