UH Day at the Texas Capitol, March 2
The Texas Legislature operates on a biennial cycle and is currently in session. UH sponsors a Day at the Texas Capitol for students, staff, faculty, deans, and administrators to interact with elected officials and their staffers and convey UH priorities and concerns.
UH Priorities Communicated to Texas Legislators
- Ascend into the Top 50 Public Universities.
- Increase research expenditures from the current $250M to at least $400M.
- Increase the six-year graduation rate from 64% to at least 70%.
- Request creation of a state-supported $1 Billion Endowment - improve Top 50 metrics including increasing lab facilities, hiring 150 new research active faculty, and improving student to faculty ratios.
- Texas Investment in Higher Education
- Request for payments from Texas to catch up Texas Research Incentive Program (TRIP) funding. These funds are matches from the state for certain types of gifts and foundation grants. UH anticipated $111M.
- Request increases in the National Research University Fund (NRUF). UH’s allocation previously decreased from $16.3M to $6.4M in 2012 with the addition of UT-Dallas and UT-Arlington.
- Core Research Support Fund (CRSF) provides about $11.7M to increase research capacity.
- Governor’s University Research Initiative (GURI) provides funds to recruit Nobel laureates and National Academy members to UH. UH has obtained GURI support to hire four such faculty.
The Capitol visitors from UH conveyed information about the University’s strengths including economic impact, top majors (the two at the top are Biology/B.S. and Computer Science/B.S.), national centers, enrollment, and academic performance, among others.
NSM at the Texas Capitol
Four NSM students and one faculty member were in attendance. Thank you to the students who attended this event and made their voices heard.
- Bryan Armbruster (student, Biochemistry)
- Cady Gibbs (student, formerly Biochemistry and now Anthropology)
- Audi Hoang (student, Biochemistry)
- Ethan Marfil (student, Biology)
- Jim Briggs (faculty, Biochemistry; Associate Dean, NSM)