Two world class institutions are now one.

The merger of UTSA and UT health have created a powerhouse now known as U-T San Antonio.

Hello, I'm Henry Cisneros.

The merger of UTSA and UTL is history in the making.

Never before has San Antonio and South Texas seen such an impactful unification that will usher in the growth of medicine, research and higher education.

This is an exciting time.

Joining us to discuss this new consolidation is Taylor Amy, president of the new UT San Antonio system, and Doctor Francisco Cicero, a senior executive vice president for health affairs for U-T San Antonio.

Gentlemen, welcome and congratulations.

Thank you.

Henry.

Congratulations on stellar careers of academic excellence and your many, many contributions to the public interest that has touched many, many lives.

Doctor Amy, you've been president.

You are president of the new UT San Antonio.

But you come with a research background at places like the University of New Hampshire, Texas Tech, and Tennessee.

So you have prepared over an entire career for, advancing the new university in the research realm and merging with a medical institution.

Doctor, siguro, your background includes training in surgery and transplantation, trained at places like Mass General, which is Harvard's, hospital and the Johns Hopkins system.

And you have been president of the former UT Health Science Center and then chancellor of the entire University of Texas system.

There probably isn't another better a person, better prepared to now play the role that you are.

Thank you very much for for being here.

Henry, you should know that Francisco was also on the search committee that hired me when I started in 2017.

And Francisco has all and throughout his career, continued to work in transplantation and other has really precise surgeries.

And I presume you're still doing that now.

Still doing it?

Yeah.

Truthfully, I don't know anybody I admire more in Texas than Francisco Seguro.

So just to thank you.

Just as a quick aside, except perhaps for tailoring.

No, I would say the same.

You know.

Remarkable.

The reverse is true.

So we admire you so much.

Let's, begin talking about the dimensions of this merger.

It becomes the third largest public research institution in the state of Texas, after the University of Texas at Austin and A&M.

What is the national significance of this merger?

Let's just put some, some, some, framework around the significance of this.

Well, and also the significance for San Antonio.

You know, starting locally, our, our city is about to become the sixth largest city in the United States, surpassing Philadelphia.

Every great city needs a great university.

And why not here?

So we're we're all in on this.

And, if you if you think about it, the construct.

Not that that great universities require involves the elements of the two institutions that were brought together in the scale and impact that we're going to have as being the third largest public research university in Texas, is going to lay the foundation for where we're going over the next ten years.

We are going to create a world class university, and we have really strong Asper and Pierce that we're modeling ourselves and where we want to go.

And we've already begun the work of preparing how to get there.

We're taking our two institutions and really building the foundation of a brand new university as we merge and integrate.

So we formally merged on September 1st, and yeah.

And, we were deep into the integration process.

It's still going to take another couple of years.

But Francisco, I think you can can share the perspective as a former chancellor about what this means for your system, because they believe deeply in us to do this.

And I don't know, you have that perspective that's really important.

Well, Tanner and I have had numerous conversations over the past year, and I did convey to Twitter that this is the most important decision that the Board of Regents has made, in my opinion, in over 100 years.

Because it is an opportunity to create, you know, one of our nation's great universities here in San Antonio and one of the most rapidly growing regions of the United States with a population that is deserving of a great university.

So, when the Board of Regents unanimously approved this, you know, I felt that this is an opportunity to create a university that can reach that highest level of excellence to become an AA university, which is really the highest designation of a university and yet, you know, still remain committed to student success and access.

So really, the Board of Regents has given us the flexibility to be nimble and to be innovative and to be able to accomplish this, you know, great goal.

So when I was chancellor, you know, I was often asked, how are we going to create, you know, a for a university in the state of Texas when California has nine, New York six, but Texas only has three.

Why is this great state not having more?

This is the answer.

Obtaining that level of excellence is a terrific opportunity for our students.

The value of that degree is going to be immense.

The opportunity to create a workforce for this wonderful region that we loved is going to be really profoundly important.

So the economic impact to the city, to this region will be great.

And the ability for us to recruit outstanding faculty from across the US and the world, is definitely putting us on the map.

