Texas State University, San Marcos
PA-2: Sustainability Planning

ACADEMICS & RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT

TO GROW OUR RESEARCH ENTERPRISE, TEXAS STATE WILL EXPLORE SEVERAL STRATEGIES:

Build and leverage existing research strengths and centers of excellence in scholarly activities

Increase the number of ambitious, nationally-competitive research proposals submitted to funding agencies and prospective research partners

Expand existing research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students

Further develop and capitalize on the university’s intellectual property

Expand existing Ph.D. programs and launch new ones that meet demand and align with existing academic and scholarly strengths

World-class research and scholarly activities at Texas State University create new knowledge and promote economic, cultural, and technological advancement to address real-world issues. Texas State is committed to research that advances economic resilience and community sustainability at the state and national level, and through economic development efforts across the Texas Innovation Corridor.

Top areas of research impact include: STEM education, materials and infrastructure, environmental stewardship, and public health and public safety. These are some of the university's greatest centers of excellence where we are addressing societal challenges. We also have a myriad of additional research specialties that are growing, funded by government and industry partners. Texas State’s research portfolio has grown significantly in both STEM and non-STEM research and development expenditures. One of the hallmarks of the TXST research enterprise is a thriving culture of scholarly activities and creative expression in the humanities and social sciences.
https://www.president.txst.edu/run-to-r1/why-r1.html

Meadows Center for Water and the Environment

The Meadows Center has identified five priority goals and key activities for the coming Texas State University strategic planning cycle (2017-2023). These goals are intended to bring strategic focus and attention to key areas that the Meadows Center believes are vital to ensure that the Meadows Center fulfills its mission and support the broader mission and goals of Texas State University. These goals and key activities include: Goal 1: Strengthen The Meadows Center’s research program and the infrastructure platform that supports Texas State’s research community. Goal 2: Implement the next phase of restoration, stewardship, and enhancement projects at Spring Lake, including development of a new Interpretive Research Center. Goal 3: Strengthen and expand the Meadows Center’s work on conservation leadership to address the grand challenges facing water resource stewardship in Texas and beyond in the coming decades. Goal 4: Contribute to the learning and enrichment of Texas State University students. Goal 5: Strengthen and broaden the leadership and management capacity at the Meadows Center to ensure its long-term success. First, the Meadows Center will build on its current strengths by further developing core research initiatives in the following areas: Environmental Flows. The Meadows Center supports a world-class research initiative focused on researching environmental and ecosystem needs for freshwater flows in river systems and the efficacy of strategies for ensuring freshwater flows that meet diverse environmental and human needs. The Meadows Center is also working with partners to develop and assess innovative, policy and market-based solutions for ensuring adequate environmental flows in river systems. Watershed Research for Planning and Management. The Meadows Center conducts field and desktop research to provide recommendations, advice and technical assistance to local government institutions and communities across Texas related to planning and management of watersheds for people and the environment. The Meadows Center also conducts research worldwide on effective practices and policies that can support successful watershed planning and management. Interpretive and Experiential STEM Education. With more than 33,000 K-12 students participating in interpretive and experiential learning programs at Spring Lake each year and hundreds more people participating in citizen-science “Stream Team” activities across Texas, the Meadows Center provides a living laboratory for researching the efficacy and impact of experiential educational programs and techniques. Water Conservation. The Meadows Center is investigating municipal, regional, and statewide water conservation strategies and technologies to discover efficiencies and potential new approaches that support water stewardship and watershed management practices
https://gato-docs.its.txst.edu/jcr:e8d92cd8-ddb8-47bd-b362-1567af5ac834/StrategicPlan_2017.06.23.pdf

Science, Technology, and Advanced Research (STAR) Park

The 58-acre Science, Technology, and Advanced Research (STAR) Park is strategically located five miles south of the San Marcos Campus in close proximity to IH-35, an innovation corridor that links science and technology between San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, and beyond. As the Strategic Plan states, STAR Park exists to support Texas State University’s research enterprise and economic development mission. The master plan also provides a vision for how best management practices (BMPs) can be incorporated into the implementation of a comprehensive rainwater management plan. A key component is the utilization of the site’s natural drainage pattern to create an amenity for the campus. the plan articulates an alternative energy strategy to further advance the University’s sustainability goals. Most importantly, the physical planning for STAR Park establishes a framework where opportunities for both formal and informal collaboration can occur outside the office or laboratory to advance the mission of Texas State University. During early visioning sessions for STAR Park, goals were established to provide clear direction for the master planning process. STAR Park will be:

