WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) — In a historical merger for the university, MSU Texas is now officially one of five institutions in the Texas Tech University System.
“As I said last night this is truly the proudest moment of my life professionally and privately as my past joins my present and I know I will always be so proud to have been the president to help lead the transition,” Former MSU Texas President Suzanne Shipley said.
Shipley closes her time at MSU as the university begins a new journey, joining the Texas Tech University System.
“I know James will do a beautiful job of completing it but thank you all for everything, thanks for my initial education, it’s my tech education that has allowed me to do this,” Shipley said.
MSU Texas Provost James Johnston now serves as interim president. The Texas Tech University System is a higher education enterprise focused on advancing higher education, health care research and community outreach.
“We are extremely proud and were extremely excited about the future for the Texas Tech System, for MSU Texas and for everybody that we serve. I think one of the things that people in these conversations tend to forget about are the students and the communities that we serve and there’s a long history here of doing that in a beautiful way and we’re just here to enhance it so we’re excited,” Texas Tech University System Chancellor Dr. Tedd Mitchell said.
Mitchell says the merger means new improvements and higher enrollment rates for MSU.
“One of the things that you focus on when you have a university joining a system is the benefit is both to the system and to the university. To the system what you end up getting with a great liberal arts university like MSU Texas is you get a pipeline of potential students,” Mitchell said.
As MSU nears its 100th birthday, Mitchell says the Texas Tech University System wants to help make the next 100 years just as great.
“It’s very historic and it’s almost surreal to have something like this going on because we’ve been working on this for quite some time and to have it finally happen is very momentous but very much so there’s a bittersweet part of this as well,” Mitchell said.
No longer an independent university, MSU now stronger in a system set to have a large impact on current and future Mustangs.
MSU was one of the longest independent universities in Texas and the Texas Tech University System is proud they’ve chosen to merge with them.
The Texas Tech system and MSU now begin the search for the next MSU president.