KILLEEN, Texas - The Fort Hood Economic Region’s Annual Economic Development Conference was held in collaboration with Texas A&M University Central Texas on August 22. Approximately ninety business and community leaders attended the conference in Beck Hall on the campus.
The theme focused on the economic development impact that TAMUCT could provide to the region.
Drs. Andy Policano, University of California – Irvine, and Gary Fethke, University of Iowa, discussed their controversial book, Public No More: A new path to excellence for America’s public universities.
The authors state that, for many years, public universities existed in a very predictable environment. They make the case that changes to this environment are permanent and require that administrators at public universities re-position their institutions to align to meet these challenges. Those changes include global competition, digital transformation, generational changes, and declining taxpayer support. Ironically, these are many of the same changes facing others in the economy including business.
Drs. Policano and Fethke told participants that it is extremely important that public universities seek structural changes and cultural shifts in their institutions. This, they predicted, will be very difficult for established universities because of the bureaucracy that exists within them. That is not the case at TAMUCT because, as a start-up university, TAMUCT is creating institutional structure and culture as it grows.
Drs. Policano and Fethke stated that externally focused strategic renewal is essential to a public university going forward. They recommended that TAMUCT view itself as a cooperative university and that it constantly engage in community arrangements that are beneficial to both the university and the community. These arrangements will reduce university’s fixed costs; increases fundraising opportunities, stimulate needed “outside-in” thinking; provide community-relevant programs and promote community economic development.
There is no better example of a university /community collaborative project that The Center for Solar Energy. The Center was discussed at the conference by Bruce Mercy, Executive Director of the project. To be built on a five-hundred acre site south of the campus, the Center is committed to fostering growth in the renewable energy industry in the US through testing, demonstrating, incubating and manufacturing components in central Texas. The Center will develop educational programs leading to employment in the renewable energy fields in concert with TAMUCT, community colleges and school districts. The Center is unique in that, because it is being funded, for the most part, with private sector funds, it will be market driven.
About FHER
The Fort Hood Economic Region consists of a partnership between the Greater Killeen Chamber of Commerce, the Belton Economic Development Corporation and Workforce Solutions of Central Texas.