Good morning Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for this opportunity to testify before your subcommittee about our mission and our plans at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. A special thanks to Congressman Hinojosa for bringing these hearings to South Texas where we can more easily participate.

Texas A&M-Kingsville, established in 1925, is the oldest comprehensive and the only research-intensive university in South Texas. Texas A&M-Kingsville seeks to provide quality undergraduate and graduate programs in agriculture, business, education, engineering, pharmacy and arts and sciences. The emphasis is on providing an intellectually challenging education reflecting high standards of academic performance. Our mission is to develop well-rounded leaders and critical thinkers who can solve problems in an increasingly complex, dynamic and global society.

We serve a student body that is largely from South Texas, but there is wide diversity in the population, with students from more than 28 states and more than 33 countries. Graduate students comprise about 20 percent of our student body. The average age of our students in Kingsville is 24 years and more than 60% of our freshmen are first generation college students. Our total enrollment between our campus in Kingsville and new campus in South San Antonio is approximately 6800 students. Of these, about 61 percent are Hispanic, reflecting the demographics of our region.

Our university currently offers 51 bachelor degree programs, 54 masters and five doctoral programs. The doctoral programs are in Environmental Engineering, Bilingual Education, Educational Leadership, Wildlife Sciences, and Horticulture. All of these programs are in good demand and have a healthy enrollment. These five programs, however, hardly touch the surface on the demand for additional post baccalaureate and professional programs in South Texas. Due to a lack of funding, we are being held back from starting five new doctoral programs. These are: Pharmacy, Wildlife Medical Science, Hispanic Studies, Chemical Engineering and Civil Engineering. In addition, we have plans for five new masters degrees in: Fine Arts, Computer Information Systems, Instructional Technology, Industrial Management and Ranch Management.

Not surprisingly, funding is always an issue when considering new degree programs. Finding sources of funding for new programs is one of the greatest challenges facing Texas A&M-Kingsville today. We can identify the demands for new programs. We can develop proposals and curricula. We can develop meaningful research projects. What we cannot do is fund these new programs without some type of start-up funding. We cannot create the infrastructure required for quality doctoral programs without some type of financial support from state, federal or private sources.

Texas A&M-Kingsville has a commitment to keeping pace with degree offerings in other parts of the state and the nation, including a number of master’s degree programs and selected doctoral degree programs. These advanced degree programs are critical to the economic development of our region as well as to the professional and personal development of our citizens. They provide important opportunities for better jobs and better pay for South Texans. These opportunities will not come without some assistance in the form of seed or start-up funding to develop and expand our post baccalaureate degree offerings and the research capacity that accompany these types of programs. Seed funding or start-up funding for development of new master’s and doctoral programs will multiply the dollars invested in a very short period of time. These dollars, in turn, will result in an educated workforce that will contribute to the strengths of this region, this state, this nation, and the rest of the world.

Let me share with you one example of how an investment of only $350,000 from state funds made possible the creation of a doctoral program in Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M-Kingsville. This program began enrolling students in January 2002 and three months later in March of the same year the faculty succeeded in obtaining a National Science Foundation grant for $5 million to establish the Center for Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST). Also created during the same year was the South Texas Environmental Institute. Within one and one-half years of operation, this program has generated a total of $7.7 million dollars in research grants that are helping to support the research projects, provide financial support for graduate students and faculty and conduct valuable environmental research for the South Texas region. Initial enrollment for this program exceeded our expectations. We currently have 28 doctoral students enrolled and 25% of these are Hispanic (that means we will be the largest producer of Hispanic environmental engineers in the country). This program has provided an important opportunity for South Texas students, for the state of Texas and for this nation. Just as important as producing environmental engineers, is that the program is conducting valuable environmental research for this region. My point in elaborating on this example is that with a very small investment, this doctoral program has flourished and is providing a valuable service to this nation. It demonstrates what is possible when we identify a need and are able to find sources of funding to meet that need.

We are currently attempting to start a Doctorate of Pharmacy program, the first such professional program in South Texas. This program is scheduled to begin in the fall of 2005, but it is being jeopardized by lack of funding. We have secured construction funding of $15.5 million dollars. Unfortunately, we have yet to secure the $5.486 million needed for the operation of the school. This program was created in response to a critical need for more pharmacists statewide and across the nation. By locating this professional school in South Texas, we hope to have a positive impact on the number of pharmacists in our own region, especially in the rural communities of South Texas. In addition to training much-needed pharmacists who are more likely to remain in the region, we also anticipate that the pharmacy program will bring in approximately $10 to $20 million dollars into our region through related industries and research within the first five years of operation.

In my earlier remarks I mentioned that we had plans to start five new doctoral and five masters programs. These will require start-up funding. The cost for starting a new quality doctoral program is in the range of $3-5 million dollars over a four-year period. In order to develop highly competitive and well-respected programs, we need to be able to hire faculty who have a high level of expertise. These faculty can literally ensure the success and growth of a program because they attract top-quality graduate students, additional faculty members, and write competitive research proposals. They conduct important research and attract external sources of funding for their programs. These start-up funds are also needed for providing the necessary graduate research and teaching assistantships, funds for maintenance and operations, and funds for the required lab and office equipment and supplies. In the state of Texas we have a method of funding that requires institutions to start new programs on their own for the first two years before state formula funding begins to flow. Typically, it is these start-up funds that are the major obstacles to our starting new graduate level programs.

Programs such as The McNair Scholars program have been very successful in recruiting underserved students into graduate study. Ninety-eight percent of our McNair students completed their bachelor’s degree, and 70 percent have entered graduate programs. Twelve percent have gone on to pursue doctoral degrees, and that’s better than the national average of seven percent. There is little doubt that these types of programs that provide financial support for students wanting to pursue post baccalaureate programs really work. What we would like to see is more of these types of programs.

These statistics show that federally funded programs can make a difference. We have seen that difference at Texas A&M-Kingsville and we remain dedicated to continuing to affect positive changes in our region. These programs have begun the important process of bridging the educational gap that exists in South Texas, but there is always more that is needed. We must continue to develop new programs, to provide the needed educational infrastructures and to provide the necessary opportunities for our students to succeed.

It is our hope that the federal government will not only remain a partner in the process of providing educational opportunities in South Texas, but that it will increase its contribution to that process. South Texas institutions of higher education have consistently demonstrated that small investments result in a multiplier effect for the expansion of our programs, a multiplier effect for the economic development of our region, and more important, a multiplier effect for the improvement of the quality of life of South Texans.

Thank you!