Tim Gregg

From its post–Civil War beginnings as a land-grant institution, Texas A&M has become a place where great minds are cultivated, nurtured, and given free rein. It is in that spirit that a center was established on campus to enhance excellence through the exchange of ideas and collaboration with the world’s finest scholars, researchers, and industry leaders. That goal, cultivated in large part by the university’s Vision 2020 aspirational plan launched in 1997, eventually took shape as the Texas A&M University Hagler Institute for Advanced Study. Building on this enhanced base to continue the momentum toward Vision 2020’s first imperative of “elevating the faculty and their teaching, research, and scholarship,” the Hagler Institute brings outstanding senior scholars to the Texas A&M campus on a temporary basis. The institute thus enhances research productivity among the faculty and enriches the educational experience for students. These top visiting scholars contribute new research ideas, engage in collaborative research, provide mentoring for younger faculty, and contribute to the development of inspired graduate students. Providing a catalyst for high-quality, innovative research across the multiple disciplines represented in the university, the Hagler Institute continues to enhance the intellectual climate of the university in multiple ways. By affording faculty and students the perspectives of Nobel laureates and winners of various awards from national academies, the Hagler Institute continues to reflect the vision of its founding director, John Junkins, enhancing the academic reputation and innovative leadership of Texas A&M University.

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.

Today's RELLIS Campus, the Texas A&M University System's emerging educational, technological, and research reserve, carries with it a proud heritage forged from more than 75 years of remarkable and kindred achievement. First established as Bryan Army Air Field at the outset of World War II, the site has been and will continue to be a hub for learning, leadership, and history in the making. Bryan Field was one of the key domestic military installations during America's involvement in World War II. Its unique and critical mission: to train instructors to teach instrumentation flying to US and Allied aviators. At war's end, the site's long affiliation with Texas A&M began as Bryan Field was converted into "The Annex," the temporary four-year home of first-year cadets attending the A&M College of Texas. Reactivated as Bryan Air Force Base at the outset of the Korean War in 1951 and then permanently transferred to Texas A&M as an off-campus research and training enclave a decade later, today's RELLIS Campus carries on an enduring legacy. In these richly illustrated pages, author Tim Gregg honors the storied past of both the place as well as the people whose lives and life-accomplishments have intersected with the locale. Of those whose futures will be shaped on the RELLIS Campus, A&M System chancellor John Sharp writes in the foreword to the book, "May they take their inspiration from the stories you'll find here.