TEXAS A&M, Texas (KBTX) – Thursday’s meeting marked the last meeting of the year for the Texas A&M Board of Regents. At the meeting, the board approved a few such as a revision to an academic policy and a new course audit system.
The new audit system will use AI tools to review course materials, ensuring they are consistent with the course description and the respective major.
“Essentially, what the committee approved is a review process that the system is going to initiate to look at all the undergraduate courses across the entire system,” Texas A&M University System Chancellor Glenn Hegar said. “The bottom line is we want to make sure we have academic freedom, but also academic responsibility.”
This system was tested at Tarleton State University, and after the approval at Thursday’s meeting, will be used to audit every course at every university in the system, every semester.
“It’s a major undertaking, but it’s trying to make sure that it’s very repeatable [so] everybody knows information of what the course they’re going to teach, and what the subject matter that they’re going to get in that course,” Chancellor Hegar noted.
These decisions drew criticism from a number of A&M professors who spoke during the public testimony part of the meeting.
Dr. Nancy Plankey-Videla is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M. She was the first professor to speak at the meeting against the approval of both the revision to the policy as well as the new audit system.
“I teach my students theories that helps explain the world,” Dr. Plankey-Videla said. “I teach them how to think, not what to think. And sometimes I ask, why is the world organized in ways that people go hungry, that struggles and social movements for democracy, like our own movements, why do revolutions like the American Revolution happen? If that makes someone uncomfortable, I can’t teach it.”
She said she has spoken with fellow professors, and even some students, who said they wouldn’t return to A&M if these policies are implemented.
The board also approved the construction of a few major projects, including a Meat Sciences and Technology Center on RELLIS’ campus, as well as a player development center at Blue Bell Park.
“I think we’re probably one of the leaders in not the nation, the world, as far as working in that area in meat science, and we’re fortunate enough to have some of the best professors and researchers available for that,” said Board of Regents Chairman Robert Albritton.
The new Meat Sciences and Tech Center will be around 85,000 square feet, costing just over $114 million.
The center won’t be able to operate until the RELLIS campus sewer improvement project is completed, and that is dependent on an agreement with the City of Bryan. Chancellor Hegar said he didn’t see that slowing down construction, which is scheduled to start this December and be completed by February 2028.
The new Blue Bell Park player development center project has a start date also in December of this year, but is expected to be completed by December of 2026.
“I think baseball is probably one of our favorite sports,” Albritton emphasized. “We’ve succeeded continuously, and what we want to do is make sure that we keep everything up to date, giving them the best facilities possible to continue the really great work that they do over there at baseball.”
The center will be for both Texas A&M softball and baseball players, enhancing players’ experience and attracting recruits.
The facility will be just over 34,000 square feet and will have batting cages, pitching labs, and new player locker rooms. It’s estimated to cost over $28 million to complete.
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