June 17, 2025

Dear Colleagues,

The 89th Texas Legislative session ended its session with many pieces of legislation directly impacting public colleges and universities. While these bills await final approval, I want to provide you with a briefing and the next steps forward.

Legislative Budget:

The budget items can be summed up in two categories, those that affect all universities in the state and those that are specific to the University of Houston.

Statewide Budget Items:

1. The legislature has provided a modest increase to the base budget based on enrollment growth. As you know, the base budget is the primary source of faculty/staff compensation as well as university operations. If you remember, we are prohibited from increasing tuition, which means that the only additional funding to the university is due to the growth in our enrollment, whether by admitting more students or by retaining the ones we currently enroll. I want to thank the Provost’s team, Deans and department leadership for ensuring that our enrollment grew.
2. The state has given a modest increase to the Higher Education Fund (HEF), a fund dedicated to deferred maintenance and construction support.

UH Specific Budget Items:

1. $20 million to expand UH programs in Katy. According to the Katy Area Economic Development Council, the population of Katy and its surroundings is over 1 million people, an important and growing service area for the University of Houston.
2. $30 million funding increase for the Fertitta College of Medicine to realize its goal of enrolling 120 students per year.
3. $145 million in Texas Research Incentive Program (TRIP) funding, a program that started in 2009 to match donor contributions in selected universities. Because of our philanthropic success, UH was the largest recipient of this funding. Unfortunately, the legislature has decided to sunset the program.

I thank our Board of Regents, Government Relations team, our alumni and everyone who either testified or engaged in advocacy on behalf of UH. We are grateful to our legislative and executive leaders for supporting the University of Houston and believing in our potential to serve the state.

Other State Legislation of Direct Impact:

Senate Bill 2615 requires full-time university employees to work on-site, with limited exceptions for illness, disability, professors who teach strictly online and several other specific work situations. This law will take effect on Sept. 1.

Senate Bill 2972 strengthens protections for expressive activities, such as protests, speeches and petitions, for students and university employees, while prohibiting other persons from conducting protests on university campuses.

Senate Bill 1273 establishes a Higher Education Research Security Council to promote secure academic research at tier one research institutions, while mitigating the risk of foreign espionage and interference.

House Bill 127 relates to measures to protect institutions of higher education from foreign adversaries and would also establish a Research Security Council composed of research security officers, but from a broader range of Texas universities. HB 127 also requires the establishment of an international travel approval and monitoring program.

Senate Bill 5 – Dementia Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (DPRIT) relates to the creation of the Dementia Prevention and Research Institute of Texas to create and expedite innovation in research on dementia, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and related disorders. If approved by Texas voters, it will create a $3 billion fund to support brain research by Texas universities and medical colleges.

House Bill 4751 - Quantum Initiative relates to the establishment and administration of the Texas Quantum Initiative, which would leverage the expertise and capacity of regulatory stakeholders and institutions of higher education and industry to advise and provide input to the office regarding the comprehensive strategic plan.

Senate Bill 37 creates new processes for universities and their Board of Regents to review curriculum and degree programs, to establish Faculty Senate/Councils and the hiring of university leadership

Faculty Shared Governance under SB 37:

SB 37 is complex legislation requiring new board policies in three specific areas: (1) policy on faculty shared governance, (2) policy on curriculum review and (3) policy on program evaluation.

As of September 1, 2025, the Faculty Senate, in its current form, will cease to exist. SB 37 requires the Board of Regents to establish a Faculty Council of elected and appointed members as the new body. The legislation further defines the Council’s role to be advisory and its officers to be appointed by the university president.

For us to transition smoothly and to help ensure faculty’s voice through the Council, we must work through the summer.  It is necessary for us to get these policies approved by the Board of Regents by their August meeting so that Council elections could be held at the beginning of the semester. With this goal in mind, I have appointed a task force of faculty, department chairs, deans and VPs to help us draft these policies. We hope to send these draft policies to all faculty sometime in July in the hope of finalizing them by early August. Under the authority given to the Board by SB 37, the Board may change, approve or reject these draft policies.

