It is my pleasure to participate in South by Southwest e-d-u this year. 

My office is on 6^th Street, one block from Congress Avenue, and I am always delighted to hear music wafting through the downtown streets during the South by Southwest music festival.  I myself play flamenco guitar, and I’m waiting for the invitation to perform at one of the venues.  Maybe something big and bold, like Auditorium Shores.  In the meantime, you’ll have to hear me talk about why higher education is big and bold in Texas.

Let me begin by giving you a picture of The University of Texas System. 

• There are 15 institutions in the UT System – nine academic institutions and six health institutions – and they’re all over the state.
• All totaled, the UT System has 213,000 students, more than 19,000 faculty members, 69,000 staff members, and a collective budget of nearly $14 billion. 
• Last year we produced more than 30,000 undergraduate degrees and more than 15,000 graduate and professional degrees.
• Nearly $1.4 billion was allocated for financial aid awards to students at our academic institutions last year.
• Chances are, if you see a doctor, nurse, or other health care professional in Texas, you’re meeting a UT graduate. We produce two-thirds of all health-related degrees in the state.
• Our hospitals and UT health centers serve more than 6 million outpatients and 1.35 million hospital days of treatment every year.
• The annual research expenditures of UT System institutions add up to $2.54 billion, making us number two in the nation, behind only the University of California System.
• Among our faculty members System-wide, we have 7 Nobel laureates and 277 members of prestigious national academies.
• For the second consecutive year, philanthropic support for UT System’s 15 institutions has topped the $1.2 billion mark.    

The State of Texas has had a unique history in its development of higher education, and The University of Texas and University of Texas System institutions have played a major role in that development.  This state has benefited from the vision and wisdom of educators and many responsible legislators who foresaw the need for a university and medical school to educate the future leaders of our state.  In fact, the Texas Constitution of 1876 specified that the legislature was to establish and provide for the maintenance and support of a “university of the first class” to be located by vote of the people.  In 1881, Texas voters chose Austin for the site of the main university and Galveston for the location of the medical school. 

Another major outcome of the Texas Constitution of 1876 was the establishment of the Permanent University Fund.  We usually refer to it by its acronym – PUF – and it is a public endowment that provides financial support to institutions in the University of Texas and Texas A&M University systems.  Today, more than 20 Texas institutions benefit from this endowment. 

The PUF is a thing of beauty, with an impressive diversity of revenue sources from those two million acres in West Texas that were set aside by legislators for higher education.  The principal of the fund includes all proceeds from oil, gas, sulfur, and water royalties, all gains on investments, all rentals on mineral leases, hunting leases, grazing leases, vineyards, wind power, and all amounts received from the sale of university lands. 

I have an affinity for Ashbel Smith, the president of The University of Texas’s first Board of Regents, who is known as the Father of The University of Texas and the Father of Texas Medicine.  He was a practicing physician, and during Galveston’s epidemic of yellow fever in 1839, he treated the sick, published reports about the disease in the Galveston News, and wrote the first treatise on yellow fever in Texas.  As a result of the leadership of Ashbel Smith and his colleagues in medicine, Galveston has been a center of medical education since before the Civil War, especially in the area of infectious diseases.

I admire Ashbel Smith because he was a steadfast supporter of education at all levels, but none more than higher education and medical training.  At the ceremony to lay the cornerstone for the Old Main building on what would become The University of Texas campus, Ashbel Smith said prophetically, “Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth.”  He was a grand orator, and it was a well-phrased metaphor.  But Ashbel Smith had no idea that 40 years later, in 1923, oil would be discovered on university land in Reagan County when the Santa Rita oil well gushed forth fountains of wealth.