Now, I understand that there's been some plans over the years.

The idea has been around 2002.

There was a study 2010.

There was a study.

What made this?

The moment?

Well, I'll comment on that a little bit because I was part of those two studies.

The first study actually was encouraged, to the Board of Regents by then, senator, that this summer had appeared.

And we did take a serious look at it.

But in 2002, if you remember, we had two young presidents, you know, Ricardo Ramos and myself, you know, the level of graduation rates and, you know, research, at the UTSA campus was really not where it is today.

And so the conclusion was, great idea, not the right time.

In 2010, Peter Flon, who was actually one of the presidents of.

But I worked for him and we all loved Peter Flynn a lot.

He goes, this is going to happen, and it should happen.

You know, over the next 5 or 10 years.

But they're quite not ready now.

And in order to merge two great institutions, they both, you know, the timing is important.

And so the timing could not be better now.

Well, certain thresholds needed to be achieved before you could say you're at that point.

So now.

After a momentum.

If you look at UT San Antonio under Taylor's.

Leadership right.

There, Carnegie Research, one university, you know, student success is significant.

You know, just incredible.

You know, college of artificial intelligence that works, right.

You know, a lot of progress.

And they tell.

You there's so much progress.

And now you know, the how campus is is a top third, you know, major academic health center in San Antonio.

And we're complementary.

We're not competing with each other.

So, you know, Chairman Altai and the board were entirely correct to say we don't need to do another study.

Yeah, we've done on the homework.

It's time that shows here it's about 42,000 students total in the merged institutions.

And what was the sort of the background on the the naming.

What's what's the better term?

Just tell us a little bit how you want to be referred to as an institution and kind of the why?

Well, we have some legacy names that are still important as we go forward.

Especially if you're a Roadrunner fan or a you're you're getting health care provision in the medical center.

But, we really wanted to plant a flag nationally, internationally about the creation of this, essentially a brand new university.

And we had some help in terms of figuring out how best to do this, but it was clear that, the name needed to connect to the city of San Antonio and our our role and our place here.

And we are deeply committed to this notion of excellence, but also of access and opportunity and how educations change lives for our community.

It's a winner for San Antonio.

It's an absolute winner for San Antonio.

Associated this way.

And so we really wanted to capture that going forward.

It needed to reset the bar about expectations for an academic research health related university.

So and you expect it to be used generally that way.

For example, the football.

We.

Are setting will be UT San Antonio.

When we talk about our institution as an academic research health enterprise, it is UT San Antonio.

But when we are cheering for our football team and that, it's really hard to not want to say UTSA.

So we are though there are other places in the country like Charlotte that that use the full name.

We we went through a lot of deep thinking about how best to position our new name, our new image, and we're really telling the world where we've created a brand new universe.

Just for the sake of context.

You mentioned aspirant institutions that you could model for to be like, what would some of those be?

We are about ready to embark on a strategic planning effort to carve out and describe how we're going to write or become something in ten years, and we are intending to become a world class institution, and it's helpful to have Asper and Pierce.

So we're looking at UCLA, UC San Diego, University of Washington, University of North Carolina, University of Michigan, places.

Those are all the places that we want to, borrow their great ideas, in addition to developing our own ideas about how to build the foundation of a brand new universe.

So it's not a competition amongst the UT system or even the broader system in Texas because, state like California has multiple first class institutions.

Berkeley has traditionally been the the founding flagship in the University of California system.

But UCLA today, some people think is a stronger institution than Berkeley.

Can UC San Diego and.

San Diego would be?

Folks, you know, what's interesting is, and Francisco can help with this discussion, we are unique in Texas.

We are also unique within the University of Texas system.

We're a very large, comprehensive, general academic research university and a very, very large and it's true, comprehensive academic health science center.

And bringing our two entities together, we are more like our Asper and peers than any other institution in Texas or within the University of Texas.

So a little bit about the impact for undergraduates at the At the academic side, for undergraduates, on the academic side, they now are part of an institution that has a medical school, dental school, nursing school, public health school, Allied.

How much the benefits of that.

