Promises to Keep: The Future for Texas Tech
Jon Whitmore
President, Texas Tech University
Some 20 months ago, I addressed the faculty and students of Texas Tech University and many of our
chief supporters at my inauguration as the fourteenth president of this university. The promises I made
at that time have become the priorities of my administration. As we enter a new academic year, I find
it instructive to review those priorities as we set our agenda for the year.
Advancing academic excellence will be the cornerstone of Texas Tech’s rise to greater state and
national prominence. Academic excellence will be achieved if the Texas Tech family of students,
parents, faculty, staff, alumni, donors, legislators, system’s administration, Lubbock and state-wide
supporters commit to taking the next big step together.
Even though we are poised to achieve great things in the future, I believe we should also reflect on
where we came from. In 1925, Texas Technological College held its first day of classes. President Paul
W. Horn addressed the class of 914 students. He advised them these words that still resonate with
meaning today. West Texas, Horn said, “is a country that lends itself to bigness… Let our thoughts be
big thoughts and broad thoughts. Let our thinking be in worldwide terms.”
Our founders established the only science college in the western two-thirds of the state. With big
thoughts and even bigger dreams, our predecessors grew the science college into a comprehensive
university, embracing not only the sciences, engineering, and agriculture, but also the humanities
and arts.
Their thoughts were so big that Texas Tech today stands as one of the largest single employers and
largest source of economic development in the western two-thirds of the state. Yet, Texas Tech is
a youthful university. It awarded its first Master’s degree in 1928 and its first doctorate in 1953.
Tech now generates $45 million dollars in sponsored research. We have grown to more than 28,000
students.
What has made this growth possible? I believe it has been, above all, the wisdom of our predecessors
to invest wisely in human capital to grow this university. Indeed, there is no better investment than
in people.
As Daniel Gilman said in his 1872 inaugural address as the second president of the University of
California: “It is on the faculty more than on any other body that the building of a university depends.
They give their lives to the work. It is not the site, nor the apparatus, nor the halls, nor the library,
nor the board of regents, which draws the scholars: it is a body of living teachers, skilled in their
specialties, eminent in their calling, loving to teach. Such a body of teachers will make a university
anywhere.” Even, or especially, here on the South Plains of Texas, I might add.
Texas Tech’s faculty comprises highly regarded scientists and engineers, poets, musicians, architects,
lawyers, mathematicians and more. We have expanded their numbers in the past two years, with 43
new positions created and filled. Our goal is to continue to hire new faculty who will enhance the
classroom experience and produce leading-edge research to benefit our community, our nation and
the world.
Great universities do research. They make profound discoveries that change the course of the
world, or change people’s lives for the better, or deepen people’s understanding of what it means
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to be human. A central part of Texas Tech’s rise to preeminence will be by expanding our research
and scholarship portfolios. Tech’s faculty are not just teachers, they are researchers, scholars, and
creative artists. Tech students, both graduate and undergraduate, must actively participate in research
activities in laboratories, field stations, rehearsal halls, archives, and libraries. We are building the
next generation of creative thinkers, problem solvers, and intellectual pioneers.
Another way Texas Tech will achieve national preeminence is through our continuing commitment
to being a university of first choice for the best high school and transfer students in Texas and
surrounding states. We have recently instituted a graduate on time contract, built a beautiful new
residence hall, created a new College of Mass Communications, hired new faculty, and added 29 new
student advisors to ensure that students can graduate on time. We will now create more endowed
scholarships, strengthen the Honors College, build a new home for the Rawls College of Business, and
construct a student health and wellness center.
A sweeping vision of excellence, built to match the vastness of the West Texas plains, is Texas Tech’s
clarion call for the next five years. I have no doubt that we, the Tech family, can do it, together.
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TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY STRATEGIC PLAN
MISSION STATEMENT
Committed to teaching and the advancement of knowledge, Texas Tech University, a comprehensive
public research university, provides the highest standards of excellence in higher education, fosters
intellectual and personal development, and stimulates meaningful research and service to humankind.
VISION STATEMENT
Texas Tech University will be a national leader in higher education—manifesting excellence, embracing diversity, inspiring confidence, and engaging society. The university aspires to a national recognition of excellence and performance in scholarship through teaching, research, and service.
STRATEGIC PRIORITIES AND GOALS
• INVEST
IN PEOPLE OF TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY
Access and Diversity: Recruit, retain, and graduate a larger, more academically prepared, and more diverse student body
Human Resources and Infrastructure: Increase and use resources to recruit and retain
quality faculty and staff and to support an optimal work environment
• ENRICH THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE
Undergraduate Teaching and Learning: Provide nationally recognized instruction in our undergraduate programs
Graduate and Professional Education: Enhance graduate and professional education
opportunities
Engagement: Provide scholarly outreach opportunities that contribute to students’ learning and that benefit our communities, the state, and nation
• ADVANCE RESEARCH AND CREATIVE ENDEAVORS
Research Productivity: Increase research productivity and funding for all areas of inquiry within the university
• STRENGTHEN PARTNERSHIPS
Partnerships: Build strategic partnerships and alliances with community, government,
business, industry, and schools (K-12, community colleges, and universities)
Note: Texas Tech initiated its current strategic planning effort in December 2001 when the Board of Regents approved the university plan. Over the past 4 years, Texas Tech has conducted annual assessments,
encompassing all areas and units based on the strategic plans. Benchmarks are used to measure the
progress toward each goal. In the fall semester 2005, Texas Tech University revised the strategic plan by
focusing the goals around specific strategic priorities. All areas and units have strategic plans that align
with Texas Tech University’s priorities and goals and also reflect the unique mission and vision of each
area and unit. More information regarding the strategic plan and annual assessment reports is available
at http://techdata.irs.ttu.edu/stratreport/.
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