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Public Higher Education Takes to the Texas Airwaves
According to polls, Texans understand that higher education benefits the thousands of students who graduate from the state’s public universities every year.
But they don’t always appreciate that all Texans — regardless of age, occupation or educational status — profit from Texas’ public higher education institutions. They may not realize that, year after year, public higher education institutions benefit the entire state through health care, research, economic development and innovations in K-12 education.
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We want Texans to be aware of the critical importance higher education plays in their lives — in everyone's life.
- Mark G. Yudof |
"That's why we’re producing STATE OF TOMORROW(TM),” said Mark G. Yudof, chancellor of the UT System. “We want Texans to be aware of the critical importance higher education plays in their lives — in everyone’s life.”
A 13-part series of half-hour programs, STATE OF TOMORROW(TM) is expected to air statewide on public television stations beginning in the late fall. The series, which will be filmed in a documentary format, will address many of the most significant issues facing Texas early in the 21st century.
Title sponsors of the series are AT&T Inc., and its philanthropic arm — the AT&T Foundation — and Exxon Mobil Corporation.
STATE OF TOMORROW(TM) will focus on two to three major stories in each program. For example, the series will center on significant issues such as care of the under- and uninsured, Texas’ rapidly growing population of the elderly, research-based approaches to public education, and recent medical and engineering advances using nanotechnology.
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Efforts like STATE OF TOMORROW(TM) are critical to higher education making its case with the public.
- Terry W. Hartle |
Each program will feature relevant work going on at the UT System’s nine academic and six health campuses. Other Texas public universities with major research capabilities will also be highlighted in the series.
“American higher education will not be able to do the job that our country wants and needs without strong, consistent public support for our teaching and innovation,” said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president for government and public affairs at the American Council on Education, which is sponsoring Solutions for Our Future, a national multimedia campaign to promote public understanding of the importance of higher education. “Efforts like STATE OF TOMORROW(TM) are critical to higher education making its case with the public.”
To attract as large a statewide audience as possible, the UT System’s budget for the series includes promotion in newspapers, on television, and on commercial and public radio stations. A website for the series is also planned.
Public broadcasting’s 13 stations in Texas have regular audiences of 8 million viewers. On average, public TV viewers are inclined to be well-educated and civically involved.
STATE OF TOMORROW(TM), which is the UT System’s first effort to create television programming, is being watched by many other universities and university systems across the country, said Randa S. Safady, vice chancellor for external relations at the UT System. “They’re all eager to see how good the series is and what kind of effect it has.”
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