There they were, the usual suspects.
UT-Brownsville President Juliet Garcia, UT System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa, et al.
They all came together to tell us that the UT System had finally relented after 22 years of sucking the local Texas Southmost College district dry that it and the Texas Legislature were going to make available some of the funds held in trust by the Permanent University Fund whose reserves stood at some $13 billion. Until 2012, both UT Pan American University at Edinburg and UT Brownsville had been excluded from partaking of the fund composed of oil and gas revenues from property the system owns in West Texas.
Much ado was made of the fact that $54 million was coming UTB's way for the construction of a 140,000 square -foot academic building and an additional $18 million to pay for the UTB costs related to the end of its "partnership" with TSC.
Let's see the scorecard.
Over the last 22 years, Garcia's UTB has received an average of $55 million in transfers annually from TSC under the terms of the "partnership." That totals at more than $1 billion over the span of the peculiar relationship that put the community college at a decided disadvantage vis-a-vis one of the richest endowed university systems in the United States. The fact that a poverty-stricken district had to subsidize the oil-and-gas wealthy university system didn't seem to bother Garcia during the last two decades. And it won;t be until 2015 that TSC taxpayers will have that yoke removed from their necks when TSC and UTB go their separate ways.
Do the math.
The total of the PUF for the UTB 2014 will be $72 million over the next 20 years. That equals to less than $4 million a year.
If you divide the $1 billion-plus that TSC has given UTB over the last 22 years, it is more like $50 million each year.
In other words, PUF has a long way to catch up.
And when the UTB denizens thought that they could go off on their own and attain accreditation on their own, it took an envoy from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to se them straight and tell them that there coulbe no accreditation possible for UTB unless TSC algo gained it.
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Meanwhile, TSC President Lily Tercero is getting a rude awakening on the "good will" that the UTB administration and the City of Brownsville have toward the independent community college.
Her first slap in the face was when Mayor Tony Martinez did an about face on his verbal promise that 10.2 acres the city had deeded to TSC for a botanical garden would not be turned over for free. Instead, the city – through contract city attorney Mark Sossi – demanded three properties from the college in return for the real estate that had been donated before. This in spite of the fct that the city has promised to donate some 70 acres to the UT System with no strings attached.
"They can be generous with UT System but then turn chintzy with their community college," said the source. "How do you figure that? Tercero should realize by now that she has no friends there."
11 comments:
First off, the entire "UT System" is a joke. It is UT-Austin and then all the weak sisters. Compare that to UC System, which actually has a number of highly regarded universities in the system, like Berkeley, UCLA, Davis and Irvine. Compare that to Tyler, El Paso and soon to be UT Valley Transit. Even Arlington is a glorified commuter college.
Austin will never spend the money to have a real university system of equals. It is all about crumbs for votes and small town egos.
BITCH!
"I've never gotten $54 million before from the UT System, so how could I be disappointed?"
"I'VE NEVER GOTTEN", wouldn't it
be more appropriate to say "WE HAVE NEVER RECEIVED"? The gaul,
what a self-deluded, self-appointed elitest that is a legend
in her own mind! What can you expect from the President of the President of the Universe of Texas at Brownsville? BITCH!
What can you expec
RECEIVED" as opposed to "I"?
Last I heard the UT Board of Regents were still debating whether the dinosaurs existed 66 years ago or was it 66 million years. I have some real bad news for the "Academic Managers", it is brains that make a great university, not some dip shit new building farmed out to the local brother-in-law contractor with a few fountains thrown in. How about using that 54 million to actually hire top rate faculty rather piss it away on low ball hiring of all your lackeys and relatives. Last I checked the buildings around Oxford and Cambridge were a few thousand years old and they still manage to educate people rather well.
TSC President Tercero has demonstrated a great deal of class in recent months...far more class than Juliet Garcia. The Herald continues to print everything that UTB gives them and have failed to give the community positive information on TSC. Dr. Tercero is a classy lady and is a great benefit to our community.
UTB and TSC are going to be separate entities. Get over it. People here seem to be like bitter ex wives or husbands who continue wallowing in their past bitterness. They want to complain about the old days of UTB and TSC being together in a partnership....and at the same time complain about them now being separate entities. Move on.
".... now being separate entities. Move on.
True, but in the "divorce" TSC was found to own separate property before the wedding. They just want the house keys (all copies) returned and for the other party to quit coming in the house in the middle of the night raiding the fridge and rummaging through the garage and garden shed.
A subject for scrutiny: anonymous TSC administrators are saying that President Tercero is micro-managing. She is even assigning offices to faculty members---not typically a duty of a President of a college.
"-not typically a duty of a President of a college. "
It is a small place. What do you think, she should pass a bond issue to hire some Provost of Office space?
Micromanagement, in this case, is almost certainly a consequence of understandable insecurity. Dr. Tercero is inevitably blamed for everything that goes wrong at TSC while she gets little credit for what goes right. My advice to her would be to back off. Make sure your administrators are up to the challenges they face, and give them the authority to do what must be done. TSC is not a high school and should not be run like one (I am thinking here of absurd dress codes).
"-not typically a duty of a President of a college. "
It is a small place. What do you think, she should pass a bond issue to hire some Provost of Office space?"
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You are too sensitive regarding this. Dr. Tercero may turn out to be a wonderful administrator. But she may instead turn out to be an incompetent college President. It is too early to say. But it is a fact that she is currently micromanaging. Administrators have been hired to do different jobs. She should let them do their jobs. And the dress code is the worst idea yet.
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