UH President Renu Khator said research and academic preparedness play vital roles in the attempt to catapult UH into a nationally-competitive university.
Texas is currently home to three flagship universities ‘- Texas A&M University, the University of Texas at Austin and Rice University ‘- but the state hopes to gain an additional seven flagship schools in the next five to seven years, with UH being one of the contenders.
‘A (flagship) university is nothing but a nationally-competitive university,’ Khator said. ‘Students in a (flagship university) get an education that is at par with other institutions.’
If’ UH reaches flagship status, Khator said graduates’ will not have to be asked what their university experience was like anymore, because it would already be recognized as being nationally competitive.
‘It’s also important for our researchers, because when they go out and compete, having that kind of name behind them adds weight to their competition so that they will be more successful,’ Khator said.
The UH administration is trying to create nationally-recognized research clusters in major areas, such as energy and health.
UH purchased the Energy Research Park to generate a space where they can bring outside practitioners and University researchers together to invent new kinds of technology.
‘Houston is known for being the energy capital of the world, so the new technologies in energy are more likely to come from Houston if we create that environment,’ Khator said.
‘It’s absolutely important for the community, because a lot of innovation, a lot of patents and licensing, a lot of the new ideas come out from the University industry partnerships.’
UH is a full member institution of the Texas Medical Center, making it one of the few public research universities associated with a medical center.
‘Now we are at the table along with hospitals, along with medical schools,’ Khator said. ‘We bring in the element and the discipline that otherwise would not be there so we can contribute significantly there.’
Additionally, UH provides the educational programs, health care administrators, health care lawyers and health care technicians that the medical center needs.
‘If you’re going to have information in health care, you need communicators to communicate that information,’ Khator said. ‘They do hire, but we train them; we do the research.’
UH has 150 endowed professorships and chairs, but needs more according to Khator.
‘We have some fabulous, phenomenal faculty, we just don’t have enough of them,’ Khator said. ‘Our faculty really have to show their caliber and their quality and productivity.’
Khator said students need to have the ability to cope with university-level studies.
‘We are not doing any service to a student if we admit the student who is not academically prepared to succeed,’ Khator said. ‘Admission criteria is to make sure when we admit the student that they are ready to be successful here.’
Khator encourages enrollment when students are ready.
‘If you have a better chance of being successful coming from community college, we welcome you to go to community college or go to any other institution within the UH system,’ Khator said.
