As West Texas Influence in Austin Wanes, Texas Tech Takes a New Approach

If Texas were its own country, it could claim to have the 10th largest economy in the world, and two of its main industries would be energy and agriculture. Both, of course, are prominently rooted in West Texas, where something like less than 15% of Texans of live.These facts were part of Texas Tech Chancellor Tedd Mitchell’s pitch this year to the Legislature as he made the argument that taking care of Tech would help a large part of the state succeed in the decades ahead. The pitch worked, as Tech got everything it asked for from the Legislature this year. One secret to his pitch was a simple approach: just one special request per university, the full force of West Texas support, and the promise to sell off his house to economize. That’s not to say Tech got more goodies than other public universities.   Continue reading...