Legal Commentary

Re-defining TSU

By Tom Kirkendall

Leave it to new Texas Southern University President, John Rudley. He's not wasting any time before trying to shake things up at the chronically-troubled public university (previous posts here):

Texas Southern University's new president wants to end the school's long-standing practice of accepting all applicants, no matter their academic background, saying the policy contributes to its alarmingly low graduation rate.

President John Rudley said the change is necessary to remake the state's largest historically black university, which has been on the ropes recently because of management missteps, sliding enrollment and bad press.

As noted in this recent post, Rudley has his worked cut out for him in re-defining TSU's mission. The University of Houston-Downtown Campus has far surpassed TSU as the favored open-enrollment institution in the Houston area. Consequently, TSU must redefine itself or face becoming irrelevant. It's not clear to me Rudley's plan is the best one for TSU, but I admire him for his vision. It's badly needed at TSU.

Full post as published by Houston's Clear Thinkers on February 25, 2008 (boomark / email).