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Each month, Texas State University President Dr. Kelly Damphousse sits down with faculty members, staff, students, alumni, and community members for a conversation about all things TXST — the past, the present, and the bright future of the university.
Part of the TXST Podcast Network: https://www.txst.edu/podcast-network.html
- Derrick Hall was built to be the bookend to our campus. Today, it's only-
- From Old Main to Derrick.
- Old Main to Derrick, that was all of Texas State. Today, it's now only one-third of the way across the campus. We'll be removing that bookend and opening up the Quad. That is going to be transformational. Those pictures in the master plan of what that is gonna look like will blow you away.
- Hey, Bobcats, welcome to "The Current" where we had a chance to talk to faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends of the university to find out what's going on here at Texas State University. And I'm so excited today to welcome my friend Eric Algoe, executive vice president for list it out, 'cause it's a long-
- Operations and chief financial officer.
- Chief financial officer. So he kinda runs the joint here. And so everything that happens at Texas State, we have a provost who runs the academic part of things, and we have a vice president over student success, but you kind of like run the ship, right?
- It's the city manager job.
- City manager job, yeah. And the budget and so on. So I'm excited about having you here, because we're gonna talk about the master plan in a second here, which is really your baby. It's about, really, the future of what this place will look like in 10 years. But I wanna learn more about Eric, and I know a lot about you, but our listeners don't. So let's go way back in the time machine about where you grew up, went to high school, and how'd you end up being here, 'cause you actually have a very fascinating story.
- So let's talk about hometown.
- Sure. Hometown, I would say is Plain City, Ohio, small town outside of Columbus. When I lived there, there were still Amish buggies that would go
- Fascinating.
- Up and down the streets. Moved there from Columbus, from the big city, and went to a high school where there were 89 kids.
- You graduated in the top 89 that way.
- I was in the top 100.
- Yeah, that's good.
- Let's go with that. Went on from high school, went to Ohio State. At the time I was first gen. I knew that I had seen Ohio State Football on the PBS station, and so I knew that university existed. I didn't really know much about any other universities.
- Yeah.
- So I ended up going to Ohio State.
- Was there a family connection there or is this because it was the state university or?
- No one in my family had ever gone to college. Really didn't have anyone to go to for advice about college. Just knew that that seemed like the right thing for me to do next.
- What'd your parents do?
- My mom did all kinds of things. Sort of raised me and my four brothers on her own as just a sort of working class. She held so many jobs over the years. I've lost track.
- It's what people did back then, right?
- Yeah, she did everything that-
- And still do that now. There are people who were doing that just trying to make it happen.
- Yep, and she's still doing it today.
- Yeah, good for her. What was your plan when you went to college? Did you have one or you were just going 'cause you thought you should do something?
- Yeah, I went to college to be a mechanical engineer. I had been thinking-
- Here you are all these years later.
- [Eric] Yeah.
- Dream came true.
- And, you know, had a vision that I would, I don't know, maybe build rockets or build bridges or solve problems for the world. After about my freshman year of college, I lived in the honors dorm, which at Ohio State was the football stadium.
- [Kelly] Oh.
- So I actually lived inside of Ohio Stadium. They don't let people do that anymore. It was a long time ago. And I didn't do very well that first year. I didn't know how to study. High school had always been easy for me, and I just sort of didn't take it very seriously. And so I lost the scholarship that I had after my freshman year. And family didn't have any money and didn't really know much about college. So I was trying to figure out what am I gonna do to stay in college and to keep this going. And I figured one of the things I needed was more discipline. And I thought, "Well, I think they teach you discipline in the military."
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- So maybe-
- So that's how the military story starts, okay.
- Maybe I need to join the military. Went and found out more about that. Also first generation military family, right? No one in my family knew anything about the military.
- Interesting.
- So I ended up joining the Army, the Reserves, as a psychological operations specialist. I was supposed to miss one semester of college, but while I was in basic training, President Bush drew a line in the sand in the Middle East. And I ended up staying on active duty for the next year as a part of Operation Desert Storm and other activities. So eventually came back into the Reserves and came back to school. The Army, I don't know that they really taught me discipline, but maybe I just grew up a little bit.
- Yeah.
- So did two more years as a mechanical engineer before I thought, I realized, you know what, I'm a pretty average engineering student. I took this class, this elective in criminal justice, criminology, in fact, criminology, and was just fascinated by it. The greatest faculty member Professor Llewellyn, I still remember him well. And I thought, this is something I like. I endure engineering classes. I love going to this class. So I changed my major in my third year and decided to be a criminology major. Went on to finish that and was gonna go to law school. I joined ROTC in the meantime. I continued to be a drilling reservist and was activated actually one more time and went to Bosnia, but finished college, finished ROTC, had asked for a reserve commission and had applied for and been accepted to go to law school at Ohio State. And the Army thought that wasn't the best plan for me. So they offered me, offer is sort of a
- Yeah.
