The leaders of University of Texas at Arlington and Tarrant County College talked numbers and history to a room full of business and higher education leaders. Together they impact more than 100,000 students annually, a business leader said, and both are celebrating banner years.
“Our mission has never been more clear to be the guiding star for accessible, high quality educational experiences that drive lasting impact,” said TCC Chancellor Elva LeBlanc. “It motivates us to provide tuition to dual credit students to responsibly manage state and local funding (and) to look in the mirror every morning and recommit to the TCC ethics.”
LeBlanc and UTA President Jennifer Cowley were the featured speakers at the Greater Arlington Chamber of Commerce’s third annual State of Higher Education held May 15 at UTA’s College Park Center. Both leaders discussed how the institutions prepare students for today’s jobs and how the universities have charted a path forward throughout their history. UTA is celebrating its 130-year anniversary in 2025, while TCC is marking 60 years.
LeBlanc highlighted TCC’s growth. The college’s first campus opened in 1967 — which is now TCC South — with 4,200 students. Now, TCC is a six-campus system with over 47,000 students.
TCC is meeting the needs of the Tarrant County economy by educating students to be ready for good jobs on day one, LeBlanc said. She pointed to programs like aviation, computer science and nanotechnology as examples of how the college is preparing students for today’s jobs.
“Our Northwest Campus started out with rodeo (and) agriculture, and today (it offers) aerospace, logistics, public service, cybersecurity,” said LeBlanc. “It’s been a little bit of a leap.”
Cowley charted UTA’s 130-year history from a private university in a wood-framed building with no plumbing to a public Tier 1 university with over 40,000 students.
“In whatever form, this university has always pursued opportunity and innovation,” said Cowley.
“Our (architecture) labs have designed everything from Globe Life Field and the Omni Dallas Hotel to the world’s first net zero energy skyscraper.”
That transformation has seen students go from building and flying crop dusters in the 1930s to now developing software for lunar excavation robots, Cowley said.
“This university holds true to the principle that if we give Texans the opportunity to receive an outstanding college education, they will do extraordinary things,” she said.
Both leaders discussed the transformative power of education. If the small group of people who started what was then Arlington College in 1895 could see what UTA has become, Cowley said, it would exceed their wildest dreams.
Shomial Ahmad is a higher education reporter for the Fort Worth Report, in partnership with Open Campus. Contact her at shomial.ahmad@fortworthreport.org.
The Report’s higher education coverage is supported in part by major higher education institutions in Tarrant County, including Tarleton State University, Tarrant County College, Texas A&M-Fort Worth, Texas Christian University, Texas Wesleyan University, the University of Texas at Arlington and UNT Health Science Center.
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