Program Evaluation Under SB 37:

SB 37 requires that all minors and certificate programs be reviewed for their relevance and performance. We currently have a process in place to review all degree programs. It is likely that we will extend the scope of this review to include degree minors and certificates. You will receive further updates on this process.

Review of Curriculum under SB 37:

SB 37 outlines several conditions that must be met for courses to be qualified as a part of the core curriculum: (1) foundational and fundamental in nature; (2) educating about civic and professional life; (3) preparing for workforce and (4) possessing breadth of knowledge. The Board of Regents must conduct a comprehensive review of these courses to ensure they meet these standards. Once we establish a Faculty Council in September, we intend to begin the process of collaboratively reviewing our current course offerings to ensure compliance with these stated objectives.

SB 37 also requires the Board of Regents to certify its institution’s compliance to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and legislative standing committees on higher education on an annual basis.

Federal Directives Impacting Research:

VP Neuhauser continues to send detailed updates to faculty on a regular basis, but I wanted to highlight the four areas of changes that are shaping our research landscape and planning today.    

1. Major federal agencies have reduced the indirect cost (IDC) on grants from 57% to 15%.
2. Our researchers have lost 30 awards due to grant termination. Many of these grants were multiyear grants posing particular challenges for students and faculty alike.
3. The proposed federal budget cuts the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) budgets by 43% and 59% respectively, indicating that less money will be available for research work in the future.

Clearly, these changes pose challenges for our faculty, but I urge researchers to pivot and focus on new priorities that are opening up both at the state and federal level. New funding priorities are available in brain research (state), quantum computing (state), population health (federal), maternal/child health (federal) and mental/behavioral health (federal). Our faculty have significant strengths in all of these areas and we need to build our future portfolio from here. You can find more information on new opportunities by visiting DOR’s Federal Funding Updates website.

Revenue Sharing with Student-Athletes:

On June 6, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California approved the class action settlement in the House v. NCAA litigation. The House settlement allows universities to directly compensate student-athletes, a compensation that is known as revenue sharing. The current cap on this revenue sharing fund is set at $20.5 million annually (inclusive of NIL) and the Power Four Conferences have agreed to pay their student-athletes fully. As a part of Big12, UH Athletics will begin sharing revenue with student-athletes.

Leadership Changes:

I am proud to announce that Dr. Mike Johnson, my Chief of Staff, has been appointed as president of the University of West Georgia in Carrollton, GA.  He has given me, my cabinet and the university tremendous support during his 10-year tenure with us. We wish him all the best as he makes a name for himself and for one of his learning grounds, the University of Houston. I have asked Dr. Micah Glenn, currently serving as the Director of the UHS Board office, to also serve as my Chief of Staff. In addition to office management, Dr. Glenn has formal training in analytics and program evaluation, adding to an additional dimension in my office.

Thanks to the hard work of the search committees and the Provost, we have three new deans joining us during the summer.  Yarneccia D. Dyson, the dean of the Graduate College of Social Work, joins us from North Carolina State University; Xianjun Geng, Dean of the C. T. Bauer College of Business, joins us from Tulane University and Gregory Dudley will transition from West Virginia University and the National Science Foundation Division of Chemistry to assume the role of the Dean of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

Finally, we have three new coaches in the Cougar family: Ben Williams will head the Soccer program, Matthew Mitchell will take over Women’s Basketball and Chrissy Schoonmaker will proudly lead the Softball Program.  We wish all three of them a very happy and victorious Cougar prowling.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to send them to me or the Provost.  I have tried my best to synthesize a lot of material in this update and it is very likely that we will have additional questions. We will keep you updated as things proceed in the future. Until then, enjoy your summer!

With warm regards,

Renu Khator
President