Robert Ahdieh, Vice President, Professional Schools & Programs; Chief Operating Officer, Texas A&M-Fort Worth; Dean, School of Law, Texas A&M University
Robert Ahdieh of Texas A&M, talked with Invest: about the institution’s expansion into Fort Worth and its role in the region’s educational ecosystem. He discussed ways the university is working to connect with the business community, and the emphasis on technology and innovation in those relationships.
What makes Fort Worth an ideal location for Texas A&M’s expansion, and how does the campus integrate into the community?
Fort Worth has a rich educational tapestry, but has previously lacked a large-scale, Tier 1 research institution. We have great institutions of higher education, in Tarrant County College, Texas Christian University, the University of North Texas Health Science Center, the University of Texas – Arlington, and others. But Fort Worth is the largest big city in the U.S. without a Tier 1 research university of the scale and scope of Texas A&M. That creates an opportunity to advance Fort Worth’s needs through Texas A&M’s strengths in innovation, research and development, workforce training, and student-to-employee pipelines. Even as most Northeastern and Midwestern cities have struggled with deindustrialization in recent decades, Boston has thrived, due to its wide array of higher education institutions, including Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Boston College, Tufts, Suffolk, Northeastern, and others. Dallas-Fort Worth can emulate that success by expanding existing universities and attracting new ones — creating a hub for high-quality innovation and economic growth. The highest priority for companies in deciding where to invest are an educated workforce and educational opportunities for their employees. Higher education institutions can thus play a critical role in fostering job growth, expanding the tax base, and attracting new companies. For Texas A&M, our immediate plans involve expanding from one building to five. Within those five buildings, we’ll of course offer academic programs and degree programs, but we’ll also be engaged in collaborative research efforts with companies in the region. Workforce training opportunities will also be designed and tailored to meet private-sector needs.
How will Texas A&M’s new research and innovation efforts involve collaboration with private sector partners, and how will they benefit the local business community?
Our framework for the new campus revolves around innovation hubs that will connect startup’s, mid-size firms, and Fortune 500 companies with Texas A&M and other academic partners. We have four sector-specific hubs: aerospace and aviation, healthcare innovation, agriculture and food, and media and entertainment. Those were identified based on their alignment with opportunities in Fort Worth, the DFW Metroplex, and Texas as a whole. They also align, of course, with the strengths of A&M. We also are building a set of cross-sector hubs focused on community engagement, workforce development, and commercialization/entrepreneurship for startups — including maker spaces, incubators, and accelerators. Our goal is for the hubs to generate dynamic ecosystems where companies can connect and collaborate with Texas A&M and others for research collaborations, workforce training, and talent development.
Regarding growth and the influx of people to the region, how is it impacting your enrollment trends?
In the last six years, our law school grew from 450 students to 1,800 students. In significant part, that has been driven by regional population growth and the demand for advanced educational opportunities. Similarly, Texas A&M’s new School of Performance, Visualization, and Fine Arts is establishing new programs in Fort Worth, with a focus on video game design and film/television production. A&M is already leasing space near the law school for a small group of students this first semester — which will grow as we catch the wave of the region’s population growth over the next 20 to 30 years. On the west side of Fort Worth, at the Walsh Ranch development, UT-Arlington is building a new campus. One of the Texas A&M System schools, Tarleton State University, is also expanding in Fort Worth, to meet the growing demand for education in the area.
How are you integrating innovation and technology into your programs?
The most obvious way is through growth in relevant programs. There’s a visualization degree that’s now being offered by Texas A&M in Fort Worth. The law school is offering a new cybersecurity degree. Ten years ago, those degree programs weren’t available, but now companies need people who have advanced training focused on those fields. We are also focusing on data analytics and artificial intelligence. The average employee in a hospital, law firm, or bank now needs some understanding of those technologies. It’s become part of the evolving skill set of many professionals, across many different fields. While we don’t think the average law school graduate, for example, is going to be a constant user of AI, they will need to use the technology to be effective in their work. It’s an arc we’re trying to ensure we keep up with, as the technology evolves.
As education costs rise, what programs do you have in place to help education remain affordable, or to provide added value to a student’s investment?
Cost is a priority for all higher education institutions, and for political institutions as well. The Governor, for example, recently issued an executive order regarding tuition increases. The key question to be asking is what is the value proposition of any given higher education opportunities? Degrees are still critical for getting hired for most jobs, even as some employers are removing degree requirements from certain job descriptions. But students and their families are increasingly assessing the return on investment. It’s our job in higher education to articulate the value proposition associated with what we do. At the law school, we have had the highest bar pass rate in Texas in the last two years. We’ve been in the top ten in the nation when it comes to the employment rate of our graduates, for the last four years. All that matters in choosing where to study. Investing in education is like buying a home. Cheaper isn’t always better. Part of buying a home is weighing the cost of a mortgage and balancing that cost with long-term value and gains.
What are the top priorities for Texas A&M going forward?
Texas A&M has played a critical role in advancing Texas’ strategic, economic, and educational priorities. The Texas A&M system consists of eleven universities and has eight state agencies. This Fort Worth campus we are building offers another step in helping to move our state forward. There are incredible opportunities in North Texas and in DFW. Having A&M in the middle of them will make those opportunities that much more tangible and realistic to achieve. By creating a platform for Texas A&M to partner with the business community, the civic community, and other higher education institutions in the DFW Metroplex, we will continue to fulfill our public mission for the State of Texas. It will be transformative for Texas A&M, for Fort Worth, for Dallas/Fort Worth, and for all of Texas.
