UT’s move could hurt UH

Land purchase raises concerns of competition

The University of Texas announced plans Thursday to establish a new facility dedicated to academic research on 332 acres of land it will acquire in southwest Houston, raising concerns the move will increase competition for the city’s own research institution, the University of Houston.

William McRaven, chancellor of the UT system, described the initiative in a speech to the Board of Regents in Austin, explaining that UT has been planning a Houston expansion for more than a year. But what originally was conceived as an engineering institute has evolved into a more ambitious facility that he called an “intellectual hub.”

The regents voted Wednesday to purchase the land in Houston, about 3.5 miles south of the Texas Medical Center.

The new UT site won’t be a full campus with a president and administration, McRaven said, but the “decades-in-the-making” effort will “help drive our system to the very top tier in the nation.” A task force will convene early next year to flesh out the details.

The larger scope has some in Houston worried about increased competition for the University of Houston.

“Will this be a threat? I think that’s a legitimate question,” state Rep. Armando Walle, a Houston Democrat with two degrees from UH, said in an interview after the announcement.

Walle said he worries that UT’s expansion could draw attention from faculty at UH, potentially poaching them. Financial backing from the city’s robust business community and federal research dollars also could be at stake, he said, echoing the concerns other UH boosters expressed on Twitter in the hours after McRaven made his announcement.

The Houston expansion was one of several lofty goals McRaven laid out Thursday, including cutting down bureaucracy and closing the gender pay gap. He ended his speech discussing UT’s planned Houston expansion.

The educational demands of Texans will grow and the UT system’s nine universities, including the system’s Austin flagship, must tap in to all resources available to serve those demands, McRaven said.

“Recognizing these two basic points, it seems obvious that the UT System must broaden its access to more of Texas’ brightest students and at the same time take advantage of the incredible talent and expertise that exists in the state’s most populous and most international city, and the fourth largest city in the nation,” he said. “Imagine the research dollars flowing into Texas, in particular Houston.”

‘Why now?’

But that’s what has some in Houston worried about extra competition when the University of Houston has spent the last several years trying to open that flow of research money and attract the nation’s top talent to its southeast Houston campus.

“I hope this doesn’t hurt UH research opps,” one person with the display name “#HTownTakeOver” wrote.

Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, plans to meet with McRaven to discuss his concerns.

“I have worked hard over the last 24 years in the Legislature to elevate the University of Houston into a Tier 1 research university,” Coleman wrote in a statement. “Why now, why not 20 years ago? I believe there needs to be discussion and collaboration to determine what is best for the Houston area and Texas.”

UH officials declined to comment.

The UT regents last year voted to approve $2 million in startup costs for an engineering institute, calling it the first step in a decadelong plan to increase the number of engineers UT pumps into the workforce. UT officials said at the time that they hoped to partner with Houston-area firms, especially in the energy field, to create internship opportunities for students at what it has deemed the Engineering, Research, and Education Institute. They hired a director, Jeff Spath, for the institute who is developing the funding to hire staff and has already rented office space in Houston.

Retired Navy admiral McRaven, who led U.S. Special Operations Command and commanded the team that killed Osama bin Laden, also said Thursday that the UT System must reduce bureaucracy, just as the military has, to keep up with a changing world. McRaven also said he wants UT to become a leader in national security efforts.

‘Do the right thing’

The chancellor vowed that under his watch, UT will work more with school districts — from elementary schools to high schools — to better prepare students for higher education.

He also will “write it into UT policy that no senior position can be filled without allowing a qualified woman or minority candidate to be interviewed all the way to the last round of the process.” Each UT institution also must submit a plan to McRaven to close the gender pay gap within the next five years.

“This is an opportunity to not only do the right thing, but to show the world that Texas is prepared to lead on every issue that matters,” McRaven said.

On the medical end — the UT System also includes six health institutions, including M.D. Anderson and a medical branch in Galveston — McRaven said UT will set its sights on curing Alzheimer’s, promising to launch “an effort akin to the Manhattan Project to understand, prevent, treat, and cure the diseases of the brain.”