- Maybe not the right word. They told me that I had an active duty commission. So I was commissioned as a military intelligence officer. Spent the next couple of years doing that on active duty. Sort of traveled around the world, was stationed in Germany and in Korea, longest two tours, came back and got back into the Reserves.
- And then what happens?
- Then what happens is I don't really know what I'm supposed to do, 'cause law school seemed like a good idea when I went on active duty. I wasn't so sure when I got out.
- And you're like how old by this time?
- Probably 26.
- Yeah.
- Something like that.
- So life is starting to happen to you and law school is not it.
- Yeah. Yeah, law school just didn't seem like the right thing anymore. So I started a job and met my lovely wife at that job and she said, you know, you need to do bigger things. So you need to go back to school to figure out how to do bigger things. And I thought, "Well, I don't know what to go to school for." And so instead of struggling with that for much longer, I thought, "Well, why do people go to school and why do they work?" It's kind of about money, right?
- Yeah.
- So I have to study money. So I went and got my MBA with the finance sort of specialization and really a focus on nonprofits. But right away, coming out of the military, got into public service. So went to work for the state of Ohio and eventually became the CFO of a state agency, the state's Department of Administrative Services. It's sort of the job I do now.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- But for for state agencies.
- For the entire state, yeah.
- And did that for better part of 10 years. And one day my wife was, now our young daughters were going to preschool and she took the kids to our local preschool and a woman at the school said, "Hey, doesn't your husband do some sort of CFO kind of thing? Our college here in town is looking for a CFO and, you know, we're doing this national search, but maybe he'd be interested." And I could sit on my front porch and see the main administration building to this small private school, Ohio Wesleyan University, a great school. And I thought, "Hmm. I hadn't really thought about doing that, but why not?" So I threw my hat in the ring and, you know, long story short, I ended up becoming the CFO at Ohio Wesleyan.
- And then from there, Florida,
- Well, I worked at Ohio Wesleyan for about five years for a wonderful president, Rock Jones. Great place. But I went to Ohio State. My heart was in this sort of notion
- Of big school.
- Of big public university.
- Yeah.
- And my wife's parents were aging in Tallahassee. And the idea of spending sort of their twilight years closer to them seemed to be a good idea. And the opportunity came up to go to Florida State University. So I did that. There, I was the associate vice president, but the chief financial officer. So had a great run in Tallahassee where we won a football national championship. I got to be on the field for that game and every football game while I was there.
- Were you there when OU won the national championship versus Florida State?
- We don't really talk about that.
- I was there for that game.
- If you're a Seminole fan.
- Yeah.
- It's funny. I went to Ohio State during a time when they taught you how to hate Florida State, right?
- Yeah, that's right.
- The Bobby Bowden,
- Yeah, yeah.
- Just dominating. And so I went to Florida State, convinced I would never root for the Seminoles. And boy, they got good Kool-Aid there.
- Yeah.
- You drink the Kool-Aid and, before you know it, you're one of 'em.
- Well, when I went to OU, I was like, I'm never gonna root for OU. I'm an A&M guy. And like about three years into it, I'm like, "Okay, I am kinda like 50/50." And then like, well, you know, five years later, you're like, "Hey, Boomer Sooner," right?
- [Eric] Yeah. Or whatever the Seminoles do, so.
- So I'd been at Florida State for a couple of years, and my boss actually had been the CFO at Texas Tech. And his former boss, the president of Texas Tech, was heading up the search for the CFO at Texas State University. And my boss came into me one day and said, "You know, love you Eric, and you can stay here forever. It makes my job easier. But you really should be back in the CFO seat."
- Yeah. "You should, and I don't know if you've heard of Texas State." Honestly, I had not.
- Yeah.
- He said, "You need to learn about Texas State. This is the job. This, not only is it the job for you, it is the job anybody should want right now, 'cause great things are happening at Texas State." And I looked into it, and, sure enough, was just blown away by what I saw happening now 10 years ago. I've been here for 10 years now,
- Wow.
- And August 1 will be 10 years. And it's just been, it's been a wonderful 10 years. I love it more today than even what I thought I might when I was looking and learning about it then.