We are deep that that's probably part of our integration effort that's going to take the longest amount of time because of the academic program.

Opportunities are immense.

We have already begun this effort.

And, it's happening in how we collaborate in research, but it's also happening and how we start to to describe brand new academic programs.

A good example will be this brand new program where you get an MD and a masters of Science and Artificial intelligence.

That's a perfect example of a synergy that we want to see between the two institutions.

And I understand on the medical side, that medical students who will be in an institution where they can study AI, cybersecurity, exactly.

Engineering.

Talk a little bit about how that might be advantageous.

I know that there's some places in the country work in medical school, and you study engineering so you can work on nano technologies.

As a as a physician engineer, saying yes.

So the opportunities are going to be terrific.

Henry, you spoke about the MD artificial intelligence degree.

That's a first in the United States.

Nobody.

This is the first out of the box in the U.S, which is now available to our medical students and to, you know, the students at at the academic campus, use what we have a joint degree in, biomedical engineering.

And you spoke a little bit about that, but just think about, you know, how the Palmer Stent was created.

Yes.

Or how the titanium rib, which saves countless babies, was created.

It was really a physician and an engineer.

And you're coming together.

Yeah.

So, you know, that's just, you know, just two little examples.

And then.

There's engine and then there's medical and business.

And then you've got medical in business.

Which people can learn how to.

Well, we've already we've already.

Been doing that actually we've.

Already been doing that.

But then, you know, you start thinking about, you know, areas, you know, computational biology, big data.

Yeah.

Mean, I translate big data as, you know, you know, the repository of gold in research, you know, because you could do that with that big data and with that being able to analyze big.

Let me, let.

Me lead to the realm of the institutions and talk about the community and the larger impact.

San Antonio is a city in which the largest employer is the bio sciences.

160,000 people in this community work.

Tell me how this unified institution might accelerate San Antonio's emergence as a biomedical sector.

Can you just talk that through for me?

So let's give you an example that is probably a good example of catalyzing.

We're hosting, a forum on the application of AI principles to all of the omics genomics, proteomics, click home access, spatial omics.

We brought together the very best of our two institutions, along with universities nationally, federal agencies nationally, all to start to ideate around the collision of AI with medical science and biomedical engineering.

And it was a fascinating.

So it attracts people here.

Excellence begets excellence.

And we have created, an opportunity that will transform how our role within the medical community and, and here in San Antonio progresses.

So for people will come from around the country to a center of excellence.

Some will put their roots down here.

There's people coming out of the military medical sector.

So you see some direct correlation to the bioscience dimension of San Antonio.

If you take that as our principal area of focus for an economic development development for our city, it's it's one of the most important ones.

But if you really want to grow it, you have to create a density of excellence.

And the excellence comes from the people you attract.

And it comes.

From now the other side, on the medical side is the potential to enhance medical, clinical care in San Antonio, especially for people who may be, lower income.

We have the problem of obesity.

We have the problem of diabetes.

We have the problem of kidney disease, all related to to issues related to poverty.

Francisco, you see some ability to enhance the reach.

Talk about that.

Yeah.

We do.

I'm going to first comment just a little bit about the catalytic process, of what the merger has resulted in already.

We're already just with the merger.

Our military in Texas BioMed southwest research into, you know, we're working together now more than ever before.

And as part of this campus in regards to access to health care, we have the opportunities to do now with this merger, even more advanced research in helping solve the issues of type one and type two diabetes.

Our population, you know, suffers a lot from fatty liver, cirrhosis of the liver, metabolic syndrome.

And in fact, just a week and a half ago, we were having an important seminar and symposium would take them 1 to 3 as to how these two great universities can work together.

And a lot of this is centered on big data, really understanding the molecular signatures that can develop new novel therapeutics.

And so the potential is immense.

And it's far greater now put the merger than it was before.

So that's in the that's in the research advances.

How about clinical care within the community.

You see some momentum coming out of this that might be helpful in that respect I. Do I think the School of Public Health is going to be a really important part, really educating prevention, you know, I mean, if we can prevent a disease all the better.

