The University of Texas at El Paso:

A Model of Excellence and Equity

Diana Natalicio, President

UTEP’s Model Of Excellence

The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) recognizes that it is in the forefront of creating a new model of excellence in higher education. We are committed to changing the stereotype of urban and minority institutions, which have sometimes been praised as models for access and equity, but seldom, if ever, for academic and research excellence. Rejecting the notion that excellence and equity cannot co-exist on a single campus, particularly one whose origins place it in the equity category, UTEP intends to demonstrate that excellence can be built within an equity context, without sacrificing the values upon which the institution’s commitment to access rests. We know that underrepresented minorities, as individuals and collectively, can compete successfully, if provided enriched opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate education. And, we know, too, that building excellence within an equity context can be done, because UTEP has already made great strides in doing it.

During the past ten years, UTEP has worked aggressively to build excellence on a variety of fronts. We have increased the number of doctoral programs from one to nine. We have increased annual contract and grant funding from $3 million in 1987 to $55 million in 1999. At the same time, we ranked second in the U.S. for the production of Hispanic baccalaureate graduates, whose quality is affirmed by the competition among companies and professional schools to recruit them; and, we have received national recognition for the quality of our academic programs and outreach to the region we serve.

Rationale

We believe that traditional higher education has become increasingly mismatched to the needs of this state and this country. The rapid growth and the increasing diversity of urban populations require new models of public higher education that respond to the needs of the future professional workforce and the challenges of global competitiveness. This society can no longer abide the achievement gaps between affluent and low-income (mostly minority) youth, because it is the latter who will determine our success or failure as a nation. We can no longer afford to concentrate resources to achieve excellence in public higher education on a small number of traditional “flagships,” while denying similar resources to the institutions that are in the best position to educate a majority of the future workforce participants.

By clinging to its largely rural and monocultural past, and to its traditional models of excellence and exclusion, public higher education in Texas and-across the country has failed to respond to society’s needs. Public higher education must re-engineer and reorganize itself to invest its resources in building excellence at institutions located in large urban areas where the future population will be concentrated. Through its aggressive pursuit of external funding, and its success in securing it, UTEP has taken a lead in demonstrating the viability of this new model, which builds excellence on a foundation of access and equity.

Requirements

• Capital Infrastructure Funding

  There are huge disparities in capital funding between institutions supported by the Permanent University Fund (PUF), including UTEP, and those receiving capital support through the legislatively appropriated Higher Education Fund (HEF). Significantly, four universities located in Texas’ largest urban areas (UT Arlington, UT Dallas, UT El Paso, and UT San Antonio) are those that have been most negatively impacted by this longstanding inequity. In fact, three of these institutions (Dallas, El Paso, and Arlington) rank at the bottom of all public universities in capital and excellence funding per weighted semester credit hour. In UTEP’s case, PUF allocations to our 15,000 students have totaled less each year than the HEF allocations to the 3,000 students enrolled at Sul Ross State University. Applying the HEF formula to UTEP, we estimate that the cumulative consequence of this funding disparity for the past 15 years exceeds $100 million. This is not only a matter of injustice to the students who are denied access to the state’s capital funds because of their location, it is a matter of Texas’ jeopardizing its future economic competitiveness by failing to invest in its urban university assets

• Research Funding

  An important component of building excellence in universities is research funding. The Texas Legislature created a $60 million Advanced Research/Technology Program, whose purpose was to build research capacity and excellence in higher education institutions. An examination of the grants that have been made since the program’s inception reveals an interesting pattern of consistent investment in certain institutions, and only minimal support of others. This pattern has remained relatively constant for the entire history of the program despite major changes in institutions’ graduate program development and federal research funding growth. Thus, at UTEP, for example, annual funding from the ARP/ATP programs has remained remarkably consistent for the past 1O years, at approximately $250,000 per year, while our federal funding has grown exponentially during the past decade from $3 million to $55 million. Today, UTEP receives approximately $12 federal dollars for every $1 that the State has allocated toward our research activity (including ARP/ATP grants and research enhancement funds), a 12 to 1 return on the State’s investment. By comparison, Texas Tech receives only $1.20 in federal research dollars for each $1 invested by the State, a 1.2 to 1 return on investment.

  We are often told that entrepreneurship in higher education is valued in Texas and will be rewarded. UTEP has been highly entrepreneurial, but we have seen no evidence that the State is interested in rewarding us for our success. In fact, when we consider the combination of capital funding inequities, the 50% indirect cost recovery policy, and research funding patterns, we cannot help but conclude that our success at the national level has been achieved in spite of the State’s notable lack of support of our efforts.

• Student Retention and Academic Success

  UTEP is located in a large metropolitan area characterized by low educational attainment and declining per capita income against both state and national averages. It draws 85% of its students from El Paso County schools, and prepares an estimated 60% of the teachers in those schools. Within this context, UTEP recognized more than ten years ago that we had an obligation to take a lead in mobilizing all of the educational resources in this community to:

  • foster academic success and high standards in public schools in this region;
  • ensure that a growing number of K-12 students complete high school with a college preparatory curriculum and make a successful transition to enrollment in the university;
  • create a supportive context at UTEP for student success leading to a baccalaureate degree: and
  • make available high quality graduate and professional degree programs for this region’s residents.

  We are working hard on all of these fronts, supported largely by federal and foundation grants. The El Paso Collaborative for Academic Excellence, a partnership between UTEP, area school districts, and other local organizations, has already succeeded in demonstrating major gains in K-12 student achievement in this region. Most importantly, it has reduced the local achievement gap between Hispanic children and their Anglo counterparts by raising expectations for all children and by investing intellectual and financial resources in under-achieving schools. As a part of this effort, UTEP has engaged in a major restructuring of its teacher preparation program, essential ingredient in school reform. During the past seven years, the Collaborative has leveraged the State’s annual investment of $137,000 to nearly $29 million in federal and foundation funding.

