If you are new to this newsletter, and aren’t we all?, I wrote last week about the importance of UTSA growth to the future of the city, and in particular, this year’s planned merger of the two institutions into a single, highly diversified entity.
Since then, two big announcements have come from the UT System and from UTSA advancing the merger and underscoring the power and importance of Eighmy at the helm of this San Antonio marriage. Details below, but first, here is a recap of what I had to say last week on the topic:
I was in a conversation with a number of community leaders last week about the looming merger of UTSA and UT Health-San Antonio. The combined institutions will be led by UTSA President Taylor Eighmy, whose vision for the city’s leading public university has seen it leap forward in multiple areas: as a Tier One research university; in its programs focused on data science, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence; in the dramatic expansion of the Downtown Campus; and in the hiring of Coach Jeff Traylor and the building of a nationally recognized Division I football program, which, in turn, has created school spirit that simply didn’t exist a decade ago.Many citizens do not yet appreciate the potential of a new UT-San Antonio that includes a Tier One research university, a medical school, a dental school, a nursing school, and a Downtown Campus that Eighmy promises will grow to 10,000 students in the coming years. That’s a big story, one deserving to be told well and widely.You don’t have to be a UTSA graduate or a Roadrunner fan, or even now have children whose first choice for college is UTSA, to understand that the city’s future and the vibrancy of downtown depend significantly on the continued growth and evolution of UTSA, or UT-SAn Antonio, whatever we decide to call the post-merger institution. As one person in the conversation noted, the acronym UCLA immediately conveys excellence without any further explanation. What people call the new institution matters less than how much they recognize and respect it.
It’s hard to believe that UTSA Pres. Taylor Eighmy has led the university since 2017, seven years and counting. It sometimes seems that under his watch, big advances have happened nonstop: Tier I research status; major gifts; significant faculty recruitment; major expansion of the Downtown Campus; acquisition of the Southwest School of Art; plans to elevate the Institute of Texan Cultures in a newly located museum near the Alamo Plaza; negotiations to run UTSA’s Hemisfair footprint into a new arena for the Spurs; purchase of USAA’s One Riverwalk office tower, now the home of the School of Architecture among other programs; opening of the School of Data Science, known as San Pedro I; the opening later this year of the Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Careers building, also known as San Pedro II.
What am I missing? Oh yeah, UTSA’s first national ranking for the Roadrunners football team.
So it was no surprise last Thursday when Chancellor James B. Milliken announced the appointment of Eighmy as acting president of UT Health-San Antonio as the first step toward putting the two institutions under a single leader. The merger, Milliken’s press release noted, is expected to be completed by Sept. 1.
There will be serious work ahead to blend the two distinct cultures, but the combined assets will give San Antonio a national caliber institution of higher education that spans the spectrum of learning, from arts to science and medicine to 21st-century curricula in the realms of AI, data science, cybersecurity, and more.
“Since the Board of Regents approved the new integration plans last August, Dr. Eighmy has demonstrated effective leadership during the transition, leading the complex merger activities, and fostering strong collaborations as he works to align the institutions,” said Milliken. “At this time, there are clear advantages to having one president with decision-making authority, and we believe this move best positions the new UTSA for long-term success,” he added.
Part of Dr. Eighmy’s initial focus as UT Health San Antonio’s new acting president will be to develop a single, comprehensive leadership cabinet structure to accelerate the momentum of the merger and integration planning efforts, according to the release. Well, Eighmy wasted no time in acting.
You can read the entire press release here.
Later that same day, Eighmy’s office announced he is appointing Dr. Francisco G. Cigarroa as the senior executive vice president for health affairs and the health system at UT Health San Antonio — a newly established role begins on March 1, according to this article in the San Antonio Report.
Eighmy said Cigarroa’s “lifelong commitment to excellence and unmatched expertise” makes him the ideal partner to help Eighmy successfully lead the integration of the institutions.
Let me put Cigarroa’s appointment in context, and why I see it as a brilliant partnership envisioned by the two leaders. “Cisco,” as he is universally known to his many friends and admirers, is a rock star in his field. Actually, I regard him as a polymath. His roots are on the border in Laredo where the Cigarroa family name is synonymous with medical accomplishment and service to the community. Cisco is a third-generation physician.
Cigarroa is a nationally renowned transplant surgeon. Bachelor’s degree in biology from Yale University. Medical degree from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. Fellowships in pediatric surgery and transplant surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Faculty member at UT Health - San Antonio since 1995.
Cigarroa was part of a surgical team that performed the first split liver donor transplant between two recipients in Texas. In 2003, Pres. George W. Bush appointed Cigarroa to the President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science. Then, in 2009, Cigarroa became the first Hispanic to serve as the UT System Chancellor.
To complete the circle, it was Chancellor Milliken who announced Eighmy’s appointment, followed by Eighmy turning to a former UT Chancellor to help him lead the merger. For Cigarroa, who returned to his transplant practice after his term as chancellor, Thursday’s announcement was yet another call to lead.
I can’t end my observations of Cigarroa without noting that he is also an accomplished classically trained guitarist. Don’t believe me? Watch this Classical Bridges Around the World video of Cigarroa performing.
Dr. Eighmy will be our guest on the bigcitysmalltown podcast in the coming month. Perhaps he’ll bring Dr. Cigarroa with him.
Or better yet, how about if we give both leaders our undivided attention over two episodes?
