A&M may hire area Fed chief
Dallas bank's McTeer is the only finalist for system's chancellor post
By Holly K. Hacker and Anglea
Shah
The Dallas Morning News
October 14, 2004
Robert McTeer, the Dallas Fed's president and poet-economist, is the sole finalist for chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, the governing regents announced Wednesday.
The unanimous choice of A&M's nine regents, Mr. McTeer is expected to begin in mid-November if all goes as planned.
With his leadership style, research skills and approachable manner, Mr. McTeer will bring new energy to the A&M System, said Erle Nye, a Dallas regent and chairman of the board of TXU Corp.
"I think he'll fit well," Mr. Nye said. "Here you've got a guy who is very bright, who is very accomplished, who is highly regarded. But he's very approachable. He's got a soft, easy style about him. You know that you're talking to someone of substance, but he's not putting on any airs."
By state law, the regents must wait three weeks to formally offer Mr. McTeer the chancellorship. He would serve as chief executive officer of the system, which is based in College Station.
With nine universities, seven state agencies and a health science center, the system educates more than 100,000 students and employs more than 23,000 faculty and staff members. Its budget of $2.3 billion surpasses that of the city of Dallas.
Mr. McTeer demurred when asked to detail his plans for the state's second-largest public university system. But the former university professor said he's excited about a new challenge in Aggieland.
"I don't have the job yet," Mr. McTeer said. "I haven't met most of the people that I'll be working with. I'm going to be in the listening mode for several weeks before I'm in the talking mode."
Mr. Nye said he expects that Mr. McTeer will work with Robert Gates, the former CIA director who now heads the flagship Texas A&M University, to build up the system's quality and reputation.
"I think there was a sense that the system needed to move out a little bit," Mr. Nye said. "We'd like to do better. We'd like to be more of a player in higher education, both in the state and nationally."
The system's goals include attracting more students who typically haven't gone to college. That includes students from rural and urban areas alike, minorities and students whose parents did not attend college.
A&M universities, and others across Texas, are trying to reach the objectives in "Closing the Gaps," the state's long-term plan for higher education. One of these is to send more students, especially blacks and Hispanics, to college.
In some ways, Mr. McTeer's move to academia is a return to his roots. The Dallas Fed president taught at the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University during the 1970s, and at Johns Hopkins University throughout the 1980s, while at the Federal Reserve Bank in Richmond and Baltimore.
As central bankers go, Mr. McTeer happily played against stereotype. He's pictured on the Dallas Fed's Web site wearing a black cowboy hat. And a section called "Rhymes With No Reason" contains some of his economic-themed musings including his "very first cowboy poem ever," which starts like this:
"I've wanted to write a cowboy poem in the worst way,
Which, no doubt, is how I would write it.
But since I've got the urge so bad,
I've decided not to
fight it..."
While Wall Street pored over each word of "Greenspeak" – the term used to describe Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's sometimes convoluted statements – Mr. McTeer has spoken his mind, and in clear language.
The regents searched across the country for a new chancellor and received more than 70 applications, Mr. Nye said.
If approved, Mr. McTeer would replace the late Howard Graves. He stepped down last year because of declining health and died of cancer in September 2003. A. Benton Cocanougher has served as interim chancellor. He will return to A&M's Mays School of Business, where he is the former dean.
Mr. McTeer said he wasn't seeking the top spot in the A&M System – the system contacted him.
"This sort of took me by surprise," he said. "I hadn't been thinking of doing anything like this. ... It took me awhile to get comfortable with the idea, but I eventually did, and now I'm all excited about it."
E-mail hhacker@dallasnews.comand ashah@dallasnews.com
Reprinted with permission of The Dallas Morning News.