- So let's talk about the changes you've seen in 10 years. And so certainly administrations change, but I think a lot of alumni look at the university and they think the physical university's changed. But I think it's been more than just the physical part of it. That's part, it has changed. It's gotten bigger, more buildings, and so on. It's funny, there's one of the buildings on campus, was originally intended to be the end of campus, and now it's like one third of the way across. Actually, we're gonna deal with that in the master plan. But the university is changing beyond the physical part of it. And you've probably seen a bit of that as well, the research and the profile of the students who are coming here as well.
- It's funny. When I took the job, I called, I have a stepbrother and stepsister that grew up here in Austin, so I knew the area. We had come here for vacations when I was a kid, and I have stayed connected with them over the years. And so I called my stepbrother, Judd, and I said, "Judd, I'm taking this job at Texas State." And he said, "Well, you know, that's where I graduated."
- Oh, really? That's funny.
- And my stepsister, Jessica, also graduated, so he graduated the last year that it was SWT. She graduated two years later as Texas State. And so I got lots of immediate feedback on some of these changes. Texas State as a university, probably more so than many in the country that has gone through a lot of change over the past several decades to go from primarily being known as sort of a teacher school to today being on the cusp of being one of the top research universities in the country. One thing that I feel really happy about is what hasn't changed at Texas State, and that's the fact that we remain so student focused and so focused on giving our students a life experience that's gonna lead them to bigger and better things. It's why I love, I mean, I'm the CFO. I deal with finance and facilities and human resources, but I'm constantly reminding all of my employees and everyone I talk to that all of us here have the same job.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- And that's to create these great young people and spread 'em out into the world to do great things. So the creation and dissemination of knowledge, so creating knowledge through research and we've just exploded.
- Yeah.
- You know, really to go from probably single digits in the millions of research when I got here to today, you know, 165 million and counting in research on an annual basis. I will say, and I'll segue this into the master plan conversation, it is the thing that is causing us the most growing pains.
- When you look at the space that we need for the future of Texas State, the biggest shortage is in the area of research and having the kinds of labs we need to do world-class research.
- You know, we've been talking about strategic planning, and every university has a plan for what they're gonna do with the entirety of, you know, becoming an R1 institution or focusing on student success and all these things that we have in our strategic plan. But I don't think people pay a lot of attention to master plans. But we just got approval from the regents who just approved our master plan. We spent almost two years working on a plan with meetings with students and faculty and staff and alumni and townspeople and so on, trying to imagine what the future of Texas State looks like physically. And what we developed, and I say we on purpose, 'cause it's not me, it's not you, but what we corporately developed, I think, is pretty remarkable. And actually it will be quite beautiful when it's done. And you've been really good about saying this. These aren't just wishing things we hope might happen someday. We haven't proposed things that will never happen. These things actually can happen and probably will happen in phases. It's not gonna happen all at one time. But there's some remarkable things we're gonna do here, and it will allow us to do things in the new university that we can't do now. And you mentioned research in particular, but there's other areas as well. So when you look back at the creation of the master plan, what are some areas that you're thinking, like, that's gonna be, like, really important, but then that's important too. Like what are some like areas that you think are general categories of change that you think will be game changers for Texas State?
- I'm so glad that you talk about we. We had over 5,000 interactions with people.
- Oh yeah.
- As we built this plan.
- I remember people walking around with like little dots and putting little dots on pictures and things.
- Town halls and open meetings and meetings at San Marcos Town Hall and meetings up in Round Rock and wonderful process to get all of that feedback. And there are lots of people with great ideas. And I think we've distilled those down. Some highlights for me are a complete renewal of Spring Lake and Sewell Park.
- Yeah.
- One of the things, you know, that I think people would rightfully ask is, you know, where's the money gonna come from to do all of these projects. We've been very thoughtful about identifying deferred maintenance needs, things that have to be fixed anyway. We have to make these investments, and we're lucky to be in the state of Texas where the state gives us some funding to help do this. And we can use those funds to repair things, to put them back in a way that is much better than they are today. So as we do, for example, utilities renewal, we have to replace steam pipes under a road, well, you can put that road back as a pedestrian walkway or as a beautiful green space, those kinds of things. We're being very smart about how we do this. But a complete and total renewal of Spring Lake and Sewell Park to highlight the fact that we're sitting on one of the treasures of Texas, if not the country. When you look at that area around Spring Lake, it is absolutely amazing. And with our leadership in water research, we need to sort of show off the fact that we own one of the largest freshwater springs in the world that's the headwaters to a river that comes out of the ground on our campus. So we're really excited about all of the things at Spring Lake and Sewell Park. Equally interesting to me is the heart of our campus, that area around the Alkek Library. Today, where the Quad meets on one side and the mall on the other side by the LBJ Student Center, today there are over 30 staircases in that area.
