100. The Future of UTSA with President Taylor Eighmy: Merger, Expansion, & Big Plans for San Antonio

[00:00:00] Bob Rivard: Welcome to big city, small town, the weekly podcast, all about San Antonio and the people who make it go and grow. I'm your host, Bob Rivard here at big city, small town. We will be focusing much more this year on UTSA and its continued growth and trajectory and its importance to the city and elevating San Antonio's education outcomes.

[00:00:25] Bob Rivard: Our particular focus today and going forward will be on UTSA's high profile merger with UTHealth San Antonio later this year. That's a process that's already well underway. The force behind the merger, the continuing expansion of UTSA's downtown campus, many other advances at UTSA is its president, Dr.

[00:00:45] Bob Rivard: Taylor Amey, who arrived in San Antonio in his present position in 2017. And has served as a force of change in advancement ever since President Amy has been appointed by the University Texas Board of Regents as [00:01:00] president of the two merged institutions President Amy, welcome to the big city small town.

[00:01:04] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Bob, it's a delight to be here, and I'm remembering back when I first met you because obviously you're a distinguished alum of UTSA. And I think we met right away when I first arrived back in September of 2017, and I've obviously deeply appreciated the passion that you have for our community and the things that you wanted to talk about, about, uh, higher ed and its impact in the community and where higher ed was going and where UTSA was going, so, um, in many ways I've been deeply connected to your passion and your, your support for our community and, uh, I'm appreciative of all the Kind things you've said about our institutions and and our leadership teams and where we're going you've Hosted other colleagues of mine on this new podcast of yours.

[00:01:51] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Well 100 episodes in is a little special. It's not quite new. It's established But it's a delight to be here and share this [00:02:00] Opportunity in this conversation with you. So I'm looking forward to it. Well, 

[00:02:03] Bob Rivard: thanks for those great And by the 

[00:02:05] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: way, uh, I, I, you're giving me way too much credit. I am surrounded by talent everywhere on, uh, at my, my current institution, the University of Texas at San Antonio, but also now at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, which.

[00:02:21] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: It's an amazing institution, and the leadership that was in place under Dr. Henrich's period of leadership was profound, and I am the luckiest person in the world to be able to work with the leadership teams at both institutions. So it's not about me, it's about the collective us. 

[00:02:39] Bob Rivard: Well, we've had some, uh, some really strong, uh, leaders from UTSA on the podcast and we're going to have more because there's so much going on, uh, here in 2025 and beyond.

[00:02:49] Bob Rivard: Actually, 

[00:02:49] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: I, I'm going to want to volunteer some of my colleagues from UT Health San Antonio to come on over and join the show too. So we'll work that out. 

[00:02:57] Bob Rivard: Dr. Francisco Sigueroa, are you listening? 

[00:02:59] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: [00:03:00] Yeah. 

[00:03:00] Bob Rivard: We'd love to have you on Cisco and you can bring your guitar and, and play a little Spanish music for us.

[00:03:05] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: There you go. 

[00:03:06] Bob Rivard: All right. Well, it's great to have you on. Thanks for the kind words. I think I speak for all the alums in the city. Uh, may I call you Taylor on the podcast? Absolutely. Uh, I think I speak for all the alums, Taylor, in saying how we are so excited about everything that's going on, probably more than we can even cover in one podcast, but let's get right to it.

[00:03:25] Bob Rivard: I'd like to just know. Where this merger is rooted. It's uh, there's so many Tier one research universities around the country public universities that do have medical schools Um, we've always had two distinct institutions Not just our medical school, but the dental school the nursing school Uh, there's a lot of resources out there a lot of talent and it's incredible to see it coming together But i'm curious how it all came about.

[00:03:50] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Yeah, this so there's a couple of threads to pull there. Um, there was a A thread that involves the passion in the community about this. [00:04:00] You may recall back in 99 or 2000, Senator Letitia Vandepute put forward some legislation to merge the two institutions, and I didn't realize this, but when I caught up with Letitia about it six or eight months ago, she shared that ahead of her preparing her proposed bill, she had spent um, Five days at the University of California, San Diego, UC San Diego, understanding how they manage their academic and health affairs enterprises in such a remarkable way, because as an institution they were, you know, uh, they're, presently they're only like 65 years old, and they have come such a far way in such short time.

[00:04:41] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: They're one of our aspirant peers, as we think about the future, and the fact that she went and visited. You know, uh, 25 years ago is says a lot about her and about the kinds of thoughts that were on the table in the community. And, uh, the legislation didn't pass, but it did promote some collaborations between the two institutions around [00:05:00] biomedical research was which was important, but uh, then there was a one or two, uh efforts to study this by the board of regents and Uh, the principal effort, maybe 17, 18 years ago, my timing is not perfect from my, my remembering it, but around then, maybe 15 years ago, um, the, the, a little longer, the, the board's study committee said, great idea, not the right time.

[00:05:26] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: And, uh, so there was, uh, interest in the community and, and even when I was interviewing for the job at UTSA back in 2016, there was a. Op ed in the Express News by Mayor Nuremberg and and maybe Jim Reed. I'm trying to remember it was folks like that, but it was when when when Ron was a city council member and it was encouraging.

