Prepared Remarks
Gene McDavid
Chairman, University of Houston System Board of Regents
Presentation to the
Legislative Budget Board
and the
Governor's Office of Budget and Planning
August 21, 2002
Hilton University of Houston Hotel
Good morning. I am Gene McDavid, chairman of the University of Houston System Board of Regents.
On behalf of UH System Chancellor and UH President Arthur K. Smith, and President Bill Staples from UH-Clear Lake, Max Castillo from UH-Downtown, and Karen Haynes from UH-Victoria, I welcome the staffs of the Legislative Budget Board and the Governor’s Office of Budget and Planning to the University of Houston campus.
A very special welcome and salute goes to those members of the Gulf Coast legislative delegation who are here this morning. We thank all of you for taking the time to be here, and for your support of higher education.
With me are several fellow regents, and I would like to recognize them at this time. They are Vice Chairman Morgan Dunn O’Connor, Secretary Mike Cemo, immediate past chairman Morrie Abramson, and board member Theresa Chang.
It was quite an honor when Governor Bush nominated me in 1997 to serve on this Board, and an even greater privilege to have been elected a week ago by my fellow regents to serve as chairman for the next fiscal year. It is an awesome, and yet exciting, responsibility that I accept, particularly as it regards presenting our case during the legislative session.
On a personal note, let me tell you that many years ago—many more than I care to count—my young wife and I decided to move from Mississippi to seek a better life for us and our two babies. We looked on a map for a city with a university that would allow me to work and attend classes at night. We found that city and that university right here in Houston.
Our first apartment was just a couple of miles down the road from here, my job was that of Linotype operator at The Houston Chronicle, and my university was this one. Little did I imagine the professional and personal success that my education at the University of Houston would provide me with during my lifetime. That is why I am extremely fortunate to be able to serve and give back, and to facilitate in whatever way I can the success of others who seek to improve their lives and careers.
Now… to the business at hand…
Our Board of Regents is composed of nine business and community leaders who reflect the ethnic diversity of our institutions and who share a common goal—to provide educational opportunities to our fellow citizens, and to help Houston, the Gulf Coast region, and Texas grow and prosper.
We oversee the operations of four universities, a public television station, and two multi-institution teaching centers serving Fort Bend County directly west of Houston. We are a large and complex enterprise, with a budget of $834 million, some 7,500 employees including faculty and staff, and some 53,000 students.
And we see to it—through the chancellor, the presidents, and on down the line—that our institutions recruit all deserving and qualified students, regardless of race or ethnic background, and deliver quality education at an affordable cost, ensuring that our students have the resources to stay in school and earn their degrees.
We are also entrusted with ensuring that the degrees we offer, the research we conduct, and the community service we provide, are in harmony with the needs of the publics we serve. Accountability—in all its forms—is one of our highest goals.
There are two ways in which the board works with the Chancellor and the four Presidents in reviewing the progress of the universities toward meeting institutional and state goals for higher education, and establishing policy for the future direction of the organization. They are… the annual Board of Regents planning retreat in April, and the use of performance indicators that compare our universities to their peer institutions across the nation.
The planning retreat enables the Board, in conjunction with the Chancellor, the Presidents, and senior members of their administrations, to establish policy for the institutions, and the performance indicators allow the board to evaluate the performance of the institutions.
The performance indicators were established during a special Board retreat in November of 1997, a few months after Chancellor Smith joined the UH System, as a means of ensuring accountability for the institutions. Ever since, on an annual basis, the Chancellor has presented a performance indicators report to the Board, covering such topics as headcount and semester credit hour enrollment, graduation rates, number of degrees awarded, research support, and others.
In general, the Board has been extremely pleased with the progress of the four universities in meeting their goals, as compared to their peer institutions throughout the nation.
Let me take just a moment to tell you a little about our system and our four universities…
We are the only urban university system in Texas. The Houston-Galveston-Brazoria Consolidated Metropolitan Area that we serve has a population of 4.7 million, accounts for 22.3 percent of the state’s population, and for 26.7 percent of the state’s personal income. Our Gross Area Product is 29 percent of the Gross State Product—almost a third!
Our four universities are…
The University of Houston, the state’s only comprehensive urban research university and the nation’s most ethnically diverse urban research university;
The University of Houston-Clear Lake, an upper-level and graduate institution with a diverse student population made up of local, national, and international students;
The University of Houston-Downtown, an urban university that offers undergraduate and a limited number of graduate degree programs that serve the needs of the multicultural population of Houston and the surrounding communities; and
The University of Houston-Victoria, an upper-level and graduate institution that serves primarily the commuting students from Victoria and the surrounding community and participates with the other three universities in offering on-site and distance education courses at teaching centers in Sugar Land and Cinco Ranch.
The UH System’s unique institutions complement each other and work collaboratively with school districts, community colleges, and other institutions of higher education in their areas and in Texas.
I don’t think I have to remind anyone in this room that the future of Texas, like never before, is tied solidly to the future of Houston, the state’s largest metropolitan area, and its surrounding region. In turn, the region’s future is dependent on how well we educate our increasingly diverse and growing population.
For Houston and Texas to thrive in today’s technology-driven economy, we must do a much better job of graduating students who can fill those high tech jobs. But not only does the state need more technically trained individuals, but also many more teachers, engineers, social workers, architects, civil servants, business people and individual trained in other important areas. And that is what the University of Houston System is doing, and strives to continue doing, with your assistance.
Before I close, I would like to thank all of you for being here today. I am excited about chairing the Board of Regents during the legislative session, and can’t wait to participate, alongside my fellow regents, at whatever level or in whatever capacity in the efforts to advance the institution, and higher education in general, as we build a better tomorrow for our citizens and our state.
Now, it is my pleasure to introduce Dr. Arthur K. Smith. In the brief span of his five-and-a-half-year tenure, he has provided a degree of administrative stability and excellence unparalleled in recent UH System history. He has successfully accomplished this task by assembling an effective executive team and by implementing a program of rigorous accountability throughout the UH System.
More important, he has successfully directed resources to academic, research, and student programs, furthering the goals of this Board of Regents, while enhancing our service to the city, the region, and the state.
Today, Chancellor Smith—and Presidents Staples, Castillo, and Haynes—will demonstrate to you how we intend, with the help of the 78th Legislature, to continue enhancing the ability of our four universities to meet the educational needs of our present and future diverse student population.
So, if you do not have any questions at this point, I would like to invite Dr. Smith to begin his presentation. Art…