Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

State Senator Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen

McALLEN - State Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa says the South Texas legislative delegation must redouble its efforts to bring more doctoral programs to the region.

“Dr. Bambi Cárdenas was right when she said last week that we do not have nearly enough doctoral programs in South Texas and along the border,” Hinojosa told the Guardian.

“The problem is that we have a built-in bias against South Texas and the border area by the Higher Education Coordinating Board. We need to change that. What we need to do every session is to make that a priority, to increase doctoral programs in the border area.”

Cárdenas, the former president of the University of Texas-Pan American, made her remarks at a reception hosted by the North American Advanced Manufacturing Research and Education Institute in Laredo last Monday.

In what appeared to be a call to arms to border business, academic and political leaders to strongly challenge the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Legislature, Cárdenas said it was “unsatisfactory and unacceptable” that the border region has just a handful of doctoral programs. She said the border region would likely have to “force” the issue.

Texas Tech University in Lubbock has 60 doctoral and professional programs. The Panhandle population Texas Tech serves is half the size of South Texas. The University of Texas at Brownsville has one doctoral program, the University of Texas-Pan American has three, the University of Texas at El Paso has 19, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi has five, and Texas A&M International University in Laredo has one.

Hinojosa said Cárdenas was right when she said South Texas and the border region would have to “force” the issue.

“Every time we propose doctoral programs for South Texas we face an uphill battle. We have to go around the Coordinating Board and provide legislation to get it done,” Hinojosa said. “A good example is the Regional Academic Health Center. The RAHC was opposed by the Coordinating Board. We raised hell about it and proposed legislation to get it done. They finally came over.”

Hinojosa said it always takes a “very strong push” on the part of the South Texas legislative delegation to get any kind of doctoral programs for the region. “We need to fight each battle one by one. We can argue based on merit why these programs are needed. We are one of the fastest growing areas not only in the state but in the nation. We are competing against areas of the state that are losing population yet they continue to increase their doctoral programs, such as West Texas,” Hinojosa said.

Hinojosa, vice chair of the Senate Finance Committee, did succeed this session in securing $4 million for a new mechanical engineering program at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.
The first 25 to 30 students in the program will begin their studies this fall and TAMUCC officials expect that number to grow to 150 within five years. The initial curriculum will focus on issues including coastal observation systems, ships, offshore platforms, offshore wind turbines and sea floor mapping.

Hinojosa said UTPA and UTB secured a four percent increase in funding this session.

Another positive aspect of the session in terms of professional schools, Hinojosa said, was the passage of legislation authored by state Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr., D-Brownsville, that will lead to the establishment of a four-year medical school administered by the University of Texas System in the Rio Grande Valley. Because of the state budget crunch, state leaders prevented the South Texas delegation from appropriating any money for the medical school. That can come later, Hinojosa said.

“I’m pretty confident that the UT System will live up to its commitment to build a medical school at the RAHC,” Hinojosa said. “We have to go and ask for help from those that are willing to help us. If UT is not willing to do it because it does not have the will, then we will go someplace else.”

Last week, state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, made public a letter he sent last month to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst which calls for a new South Texas Border Initiative (STBI) in order to boost access to higher education along the border.

The original STBI was mounted in the 1989 by the 71st Legislature and resulted in a $460 million aid package for the nine four-year colleges located on the Texas-Mexico border.

“Given that Texas is minority-majority today and will be majority-Hispanic by 2020, I am asking you to set the stage for a second STBI in order to reverse decades of institutionalized and systematic discrimination against our Borderlands universities,” Shapleigh wrote.

In his letter, Shapleigh pointed out to a huge disparity in the number of doctoral and professional programs at Borderlands universities as compared to Texas Tech.