[00:05:51] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: No, it was actually Nelson Wolf and and I think Jim Reed who who put it together and and and talk to the then chancellor about it. And folks [00:06:00] felt that's not quite ready. But there's this kind of latent. Desire to see something like this happen in the community, but then separately And perhaps more importantly the board of regents under chairman all types Leadership has been very very active and creative and thinking about the best possible structuring and focus of the component institutions within UT system to meet the educational and workforce development and innovation and community engagement needs of the state of Texas.

[00:06:33] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: So if you look at the track record under Chairman Altaif, there, and there was some earlier action around the creation of U. T. Rio Grande Valley from U. T. Pan American and U. T. Brownsville and the medical school component from U. T. L. San Antonio. That was back in 2015. But more recently, the merger of U. T.

[00:06:52] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Tyler U. T. Health Tyler was one big thing. The acquisition of Stephen F. Austin University was another big thing. The creation [00:07:00] of a new campus in Fort Worth for launching that for U. T. Arlington was a big thing. The Collaboration between Dell Medical School at UT Austin and MD Anderson about building two new hospital towers for collaborative R& D in the cancer space up in Austin on the, on the campus.

[00:07:17] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: There is a very powerful thing, but in all honesty, this merger of our two institutions is. Probably going to be the biggest within UT systems history and certainly from a national perspective It's the largest academic merger of public or private institutions historically in the United States So it's a big deal and there's a whole reason why we really want to do this and it comes down to the fact that The very best public research universities have within it the entire health affairs, academic medical center, health science center enterprise embedded in the fabric and structure and organization [00:08:00] of the larger university, even though From a financial perspective or a scientific impact perspective, or in some ways even specialized, uh, educational attainment perspectives around preparing the health force, health workforce of the future.

[00:08:14] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: In many ways, the larger component on all of these campuses is the health affairs enterprise. So, uh, if you were to look at the very best. Public research universities in the United States, Michigan, UNC, UCLA, Washington, UC San Diego, they all have this model. And so, in some ways, Texas is unique to have, somewhat unique to have a standalone health science center and a standalone academic institution.

[00:08:42] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Um, and it was so logical to bring the two together, especially with our positive trajectories. What we're really doing with this is not a consolidation effort at all. It's not one plus one equals 1. 8. It's not even additive of one plus one [00:09:00] equals two. It is completely focused on building the foundation of a world class university so that in ten years we're competing with the UC San Diego's of the world and UCLA's of the world and the Michigan's of the world.

[00:09:14] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: So we're thinking about this even with all of the present challenges out in the world that the model we're espousing is go big. One plus one equals ten. So that's where we're going with this. 

[00:09:26] Bob Rivard: Well, it seems exciting, especially a fast growing university, fast growing city, fastest growing city last year in the country.

[00:09:34] Bob Rivard: Yeah, we're about 

[00:09:34] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: to top, uh, uh, uh, Philadelphia and become the sixth largest city in the United States. I think that's going to happen this calendar year. 

[00:09:42] Bob Rivard: Isn't that extraordinary? Yeah. Well, it'll, it will, uh, it'll, it'll put us on a map in a way that maybe we haven't been in the past. I was at a group of community leaders that were very excited about this, uh, uh, that was held at Frost Bank about a month ago that you're aware of.

[00:09:56] Bob Rivard: And it was kind of amusing as a journalist to sit back and [00:10:00] watch all of this brain power in the room, try to determine what's it going to be called. And, and, uh, I think we all agreed it ought to be called UTSA after someone in the room said, Well, nobody has to explain UCLA to anybody. You just say UCLA and you understand what you're talking about.

[00:10:17] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Yeah. You know, um, I think you have to frame it this way. What we're doing involves both a component called merger and a component called integration. And the merger is sort of a legal definition and it is driven by our accrediting body where both institutions are accredited by SACS COC, which is the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.

[00:10:44] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: SACS COC accredits both of our institutions from an academic perspective on all the things we do to offer programs and the faculty we support and things like that. So it's our principal accreditor for both institutions. I mean, our engineering is [00:11:00] accredited, our medical school is accredited, the dental school is accredited, nursing is accredited, everything is accredited, but the Uber, Uber accreditation comes from SACCOC and we have to go, go through a process with them whereby we submit to them a prospectus around the substantive change of really bringing UTHealth San Antonio into UTSA and we're developing this prospectus.

[00:11:25] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: It will be submitted next month and their board of SACCOC will rule on the merger and approve it essentially in June. Our board will then. Act on their approval, and we've already worked out with sex, you know, see that the official merger date will be September one. Of this year doesn't relate at all to the process of integrating two Very big very prominent very positive trajectory institutions And when you think about all the things that you could be merging, uh related to finance [00:12:00] administration operations legal governmental relations communications and marketing Research which will be obviously a huge component Risk management athletics.

