Sole Finalist For Texas A&M’s Next President Is College Of Engineering Dean Katherine Banks

The Texas A&M system board of regents special meeting March 3, 2021 before beginning their executive session.
The Texas A&M system board of regents special meeting March 3, 2021 before beginning their executive session.
Photo of Katherine Banks from https://engineering.tamu.edu/about/leadership/dean.html

The Texas A&M system board of regents is promoting from within for the next president of the flagship campus.

Dr. Katherine Banks is the dean of A&M’s college of engineering and is a system vice chancellor of engineering and national laboratories.

No regents or chancellor John Sharp had anything to say after exiting a two and a half hour executive session or after the unanimous vote, which was followed by adjourning the meeting.

Click below for comments during the regents meeting from board chairwoman Elaine Mendoza:

 

Click below for comments from Elaine Mendoza, who spoke with reporters after the meeting:

 

Members of a 19 member search committee included the regents chair and vice chair and interim president Dr. John Junkins.

According to Dr. Banks A&M engineering college website, Banks is also TEES director, overseeing research administration, technology commercialization and technology workforce development. Between the engineering agencies, she has oversight of $310 million in sponsored research. As dean of Texas A&M’s College of Engineering, University Distinguished Professor and holder of the Harold J. Haynes Dean’s Chair in Engineering, Banks leads one of the largest engineering schools in the country, with 20,800 students and 700 faculty.

Banks is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers. She leads the A&M System national laboratory engagement and serves as a board member and principal executive engaged with Triad National Security, LLC for the management and operation of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Banks is the principal investigator for the recent $65 million cooperative agreement with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory. This cooperative agreement is part of the A&M System initiative with Army Futures Command and the new George H. W. Bush Combat Development Complex, a $130 million investment by the A&M System and the state of Texas.

News release from the Texas A&M system:

The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents today named Dr. M. Katherine Banks as the sole finalist for the position of President of Texas A&M University.

“This is a tremendous honor,” Banks said. “The core values of Texas A&M, its rich traditions, unique culture and commitment to the greater good is the very foundation of this great university and resonates deeply with me. I hope to build upon that framework in our pursuit of preeminence, without losing what makes Texas A&M so special. Texas A&M is one of a kind and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

Banks is currently Vice Chancellor of Engineering and National Laboratories and Dean of the Texas A&M College of Engineering.

In those roles, she spurred unprecedented growth in the College of Engineering while also being a pivotal leader in some of the A&M System’s greater accomplishments, including recruiting the Army Futures Command to the RELLIS Campus and winning a federal contract to help manage Los Alamos National Laboratory.

On Wednesday, Chancellor John Sharp recommended Banks as sole finalist and the Board approved. Under state law, regents name a finalist for at least 21 days before making the appointment at a subsequent meeting.

“The Board was excited to know the search yielded tremendous interest and many qualified candidates,” said Elaine Mendoza, Chairman of the Board of Regents. “This speaks to the stellar reputation, credibility and positive momentum of Texas A&M University. The Board is confident that Dr. Banks will lead the university to even greater heights while celebrating the traditions and spirit that make Texas A&M unique.”

Chancellor Sharp said Banks’ decade-long record at Texas A&M prompted today’s decision.

“Where is there a dean in the U.S. who has accomplished what Dean Banks has accomplished?” asked Chancellor Sharp. “If she can do for the university what she did for engineering, imagine what the university can achieve!”

Banks is a Distinguished Professor and a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Banks obtained her Ph.D. at Duke University. She studied and worked at three land-grant universities before coming to Texas A&M.

When she was hired as Vice Chancellor and Dean in 2011, the enrollment in the College of Engineering was 11,113 students, with about 425 faculty members. Today, there are 21,250 engineering students and 710 faculty members.

That growth has been intentional. Banks sought to enhance educational delivery, expand research and teaching facilities and improve faculty recruitment and retention.

A prodigious fundraiser, Banks doubled engineering facilities to two million square feet, including the reconstruction of the Zachry Engineering Education Complex. That 525,000 square-foot, state-of-the art facility allows for hands-on, experiential undergraduate engineering education, including a 65,000 square foot maker space.

Through her growth program, Banks increased access to qualified engineering students while reducing the number of students in each class. No engineering class has more than 100 students and more than half of the classes do not exceed 50 students.

Banks also addressed the cost of higher education by creating engineering academies with community colleges around the state. Students are co-enrolled in Texas A&M engineering courses while taking their basics at their local community colleges. By living at home, the students can shave thousands of dollars from their education costs before transitioning to College Station.

Banks said faculty and staff engagement was critically important to the college’s success. She increased the number of faculty advisory groups and created the first engineering staff advisory council providing input to college leadership.

In addition to leading the College of Engineering at the flagship, Banks as vice chancellor also oversees engineering educational programs at seven universities throughout the A&M System, as well as three state agencies: the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), the Texas A&M Extension Service (TEEX) and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI).

In 2020, engineering program research expenditures eclipsed $300 million – an all-time high – as the college transitioned from mostly small research grants to successfully securing large, multi-partner strategic opportunities.

In particular, Banks led the A&M System’s competition to manage Los Alamos National Laboratory. In 2018, a bid by the Texas A&M System, the University of California and Battelle Memorial Institute won the management contract worth $2.5 billion per year.

A year later, Dean Banks was critical in developing the George H.W. Bush Combat Development Complex on the RELLIS Campus in Bryan, and facilitating research and testing partnerships with the Army Futures Command. The complex includes what will become the nation’s largest hypersonic testing tube, one kilometer long and two meters wide.

Building upon engineering research expertise in hypersonics, Banks helped position the Texas A&M System to become the nation’s hypersonic research capital, as recognized by the U.S. Department of Defense’s selection of TEES to lead its national hypersonics consortium with $100 million in funding over five years.

In addition to being named President, she will retain the title of Vice Chancellor of National Laboratories and National Security Strategic Initiatives. In that role, she will continue to serve on the board of Triad National Security, LLC, which manages the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and provide oversight for the Bush Combat Development Complex at the RELLIS Campus.

Kathy and her husband Paul, a soil and crop sciences professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, have six children and four grandchildren, with a son, daughter-in-law, and son-in-law who graduated from Texas A&M.

A&M’s interim president Dr. John Junkins released the following statement:

Today I am very pleased to share the announcement from The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents that Dr. M. Katherine “Kathy” Banks has been named the sole finalist to become the 26th president of Texas A&M University. With her breadth of academic experience and deep knowledge of this university, it came as no surprise our Board of Regents unanimously selected Dr. Banks.

For nearly a decade, I have had the good fortune and the great privilege of working closely with Dr. Banks in her capacity as dean of our College of Engineering and as vice chancellor of engineering and national laboratories for The Texas A&M University System.

As interim president and as a member of the presidential search committee, I can assure you that Dr. Banks emerged from an exceptional field of candidates. At every stage of her career, she has excelled in teaching, research and transformational academic leadership. More importantly, she knows and loves our university, and shares and upholds our cherished core values.

Per state law, there is at least a 21-day waiting period before our Board of Regents can hold a formal vote to officially name Dr. Banks as our next president. I anticipate that will take place expeditiously and a transition will be initiated prior to an expected start date of June 1.

In the meantime, I hope you will join me in celebrating this announcement and congratulating Dr. Banks on this well-deserved honor.