Texas A&M regents may soon decide the university system’s next leader

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The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents could name its pick Monday for who should lead the sprawling collection of 11 universities and eight state agencies. The board is meeting all-day in Houston, with the potential to vote on a sole finalist for chancellor, according to a public meeting posted on the university system’s website.

The Texas Tribune has learned that the regents have narrowed their nationwide search to five candidates, including some prominent political names. One individual with knowledge of the process confirmed the five names to the Tribune. A second person was able to confirm four of the five names.

The candidates are Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar, Texas A&M Foundation President Tyson Voelkel, University of Alabama President Stuart Bell, State Rep. Trent Ashby, R-Lufkin, and U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin.

If the board decides Monday, it will kick off a 21-day mandatory waiting period under state law before they can make a final appointment.

Whoever is chosen will succeed John Sharp, the system’s longest-serving chancellor. He had said he plans to retire in June. None of the candidates immediately responded to a request for comment.

Hegar, an attorney, has served as the state’s chief financial officer since 2014. Before that, he served in the Texas House from 2003 to 2007 before he was elected to the state Senate, where served from 2007 until he resigned to become comptroller.

In a December event with theTribune, Hegar expressed an interest in Sharp’s job.

“Would that be a job that I would think I would hope to be able to do someday? Yes,” he said, adding that he loves his current job and takes it seriously.

Voelkel has been CEO of the A&M Foundation for eight years. He is credited with raising more than $1.5 billion in cash and assets for the university during his eight years as president and chief executive officer of the foundation. He is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and served as a Army infantry officer, earning two Bronze Stars in Iraq.

Like Texas A&M, the University of Alabama’s enrollment, research activity and funding grew under Bell. He has held the position since 2015. Earlier this year, he announced he plans to step down in July. Bell previously worked in administration for Louisiana State University and the University of Kansas.

Ashby has served in the Texas House since 2013. Ashby has experience with the House budget. He previously served on the appropriations subcommittee that oversees public and higher education funding. This session, he is serving on the public education and natural resources committees.

McCaul, meanwhile, is in his 11th term representing Texas’ 10th district in Congress, which encompasses Longhorn and Aggie territory. He was the first Texan to chair the Foreign Affairs Committee. Before he entered politics, he was a federal prosecutor.

Four out of the five candidates are Aggies. Hegar graduated in 1993, Voelkel and Ashby in 1996 and Bell in 1979.

Sharp, 74, also had a long political career before he became chancellor. The Victoria native earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Texas A&M in 1872 and a master’s in public administration from Texas State University.

He served as a Democratic state representative, senator, railroad commissioner and state comptroller before he came back to his alma mater in 2011.

Under Sharp’s leadership, Texas A&M expanded into Fort Worth and built a defense research and testing campus called RELLIS in Bryan. The system educates more than 157,000 students.

The next chancellor will take over during a time of upheaval in higher education nationwide and in Texas.

The Trump administration has slashed research funding and threatened to cut more if universities don’t end race-conscious programming.

This comes after the Republican-controlled Legislature passed in 2023 a ban on diversity equity and inclusion offices, programs and training that they have repeatedly accused public universities of violating. They’ve also been under pressure to tamp down student protests of the war in Gaza.

Texas A&M isn’t the only system that has made recent leadership changes that have made headlines. In January, former University of Texas at Austin President Jay Hartzell announced he’d be leaving the flagship for Southern Methodist University, a smaller private research university in Dallas, at the end of the calendar year.

Last week, Hartzell’s tenure as president of the flagship was cut short by several months when the UT chancellor named Jim Davis as the interim president effective immediately. One of Davis’ first acts as president was to replace the institution’s chief academic officer.

Disclosure: Southern Methodist University, Texas A&M University, Texas A&M University System and University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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