[00:12:11] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Obviously, there's no athletics component on the UT Health side, but there are a lot of fans over at UT Health who love the Roadrunners, but in the in the big picture sense, we're taking two very complementary organizations, uh, the The health affairs component of, of UT Health San Antonio is massive. The clinical enterprise is massive.

[00:12:29] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: They were involved in, in about 2. 6 patient, million patient visits last year, which is huge. And their relationship with University Hospital is really, really strategic and important. The launch of their new hospital, the Multi Specialty Research Hospital, is also strategic and important. But their enterprise is so Clinically focused and research focused, it actually complements what we do on the on the academic side with our huge undergraduate program.

[00:12:59] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Our huge [00:13:00] graduate program are increasingly important research program. And so the reason why these national models of excellence that I referred to earlier, like UCLA or Harvard, Uh, or, or, or UC San Diego or UNC, uh, Chapel Hill are because they have these two components already blended together to make a super, superstar university.

[00:13:21] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: So that's why we're doing all this. And then the naming of all of this brings to bear all of these interesting cultural issues that relate to two institutions that have been marching forward inexorably with very positive trajectories, especially over the last 20 years. And so you have. Our athletic base that loves the concept of, of UTSA, UTSA, UTSA, and you have a, a health science center that is completely, um, wedded to this notion of, of UTHealth San Antonio, making lives better, um, and so we're going to have to navigate the, the going [00:14:00] forward with a, with a name that is reflective of creating a new university, we're going to have a marketing and branding campaign that will a Culminate in an initial launch of the narrative about our new university on September one, uh, and the navigating all of this, including brand identity and taglines and color of emblems and all of this still has to be navigated.

[00:14:26] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: But we are leaning towards. This notion that the new university that we're creating and the process we'll work on to integrate all these components as we go forward will be something like, uh, our regential name will still be the University of Texas at San Antonio, but we have to come forward with a more common proper name for us that will probably be UT San Antonio because we want to differentiate and really start to marquee the San Antonio component of it.

[00:14:58] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: And if you think [00:15:00] about how most, if not all of the other institutions in, in, in UT system are, are formally named separate from their regential name, there's this common vernacular of UT Austin, UT Dallas, UT El Paso. So, uh, we're going to migrate. In a formal way away from U. T. S. A. But we're gonna continue to have U.

[00:15:21] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: T. S. A. Yelled and screamed about it. All of our athletic events, and I'm sure it's gonna still be on gear and swag and whatnot. But we're really using this launch day on September one to start a narrative about being a world class. Uh, top tier, uh, top 10 public research university, and, and it goes with a story that's compelling about why now and why us and why we are the future.

[00:15:48] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: But we're going to have to have a name that connotes change and new and bringing together two institutions and honoring the past and being ready for the future. So it's, it's one of the most political things I've ever [00:16:00] probably been involved. And if I survive it, we'll, we'll be, we'll be pleased about it, but some will be pleased.

[00:16:04] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: I think you're on the right track. I 

[00:16:06] Bob Rivard: think UT San Antonio, uh, we can all find common ground with that. And 

[00:16:11] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: true actually truth is a lot of the listening sessions that we're doing with our marketing and branding consultant. Profit a lot of the conversation with our community. You were party to one of those conversations that this has come up a lot and And there are camps that want to stay the same their camps that want new their camps that have ideas about new and But we've heard a lot of input from the community separate from our two campuses That the new name has to connote newness going forward for the new university And it also has to be very emblematic of why we're so unique here in this part of the world.

[00:16:49] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: And getting the name San Antonio into that is really critical. We've heard that from all quarters. 

[00:16:55] Bob Rivard: I'm not surprised. I ask about the name. It is important. And [00:17:00] maybe because it's the, uh, it's the veneer of a much deeper issue, which is how do you, how do you integrate those two very distinct cultures, Taylor?

[00:17:08] Bob Rivard: And I should tell our audience members, this has been a very methodical process and they can go to the UTSA websites. You have a month by month, uh, accreditation process laid out. Uh, month by month, who has to do what to make things happen. You've named your new cabinet, uh, you've picked a very distinguished medical leader in the community.

[00:17:29] Bob Rivard: Dr Francisco Cigarroa, the former. 

[00:17:32] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: I am so happy that, uh, when I pitched this to him, he graciously and elegantly and with great. sense of service to the institutions and to the community and to who we serve. He was gladly able to say yes. 

[00:17:48] Bob Rivard: Here's someone who is a transplant surgeon, a rock star in his own realm medically, um, who rose to become the, the, the, the head of the UT.

[00:17:58] Bob Rivard: System and the [00:18:00] region. Actually, 

[00:18:00] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: he, um, 

[00:18:01] Bob Rivard: chancellor came 

[00:18:02] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: here in the early nineties as a, as a young transplant surgeon. And, uh, to his credit on weekends. And, uh, even until recently, um, he was the acting dean of the long school of medicine. He was using up at least one of his weekends a month doing transplants and supporting all the colleagues that he recruited into the transplant center.

[00:18:25] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: It's a world class transplant center, top five nationally. And, uh, so in, in the midst of his, um, serving as the acting dean of the Long School of Medicine, he was still doing transplant. But if you go back to when he arrived and started doing transplants here in the early 90s, He progressed at an incredibly young age to become the president at UTHealth San Antonio.

[00:18:49] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: And then he answered a calling to become the chancellor of the University of Texas system. And he did that for, oh, I don't know, eight or ten years, something like that. [00:19:00] And came back to be a transplant surgeon. And when, uh, obviously when, uh, the tragic loss of Dr. Henrich, uh, with Dr. Romas being named. From the Long School of Medicine Acting President, uh, Dr.

[00:19:13] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Romas asked Dr. Sigatoroa to step in and lead the Long School of Medicine as, as acting, acting dean. So, Francisco has had this marvelous career of service to the greater good, to the purpose of the institution, to, To really being sort of the, the, the moral compass and the philosophical compass and the, and sort of the, the face of the why we do what we do.

[00:19:39] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: So the fact that he's willing to step in now and serve as the senior executive vice president for health affairs and health system is a marvelous thing for our merged state. And it's a marvelous thing for our leadership team. And I am the luckiest guy in the world that I'm going to get a chance to work with him.

[00:19:54] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: I don't know if you know this, but when I was. Interviewing for the job here, I tell this story too [00:20:00] often, but I can't help it. It's too good to not tell. When I was interviewing for the job here as president of UTSA back in 2016, He and Dr. Henrich and Dr. Guy Bailey, who's now the president at UT Rio Grande Valley, but who hired me when I first came to Texas in 2009, I became Bailey's vice president for research at Texas Tech.

[00:20:23] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: So, uh, Henrich, Siguroa, and Bailey were all on the search committee, and it was actually Dr. Henrich who asked me the hardest question. Dr. Siguroa and Dr. Bailey went easy on me. But, uh, I've had a chance to know Francisco, obviously, since then. Since our time here in San Antonio, but I actually had met him a bunch of times when I was at Texas Tech and he was the chancellor of of UT system.

[00:20:47] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: And if you were to think about this nationally and the way he serves and the generosity of his and his selflessness of how he serves. I mean, he's world renowned for this and in the [00:21:00] pantheon of higher education, and we're just so Fortunate that he's ready to do this again. So, 

[00:21:05] Bob Rivard: well, I don't think you could have a stronger partner.

[00:21:07] Bob Rivard: And I think it matters enormously because for all of the exterior excitement about this, getting internal buy in in any culture change is essential. And you have all these people that come from the, you know, public health and healthcare and medical world and science and then academic education, and they've all got to come together.

[00:21:28] Bob Rivard: And, uh, enthusiastically support the initiative to make it successful. 

[00:21:32] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: And, you know, um, I could spend a lot of time on this. I'll, let me try and summarize it this way. The, the process of this coming to fruition and being announced by the Board of Regents last August was both a surprise and not a surprise to everybody and, uh, as I reached out last August to the community that I was contacting, Dr.

[00:21:55] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Romas as acting president was doing the same and our two teams were doing [00:22:00] this, um, I heard a lot of comments from the folks I connected with of, uh, It's great. What took you so long? And oh, are you going to be the new UCLA? How long will that take? And, and this is the best thing for our community. And we could, we need to actually talk about that for a second about why this is important.

[00:22:16] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: But if you were to, to, to look at the two cultures, um, and. And of our two institutions, there were obvious differences. The focus on health care provision and making lives better and the research enterprise at UT Health San Antonio is deeply embedded there and it's foundational. It's in the DNA of the institution.

[00:22:36] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: And, uh, some of that overlaps with the DNA at UTSA. But, uh, on the other hand, the DNA at UTSA is about access to education, lifting lives up.

[00:22:54] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: And if you cut to the core of what both institutions really care about the most, and what [00:23:00] is sort of at the, at the foundational level for our two mission statements, it's about, The concept of using health care and health innovation to make lives better or to use education to make lives better. And we had this massive, we have a whole structure in place on how we're integrating.

[00:23:17] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: We have a really large integration steering committee, an executive committee of it. We have launched all of these task forces and working groups that are methodically tackling this. And we'll continue to do this over the next probably three years as we work to integrate. Everything will integrate. But.

[00:23:34] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: We had this massive aha moment at the integration steering committee when we all realized that if you pair away the focus on what's your version of excellence or what's our version of excellence, or where do we put our innovative resources? Where do you put your innovative resources? Why are you important in the world?

[00:23:52] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Why are we important in the real world? If you cut out all of that important stuff and you look at the foundation for both, we had this aha [00:24:00] moment of We're actually no different from each other. If you think about this concept of education makes lives better Healthcare and health innovation makes lives better.

[00:24:10] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: And then when that moment hit I don't know late November when we were working on all of these things we've been doing it was like This is the simplest thing in the world. It's the hardest thing in the world, but it's the simplest thing in the world. So all of our focus on change management and, and, and really getting everybody in our two communities the opportunity to buy in, to help craft and create the foundation for a new university will be part of this work in progress.

[00:24:34] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: But, um, the sort of the. I don't want to call them impediments, but the logical collisions of two positive cultures would obviously have, at the fringe or at the margin, these kind of interesting tensions. That's pretty much gone away. And it's like everybody understands now this, this notion. And I want to give Dr.

[00:24:54] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Sigurdur all the credit in the world for crafting this. As he said, and as we've [00:25:00] adopted, we are at an inflection point. As we merge the two institutions and create a brand new university, 1 plus 1 equals 10, we are at an inflection point towards greatness. And who can argue with that, right? It's the perfect thing to think about.

[00:25:17] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: I mean, I'm going to be doing this for the next Um, teen years, I can't think of something better to work on to create for our community. And I, I think one of the questions we should talk about a little bit is why is this important to San Antonio? 

[00:25:30] Bob Rivard: Absolutely. 

[00:25:31] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: So I, I don't know if you want to riff on that for a sec, but I won't talking too much.

[00:25:35] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: I want to 

[00:25:35] Bob Rivard: know. I want to tell our audience, you mentioned that you were the former vice president of research at Texas tech. And I, I don't think a lot of people, even people that know you realize that you had senior research. leadership positions at three different flagship universities at Texas Tech, at University of Tennessee, University of New Hampshire.

[00:25:52] Bob Rivard: Right. And I remember actually a couple years ago, Taylor, I had the opportunity to moderate a panel with you and Dr. Henrich at the [00:26:00] time. And I think our colleagues from University Hospital and Southwest Research and Adam 

[00:26:05] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Hamilton and Larry Schlesinger. 

[00:26:06] Bob Rivard: Texas Biomed. And I think it was titled the billion dollar research combine because that that's together the kind of dollars you were bringing into the community and equally important, the brainpower that's here, uh, that's educating tomorrow's, uh, leaders in the community, the students today, uh, they wouldn't be here if they didn't have those research projects and the teams that those dollars support.

[00:26:33] Bob Rivard: So talk a little bit about. Okay. Research. Yeah. And why it matters. 

[00:26:37] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Let me, uh, let me preface that first by, by making this observation. Um, so our two institutions are relatively young. I don't remember our exact ages, but I think UT Health, San Antonio is like 61 years old and, and UT San Antonio is like 56 years old.

[00:26:54] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: So in the, in the grand scheme of things from a, uh, uh, uh, public research university [00:27:00] perspective. We're both relatively young and we both come a long way in short order. Um, and you want to compare ourselves to some of the very best and brightest newer universities like, like, uh, you see San Diego as a wonderful example.

[00:27:15] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: They started around the same time. Um, And so our, our aspirations are to be like that within 10 years to have a very bold trajectory going forward. But the, the fact of the matter is, is that our community, our city of San Antonio, our part of Texas deserves an institution like this because of how we serve and make lives better.

[00:27:37] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: We really have to be here for our community about how we educate and how we provide. Healthcare and innovations in healthcare and given the population growth that's expected for San Antonio, nevermind South Texas. We are coming together at the absolute right time and uh, every conversation I've had with community members about this.[00:28:00] 

[00:28:00] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: I hear these kinds of comments. You have great agency, Taylor. You and your colleagues have great agency to affect the trajectory of our community and to make an impact and you're not creating an elite university. You're creating a university for community here in Texas are are really the state of Texas and beyond.

[00:28:20] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: And what you do with this foundational moment as you, as you, um, as you pivot towards greatness. You have an obligation here to serve the community in a way that continues all that you do now. That's so important. And so I think San Antonio deserves this and warrants this. It warrants it from an educational perspective, a health improvements perspective, an economic, uh, equity perspective.

[00:28:45] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: All of these things are community needs, and we view this opportunity as a community need. Something that we are doing not only to create a world class university, but it's to create a world class university right here in San Antonio for our community, [00:29:00] and it's going to serve our community going forward.

[00:29:02] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: So why do I have a lot of delight about this concept is the notion of bringing together our two research enterprise and how that can be so impactful on what we What we do and how we provide health care, especially in how we educate our workforce. And, uh, we haven't quite, uh, finished our, uh, planning and strategizing efforts around integrating the two academic enterprises and the two research enterprises.

[00:29:27] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: But the starting point of what we both have as institutions to work with is a cornucopia of opportunity. And it's, it's really kind of heady to think about. I was just, um, uh, an hour or so ago giving a talk over at San Pedro one. Uh, to a group of national collaborators around A. I. And there's a big, huge component about A.

[00:29:48] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: I. Applications in the health care industry from The provision of health care to the, to the, uh, understanding large data, say data sets and public health research to [00:30:00] understanding, um, opportunities to develop new drugs and therapies. And it really kind of goes back to your point about how the four institutions came together that at the time, which was maybe.

[00:30:11] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Four years ago, five years ago, six years ago, something like that. It was Dr. Henrich and Adam Hamilton and Dr. Schlesinger and me, and it was the San Antonio Partnership for Precision Therapeutics. Well, we're going to continue to work with Texas Biomed and Southwest Research Institute, but now bringing together UTHealth San Antonio.

[00:30:30] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: And UTSA is going to accelerate the collision that we have around drug discovery, around uh, high performance computing, large data sets, around biomedical engineering, tissue engineering, all the work that we collaboratively do together in brain health and neurodegenerative diseases, all the work that we do in obesity and diabetes, all the work that we do in the application of AI to medicine.

[00:30:56] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: So there's just a wealth of opportunities coming together. [00:31:00] We've already organized a sort of, uh, uh, collaborative centers ahead of merger to start working on these things because our two faculty are two faculty groups are so eager to come together to collaborate more. So I'm predicting that we will eventually have an opportunity to own the thought leadership space around the Intersection of computing, A.

[00:31:22] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: I. Data, cyber and medicine and biomedical research and medical health care provision. And the most transformative changes that will come in public health will come from the access of applications of A. I. To massively large data sets that relate to privately held Uh, health records and being able to discern from health records the early onset of chronic disease so that interventions can happen sooner rather than later.

[00:31:53] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: And in all honesty, that was the reason why the four of us created the San Antonio Partnership for [00:32:00] Precision Therapeutics and, and we're really just accelerating this now by virtue of coming together as a merged institution. So I think the future state for research for the enterprise is bright, the new academic programs.

[00:32:12] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: I think you know this, but one of the most popular programs we, we launched a year ago was this program, uh, where you can get an MD and a master's in AI and all of a sudden that's taken off. And we're. Contemplating a whole bunch of additional things like that as we bring our two institutions together.

[00:32:29] Bob Rivard: That's a good time uh a good point where we can transition from the merger and integration into um, The incredible amount of activity and advancement that's occurring in the downtown campus and I don't know how you keep all these balls juggling in the air, but We have san pedro one and now we as we rush to complete san pedro two this year You have governor Abbott announcing the cyber security initiative.

[00:32:55] Bob Rivard: That's going to be based in San Antonio that UTSA will play a critical role [00:33:00] in. And you have your new college of, uh, innovation, entrepreneurship, and careers that it will be at San Pedro two and incorporate the school of data science. It's already operating in San Pedro one. You've, uh, Dola Rosa street back from, uh, the grave, uh, Taylor and, and, uh, it's only a couple of blocks from here, here we are at geekdom.

[00:33:21] Bob Rivard: We're very excited about. Uh, the number of students that are going to be coming out of those that college in those two buildings that are going to be a very entrepreneurial in nature and be steeped in in the kind of technology that that leads to people wanting to, uh, Yeah, 

[00:33:42] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: you know, uh, I was the luckiest guy in the world when I got here in 2017, my very first conversation as president was 8 a.

[00:33:48] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: m. on the first day, September 1st, my birthday of 2017, September one's got a, important moment in my life for the reasons I spent early this year. Yeah. So, uh, [00:34:00] I, I met with red McCombs to talk about athletics, but, um, what I, what I do want to share is that I had a chance to spend time with the county early on in the city early on and former city manager, Cheryl Scully was instrumental in going forward with our plans for downtown because she had spent time in Phoenix and collaborated with Michael Crow, the president of Arizona State around there.

[00:34:21] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Complete reinvention of the Arizona State University presence and in Phoenix, this massive migration of existing or new colleges created to be put in downtown Phoenix, and it was a model that, frankly, I've borrowed completely from Michael. He's a good friend. And what we're launching on January of next year is a new college.

[00:34:42] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: So San Pedro to is coming online in January. Later this fall, we will start to formally bring together a new college of A. I. Cyber and computing and it's going to bear with me for a second. It's going to have a department focused on computer science with BS and PMS [00:35:00] and PhD degrees, a software engineering component, a department focused on computer engineering with AI and.

[00:35:09] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Computer engineering, a department focused on information security and cyber security, a department focused on data science and statistics. And so we are creating out of whole cloth a new college that will formally be up and running in terms of people being downtown in the spring semester of 26. Uh, and that's going to involve 6, 000 people, students, staff, faculty, migrating to downtown to be in San Pedro 1 and a little bit in San Pedro, well, San Pedro 2 and a little bit of San Pedro 1, uh, and that will be monumental in terms of creating a new, uh, college of, of, like I said, of AI and Thank you.

[00:35:49] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: everyone. And cyber and computing that's not replicated or are evident anywhere else in the United States. So it's very unique and tied to the ecosystem we have here in the demand signal [00:36:00] from the private sector and the federal sector about students that we need to be graduating to meet the demand needs here in this opportunity to work with the governor's office about bringing a cyber security agency for the state of Texas to San Antonio and putting it downtown just adds another bit of huge opportunity for us as we go forward.

[00:36:18] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: But We have other things that are happening downtown. Obviously, we are working to bring online our temporary home for the Institute of Texan Cultures. That's going to be going in the new Frost Tower. Construction for that is starting in January, and we'll be opening that up later this year. This year, um, we're still looking to find a permanent home for the Institute of Texan culture.

[00:36:40] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: So the opportunities we're exploring before, uh, the location on the on the Crockett Hotel property there, their parking lot property is still under under exploration. So we still have plans to develop a new I T C. We have plans to Are working assiduously to prepare to bring forward a school of [00:37:00] hospitality that will be located downtown, presumptively in part in the the new hotel that's going to be added to the expansion of the convention center.

[00:37:10] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: We have the third property on Dela Rosa that we need to develop, and it's probably going to be tied to this new college of. Of of A. I. Cyber and computing because of our growth trajectory, and we want to be expanding our collaborative efforts with our new cyber security agency. If it makes it through the legislative session, we think it will.

[00:37:28] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: But obviously, our National Security Collaboration Center is foundational to the launching of this agency, and we have all sorts of partners that we still want to have downtown in our ecosystem. So we're gonna have to figure out what we do with with the third dollar Rosa property. And so we have Great ideas there, but we've also we're about to purchase the one riverwalk place next to the southwest campus and we are about to purchase the class and property on the other side of San Pedro one.

[00:37:54] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: So we are all in on downtown and the fact that we're going to have a baseball stadium near the southwest [00:38:00] campuses. Intriguing to us. And the fact that Project Marvel may have a chance to go forward. We're happy to be part of that because we think that role of creating a sports and entertainment district in downtown is important.

[00:38:12] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: But as I say, frequently, we're all in on downtown. That's one of the most important things that we can do for the future of our community is to continue to remain to be An anchor foundational institution for the city of San Antonio, 

[00:38:26] Bob Rivard: and you've absorbed successfully the Southwest School of Art. It's now the U.

[00:38:31] Bob Rivard: T. S. A. Southwest School of Art. And that particular project also brought some properties under the U. T. S. A. Umbrella that remain to be developed. 

[00:38:42] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: And part of the opportunity is those those properties are still available to us to consider how best to make use of our Being in that part of downtown and obviously the things that we're thinking about making use of for one river walk place, which is that 18 story [00:39:00] building right across the river from the southwest campus.

[00:39:02] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: We Have lots of interesting designs and how we could collaborate with the Tobin Center is one thing that we're thinking about. , So, I grew up in New Haven, Connecticut. , New Haven has Yale University. I went to college in Boston and Boston has like 10 universities embedded in the fabric of the city.

[00:39:18] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: I, uh, used to spend a ton of time with family down in lower Manhattan where NYU is. So, And, uh, in all of my perambulations as a as an administrator at three different universities, I've been to all sorts of campuses all around the country. And if I had to pick a place to locate a university that's embedded in the fabric of a major metropolitan area with all of the opportunity, given the size and scale and the challenges and opportunities that each community has, the first place I would stick a university to be.

[00:39:52] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Deeply embedded in downtown is San Antonio. 

[00:39:56] Bob Rivard: Well, I think the hope for many of us is that, um, that [00:40:00] downtown campus is going to become San Antonio's Stanford or Palo Alto. And it's that we can't yet imagine what's going to spin off out from that over the next 10 years. 

[00:40:09] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: And, and there's a ton of opportunity over at the, obviously the South Texas Medical Center, you know, there's a wonderful relationship that UTHealth San Antonio has had with the San Antonio Medical Foundation.

[00:40:20] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: There's been a property transfer that allows Discovery Park to go forward. So, that's something that creates another opportunity around incubating new businesses that come out of therapy. Development, drug therapy development and cancer, cancer therapies and, you know, all of the things that are going to come out of this whole focus on precision medicine.

[00:40:40] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: So there's a whole bunch of opportunities in downtown at the medical center and even on our main campus to, uh, to think about in terms of how we continue to advance this notion that San Antonio is actually an education city. It's an innovation city. It's a, it's a cyber security city. It's the [00:41:00] home to what will be a world class university on the par of UCLA's of the world or the San Diego's of the world.

[00:41:07] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: So it's a playground rich with These are toys I guess you could say. Well 

[00:41:13] Bob Rivard: I think you're contributing to the momentum that we have where there's more and more institutions of excellence operating in the city and that we need to get away from our self defeating profile as a city that only has a high poverty rate and in fact we're We're doing things that on so many different levels and so many different ways that are propelling the city forward later in, uh, later in the spring, uh, Taylor, we're going to have Dr.

[00:41:40] Bob Rivard: Jill Florida, the dean of the honors college on. And I wish you would talk a little bit about the fact that, um, UTSA is no longer the commuter school that people knew from the 1970s and eighties, and that actually there are some, uh, very rigorous academic. Programs. They're not just in the sciences and what we've been talking about today, but [00:42:00] in the liberal arts and elsewhere, and that people should be looking at the school alongside U.

[00:42:05] Bob Rivard: T. Texas A. N. M. Texas Tech and other leading public universities in the state for opportunities for their own Children to stay at home and attend the school here. 

[00:42:14] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Exactly. Um, actually, on day one of merger, Yeah. Um, September one, we will be the third largest public research university in Texas, not quite nipping on the heels of UT Austin and A& M, but we're in the upper stratosphere of institutions.

