One of the largest higher education networks in the United States, the Texas A&M University System, with a budget of some $6.3 billion, educates more than 150,000 students annually through its flagship campus in College Station and across its ten other member universities. Since 2011, the Texas A&M System has been under the leadership of John Sharp, former Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts and a member of the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Class of 1972.In Breaking Away: How the Texas A&M University System Changed the Game, author Tim Gregg chronicles the last ten years of the Texas A&M System. Though A&M’s decision to exit the Big 12 and join the SEC preceded Sharp’s tenure as chancellor, in many ways it foreshadowed the decisive steps that placed the Texas A&M University System at the forefront of multiple initiatives. Sharp’s and the Regents’ leadership set a new course for achievement throughout the System’s institutions and agencies. As Gregg shows, the last ten years have seen advances in emergency management, research funding, extension work, and other enterprises benefiting not only the university system but the entire state.
Based on hours of interviews with an array of key participants from across the Texas A&M System and a host of former students and other stakeholders associated with Texas A&M, Gregg has assembled a highly readable account of a pivotal time. Including a foreword by Henry Cisneros, former secretary of housing and urban development, Breaking Away is replete with little-known stories from behind the scenes as well as major developments in the recent history of the System under Chancellor Sharp’s leadership, telling an important story about one of the nation’s leading higher education and public service networks.
