Editor’s note: The following article was written by UT San Antonio President Taylor Eighmy. An abbreviated version also appeared in the commentary section of the San Antonio Express-News.
For decades, civic leaders have used the phrase “anchor institution” to describe large, place-bound organizations, such as universities, that drive local economies. Historically, the term has been defined by a checklist: major employer, research engine, builder, purchaser and healthcare provider.
Today, that definition is no longer sufficient. A modern anchor institution carries a broader responsibility for the trajectory of the city and region it serves. Its role must now be measured by the outcomes it helps create, including greater educational attainment, expanded economic mobility, improved health, workforce and economic development, innovation and regional prosperity.
That distinction matters for the newly merged UT San Antonio, now the third-largest research university in Texas, with more than 43,000 students, 17,500 employees, a $2.8 billion annual budget, a new multispecialty research hospital and more than $525 million in annual research expenditures. On day one, we became something rare in American higher education: a comprehensive research university integrated with a major academic medical center, uniquely positioned to align education, research, healthcare and economic development.
San Antonio, now the sixth-largest city in the nation, is a city of momentum. Our region has outpaced national economic growth for over a decade and is positioned to expand across cybersecurity and information technology, life sciences and health, advanced manufacturing and logistics, and aerospace and defense.
Yet significant gaps remain in income, educational attainment, workforce readiness and access to economic opportunity and healthcare — a call to action that aligns with our university’s strengths and mission.
A call to action locally and nationally
These gaps and our call to action to address them are not part of an abstract debate; they are a national imperative. Across the country, colleges, universities and hospitals — what economists call “eds and meds” — rank among the largest employers in nearly every major city. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia estimates that, once their direct, indirect and induced effects are counted, these institutions support roughly 18 million American jobs. Unlike corporations that can relocate overnight, they stay put, rooted in the places that depend on them.
Yet the very institutions that anchor so much of the American economy are themselves under strain. Public confidence in higher education has fallen to 36%, according to Gallup, which is down from 57% a decade ago. The familiar critique that the academy has become an ivory tower walled off from the community around it can ring true. The old model of an anchor institution has run its course, and public higher education must reinvent itself around benefits and impacts for the communities it serves. The new anchor model is where that reinvention begins.
With that reinvention comes a deeply important responsibility, not simply to grow, but to align our growth and investments with our region’s most pressing and evolving needs across five interconnected commitments: education, discovery, community investment, partnership and health.
A public mission embedded in everything we do
We are on an ambitious journey to become a Top 20 public research university by 2036. To get there, we remain grounded in our mission and committed to providing both opportunity and excellence.
Education remains one of the greatest investments we can make in our community’s future. UT San Antonio was founded on the principles of opportunity and affordable access, principles that continue to shape our growth today. Our rare triple Carnegie designation as an R1, Opportunity and Community Engaged institution, one of only 14 in the nation to hold all three, reflects the identity we are building and the direction guiding our future.
That commitment shows in our outcomes. Over the last decade, average time-to-degree has decreased by nearly a full year to 4.2 years, and average student debt at graduation has fallen by approximately $10,000. Ninety percent of our undergraduate students remain in Texas after graduation, and the majority of the physicians, nurses, dentists, public health professionals and allied health experts we train stay in San Antonio, strengthening a highly prepared healthcare workforce.
Turning discovery into impact
On our health campus, researchers at the Mays Cancer Center, one of only four NCI-designated cancer centers in Texas, are advancing treatments such as STAR0602, an immunotherapy that helps the body recognize and destroy cancer cells, moving therapies from clinical trials into everyday care. The Kate Marmion School of Public Health, funded by a $30 million gift from the Kate Marmion Charitable Foundation, will work closely with the Mays Cancer Center to decrease cancer burden in South Texas. The Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases is involved in REACH clinical trials, conducted in our new Center for Brain Health, to slow Alzheimer’s progression and make such treatments more widely available. The Sam and Ann Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies received a $38 million award from ARPA-H to study healthy longevity. Our Be Well Texas program provides statewide substance use treatment and recovery support services for adolescents and adults.
On our academic campus, the MATRIX AI Consortium, with the National Science Foundation, is advancing energy-efficient computing modeled on the human brain, while the Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute, one of only 17 national manufacturing innovation institutes, is strengthening cyber preparedness for thousands of Texas small-business manufacturers.
With the new College of AI, Cyber and Computing, our co-location with Texas Cyber Command, a recent $470 million investment from the UT System and the planned 40-acre Discovery Park in the South Texas Medical Center, UT San Antonio is building an innovation ecosystem to strengthen research, economic growth and national competitiveness.
Investing where we live
Anchor institutions must remain intentionally connected to the communities they serve. Over the past decade, UT San Antonio has invested more than $400 million in downtown San Antonio, including the recent opening of San Pedro II. We intend to keep expanding downtown through development surrounding the new Missions baseball park adjacent to our Southwest Campus, engagement in the Hemisfair Sports and Entertainment District, and a planned new School of Hospitality. Our Roadrunner athletics enterprise will continue to grow.
As one of the region’s largest employers and purchasers, we are also working to maximize our impact, taking the same approach pioneered by anchors like the University of Pennsylvania, which used its purchasing power and local hiring to help rebuild West Philadelphia. A dollar spent locally and a job created locally both multiply, generating opportunity and wealth that remain in the community.
Convening partners
Anchor institutions must serve as regional conveners, bringing together organizations, civic leaders and community partners to help shape their regions’ future. UT San Antonio will continue to work closely with strategic partners across greater:SATX, the business community, City and County leadership, Southwest Research Institute, Texas Biomedical Research Institute, Brooke Army Medical Center, the Port of San Antonio, Spurs Sports and Entertainment, philanthropic organizations, educational institutions and especially University Health System. These partnerships translate shared priorities into coordinated action for our region.
Care that follows the patient home
Our research-intensive university, combined with a major academic medical center and integrated clinical and research enterprise, creates an unparalleled intersection of learning, innovation and healthcare delivery. Through our partnership with University Health System, patients gain faster access to breakthroughs in heart disease, trauma care, women’s and children’s services, and chronic illness, while families can participate in clinical trials and receive advanced treatments closer to home. Our partnership has established the number one liver transplant program in the U.S. Last year, our clinicians provided more than 2.8 million patient encounters.
A call to reinvent
What we are building in San Antonio is not unique, but it can serve as a model. Looking to 2036, our institution’s ambition will be grounded in increased educational opportunity, new medical discoveries and treatments, patient access to these innovations, downtown placemaking, economic development and community prosperity.
What we are reinventing will come from measuring ourselves by the prosperity we create beyond our campuses, aligning research with the problems our regions actually face, building talent pipelines that lead to real careers, and treating our hiring, purchasing and real estate transactions as instruments of shared prosperity.
However, this important work cannot be done solely by university and hospital leaders. It calls on mayors and county leaders, employers, philanthropists, and state and federal policymakers to invest in the institutions that hold their communities together. To my peers leading colleges, universities and academic medical centers across the country: this is our moment to redefine what an anchor institution can be.
