As the clock wound down on the year’s second overtime legislative session, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the powerful leader of the Texas Senate, took a few minutes to say goodbye to his right-hand man, Sen. Brandon Creighton: The architect of a recent bevy of laws reshaping higher education in Texas—from the ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs to limits on protests and faculty’s influence on campuses—was stepping down to take a new job overseeing those very changes.
Texas Tech regents voted Thursday to name the Conroe Republican their sole finalist for chancellor, the university system’s top job, betting that his political connections and influence at the Capitol will help secure funding, expand research opportunities and elevate the system’s profile.
Chancellors are at the helm of each university system’s fleet of campuses, and Texas universities have increasingly turned to politicians to lead them, a shift that Patrick celebrated Wednesday. He pointed to the Texas A&M and University of Texas systems’ new chancellors—Glenn Hegar, the state’s former state comptroller and a former state senator, and former state Rep. John Zerwas, respectively—as models of the kind of political leadership he believes universities need.
Read more at The Texas Tribune.
