THE DATA
analytics.wtamu.edu/ieda/wt125.html
Although geographic peers have been identified, there are “competitive peers” that could have been considered. Our students frequently choose between WT and Texas A&M, the University of Texas, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech. Some potential students have legacy connections where their parents, siblings, uncles, aunts and/or grandparents may have attended those institutions, and students consider these institutions carefully. While WT legitimately competes with these institutions for some of its students, comparisons with those institutions will not be made in this analysis. These are national research universities that produce hundreds of millions of dollars of funded research annually, manage endowments in the hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, and field Division I intercollegiate athletics programs. These institutions are fundamentally different from WT. In each and every case, they do not have the distinctiveness (regional mission, common history and geographic locale) that WT shares with the Texas Panhandle. The selection of peer institutions should not be misinterpreted. WT does not want to be exactly like any other university on these lists. Rather, WT wants to be considered in the same family of these universities, while maintaining our identity as WT. Much of our uniqueness is an “accident of geography” that gives us something that no other institutions possess. None are part of the Texas Panhandle. WT is distinguished
from all others in a remarkable way, and it is the culture and geography of the Texas Panhandle that will drive what we do in the coming decades. The desire to be good, the fear of failure and the desire for familiarity are three fundamental conditions of human nature. WT will address these through a steadfast determination to build on strengths, eliminate weaknesses, seek opportunities and face threats creatively and energetically. The legislature and the people of Texas should be more aware of what WT does for the state’s economy and for citizens’ quality of life. An understanding of WT’s deep responsibility will provide the foundation for this, but it will be built upon by a new view of how we can provide leadership. WT accepts the responsibility to inform our many constituents in a way that will set an example for other universities. New alliances and new forms of teaching and learning will emerge. These will shape educational programs that go beyond the individual and impact learners from childhood to advanced age, in primary and secondary schools, in corporate offices and places of production, individually and in groups, for profit and for fun. This is the changing nature of higher education, and it will mark WT’s excellence.
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