[00:42:31] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: So that's. Something that we're all contemplating and smiling about because it's something when I explain the world that way, everybody shakes their head and they go, we get what you're trying to do now. But I want to give a quick shout out first before talking about Jill, all of higher ed here in town.

[00:42:51] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: We all have the same DNA about what we do. We're here to serve our community about how we educate and prepare young people to go into the workforce [00:43:00] and into the world. And, uh, a week and a half ago, we had a wonderful meeting with greater SATX and Jenna, so said, uh, hosted it. And. All of the higher ed leaders, public and private, got together and we're working on this notion of educational attainment for our community because we need to raise the bar and a few more percentage points to be able to compete with the very best metro areas around the country about attracting companies that are offering high paying jobs, getting them here.

[00:43:28] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: So It's not just UTSA or UT Health that are, uh, at the forefront of this, all of higher ed here in town, Alamo Colleges, A& M San Antonio, um, Trinity, UIW, everybody's all on board about how we're working together because we all believe deeply about the power of education for our community, so I think that's worthy of a story that you could, you could, you could run with Jenna at some point, uh, that's, yeah.

[00:43:53] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Uh, worthy of a, of a, of a podcast, but, uh, what I want to say though, um, because it, it relates to what I'm about to [00:44:00] answer for our Honors College, the, each of our academic institutions in, in San Antonio does a variant of this for us with our creditor, SacCOC. With our 10 year accreditation cycle that we're in now, we have a huge focus on on experiential learning and classroom to career because that has such an impact on getting young people through their major out the door and hired by the institution that they've been interning at or or collaborating with.

[00:44:31] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: or paid by. Uh, and so we have this massive goal. It will be revised a little bit with merger now, but we had and continue to have this massive goal that the undergraduate educational experience for all majors at UTSA would be, uh, the signature aspect of it would be some element of experiential learning, undergraduate research, study abroad, experiential learning through service learning classes, or.

[00:44:59] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Principally [00:45:00] internship programs amongst all of the things that you can intern at in the six biggest cities. So we're focusing on that and some of our best programs have direct connection to the Honors College that Jill leads. And there are components of the Honors College that involve remarkable young people who blow me away every day about their talent level.

[00:45:20] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: I hang out with them a bunch. Some of them end up becoming Archer fellows and going off under this UT system program to work in D. C. for a semester on the hill or with a federal agency or not for profit. And to be able to spend time with these students is just immensely powerful. Um, some of them are interning up in the legislature, uh, this session.

[00:45:41] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: So I get to see, we have five or six that are up in the ledge right now. And we had a big UTSA, UT Health San Antonio, a day at the Capitol earlier this month, and we showcased some of those students. They were just superb, and we're all so proud of them. And, and, and, but, but it also speaks to the kind of [00:46:00] students that we serve.

[00:46:01] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: We're an open access institution, basically, with our new financial aid provision for families that have an income below 100, 000. You can basically go to UTSA for free, we are dramatically impacting the trajectory of our young people in our community because we're overcoming this, really this final barrier to college completion about, about financial aid provision.

[00:46:23] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: And so some of these things relate to programs in the Honors College and special programs we do in the Honors College. Some of it is emblematic of the entire institution. So you can take the 10 best kids in the Honor College, Honors College, you can take the 10 best kids from any other college. There's nothing different about these students.

[00:46:40] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: They're all immensely talented and what I've never seen before and all the other universities I've either worked at or visited is that the intensity of focus that our students have at the undergraduate level Most of them are first gen. Most of them are Pell eligible. Most of them are focused on Getting out of [00:47:00] UTSA as soon as possible with as little debt as possible and getting into the workforce as soon as possible.

[00:47:06] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: They're the most serious students I've ever encountered on the planet. And that's emblematic of the students we, we admit and who want to go to UTSA. And I think we're differentiating ourselves as a large, Colossal public research university still by the fact that our focus on on access to education and student success and in the way we've we've really dramatically pivoted around making our undergraduate enterprise this.

[00:47:34] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Very highly regarded one nationally. I think everybody's paying attention to how we've done it here and and so whether you've done it through the Honors College or College of Engineering or the College of Science, it really doesn't matter. We we've got it dialed in for how we go about this and and it's world famous.

[00:47:51] Bob Rivard: That's inspiring. We're out of time, but I hope you'll promise to come back after the merger is completed. Maybe 2026 San Pedro too will be open. [00:48:00] Football team will be back in the college playoffs and we'll have a lot to talk about. We will. We'd love to have you back. Dr. Taylor Amey. Thanks for coming on to Big City Small Town.

[00:48:08] Dr. Taylor Eighmy: Bob, thank you. Happy to come back. It would be an honor and a pleasure. Please 

[00:48:16] Bob Rivard: share this episode with friends and colleagues, and do sign up for our new newsletter, Monday Musings. Big City, Small Town is brought to you by Western Urban Building, the city our children want to call home, and Geekdom, where startups are born and smart ideas become businesses.

[00:48:32] Bob Rivard: Our producer is Corey Ames, video by Erica Rempel, sound engineering by Alfie De La Garza of Sound Crane Audio. We will see you next week.