By David E. Pearson, Ph.D.
Author of Partnership Affairs: The Fall of a Community University
Publisher: Southmost Books
Publication date October 15, 2025
The May 2 Texas Southmost College Board of Trustees elections feature a candidate, Adela Garza, who can rightly be credited with saving the community college.
Most of us probably remember how, more than a decade ago, TSC was in a partnership with the University of Texas at Brownsville. This “community university” had a vast number of stresses and internal contradictions. These included separate budget centers, sources of revenue, and ownership of property. 
There was an internal clash of cultures between two different classes of faculty, staff, and students. There were two distinct missions with two separate governing bodies in place to pursue them.
By the end of the first decade of this century, the partnership’s community college component had withered. Relatively little money was going into vocational and technical programs. Tuition had increased substantially. There was no real champion on campus for TSC.
The nature of the partnership had caused one of its components to become a figurative orphan, and it was perhaps inevitable that at some point the orphan would grow up and run for office.
Enter Adela Garza.
Winning Place 1 on the board in 2008, she insisted that the trustees had the right to exercise real decision-making authority. Especially so when it came to the board’s legally prescribed fiduciary obligations to community college students and district taxpayers.
Feeling the Board of Trustees was simply being used as a rubber stamp for administrative decisions, she began asking questions about campus issues large and small. A number of construction projects then in progress were hugely over budget, and she took a stand against what she saw as fiscal irresponsibility.
To Adela, the community college’s functions and constituents, its mission and its resources, were not simply means for supporting the larger partnership: they were ends in themselves – ends which had been improperly subordinated to the institution’s university component.
Yes, she believed that. She had, after all, been elected as a trustee of Texas Southmost College. Adela’s spirited defense of TSC shook up the partnership. The administration responded by trying to put in place a new operating agreement to govern the institution’s two components.
Rhetorically this was cast as a marvelous thing, something that would guarantee a brighter future for the students and people of South Texas. In truth it was a ploy to strip the TSC board of its authority through a series of contractual agreements giving the university almost complete operational and budgetary control.
By the fall of 2010, that ploy was on the verge of success. Today, TSC would not exist in anything but name had it not been for Adela’s extraordinary defense of the community college.
* She provided hard evidence of the university’s plan to seize total institutional control.
* She rallied a majority of the trustees to defend their community college.
* She successfully lobbied the Texas legislature, resulting in SB 1909 and HB 3698, bills mandating that Brownsville be the home of an independent community college.
“I am so proud of what we have accomplished,” she said afterwards. “I go back sometimes and I realize what a big role I played.” Not just a big role. Adela Garza played the key role in giving us the Texas Southmost College we have today.
April 20-28
ELECTION DAY
May 2
To order book, click on link: https://www.amazon.com/Partnership-Affairs-Fall-Community-University-ebook/dp/B0FWFHVNM1?ref_=ast_author_mpb
9 comments:
Flowers, hug, kisses, and most importantly blessings to the lady.
JJ has no chance
LoL! She must be paying you well to publish this fantasy story! Thats why you censor my comments about her.
Yet Adela Garza, Trey Mendez etc mistreated Dr. Lily Tercero. There is no excuse for all that. Do not forget Brownsville residents. The lady was interviewed, was selected and then mistreated by the TSC board.
Suelta la chiche
Long live term limits!
There was 3 other trustees who voted to save the college as well. Some have been long forgotten. Adela simply picked a fight, she didn't end it.
Adela has to go…. Bye bye!
This guy knows what he's talking about Juan. Tiene mas degrees que un thermometer. And he obviously knows Adela well. She has my vote.
I imagine it is a good book that exposes a lot of dirty secrets. Enter Adela Garza. There is no doubt she along with other trustees have made some good and tough decisions. The problem is she has now become the big bad UTB at TSC. She has created an 'internal clash of cultures between the two classes' of faculty and staff she has established. She has fotgotten that after 'winning Place 1 on the board in 2008, she insisted that the trustees had the right to exercise real decision-making authority.' She holds complete control of the board and the president. She has forcefully set up her own board of trustees to use as a 'rubber stamp for administrative decisions'. This is extremely obvious when she parades her preferred candidates at events around Brownsville. She has also forgotten that, 'after all, been elected as a trustee of Texas Southmost College,' not the queen of the college. Oh and she doesn't let you forget the 'big role I played,' and 'Not just a big role. Adela Garza played the key role.
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