Dathan Trevino 
EDINBURG – In December 2012, the University of Texas Board of Regents approved the creation of a new university in Texas, combining two legacy institutions into one; nearly 3 years later, UTRGV opened its doors in Fall 2015.
Before UTRGV, there were two University of Texas campuses in the Rio Grande Valley, the University of Texas Pan American and the University of Texas Brownsville.
Guy Bailey, UTRGV President, had a short amount of time to combine the institutions before it had officially opened. He said he had only joined about 15 months prior.
He recalled having trouble combining the two staffs, the two student records and handling the creation of a new curriculum.
Bailey said he remembered feeling a “great sense of pride” when UTRGV opened its doors for the first time.
“We were very pleased we got it started because, it was a difficult process and, it’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “How things were run, were radically different. So, all of that had to be unified.”
Bailey said the creation of a new university had made it eligible for the Permanent University Fund, which neither of the original legacy institutions had access to.
The Permanent University Fund (PUF) is a fund that the UT System and the Texas A&M University System can access.
Bailey said PUF had enabled the university to build multiple new buildings on both the Edinburg and Brownsville campuses.
“We have spent $800 million building or renovating buildings,” Bailey said. “We couldn’t have done that without the Permanent University Fund.”
The UTRGV School of Medicine was only available after the creation of the university. Bailey said UTB and UTPA weren’t eligible to have one.
“We’ve had a lot of health-related programs [that] started,” Bailey said. “That was a part of our goal, creating opportunities for students.”
He said one of the most rewarding experiences of his life was UTRGV’s creation.
“The next 10 years are going to be better than the last 10,” Bailey said.