The two million acres of West Texas desert and prairie lands that the state legislature gave to the people of Texas – as an investment for their public university – became the miracle of The University of Texas endowment.  As an interesting footnote to this story, the Board of Regents was considering selling some of that land when a geologist named Johan Udden, serving as director of the University’s Bureau of Economic Geology, convinced them that oil and gas might lie beneath those dry and dusty acres.  Without geologist Johan Udden, The University of Texas System would not be what it is today

Striking oil was an astonishing moment in the history of higher education in Texas.  By 1925, the Permanent University Fund was growing by more than $2,000 a day.  Today, new technology has increased production on those lands, and our UTIMCO investment team has invested the funds with extraordinary success.  At the end of January (2014), the PUF was valued at $15.73 billion. 

There is nothing like the Permanent University Fund in the entire nation.  Texas is unique – and incredibly blessed – to receive significant financial benefits from the land itself.  In a very real sense, West Texas lands and the PUF have helped MD Anderson find new treatments for cancer.  The PUF has built centers for the arts and culture, supported surgeons and their groundbreaking artificial hearts, and so much more, as those funds make possible critically important research, outstanding patient care, and teaching facilities not available to other state institutions in Texas or the U.S.

The PUF has helped UT Austin become one of the top 16 public universities for undergraduate study in the nation, according to the 2014 U.S. News and World Report. 

UT M.D. Anderson is regarded as the best cancer-treatment center in the world.

The UT Southwestern Medical Center faculty has produced 5 Nobel Prize recipients since 1985.

UT El Paso produces the most Hispanic PhD graduates in the nation and is also the top producer of graduate-level Hispanic engineers.

In student enrollment, UT Arlington is the fifth most diverse university in the nation and a Tier One emerging research university. 

I could go on and on.

Today, 135 years after the PUF was created, The University of Texas System has 15 institutions that are educating and training a new generation of students and doing world-class research that is improving the quality of life in our state and far beyond. 

The UT System has much to celebrate.  Our institutions are strong and world class, following their own trajectories toward excellence.  But quality is a moving target.  And so three years ago, the UT System underwent a self-examination of the way our institutions were performing and how we could improve them. 

Since the summer of 2011 – with the dedication and hard work of my staff and the enthusiastic cooperation of our presidents and their faculties and staffs – the UT System has introduced several initiatives that are changing the environment in higher education.  We have become a model not only for Texas, but for the entire nation.  To give you three examples:

• The Framework for Advancing Excellence was our systematic effort to address a number of challenges in higher education and position UT institutions among the best anywhere.  There are nine major focal areas in the Framework, and I am happy to report that nearly 100 percent of our initiatives are now under full implementation.  The focal points are:
  • Undergraduate student access and success:  We are striving to increase the number of degrees conferred, to improve four-year graduation rates, to reduce the financial impact of higher education on students and their families, and to increase blended and online learning.
  • Faculty/administrator/staff excellence:  We are attracting and retaining the very best faculty and staff through awards, the creation of prestigious academies, and other incentive-based strategies.
  • Research:  We are promoting research, advancing technology commercialization, building partnerships with private companies, and supporting our emerging research universities.
  • Productivity and efficiency:  We are implementing cost-containment strategies, looking for ways to share services and to better utilize our spaces.
  • Strategic Information Technology Infrastructure Investments:  We are expanding our computational power and data storage, and expanding the metrics in our performance and productivity dashboard.
  • Enhance philanthropic success:  We are implementing fundraising plans in all of our institutions and rewarding successful strategies.
  •  PhD programs:  We are mentoring and advising doctoral students, including career advising, to shorten their time to completion of their degrees.
  • The health of Texas:  We are advancing medical research in Austin and other metropolitan areas, improving patient safety and quality, and using technology to strengthen healthcare education, research, and delivery.
  • Expanding Educational and Health Opportunities in South Texas:  We are building a new university and medical school in the Rio Grande Valley.
• The UT Board of Regents invested $50 million to support the Institute for Transformative Learning, which is working with our academic and health institutions to establish UT System as a global leader in blended and online learning. This academic year, UT Austin is offering nine MOOCs – Massive Open Online Courses.  The UT MOOCs are reaching 175,000 students worldwide. 
• We are honored to be the first public university system in edX – a not-for-profit consortium that offers online interactive learning.  EdX was founded by Harvard and MIT, and they have since added UC Berkeley and other institutions.  We are using the edX platform in a variety of technology-enhanced instructions.    
• Our initiative called TIME – an acronym for Transformation in Medical Education – has launched pilot programs that partner six undergraduate institutions with four medical schools to offer a student-centered, clinically focused curriculum that is one to two years shorter than the traditional eight years required to get an undergraduate and medical degree.  This program streamlines a medical curriculum that hasn’t been updated in 100 years, produces doctors in a shorter and more efficient timeframe, and lowers the total cost of a medical education, thereby reducing student debt. 
• The Task Force on Engineering Education for Texas in the 21^st Century has examined the current state of engineering degree programs in Texas, after the Texas Workforce Commission projected that the state will need 9,000 new engineers and computer specialists every year for the next decade – far below the numbers currently being graduated.  One of the task force’s recommendations is to graduate at least 50 percent more engineering and computer science students per year for the next ten years.  Each UT academic institution has developed a preliminary plan for this expansion.     
• The University of Texas Clinical Safety and Effectiveness program offers a five-month course on clinical safety for faculty and staff at our six health institutions.  The Board of Regents allocated $8 million to support CS&E in integrating quality and safety concepts into the way our medical and health professionals do their work every day.  The program awards grants to institutions, supports a fellowship program to recognize healthcare providers who demonstrate expertise, and hosts an annual conference to share best practices and develop ideas to drive System-wide initiatives that improve quality and safety.
• The University of Texas System Academy of Master Teachers recognizes outstanding educators at our nine academic campuses.  The Academy fosters excellence in teaching and creates opportunities for continuous learning and scholarship at our universities. The Academy also supports innovation in teaching, including blended and online learning and the use of technology in the classroom.

