Texas State’s Points of Pride
National Recognition
- Texas State’s Mathworks program has been ranked among the top six mathematics programs in the nation eight times by the American Math Society Epsilon Fund.
- Texas State’s Center for the Study of Latino Media and Markets hosted the second annual International Conference on Spanish-Language and Other Latino-oriented Media in 2009.
- The National Council for Geographic Education’s Journal of Geography recognized our undergraduate program in geography as the best in the nation. Because of its stellar reputation, our Department of Geography is the largest in the United States.
- Graphic Design USA magazine recognized our communication design program in June 2007 when it listed Texas State among the 29 “Select Top U.S. Graphic Design Schools.” We were the only Texas school on the list and one of only a few public universities. Others honored were renowned private art and design schools, including Parsons, the Ringling College of Art and Design, and the Rhode Island School of Design.
- The Association of Teacher Educators has recognized our teacher preparation program as one of the top three in the United States.
- Diverse magazine ranked Texas State 16th in the nation in 2008 for the number of Hispanic students receiving undergraduate degrees and 49th for the number of minority students earning undergraduate degrees. In addition, an October 2007 report from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the Education Trust listed Texas State as one of 11 universities across the nation that have stellar graduation rates for Hispanic students and praised our “commitment to Hispanic student success” as a model for other institutions to emulate.
- The Southwest Regional Humanities Center at Texas State is one of nine such centers in the United States. It is a national center for education, research, public outreach and preservation of the history, culture and ecology of the U.S. Southwest.
Academic Rigor
- Our Department of Biology and its students are working with five Texas universities and two Texas zoos to protect wildlife throughout the state.
- During the 2009-2010 academic year, Texas State juniors and seniors enrolled in upper-level biochemistry courses will analyze and annotate genomes of various microorganisms as part of the Microbial Genome Annotation Research Program being coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute.
- Our University Honors Program offers students the chance to take charge of their own education and seek their own intellectual challenges. Through this program, students enjoy small, stimulating classes taught by master teacher-scholars who employ innovative teaching methods. Students pursue independent projects or cutting edge research working closely with faculty and produce an honors thesis on the subject of their choosing.
- Texas State has the fifth-highest retention and graduation rate of public universities in the state.
- In 2008-2009, Texas State had a record 74 student-athletes earn their bachelor’s degrees. In addition, more than 100 student-athletes, Strutters, cheerleaders and student trainers maintained a grade point average of 3.5 and above in the 2008 spring and fall semesters, while another 104 student-athletes were to the Southland Conference Commissioner’s Honor Rolls, maintaining a 3.0 GPA.
- Our McCoy College of Business Administration is among the small number of U.S. business schools accredited by AACSB International - The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
- Texas State’s College of Health Professions is one of a few in the United States that has achieved national accreditation for degree programs ranging from undergraduate to doctoral.
New and Innovative Programs
- Our Department of Anthropology operates the largest outdoor forensic laboratory in the world, the Forensic Anthropology Research Facility at Freeman Ranch.
- Texas State’s Sleep Center is accredited by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
- In 2008, our Center for Migrant Education received its second multimillion-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Education to run the Migrant Education Coordination Support Center.
- In August 2008, our School of Social Work graduated its first online master’s degree students.
- Our Ingram School of Engineering offers manufacturing engineering, industrial engineering, and electrical engineering programs.
- In summer 2008, we launched a new graduate program in which students can become doctors of physical therapy.
- Texas State offers undergraduate and graduate courses at the Round Rock Higher Education Center (RRHEC). With approval from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the RRHEC will be home to Texas State’s School of Nursing, scheduled to open in 2010.
- Our School of Music’s sound recording technology program, housed in the historic Fire Station Studios, is the only degree program of its kind in the Southwestern United States.
- Our athletic training program was the first one in Texas certified by the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Educators.
Superior Graduate Programs
- Our master of applied geography degree program was the first in the nation.
- The American Historical Association ranks our master of arts in history program among those in the top 15 percent of American universities for the number and quality of students it prepares for doctoral programs at prestigious schools.