• Collaborative: Promote accessibility, social interaction, and community Be open and flexible to all university and non-university enterprises with the potential to benefit the University. Create a culture of social and professional interactions. • Inspirational: Build a sense of place that reflects the entrepreneurial nature of STAR Park Adopt design guidelines to build a sustainable, dense, walkable STAR Park with spaces for social interaction. Be context-aware in development scale, massing, and integration of an inspirational design aesthetic. • Sustainable: Achieve self-sustaining innovation Foster innovative processes which allow STAR Park to be open to a wide variety of funding sources to support long-term success
https://www.txst.edu/starpark/

Freeman Ranch

The Freeman Center provides 3,500 acres of Hill Country habitat and on-site facilities as part of Texas State University. The three-fold mission of research, education and outreach of the Center is enabled by a framework of foundation agreements with Texas State University, a doctoral-granting, emerging research institution dedicated to excellence in serving the research and education needs of Texas and the world beyond. Providing information that enables the good stewardship and sustainable use of Texas land and water resources is a core goal of the Center. Texas State’s goal is to provide effective stewardship of the Center’s ecosystem and infrastructure in accordance with the University’s mission. Responsibility for stewardship of the Freeman Center and the fulfillment of this goal has been assigned by the Provost to the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs.

The main objectives in the management of the Freeman Center are to protect its ecosystems, enable research and educational opportunities within the Freeman Center, and provide access to the Center for service/outreach activities when appropriate.
https://www.txst.edu/freemanranch/research.html

GROW SUSTAINABLY: To accommodate anticipated growth and diminish the current spatial deficits, Texas State University will need to invest in additional new space. The University Master Plan identifies priority growth in teaching space (classrooms and teaching laboratories), research, and office space, as well as recommendations for student admission growth that will utilize academic capabilities to the most sustainable long-term level.

• Selectively grow undergraduate enrollment at 1.5 percent annually

• Accelerate graduate growth to three percent annually

• Increase current space allocation levels from 64 ASF/FTE to a target of 78 ASF/FTE

VITALITY: BUILD AN INTEGRATED ACADEMIC CORE: Building a centralized and dense academic core utilizing sustainable class scheduling and location methods are important to creating a good student experience and an environment conducive to supporting academic activities.

• Maintain the historic Quad as the locus of the undergraduate experience

• Concentrate all academic activities within a 10-minute walk of the Alkek Library

• Surround the academic core with mixed-use neighborhoods

• Consider offering graduate evening classes in buildings on the periphery of campus to take advantage of perimeter parking lots
https://gato-docs.its.txst.edu/jcr:e707fd32-d915-4fa9-abd5-77076fa897e8/UNIV_Master%20Plan_Final_8_23_web.pdf

The following are the guiding objectives in the Texas State University Master Plan:

IDENTITY
• Provide visually unified and aesthetically pleasing campus that allows the University to showcase its status of excellence.
• Preserve the character of the original academic quadrangle and any potential expansion as a way of cultivating the small campus atmosphere.
• Create a sense of arrival to the campus distinguished by entrances with appropriate signage and borders that are consistent with the character of the campus and compatible with adjacent neighborhoods.

COMMUNITY
• Continue to provide amenities for the resident college student, while responding to the needs of the non-resident student population.
• Identify areas for students, faculty, and staff to congregate in order to create a sense of community and to stimulate social and intellectual interaction.
• Enhance the relationship between the University and the San Marcos community by emphasizing responsible land use.

The following are the guiding objectives related to sustainability in the Texas State University Master Plan

ARCHITECTURE
• Adhere to architectural design guidelines
related to scale, materials, color, and design
objectives that will achieve a varied but
cohesive architectural style that enhances
the character of the University and respects
its history.
• Plan new academic buildings in close
proximity to existing academic buildings to
make the campus more pedestrian friendly
for students.
• Anticipate and provide plans to address
infrastructure requirements of the campus in
the least intrusive manner possible.
• Assure that architectural designs and building
sites give consideration to energy efficiency,
safety, and environmental issues.

MOBILITY
• Manage University transportation and
movement of people to further the mission
of the campus and contribute to the
educational, intellectual, and physical
development of the students, faculty, and
staff. The primary goal is for students and
faculty to reach class on time.
• Recognize that the University is a member
of the regional community, and consider its
impact on its neighbors and their access to
the campus.
• Provide a campus that is conveniently and
safely accessible by foot, bicycle, automobile,
and bus.
• Provide a safe and reasonable flow of traffic
with preferred vehicular routes clearly
identified.
• Provide parking, conveniently located, or
served by bus.
• Continue to create an environment that is
accommodating for persons with disabilities.
• Enhance the experience of guests and first-time visitors when entering the campus,
finding parking, and navigating the campus.

NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
• Accentuate the unique physical
characteristics of the campus in creating an
identity and image for the University.
• Provide landscape design guidelines
to enhance the beauty of the natural
environment, provide for economy of
operation, conserve resources and minimize
environmental impacts, and drive future
landscape design decisions.
• Preserve and protect existing natural areas
where relaxation, academic instruction,
informal discussion, and social interaction
can take place.
• Provide the appropriate visibility and
accessibility needed to create a secure
environment.

GOAL 1: Strengthen Our Culture of Respect and Inclusion
• Develop and use a more inclusive definition of diversity that builds on and broadens the race and gender diversity focus of
previous diversity strategic plans.
• Create and implement strategies that provide an effective framework for student success with exposure to a broad array of
differences, new and different points of view, a global perspective, and a spirit of inclusiveness.
• Create an optional, internal inclusion skill certificate program for faculty and staff members to build capacity of all members of
the university community to treat every individual with respect, to value and leverage differences, and to collectively work to
enhance our safe and supportive environment that honors and promotes the physical, emotional, and intellectual well-being of
all community members. It will be a voluntary program that requires completion of existing training programs: Veterans, Title IX,
ADA, Managing at Texas State, Allies, Bystander Intervention, Faculty Hiring, Curriculum Transformation Institute, and potential
new programs. It will also include required reading of selected literature.
• Increase faculty participation in Curriculum Transformation Institute.
• Create and implement responsive strategies based on an analysis of the results of the Student Campus Climate Survey and Great
Colleges to Work For Survey and other assessments.
• Support research studies, scholarship, curricular development, and extra-curricular critical conversation opportunities for the
university community.

GOAL 2: Strengthen Our Efforts to Better Identify and Overcome Barriers to Inclusion
• Create and implement strategies that allow the university community to engage in conversations about inclusion with the goal
Diversity Strategic Plan v4 6
of identifying barriers to inclusion and ways in which the identified barriers may be overcome.
• In view of the changing demographics at Texas State, the more inclusive definition of diversity to be agreed upon as a part of this
plan, and the emerging literature relating to the concept of intersectionality, explore the ways in which the Equity and Access
Committee and affinity groups can assist in identifying, creating, and implementing strategies to overcome barriers

GOAL 3: Strengthen Our Ability to Better Understand and Define Our University Community
• Develop a data-based University “Portrait” that will tell our diversity stories: HSI, growth of diversity, values/mission, history of
Equity and Access Committee.
• Develop unit-specific “Portraits” that contain relevant historic and comparative peer data.
• Complete analysis of results of the Student Campus Climate Survey Data and re-administer the survey during the planning period
to provide comparative results.
• Conduct comprehensive data gathering and analysis using as many categories of diversity as possible.
• Recommend adding faculty and staff campus climate survey tool and re-administering the survey during the planning period to
provide comparative results.
• Create inventory of all activities across the university that relate to diversity and inclusion efforts.

GOAL 4: Strengthen Our Efforts to Maintain a Safe University Environment Free From Discrimination and Sexual Misconduct
• Create additional Title IX trainings and poster campaigns to educate and raise awareness of sexual misconduct, the affirmative
consent standard, reporting avenues, existing policies and procedures, and related issues.
• Create and implement strategies to prevent sexual misconduct and eliminate discrimination.
• Engage in research concerning Best Practices and peer-practices.
• Create and implement strategies that encourage all members of the university community to find commonality and build
alliances across differences; to promote character development both inside and outside the classroom; and to foster an
environment that expects all community members to interact with one another civilly, honestly, equitably, compassionately,
fairly, and ethically

GOAL 5: Strengthen the Diversity of Faculty and Senior-level Administrators (Director & above)
• Increase training and consulting related to faculty recruitment and selection.
• Increase diversity of applicant pools in faculty and staff postings.
• Provide a trend analysis related to unit specific “Portraits” which includes historical review, internal comparisons, external
comparisons with peers, and available workforce data.

https://gato-docs.its.txst.edu/jcr:a96706ad-f4d8-4d4b-8239-65f313e569e3/Special%2520Assistant%2520to%2520the%2520President%25202017-2023%2520Diversity%2520and%2520Inclusion%2520Plan.pdf