Texas Tech University System

Learning curve┬áThe Texas Tech University System is about halfway through a $1 billion-plus program of investment in facilities and expanded capacity. Ruari McCallion finds out from Mike Ellicott how the landscape is changing. Lubbock, Texas, could be described as centrally placed. ItÔÇÖs around 350 miles from Albuquerque, New Mexico; 350 miles from El Paso, Texas; 350 miles from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and about the same from Dallas, Texas. A stream of visitors come to pay homage to the memory of Buddy Holly, the rock musician who called Lubbock home.  The city serves as the medical, cultural and retail hub for West Texas and Eastern New Mexico, and itÔÇÖs also home to the Texas Tech University System, which has just over 30,000 students on its Lubbock campuses and another 7,500 students on six other West Texas campuses, studying a range of subjects from medicine to engineering. ÔÇ£Since weÔÇÖre so far away from any other major urban centers, we want people to be impressed when they visit,ÔÇØ says Mike Ellicott, vice chancellor of facilities, planning and construction at Texas Tech. Prospective students and their families should be impressed, because the university is around halfway through a major program of investment in new, expanded and refurbished academic, athletic, residential and recreational facilities. ÔÇ£Good facilities attract and retain good quality students, faculty and staff. Well-kept facilities promote good behavior and improve quality of life also.ÔÇØTexas TechÔÇÖs planned capital investment program amounts to over $1.2 billion as it grows to its target of 40,000 students by 2020. They currently come primarily from Texas but also include natives of, especially, Oklahoma and New Mexico, as well as other states, including Florida. Aaron Fitzpatrick, from Orlando, recently signed a national letter of intent to attend Texas Tech and join its golf team, which finished fourth in the Isleworth-UCF Collegiate Invitational in Orlando in October 2008. Not a bad performance from a university that didnÔÇÖt even have its own golf course until the opening of the Tom Doak-designed Rawls Course in 2003; it was made possible by an $8.5 million donation from Texas Tech alumnus and technology company CEO Jerry Rawls.The Rawls Course isnÔÇÖt the only sports facility benefiting from Texas TechÔÇÖs ambitious investment program. The Red Raiders, the college football team, went 11-1 in the 2008 season, and they will soon be playing in an expanded Jones AT&T Stadium complex, which is benefiting from a $25 million project. ÔÇ£With the Red Raiders achieving such great results, our games are selling out more frequently and we need more seats. WeÔÇÖre adding additional club seats and suites on the stadiumÔÇÖs east side and 6,000 additional seats in the north end zone,ÔÇØ says Ellicott. One of the collegeÔÇÖs athletics students competed in the Beijing Olympic Games; the tennis team is achieving good results; and the womenÔÇÖs basketball team added a significant feather to its cap when it took on and beat UCLA. Over the past nine years, Texas Tech has completed projects totaling $608 million; it has $300 million planned for the future, $218 million at the design stage, and is currently working on $115 million of projects. The Health Sciences Center is getting the new Simulation Center for the Schools of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health Sciences for $7.5 million; it will feature standardized patients (actors) who will respond to studentsÔÇÖ questions with symptoms for which theyÔÇÖve been briefed. For early surgery practice, live patients may have given added realism, but that may have pushed the actorsÔÇÖ dedication to extremes. Instead, the Center will feature highly realistic computerized mannequins, which can be used to simulate emergency conditions, including heart attacks. The architecture and biology buildings will see an upgrade of their life safety systems, such as fire detection and alarms, in a $3 million project beginning May 2009, and construction continues on the $70 million Rawls College of Business Administration. As well as private gifts, Texas Tech is utilizing a number of different financing tools, including state funding and bond issues. The last has come in very useful as the university works on bringing the Angelo State campus, at San Angelo, up to the high standards being set by the Lubbock site. ÔÇ£Angelo State became part of Texas Tech in 2007, after a decision by the state legislature,ÔÇØ Ellicott explains. ÔÇ£One of the first things we did was revitalize the residence hall project, which had become stalled. Neither Angelo State nor the surrounding San Angelo community provide much in the way of adequate student housing. The new Angelo State president is changing that through an aggressive program of on-campus housing construction. He prefers to accommodate as many students as possible on campus; having resident students keeps the campus vital, provides more opportunity to interact and allows better access to onsite facilities, such as the libraries, labs and resource areas. WeÔÇÖve completed a $28 million, 500-bed residence hall, started planning for an additional 450-bed residence facility and designed a $12 million project to renovate the Student Services building.ÔÇØ A bond to be repaid out of future rental income is providing capital funding for the residence hall projects. This year will see work continuing on a new fifth floor for the Family Medical Clinic and the expansion of the School of Pharmacy at the Amarillo campus. Texas is experiencing a shortage of pharmacists, and the additional space will allow class sizes to increase 50 percent. The completion of the $13.6 million, 34,560-square-foot Mark & Becky Lanier Professional Development Center addition to the School of Law gave Texas Tech ÔÇ£the finest legal education facility in the nation,ÔÇØ according to Walter Huffman, dean of the law school. Two days after its official opening in the spring of 2008, the Texas Supreme Court heard two cases in the CenterÔÇÖs courtroom. While Ellicott was interested in the ongoing saga of a 100-year-old land dispute and the application of a tort limitation law, it was with pride and relief that he observed all the equipment working as expected and designed in the high-tech facility. ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖve grown by 500 students this year, which is good in the current economy,ÔÇØ he says. ÔÇ£Texas Tech is becoming one of the most attractive universities in the US, both for young Americans and for international students.ÔÇØ ÔÇô Editorial research by Jim Rose┬á