- The Endowed Chair in Creative Writing brings first-rank novelists and poets to the department for a year at a time. Chair holders have included novelists Tim O’Brien, Denis Johnson, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Barry Hannah and poets Ai and Li Young Lee.
- Our Communication Disorders master’s program offers a bilingual speech-language pathology specialty. It was the 14th program of its kind established in the United States.
- The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board praised Texas State for developing doctoral programs built on already successful undergraduate and graduate programs.
Award-Winning Professors
- Jaime Chahin, dean of the College of Applied Arts, was honored in 2008 by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund for his work with a program to assist minority students entering the teaching profession.
- William Ruger, an assistant professor in the political science department, was selected as a 2008-2009 academic fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
- Sandra West Moody received the National Science Education Leadership Association’s 2009 Outstanding Leader in Science Education award.
- James E. McWilliams, associate professor of history, is the 2009 recipient of the $50,000 Hiett Prize in the Humanities from the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture.
- Jill Pankey, a lecturer in the Department of Art and Design, has received two national awards from the Manhattan Arts International Gallery in New York and the Bancroft & Dillon Gallery in Cohasset, Mass.
- We’ve had 17 faculty members honored as Piper Professors for their superior teaching. Only one other Texas university has had more.
World-Class Research
- Texas State received a $4 million grant in 2008 from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund to operate and staff a center for the research, development and commercialization of multifunctional materials.
- Geography professor Alberto Giordano leads a multi-national team in a study of geographical phenomena of the Holocaust, funded by a $430,000 grant from the National Science Foundation received in 2008.
- Honors students Kellie Beicker and Amanda Gregory collaborated with Texas State physics professors Donald Olson and Russell Doescher on astronomical research that revealed most historians have misdated Caesar’s invasion of Britain. Their work was described in the August 2008 issue of Sky & Telescope.
- Cambridge-educated scientist Terry Golding holds the university’s endowed chair in materials science and engineering. He leads a multi-functional materials initiative that develops enhanced-efficiency infrared sensors for use in U.S. military night-vision devices and chemical agent detectors.
- As the site of Aquarena, the River Systems Institute and Edwards Aquifer Research & Data Center, our campus is one of the best places in the world to study aquatic ecosystems and species.
- Walt Trybula, director of the Nanomaterials Application Center at Texas State, was named one of just 56 Fellows of the International Society for Optical Engineering for driving the industry effort behind the rapid implementation of immersion lithography, a process used in semiconductor manufacturing.
- Kim Rossmo, a research professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and the university’s endowed chair in criminology, developed a methodology that has been used by the FBI, ATF and Scotland Yard to help solve thousands of crimes. At Texas State, he applies his methodology to research projects on a range of topics, from counterterrorism to disease control.
- Cambridge-educated scientist Terry Golding holds the university’s endowed chair in materials science and engineering. He leads a multi-functional materials initiative that develops enhanced-efficiency infrared sensors for use in U.S. military night-vision devices and chemical agent detectors.
- Chemistry professor Ben Martin received the CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation in 2008 in recognition of his work in solid-state chemistry and his potential impact on the field in the future. Martin is the second Texas State professor to receive this prestigious grant.
Stellar Students
- Four Texas State students in the School of Social Work received bilingual scholarships to narrow the gap between the need for Spanish-language mental health services in Texas and the availability of trained professionals to meet those needs.
- Public relations student Colter Ray finished 12th in the nation in the sports and news photojournalism category of the Hearst Journalism Awards Program in 2009.
- Five Texas State seniors and one junior were selected in 2009 to perform a microgravity experiment as a part of NASA's Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program.
- Graduate student A. John Boulanger won the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival National Student Playwriting Award in 2009.
- Audrey Estupinan and Albert Walker were two of 25 students selected nationwide in 2008 to receive Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellowships for minority students pursuing careers in teaching. Texas State has had 19 students receive this prestigious fellowship — more than any other institution in Texas.
