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A successful university is much bigger than any one person

It was 31 years ago that I came to this University to teach history. It’s no surprise that in those three decades, history and the University have also taught me a thing or two. One of them is that every time a university president spends a day working on his retirement property in Commerce, it seems to generate rumors that his retirement is imminent.		Dr. Keith McFarland
	President, Texas A&M University-Commerce

While that’s a lesson that probably impacts only those few of us forced to deal with the flurry of queries that follow such workdays, there’s another lesson I’ve learned that is a little more notable. It’s one that many CEO’s like me may not like to admit, and it is this: The healthiest organizations are almost always bigger than any one person.

In its 115 year history, Texas A&M University-Commerce certainly has had its share of luminary leaders: Bub McDowell, Wathena Temple, Paul Barrus, David Talbot, Etta Booth Mayo, and our founder himself, Professor William L. Mayo, to name just a few.

While the passing of these icons is in many way still mourned, it has not halted the work here. We can all be proud that, following even the most devastating loss, A&M-Commerce has proved itself resilient and forward-looking.

So, while I may like to think that every round of retirement questions means some people simply can’t imagine what they would do without me, I strongly suspect that when my retirement does arrive (not planned for anytime soon—honest), they will, in fact, move on quite nicely.

When it comes to our body of Alumni, however, that is not the case. As Alumni, you provide priceless leadership on our boards. You make crucial donations of your time and money. You serve as our ambassadors worldwide. Even more gratifying, you send us your children and grandchildren to nurture and educate.

You are a group 50,000 strong, yet your strength lies less in your numbers and more in your focus and cooperation. After all, even the largest of groups can’t move so much as a plastic sack unless its members pull in the same direction.

We all—Alumni, the University, and the University Foundation, which oversees gifts to A&M-Commerce and is led by a number of Alumni, must work together to move this great institution forward.

Texas A&M University-Commerce may be much bigger than one man who occasionally feeds the rumor mill by the simple act of clearing his land, but it will never—and, in fact, can never—outgrow its Alumni.

Lights, camera, chemistry?

Assistant Professor George Nixon, at far right, helps a television crew recreate a criminal forsenics lab scene in a University chemistry lab. The Japanese television crew was working in the Commerce and Greenville area taping a reenactment segment of a murder which took place in Odessa,
Texas, for the Japanese television show “Astonishing News!.” The program, which will air in Japan, is about a man who was convicted of killing three friends by poisoning them with chloroform and cyanide.

Alumni Relations partners with Advancement

Recent organizational changes in connection with Alumni Relations will promote a closer working relationship between Alumni and University Advancement, according to administrators.

Effective last month, the Alumni Relations Office now reports to Advancement, with a renewed focus on collaborative activities and initiatives to support students.

“The Alumni Association and the A&M-Commerce Foundation have equally important roles in bringing Alumni together with the University and its students,” said Sylvia Kelley, Executive Director for Advancement.

Both the Alumni Association Board and the Foundation Board will remain as individual entities, with some crossover membership to foster open and progressive communication.

Jane Martyn is serving as the interim director of Alumni Relations while the search for a permanent director is conducted.

Students say A&M-Commerce professors are some of the best in nation

“The message here is quite simple. We do have quality professors and their caliber is just as good, if not better, than bigger-name schools.”
- Dr. Alma Mintu-Wimsatt, marketing and management

For professors at some universities, RateMyProfessors.com is a terrible nightmare come true.

However, faculty at Texas A&M University Commerce aren’t worried. That’s because they’ve been ranked among the best in the country by their own students.

RateMyProfessors.com is a popular Website where college students can leave anonymous ratings and comments–good, bad and, in some cases, utterly scathing– about their professors. To date, almost 2 million ratings have been left for professors from close to 4,000 colleges and universities nationwide.

Of those 4,000, A&M-Commerce is currently ranked tenth in the “U.S. Schools with the Best Professors” listing. This is based on the overall quality rating score that students use to “grade” their professors.

Scores for the 255 A&M-Commerce professors rated on the site combine for an average of 3.66 out of 5.

Other schools in the Top Ten include Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn. and Berry College in Mount Berry, Ga., both private schools. In 2004, Berry College was ranked as the second best undergraduate comprehensive college in the Southwest by U.S. News and World Report.

Other nationally known schools included in the Best Professors listing and that didn’t fare as well as A&MCommerce include the University of California Berkeley at 3.08, Purdue at 3.05, and Penn State at 3.18.

Among the professors at A&MCommerce receiving excellent ratings is Dr. Shawn Carraher, who, due to his student’s positive comments, could soon be a reality television star.

A co-producer for an upcoming TBN reality show based on the old TV series “Gilligan’s Island” contacted Dr. Carraher to ask if he would be interested in playing the professor on the show. Apparently the producer had been using RateMyProfessors.com to find a good candidate. The professor of management and global entrepreneurship says he hasn’t decided whether he will take the gig or not.

Dr. Carraher encourages his graduate students to utilize the site and said that it seems to be popular among many of his MBA students. “I think that our high rating is a good indicator of the high quality education that students can receive at A&M Commerce,” he said. “It is wonderful to be at a university where the administrators value quality education, research, and service as do the faculty and the students.”

Associate Director of Bands Jeff Gershman was made aware of the site by one of his graduate students. “Since then, I’ve occasionally checked the site and have found it to be a nice, objective forum for our students to give their honest appraisals of their professors,” he said. “In many ways, the opinions on this Web site may be even more honest and passionate than their course evaluations at A&M-Commerce.” Students formally evaluate their courses and professors each semester.

Dr. Gershman uses the comments as a gauge as to whether students are engaged in the courses and are grasping the material. Dr. Alma Mintu-Wimsatt, professor of marketing and management, checks the site because she is interested in what students have to say. “Since students can input their comments throughout the semesters, their comments can be quite beneficial.”

Assistant professor of history Ricky Dobbs believes that the Top Ten ranking highlights two strong points found at A&M-Commerce–the small class sizes and opportunities for student/professor interaction.

Clinical instructor Stephen Garretson agrees. “You don’t find many professors at other universities who take the time to learn all of their students’ names,” he commented. “As a former student, I believe this University has some of the top instructors and professors in Texas. You get the sense there is a real concern for the students and how well they do.”