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Texas A&M University-College Station

The latest Texas A&M University-College Station news from The Texas Tribune.

  • Battle Brewing Over Mandatory Meningitis Vaccine

    By Reeve Hamilton

    The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling this week that vaccine manufacturers are protected from lawsuits by parents who believe that vaccines harmed their children is sure to energize anti-immunization advocates working to thwart attempts to expand meningococcal vaccine requirements for college students. Full Story 

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  • Senators Call Tuition Set-Aside Theft, Secret Tax

    By Reeve Hamilton

    One state senator calls it "a 20 percent backdoor secret tax" on those paying for college. Another argues that eliminating it would help create a Texas with a "have-and-have-not culture." And some students say the the tuition set-aside program mandated by the state in 2003 is just plain theft. Full Story 

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    Credit: Illustration by Bob Daemmrich / Todd Wiseman

  • Texplainer: What's a Tier-One University?

    By Reeve Hamilton

    There’s no universal definition but essentially, the term refers to the country’s top research-focused universities. While there are specific benchmarks to be considered part of that group, some aren't clear or rely purely on perception. Full Story 

    Texas A&M University, the University of Texas and Rice University
    Credit: Jacob Villanueva

  • Free Advice

    By Reeve Hamilton

    The interim principal of San Antonio's Thomas Jefferson High believes that the current juniors will be the school’s first with a 100 percent graduation rate and that many will go on to respected universities. One key factor: Allison Najera, a 2010 University of Texas graduate placed at Jefferson through a new program: the Texas College Advising Corps. Full Story 

    TCAC adviser, Allison Najera and Cynthia McCarty, head guidance counselor at Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio
    Credit: Reeve Hamilton

  • TribBlog: Big 12 Spenders

    By Reeve Hamilton

    Texas universities are likely facing massive budget cuts in the upcoming legislative session — so how are they spending the money they have now, and is there even any room for cuts? A new report offers some clues. Full Story 

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    Credit: Jacob Villanueva

  • TribWeek: In Case You Missed It

    By Ross Ramsey

    Grissom (with Tedesco of the San Antonio Express-News) on high-speed police chases on the Texas-Mexico border, Hu and Hamilton draw a roadmap through the tangle of the Speaker's Race, M. Smith on the trouble with electronic supplements to science textbooks, Ramshaw interviews patient privacy advocate Deborah Peel, Aguilar on Cuba and Texas and trade, Hamilton on the latest in biotech from Texas A&M University, Stiles on who's in the money in Congress, Hu on the controversial renewal of the state lottery contract, yours truly on Tom DeLay's victory in the face of his conviction on money-laundering charges, and E. Smith with a Thanksgiving cornucopia of TribLive videos: The best of our best from November 22 to 26, 2010. Full Story 

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  • The Third Coast of Biotech?

    By Reeve Hamilton

    One hundred miles from the nearest major city, where there was nothing but flat earth seven months ago, a 145,000-square-foot facility has sprung up on the Texas A&M Health Science Center campus. Starting in January, its cavernous rooms will be filled with racks of tobacco-like plants expected to produce as many influenza vaccines in a single month as a traditional lab does in one year, at a fraction of the cost. Dr. Brett Giroir, the vice chancellor for research at the Texas A&M University System, calls it the most exciting project of its kind in the world, the potential savior of the next pandemic. And, he says, “it’s in Bryan. Go figure.” Full Story 

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    Credit: Todd Wiseman

  • College Orientation

    By Reeve Hamilton

    More than a quarter-century has passed since a landmark suit against Texas A&M University established the right of gay student groups to form on college campuses. Yet all these years later, half of the university systems in the state — the Texas A&M University System, the Texas State University System and the Texas Tech University System — do not include sexual orientation in their nondiscrimination policies. Full Story 

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    Credit: Illustration by Todd Wiseman

  • Green Horns

    By Kate Galbraith

    When Longhorn football kicks off at home this month, so will a brand-new marketing effort urging boosters to buy, of all things, green electricity. Colt McCoy's family has already signed up with Texas Longhorns Energy, which promises customers 100 percent power from Texas wind. The Aggies will roll out a similar deal on Friday. The programs are another sign of the universities' branding heft — even though they may not be the best deal within the confusing Texas electricity market. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by UT Austin

  • Off-Base?

    By Emily Ramshaw

    The Texas commission charged with aiding economies hit by military base closures will spend millions for a vaccine plant in Bryan-College Station — even though the region’s military base closed nearly five decades ago. Full Story 

    A National Guard soldier receives a seasonal flu shot in Virginia in 2009.
    Credit: U.S. Army

  • The Tracks of Our Tiers

    By Reeve Hamilton

    It could take years before the seven emerging research universities in Texas (Texas Tech University, the University of Houston, the University of North Texas, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of Texas at Arlington, the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of Texas at El Paso) transform themselves into top-tier research campuses — if they do at all. But the state now pays them for demonstrated progress toward that goal, pitting them against one another in competition for limited funds. Officials from all seven will appear before a joint hearing of the House and Senate higher education committees today, seeking to show off progress to lawmakers and to size up where they stand against their peers. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Todd Wiseman

  • The Graduation Gap

    By Reeve Hamilton

    For years, Texas universities have focused on getting more students onto to their campuses. The hard part, it turns out, is getting them to leave in no more than six years. Full Story 

    Texas Southern University had the state's lowest six-year graduation rate — 12 percent in the most recent data. But colleges throughout Texas have struggled to get more students to the finish line.
    Credit: wikipedia.org

  • Of Mice and Men

    By Reeve Hamilton

    When Gov. Rick Perry announced the establishment of the Texas Institute for Genomic Medicine, a public-private partnership between the Texas A&M University System and Lexicon Genetics, he said the $50 million high-level mouse laboratory, paid for through the Texas Enterprise Fund that he controls, would “attract millions of dollars for medical research and lead to the development of life-saving medical treatments and therapies” for everything from diabetes to cancer. Five years later, depending on who you ask, TIGM has either been a massive taxpayer-subsidized boondoggle or a blessing to scientists across the globe. Full Story 

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  • A Better App: Public Employee Pay

    By Matt Stiles and Niran Babalola

    Find the salaries of more than 340,000 public employees with our enhanced data application, including those working at the largest state agencies as well as individual public schools, cities and mass-transit operators. And universities: Did you know, for instance, that of the 10 highest-paid professors at the state's two largest universities, nine are Aggies? Full Story 

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    Credit: Caleb Bryant Miller, Jacob Villanueva