- School of Music student and opera singer Elizabeth Loving was accepted to perform at the Schlern International Music Festival in Italy in 2008.
- McCoy College of Business Administration student Paul Goldschmidt was the Southland Conference baseball player of the year and an academic All-American in 2009 and the conference’s student-athlete of the year in 2008.
Competitive Athletes
- Texas State won the 2008-09 Southland Conference Commissioner’s Cup, given each year to the best overall athletics program in the SLC, after winning conference championships in football, soccer, volleyball in the fall, along with baseball and softball in the spring. It is the fifth time that Texas State has won the SLC Commissioner’s Cup, the most by any university.
- Texas State claimed its ninth consecutive, and 11th overall, SLC Women’s All-Sports Trophy after winning the soccer, volleyball and softball championships. The Bobcats also were the runner-up at the SLC Women’s Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
- The football team played in the NCAA Division I FCS Playoffs for the second time in four years, while the soccer, softball and baseball teams earned bids to compete in NCAA Tournaments in 2008-09. The soccer and softball teams won SLC Tournament championships.
- The 2008-09 season marks the first time in league history that one school has won the football, soccer and volleyball championships in the same year. It also is the first time since 1995 and third time overall that a school has won the SLC baseball and softball championships the same season as well.
- Twelve Bobcats were named to Southland Conference All-Academic Teams, including 10 First-Team selections in 2008-09.
- Texas State MBA student Liudmila Litvinova won a silver medal for Russia in Women’s 4 x 400m Relay at 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Outstanding Student Organizations
- The American Marketing Association chapter at Texas State was honored as a Distinguished Chapter (one of eight internationally) at the 2009 AMA International Collegiate Conference.
- Our Students in Free Enterprise team won first place in the 2008 SIFE USA Regional Competition. The team has placed among the top 20 in the region for the past 11 years. In 2000, the group competed against 700 teams from 15 countries to win the international championship.
- Texas State’s Association of Information Technology Professionals was recognized as the best chapter in the region in October 2008.
Unique Campus Amenities
- Aquarena is home to our campus’ most beautiful natural feature — crystal-clear springs that feed the San Marcos River. The river meanders through campus and San Marcos and provides a home to several endangered species.
- The 3,485-acre Freeman Ranch, bequeathed to the university by Harry Freeman, is used by our students for farm, ranch, game management, educational and experimental purposes.
- Texas State’s Mitte Complex, named for alumni donors Roy F. and Joann Cole Mitte, houses a state-of-the-art clean room in its microchip fabrication facility. Both undergraduate and graduate students use the facility to train for careers in the high-tech industry.
- The Wittliff Collections, housed in Texas State’s Alkek Library, include the Southwestern Writers Collection, which preserves and exhibits the literary papers and artifacts of principal writers, filmmakers and musicians, and the Southwestern & Mexican Photography Collection, which houses the largest archive of modern and contemporary Mexican photography in the United States.
- The Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center serves as a writer’s residence and site for lectures and seminars by Texas State’s Master of Fine arts in Creative Writing program. The home is a National Literary Landmark.
Distinguished Alumni
- Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1930, 36th president of the United States
- Roy F. Mitte, 1953 and 1956, founder of Financial Industries Corporation, a group of national insurance companies
- Tomás Rivera, 1958 and 1964, prominent author and former chancellor of the University of California-Riverside
- Gary V. Woods, 1965, president and CEO of McCombs Enterprises; former president of San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Vikings
- Powers Boothe, 1970, Emmy-award winning actor, recently featured in the hit television series “Deadwood” and “24”
- Heloise (Ponce Cruse), 1974, syndicated columnist and author
- John Sharp, 1976, former Texas Comptroller
- T. Paul Bulmahn, 1978, founder and CEO of ATP Oil & Gas Corporation, an offshore development and production company
- George Strait, 1979, Grammy-nominated music artist and member of the Country Music Hall of Fame
- Charles Austin, 1991, Olympic Gold Medalist
Return to Top