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Texas A&M University-College Station

The latest Texas A&M University-College Station news from The Texas Tribune.

  • The Third Coast of Biotech?

    By Reeve Hamilton

    One hundred miles from the nearest major city, where there was nothing but flat earth seven months ago, a 145,000-square-foot facility has sprung up on the Texas A&M Health Science Center campus. Starting in January, its cavernous rooms will be filled with racks of tobacco-like plants expected to produce as many influenza vaccines in a single month as a traditional lab does in one year, at a fraction of the cost. Dr. Brett Giroir, the vice chancellor for research at the Texas A&M University System, calls it the most exciting project of its kind in the world, the potential savior of the next pandemic. And, he says, “it’s in Bryan. Go figure.” Full Story 

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    Credit: Todd Wiseman

  • College Orientation

    By Reeve Hamilton

    More than a quarter-century has passed since a landmark suit against Texas A&M University established the right of gay student groups to form on college campuses. Yet all these years later, half of the university systems in the state — the Texas A&M University System, the Texas State University System and the Texas Tech University System — do not include sexual orientation in their nondiscrimination policies. Full Story 

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    Credit: Illustration by Todd Wiseman

  • Green Horns

    By Kate Galbraith

    When Longhorn football kicks off at home this month, so will a brand-new marketing effort urging boosters to buy, of all things, green electricity. Colt McCoy's family has already signed up with Texas Longhorns Energy, which promises customers 100 percent power from Texas wind. The Aggies will roll out a similar deal on Friday. The programs are another sign of the universities' branding heft — even though they may not be the best deal within the confusing Texas electricity market. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by UT Austin

  • Off-Base?

    By Emily Ramshaw

    The Texas commission charged with aiding economies hit by military base closures will spend millions for a vaccine plant in Bryan-College Station — even though the region’s military base closed nearly five decades ago. Full Story 

    A National Guard soldier receives a seasonal flu shot in Virginia in 2009.
    Credit: U.S. Army

  • The Tracks of Our Tiers

    By Reeve Hamilton

    It could take years before the seven emerging research universities in Texas (Texas Tech University, the University of Houston, the University of North Texas, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of Texas at Arlington, the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of Texas at El Paso) transform themselves into top-tier research campuses — if they do at all. But the state now pays them for demonstrated progress toward that goal, pitting them against one another in competition for limited funds. Officials from all seven will appear before a joint hearing of the House and Senate higher education committees today, seeking to show off progress to lawmakers and to size up where they stand against their peers. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Todd Wiseman

  • The Graduation Gap

    By Reeve Hamilton

    For years, Texas universities have focused on getting more students onto to their campuses. The hard part, it turns out, is getting them to leave in no more than six years. Full Story 

    Texas Southern University had the state's lowest six-year graduation rate — 12 percent in the most recent data. But colleges throughout Texas have struggled to get more students to the finish line.
    Credit: wikipedia.org

  • Of Mice and Men

    By Reeve Hamilton

    When Gov. Rick Perry announced the establishment of the Texas Institute for Genomic Medicine, a public-private partnership between the Texas A&M University System and Lexicon Genetics, he said the $50 million high-level mouse laboratory, paid for through the Texas Enterprise Fund that he controls, would “attract millions of dollars for medical research and lead to the development of life-saving medical treatments and therapies” for everything from diabetes to cancer. Five years later, depending on who you ask, TIGM has either been a massive taxpayer-subsidized boondoggle or a blessing to scientists across the globe. Full Story 

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  • A Better App: Public Employee Pay

    By Matt Stiles and Niran Babalola

    Find the salaries of more than 340,000 public employees with our enhanced data application, including those working at the largest state agencies as well as individual public schools, cities and mass-transit operators. And universities: Did you know, for instance, that of the 10 highest-paid professors at the state's two largest universities, nine are Aggies? Full Story 

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    Credit: Caleb Bryant Miller, Jacob Villanueva

  • The "Other" Medical Shortage

    By Ben Philpott, KUT News

    Representatives from medical schools and the Seton hospital network were in Austin this week to talk about increasing education opportunities in Texas. The meeting with civic and business leaders focused on expanding graduate school capacity — with the hope it could increase healthcare access in Central Texas. But a shortage of medical care could have a far reaching effect on the state’s economy — in a very unexpected way. Ben Philpott is reporting for KUT News and the Texas Tribune. Full Story 

  • TribWeek: In Case You Missed It

    By Ross Ramsey

    Multi-part stories from Ramshaw and Grissom and Stiles on mental health services for detained immigrants and on payday lenders who provide exorbitantly priced credit to people with nowhere else to turn... Twitter, word clouds and the race for governor — a Stiles joint... Farouk Shami is in and Hu was there to watch... Philpott went to Bastrop for a gather of Republican governors... Rapoport finds a State Board of Education that's trying to control itself... and we have the skinny on legislative races that are likely to be competitive (only about 5 percent of the races on the ballot). It's the best of The Texas Tribune from November 14 to 20, 2009. Full Story 

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