Remarks
Morgan Dunn O’Connor
Chair, University of Houston System Board of Regents

Legislative Appropriations Request (LAR) Hearing
Before Governor’s Office of the Budget and Legislative Budget Board

Hilton University of Houston Hotel
September 14, 2004

Good morning. I am Morgan O’Connor, chairman of the University of Houston System Board of Regents.

On behalf of UH System Chancellor and UH President Jay Gogue, and Presidents Bill Staples from UH-Clear Lake, Max Castillo from UH-Downtown, and Tim Hudson 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.

And on behalf of the students and faculty of the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management, I welcome you to this facility that is both a working hotel and conference center, and a classroom for hands-on learning.

A very special welcome goes our area legislators who are here with us this morning.

We thank all of you for taking the time to be here, and for all you do for Texas higher education. We couldn’t do it without your support and advocacy!

With me this morning are several of my fellow Regents, and I would like to recognize them as well.

They are Board Vice Chair Leroy Hermes, Regent Mike Cemo who is the immediate past Board Secretary and Regent Theresa Chang.

It was my honor to be appointed to serve on the Board of Regents by then-Governor Bush in 1999, and privileged to be elected a month ago by my fellow Regents to serve as Chair for the next fiscal year.

It is an awesome and exciting responsibility, one that I accept at a particularly special moment in the history of our four universities—a time of record enrollments, great opportunities for our research programs, and of course, the challenges of the upcoming legislative session.

I would first like to take a few moments to tell you about the Board of Regents and the University of Houston System and their structure.

We oversee four universities, a public television station—the first in the nation—and two multi-institution teaching centers serving Sugar Land, Katy, and the western Houston suburbs, with additional teaching centers planned for the near future… but more about that when Dr. Gogue addresses you.

We are as large and complex as a major corporation, with a budget approaching $1 billion, some 7,500 employees, including faculty and staff, and a projected system-wide enrollment for this fall semester of more than 57,000 students.

Our system is unique in Texas because of the close geographical proximity of our four universities, three of which are within the Houston city limits. And we are the only urban university system in the state, serving a region that accounts for almost a quarter of the state’s population.

Our four universities are…

  • The University of Houston, the nation’s most ethnically diverse urban research university, which last year had research awards totaling almost $90 million—clearly an institution destined for Tier One flagship status in the near future.
  • The University of Houston-Clear Lake, an upper-level and graduate institution located next to the Johnson Space Center, serving an area as far south as Galveston.
  • The University of Houston-Downtown, a primarily undergraduate university rapidly expanding its graduate offerings, many of which will be housed in a new building we are dedicating this evening.
  • And the University of Houston-Victoria, in my hometown, an upper-level and graduate institution that has responsibility for managing the UH System’s multi-institution teaching center in Sugar Land.

The future of Texas is tied solidly and irrevocably to the future of our cities and our metropolitan areas, and that is why the viability and success of the four University of Houston System universities is of such vital importance to all of us.

For our great state to thrive and compete in the world marketplace it must have economically stable metropolitan areas, where a workforce of educated and responsible citizens contribute to the economy, the tax base, and the progress of the state as a whole.

This morning, the bulk of the presentations will rest on the shoulders of Chancellor Gogue and the Presidents, but I wanted to very briefly tell you about how the institution is being positioned to deal with the realities of Texas higher education mid-way into the first decade of the new century—and beyond.

Faced with the challenges of an uncertain economy, the unpredictability of private support, tight state funding, and record enrollment trends, the Board of Regents, working closely with Chancellor Gogue and the Presidents, embarked several months ago on an exercise to establish very clear, precise, and measurable sets of strategic priorities for the UH System.

From the beginning, this exercise, which involved town meetings at the four universities, sought input from internal as well as external constituencies, including community and business leaders. Indeed, elected officials, including State Representative Geanie Morrison, chair of the House Higher Education Committee, joined the various meetings either as speakers or as interested members of the audience.

The process bore fruit this past summer, when the Board of Regents approved a set of eight strategic principles, supported by 30 initiatives.

The principles range from striving to maintain excellence in all instructional, research and public service programs… to ensuring that the institution continues to be accessible to as broad a student population as possible… to maintaining and enhancing diversity at every level—students, faculty, and staff.

These eight principles will guide the UH System into the next decades… helping to ensure the success of the state-wide “Closing the Gaps” initiative… strengthening our research in areas of vital economic importance to Houston and Texas, such as energy, healthcare, space, and the environment… and increasing outreach to our region’s cultural, arts, and health and human services sectors, where we already are indispensable and valued partners.

The thread tying these principles together—principles that will guide the progress of the institution at all levels—is accountability…

Accountability, first and foremost, to the citizens and taxpayers of this state… accountability to our elected representatives… accountability to our donors… and accountability to our customers—the students, their parents, and their families.

I cannot think of a greater responsibility or a more noble cause than preparing the next generation for leadership roles in our society, and providing the region and the state with an educated workforce trained and equipped to compete not just with Chicago or Atlanta or New York, but with Singapore, London, or Beijing.

Like I said at the beginning of my remarks, we cannot do it alone. We can only do it working together, following clearly defined strategic principles, and with the support of our private donors, our corporate partners, and our elected representatives.

I would like to thank all of you for being here today, and for your invaluable service in listening to our testimony and preparing your reports for the Governor and the Legislature.

I am excited about chairing the Board of Regents during the upcoming legislative session… And I know I am speaking for the entire University of Houston System community when I say to you that we are prepared to work diligently, at whatever level or in whatever capacity is necessary, to remain conscientious and responsible stewards of the public trust in the advancement of our four universities, and of higher education in Texas.

I recognized Chancellor Gogue and Presidents Staples, Castillo and Hudson a moment ago, but let me just mention, if I may, that among that group of four, two of them are new faces, newcomers to the institution since a similar LAR hearing convened here two years ago—they are Dr. Gogue and Dr. Hudson.

Dr. Gogue was selected to the dual post of Chancellor of the University of Houston System and President of the University of Houston last summer, and he has just celebrated his first year in office. He came to us from New Mexico State University, where he was President, and brings with him extensive experience in top administrative posts at Utah State University and Clemson, and as a head of research programs both in higher education and with the National Park Service

Dr. Hudson has officially been at his post as President of the University of Houston-Victoria for just two weeks! He comes to us from the University of Southern Mississippi, where he was Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. Prior to that he held the posts of Associate Vice President for Administration and Dean of the College of International and Continuing Education.

So without further ado, and if you do not have any questions from me at this point, it is my pleasure to pass the microphone to Chancellor/President Jay Gogue, our first speaker…