AUSTIN, Texas - State Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa has given a shoutout to retiring Texas A&M System Chancellor John Sharp for his critically acclaimed "Bordering the Future" report.
Sharp published “Bordering the Future: Challenge and Opportunity in the Texas Border Region” in 1998 whilst he was Texas State Comptroller. The report gave an in-depth assessment of the economic, political, and social condition of the Texas border counties.
The report showed that if the 43-county region stretching from El Paso to Brownsville were a state unto itself, it would rank first in the nation in poverty, first in unemployment, and first in the percentage of residents without a high school diploma.
“One of the biggest impacts you had, besides statewide and all the different programs pushing A&M to a much higher level, was in the Rio Grande Valley,” Hinojosa told Sharp.
“You will recall, in 1999 you released a report about the challenges and opportunities that the border area offered to the state. And from that report you suggested and recommended certain initiatives. And we implemented those initiatives. They have made such a difference in taking the Valley out of poverty, making it into an economic success.”
Hinojosa made his comments during a Senate Committee on Finance hearing at the state Capitol. Sharp was there to testify on Texas A&M’s funding requests for the next biennium.
“People don't realize the impact that Chancellor Sharp has had throughout our state and the nation, and for that, we are very grateful and thankful for what he did,” Hinojosa said.
Sharp penned an op-ed about Bordering the Future for Texas Monthly in September 1999, after he had left the Comptroller’s Office. He said:
“As a son of South Texas—I was born and raised in Victoria—I confess to a certain bias. I think the challenges of the border region demand our attention now, not later. I think the future of our state, even those areas that are far removed from the international boundary itself, will increasingly be subject to the ups and downs of the border.
“The Texas workforce of the future will be drawn largely from this region, where a huge and growing population of young people gives us a comparative advantage envied by other states. If we continue to shirk our responsibility to provide them with the best possible education, those young people will be a liability large enough to drag down the rest of us. But if we offer them the educational and training opportunities they deserve, they will drive a future prosperity so strong that it will make the books of the past look like a barn dance.”
Sharp retires as chancellor of Texas A&M University System in the summer. All the senators on the finance committee thanked him for his many years of public service and his leadership. In his remarks, Hinojosa said Sharp deserves credit, believe it or not, for helping the Valley land a medical school established by the University of Texas System.
“In 2013, we wanted to create a medical school in South Texas. We received some pushback from the University of Texas, and you offered to create a medical school in South Texas. Almost within days after that story came out, UT relented to said, okay, we'll support a medical school in South Texas, and now we have a medical school. Thank you for doing that for us,” Hinojosa told Sharp.
Sharp asked the chair of the finance committee, Sen. Joan Huffman of Houston, if he could explain how that happened. She said yes.
“How that really happened is Chuy Hinojosa and Alonzo Cantu came to me and said, can you come down here and act like you're putting a medical school in the Rio Grande. True story,” Sharp said.
“I said, okay. So, they took me to the country club and made sure all the folks saw me. And they kind of, sort of, put it in the paper that we were going to create a medical school. I had (the Texas A&M University System) Board of Regents, saying, what are you doing? And what was it, two days later UT came and gave them (Hinojosa and Cantu) a check for $50 million?”
Hinojosa responded: “It worked.”
Sharp replied: “That is the rest of the story.”
Hinojosa said Sharp also deserves praise for establishing a higher education center in McAllen that is part of Texas A&M University in College Station. “Thank you for that,” Hinojosa said.
Sharp responded:
“Yes, I’m real proud of that. So, kids in the Rio Grande Valley… I mean, you’ve got 9,000 kids in the Rio Grande Valley that cannot go past the checkpoint. So, they could not go to the University of Texas or Texas A&M even if they had IQs of 400, because they just can't get there. So, what this does is, these kids can go there (Texas A&M University Higher Education Center at McAllen), and it's the same as an enrollment at Texas A&M. When they get through that they have the same ring, the same degree, the same everything. It's not a branch campus. It’s not a regional campus. It’s the same degree that I have.”
Hinojosa added: “Thank you, Chancellor Sharp for your great service to the state of Texas.”
Editor's Note: Here is an audio recording of the exchange between state Sen. Juan Hinojosa and Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Finance:
