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A message from the president Building on a great legacy
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As we prepare to enter the new millennium, this is the ideal time to reflect on how far we have come, and, more importantly, where we are going. While the Health Science Center is in its 26th year of serving the health needs of those in the South Texas/Border Region, I am privileged to have spent 15 years at this fine institution. During those 15 years, our faculty’s research awards have grown from $32.3 million to a record $124 million. The university’s budget has increased from $134.8 million in 1985 to our current budget of $330 million, and our endowment has grown from $4.37 million to $44.5 million. All of this has helped make the biosciences the leading economic sector in this community, with the Health Science Center serving as a major catalyst. In the past 15 years, our student enrollment has grown from 2,332 to 2,717. More than 15,000 have graduated from our bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs. The number of faculty has increased from 724 to 1,338. We have shown our great strengths in research in aging, cancer, addiction, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other diseases prevalent in the South Texas/Border Region. With community support, the Health Science Center has become a world-renowned institution in just 26 short years. Our researchers and health care providers are featured in prestigious publications all over the world. Breakthroughs in the biosciences have brought national and international media to the Health Science Center so that others can learn what we have done here to further the advancement of life-saving research. While celebrating what we have already accomplished, we are well poised to take a quantum leap into the next century with the people, knowledge and high-tech equipment needed to make a difference for those suffering from a vast array of diseases and ailments. However, all success is shared success—and our partnership with the private sector, the military, and the business community, as well as our generous donors, will be the key to our continued success. The visionaries who created the Health Science Center laid the groundwork, and everyone serving as stewards of that great legacy continued to build on the fine foundation. We can do no less for the generations that will follow ours. John
P. Howe, III, M.D.
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