  To foster greater student retention and success in completing a baccalaureate degree, UTEP has established an Entering Student Program which is designed to bridge the transition from high school or community college to the university. We have invested institutional funds to launch the Entering Student Program because we are confident that improvements in student retention during the next several years will yield a higher level of formula funding in the out-years, as students are more successful in making progress toward their degrees. Start-up or performance-based funding for such initiatives would permit far more aggressive implementation of this proven strategy to improve student retention and graduation rates.

  To ensure that residents of this region have access to high quality graduate and professional education opportunities, UTEP has developed a broad range of health professions programs during the past ten years, as well as eight new doctoral programs in areas which capitalize on institutional strengths and respond to regional needs, e.g., environmental science and engineering, and pathobiology. Much of this program development has been the result of UTEP’s success in leveraging institutional funds to secure research and program development grants from federal and foundation sources.

  External funding from contracts and grants has been the key to UTEP’s success in developing and implementing innovative academic and outreach programs. These are not small projects whose impact ends when the funding stream stops, but rather broad-based efforts at systemic reform that will be sustained long after individual grants expire. The availability of state funding, both to leverage external support and to ensure continuity, would give these efforts greater credibility with grantmakers, and make them less vulnerable to the uncertainties of grant funding.

• Student Financial Aid

  UTEP students face numerous financial challenges in attempting to complete a baccalaureate degree. Most are the first in their families to attend college, and nearly all are employed while attending the university, not merely to finance their studies, but to help support their families. The availability of financial aid, particularly in the form of scholarships, grants, or work-study jobs on campus, is inadequate to meet the demand.

  To achieve the goal of increasing the number of baccalaureate recipients at UTEP, we must offer students additional grant and scholarship programs. UTEP has been successful in raising scholarship funds from private donors, but the waiting list for academically eligible students remains long, and the financial need of many students remains unmet. The state-funded TEXAS grant program is an excellent first step in addressing the need for academic scholarships, especially as the cost of tuition and fees at public institutions continue to rise. It should be expanded. State work-study initiatives and similar programs that help students overcome the financial barriers to their university enrollment would be an investment not only in young people, but in the future economic development of this state.

Benefits to the El Paso Region

The per capita income and educational achievement data for El Paso are sobering by any measure. This community has suffered, and will continue to suffer, the consequences of having promoted itself for far too long as a low-skill, low-wage opportunity for business and industry. In a global economy, still lower wage options have been exercised by corporations, and El Pasoans’ jobs have migrated to Guatemala and Sri Lanka. El Pasoans are undereducated and under-prepared to be competitive in today’s economy. If we do not begin today to ensure that El Paso commits to far higher expectations- and higher educational achievement of its people, and if we do not set higher standards for the kind of jobs that we intend to offer to residents of this region, we will be faced with the downward spiral of a Third-World economy and the poor quality of life that accompanies it. A major university, with strong research and doctoral programs—and a reputation for excellence AND access—is critical to this community’s future human and economic development.

Benefits to the State of Texas

Texas’ per capita income lags significantly behind-the national average. Texas lags behind its peer states in the number of students who graduate with baccalaureate degrees. Texas’ population is fast-growing and increasingly diverse; nine of ten new Texans will be minorities, and 3/4 of the nine will be Hispanic. Educational attainment among minorities in Texas lags seriously behind that of their Anglo counterparts. Connecting these data points, a picture emerges of a state that is headed in the wrong direction in terms of both its human and economic development, a state whose future will be determined by its failure to invest in its human potential.

If Texas hopes to be competitive with other large states and expects to be able to participate successfully in the global economy, it must begin to do a far better job than it has in the past in educating the fastest growing segment of its population: Hispanics. And, the commitment must go far beyond mere access. Hispanics must have the same opportunities for a quality education, from pre-Kindergarten through graduate school, as has been provided to more affluent, typically Anglo, citizens of this state. Large urban universities in Texas, like UTEP, are especially well positioned to provide these quality educational opportunities. They are huge public assets that have been notably under-capitalized and under-utilized. The time is long overdue for Texas to recognize and invest in these important assets and the large undereducated populations that they attempt to serve.

We believe that once the statewide higher education planners complete their work, they will conclude that an investment in excellence in public universities located in Texas major urban centers will yield the greatest return in terms of the state’s human and economic development.

The planners’ review of the demographic data will reveal the robust growth in the state’s population and the significant portion of that growth that will be minorities, mostly Hispanics. Their consideration of educational achievement data will reveal that the fastest growing segment of the Texas population is also its most under-educated. They will recognize that Texas’ traditional industries and its rural orientation will survive only as part of the Texas myth, not its reality. They will recognize that large urban centers represent the future of this state and its economy. And, they will view the Texas public colleges and universities that are located in urban settings as its primary assets in fostering the state’s future human and economic development.

Planners should recommend that the state make a significant investment in building excellence in public universities in the state’s major urban centers—Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, El Paso, and San Antonio-with the goal of raising them to a Tier One level within the next five to eight years. This investment in creating a new model of Tier One institutions-building excellence in contexts with a strong commitment to equity-will pay the state rich dividends. It will substantially leverage federal and private sector funding, enabling Texas to compete far more aggressively with California and other large states for federal R&D funding. It will spawn the increased entrepreneurial activity often associated with competitive research universities. It will raise the educational level of populations concentrated in our major metropolitan areas, especially the fastest growing minority populations, and attract new businesses and industries that require an educated workforce. Finally, and most importantly, it will enable Texas to reverse its downward educational and income spiral, and compete successfully in the global economy of the 21st Century.

March 2000