Our cancer center is very much involved with helping patients get into clinical trials from all aspects of life.

And so, It then there's the Glenn Diggs Institute, which was training institute on the medical side.

And then you have a a brain health consortium consortium on the academic side, so that that is a potential area for real excellence and real outreach it to a community.

And, Henry.

You know, that the state is, going to be voting on a bond initiative in November.

The dementia prevention research Institute of Texas and it it speaks to that.

So I'm thinking of Texas and and wanting to get in front of this.

And our elected officials in Austin brought this bill forward and have the resources to support it and will be very transformational for how we conduct research and support patients and support families of patients who are all dealing with this intractable issue of dementia.

Let me, just describe to hit some relatively minor points, but just give me a sentence or two.

Physical size.

It matters.

And it matters in things like our sports agenda.

Does this mean future Pac 12 big 12 participation down the road?

I know I'm very proud to share with you that we actually have six campuses now.

Spread across the city, and we're all in on downtown.

We're all in on, on, on this concept of a sports and entertainment district and the the future of, of where we want to go with our athletic enterprise is commensurate.

Pretty amazing in a short span of time.

It's commensurate with our aspirations about being a world class university.

Well said.

The, the physical plant, you've got the main campus now, the health campus, the downtown campus, the art campus at southwest was, Crafts at our quest.

We have multiple campuses downtown.

What's the sort of thinking and the plan for the implications for that?

We are all in on downtown, but we also have a very special opportunity because of our deep partnership with the San Antonio Medical Foundation around development of Discovery Park and the medical center.

And that's going to be a very important economic and workforce development driver.

And it's going to help as we collide all of our excellent faculty, staff and students in the biomedical space.

It will be a biomedical R&D engine for us.

Yes.

So just on that front, you know, we wouldn't be who we are without the San Antonio Medical Foundation and our founding fathers.

That and, you know, this Discovery Park, you know, the idea about that is really to create that environment, being able to see issues in the clinic that are still unanswerable and how we translate those issues to science to come up with new therapeutics.

And so that translational science, you know, a clinic to research and then back to the bedside.

Right.

You know, we're trying to do that, which will also bring in farm, venture capital, you know, entrepreneurs to to hopefully create, you know, what's happening to Research Triangle and other, you know, significant bio parks.

Francisco may not remember, but you participated in a Chamber of commerce, panel, in which the subject was the outlook for the future of San Antonio.

And your piece was the bio sciences.

And out of that panel came a recognition on the part of the economic development leaders of our community that economic development in the medical biomedical realm is different than getting a Toyota plant or getting, Japanese investment or other things that would create came out of that was biomed.

I remember that well.

And it's set goals for the bio sciences when two experts get together, time flies.

So we have very little time left.

But let me both ask you for your goals, for the institutions, but also for the community and indeed for our state.

We are and will always be, thank her institution for our city and county and for South Texas and the scale of where we're going and the impact that will have will be tied always to this notion of excellence, but also to how we serve our community and the access and opportunity we provide.

And our community deserves that.

And we are going to take that notion and go forward with it as we create and evolve this new university that will be world class.

You know, we want to create a really top tiered, comprehensive academic health center where we are educating the future physicians, health care providers in the most innovative way.

We want to do high impact research that, you know, we can actually develop Nobel Laureate discoveries here in San Anton.

Any of them, you know, why not?

We want to be great partners to our hospital systems.

You know, University health has been a big component, to our success.

Our military hospitals have been a big component in their success.

In university health.

And so, class, it's important that our health care systems work and and we need to work together, to be able to meet the demands of this, you know, robust, growing community.

I dare say there are no true partners at any institution in the country as strong as the two of you individually.

And the two plus two equals five.

Plus two equals ten.

And.

Said, are they going to correct.

Of you working together?

You're both ready for this, this immense challenge and this immense opportunity.

And thank you for the personal energy that you put into your building this.

And thank you for joining us here.

We are honored.

Today.

We are honored.

Thank you also for being with us for this conversation.

You can watch this show again on keloland.org under the KLRN and Originals tab for KLRN And I'm Henry Cisneros.