UT's Reform-Minded Chairman at Center of Controversy
SAN ANTONIO — When Gene Powell first arrived at the University of Texas at Austin in 1964, it was on a scholarship to play offensive guard and defensive linebacker for the legendary coach Darrell K Royal.
“I was a very average to mediocre football player, and that’s probably being generous,” Powell, a real estate developer and South Texas native, recalled during an interview at his San Antonio office this week.
More than four decades later, Powell was asked to return to Austin — this time by Gov. Rick Perry, who needed a staunch ally and strong leader to support his reforms ...
Comments (4)
hans5162@ix.netcom.com hans
What Alumni object to is the cheapening of our degrees and attempts to impose mediocrity on the part of certain regents with an ideological agenda. They are acting in lockstep with the idiotic policies recommended by O'Donnel, TPPF and Americans for Prosperity. Quality costs money. Just ask our drooling idiot governor how much those nice, custom boots he wears cost. That seemingly intelligent people would take their cues from a governor who never had an original thought in his life and who does not appear to pick up a newspaper or a magazine is disturbing. If the Perry appointees and Perry want to open the gates of Hell, they should continue with these misguided "reforms." We'll be waiting for them with pitch forks.
JC DemocratofTejas
peripoodle. Taking down one Texas University at at time. Wish I could convince rick he was still in the race so he'd get outta town and take powell with him, and o'donnel and all his pups.
allen gilmer
Although it is fashionable to maintain that a quality education must cost more and more and we should shovel more into it, without question, there is very little real evidence to that concept. The University system, as it has evolved, is a pretty large and rapidly depreciating new buildings programs that will bear the names of donors. Any time someone questions the existing model, they are immediately attacked. As is, the real cost of college education has grown faster than GDP, the marketing of "college education" as the most important stepping stone for a better life has resulted in various majors that graduate students poorly prepared for the working world, and rightfully resentful of being scammed. The system we have is unsustainable and broken. How do we fix it? Or do we just want to throw more money at the problem and get poorer results for the extra cost... ie the road we are on now? It is easy to call each other names, where is the solution?
T D
One could always open one's own university, Allen, and show the fashionable people just how it can be done.
You would find out very, very quickly that it's not as easy as it sounds. A major leader of the educational reform movement opened his own professional school in Austin, and the tuition is close to $50,000 a year. For one year.
But then you knew that already.