As much as the UT System and the Board of Regents have accomplished over the past three years – and those accomplishments are substantial and transformative – there is much ahead of us to strive for and complete. 

One of the most exciting new developments in Austin and Central Texas is the establishment of the Dell Medical School at UT Austin.  It will be the first medical school to be built at a major Tier One (AAU) public research institution in the last 50 years.  It will transform healthcare in Central Texas.  In fact, with the addition of a medical school, UT Austin has the potential to become the top public research institution in the nation, making Austin one of the great centers for biomedical research.  And coupled with UT System initiatives to support technology innovation and entrepreneurship, Austin will be one step closer to becoming a major technology hub like Route 128 in Boston, the North Carolina Research Triangle, and Silicon Valley.

We have recently selected a new dean for the Dell Medical School – Dr. Clay Johnston. Dr. Johnston is a physician and professor of neurology and epidemiology who comes to us from the University of California, San Francisco, where he is currently associate vice chancellor of research at one of the top ranked academic medical centers in the nation. 

We are also moving forward with our plans to create a new university and medical school in the Rio Grande Valley.  That is the south-most region of Texas that forms a sort of “V” between the Rio Grande River and the Gulf of Mexico.  It is an area where the population is rapidly increasing, but where current opportunities for upward mobility are limited.  Consider these facts:

• According to the Texas State Data Center at The University of Texas at San Antonio, the current population of the Valley is 1.26 million – and by 2020, the population is projected to grow another 1.5 million people.
• The Valley is 90 percent Hispanic, compared to 38 percent in Texas overall.
• The dropout rate among high schools students in the Valley is 7.2 percent, compared to 2.4 percent in Texas overall.
• Among adults older than 25 years of age, only 15 percent of students in the Valley have college degrees, compared to 26 percent in Texas overall.
• The median household income in the Rio Grande Valley is about $28,000 per year, while for Texas it is more than $50,000 per year.
• According to the most recent data (2012), the unemployment rate is as high as 15 percent in Starr County, and 11 percent on average for the Valley, compared to 6.7 percent in Texas statewide.
• In the Valley, 40 percent of “families with children” live below the poverty line, as compared to 16.8 percent in Texas and 13.5 percent nationwide.
• In the Valley, there are a half-million children, and 47 percent of them live in poverty, compared to 27 percent statewide.
• The Valley has 107 physicians per 100,000 residents, compared to 195 physicians per 100,000 residents in Texas and a national average of 220 physicians per 100,000 residents.  The Valley has about half as many doctors as it should have by national standards.
• There are systemic health factors afflicting Valley residents, including a disproportionate rate of chronic and infectious diseases: 
  • For example, the tuberculosis disease rates in the Valley are twice the rate in Texas overall and nearly 3 times the national rate. 
  • The major populated metropolitan area of the Rio Grande Valley is the most obese in the country.
  • Nearly 10 percent of adults in Texas have been diagnosed with diabetes, but the rate of diabetes in the Valley is higher, between 12-15 percent.
  • The Comparative Effectiveness Research on Cancer in Texas (CERCIT) Project reports that cancer has surpassed heart disease to become the leading cause of death for Hispanics in Texas.  The report indicates that this is also the case in the Valley. 
• 38 percent of the Valley’s population does not have health insurance, compared to 24 percent in Texas statewide and 15 percent in the nation.

As these statistics show, in the Rio Grande Valley there is an increasing need for doctors and health professionals, nutritionists, teachers, and a myriad of other professions that will improve basic services, educate children, and grow the economy in that region of Texas.

For several years, our Board of Regents has been striving to plant a bigger University of Texas flag in the Rio Grande Valley – to address many of the challenges I have mentioned and to transform the Valley through greater involvement in education, teacher training, medical training, biomedical research, and healthcare.  As the centerpiece of our commitment, the Regents have allocated $200 million to fund a new university and medical school that will span the entire Rio Grande Valley, with a presence in each of the major metropolitan areas of Brownsville, Edinburg, Harlingen, and McAllen, immediately making the new university one of the two largest Hispanic-serving institutions in the nation.

What became an idea only a year ago has now been approved and funded by the UT System Board of Regents, passed by the Texas Legislature, and signed into law.

The university has a new name, approved overwhelmingly by the people of South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley.  Our new university will be called The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley:  UT-RGV.

Two weeks ago we named the new dean of the medical school at UT Rio Grande Valley.  Our founding dean is Dr. Francisco Fernandez, professor and chairman of psychiatry and neurosciences at the University of South Florida College of Medicine in Tampa. 

We are very excited to welcome Dean Clay Johnston at UT Austin and Dean Francisco Fernandez at UT RGV into the University of Texas family.  A search has also been under way to hire the first president of UT RGV, and we will announce our selection in the coming weeks.

What I didn’t mention earlier, when I was describing the beauty of the Permanent University Fund, is that 13 of our 15 institutions are eligible for the PUF, but not UT Brownsville and UT Pan American – the two predominantly Hispanic universities in the Rio Grande Valley.  However, the new UT RGV will be eligible for PUF funding, which will provide greater support for this under-served region of our state and make it possible for students to study in the Valley, do research there, receive medical training there, and save lives there for decades to come. 

Daniel Burnham, one of America’s premier architects at the beginning of the 20^th century, once said, “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will not themselves be realized.”

At UT System, “Make no little plans” could be our guiding principle.  The stereotype of Texans is that we are given to exaggeration, but it is no exaggeration to say that the aspirations of University of Texas institutions are big and bold.  Every day at our nine academic institutions and six health institutions, we are implementing innovations that create a stronger learning environment, improve the undergraduate experience, contribute world class research, render public service, and transform lives in this – and future – generations. 

It has been my great privilege to serve as chancellor of this outstanding System of higher education for the past five years – and to join the Regents and thousands of faculty members, administrators, legislators, alumni, students, and their families in our collective pursuit of excellence.  We still have miles to go.  The people of Texas expect us to deliver the very best higher education in the country.  We will not disappoint them.    

Thank you very much, South by Southwest E-D-U, for giving me this opportunity to address you today.