- Yeah.
- It is concrete and a lot of stairs. And this new plan will remove most of those stairs and a lot of that concrete to reintroduce a significant amount of green space back into the heart of our campus in a really accessible way where you'll be able to move through there much easier than you can today. I'll just highlight the project that you mentioned. What was supposed to be the end of the Texas State campus, Derrick Hall was built to be the bookend to our campus. Today, it's only-
- From Old Main to Derrick.
- Old Main to Derrick, that was all of Texas State. Today, it's now only one-third of the way across the campus. We'll be removing that bookend and opening up the Quad. That is going to be transformational. Those pictures in the master plan of what that is gonna look like will blow you away. And the last thing I'll mention is the creation of our Hilltop Village.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- Where, for folks who remember living on campus years ago, where Arnold, Smith, Hornsby, and Burleson halls used to be, those halls have all been removed, so those were about 300 rooms. We have 2,500 rooms going back in that place. These are 10-story high-rise buildings, a new dining hall, a new green space and park-like environment that will be right at the front door of the library and the student center, the heart of campus that will become a vibrant residential district. It's gonna change the way Texas State feels when you come to visit.
- I know one of your special, your favorite projects is the Bobcat Trail, because you've been talking about that since I got here. And we're starting to see it come to fruition now where you can walk from the soccer fields to, basically, Old Main in one continuous loop when this gets done. But I know you're really fond of that project.
- And to take that same idea all the way over to Spring Lake to be able to go from Blanco Hall on the western edge of our campus all the way to Spring Lake with one continuous pedestrian spine, over a mile in length, I mean, there just aren't a lot of universities that can make that sort of claim. It's ambitious, but we're gonna get there, and it's gonna be beautiful.
- Now you haven't talked about the most important thing people want, and that's more parking.
- Yes.
- That's coming though, right?
- We decided we won't have parking.
- Yeah, no more parking.
- No, so the master plan calls for three new parking garages and multiple parking lots. It is interesting though, because some of our growth is going to be online. So the parking crunch, as we continue to grow at Texas State, I don't think it gets significantly worse. But we need parking to sort of catch up to where we're going to be. So yes, there will be more parking added. And I just add, Kelly, that, you know, not everybody gets everything they want in a master plan, right? I went into the master plan, convinced that the master plan needed to have street cars.
- I wanted gondolas.
- And you wanted gondolas. And neither one of those things are in the master plan.
- Well, you know, you kinda like throw everything at the wall and see what's gonna stick. And by the way, speaking of parking, we've got one parking lot coming on pretty quickly, the Thorp Lane one, right?
- That's right, yeah. It should open by this fall, an additional 500 parking spaces for our commuters specifically. That's gonna make that ability to come as a commuter to park easily and quickly and get a quick ride over to campus. And if you can just get here 30 minutes ahead of when your class starts, you're gonna be in good shape.
- You can get from the parking lot to your classroom in 30 minutes guaranteed.
- Don't drive around looking for a spot where there aren't any.
- So parking is coming. You mentioned the Hilltop Housing area. So we'll have 2,500 new, we already have 1,000 and another 1,500 beds coming. Castro Hall coming, that's 1,000 beds there. That's pretty much the end of housing.
- Yeah, that'll get us pretty close to 12,000 beds on campus, which we think is about the right size for us to house our freshman class with RAs and just a little bit of room for others. We've, for example-
- Maybe graduate students, for example.
- Bobcat Village is a place we've thought probably makes more sense for graduate students or upperclassmen. So we think 12,000 is sort of the natural pausing point where we may be where we need to end up in terms of housing on the San Marcos Campus. Housing at Round Rock, you know, down the road we think it's gonna happen, but a little bit further away.
- We've been talking a lot about San Marcos, but there's other locations where we're planning as well. So it is a master plan. So we've got Round Rock, we're building Esperanza Hall, that's our fourth big building there, but we've got plans for 10,000 students there. So we've got a plan for Round Rock as well.
- Yeah, and some great pictures and images of what that's going to be as well with-
- By the way, the pictures are unbelievable, what this place will look like. I hope it actually looks like that, but they are works of art and they look really good.
- They really are.
- That picture of what you wanna do below Old Main on the JCK side of Old Main with the kind of the public gathering space? Unbelievable. People used to gather there back in the early 1900s.
- Yeah, on the side of Chautauqua Hill, right, just below Old Main. Today, that area has turned into essentially a parking lot.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- And you've made this statement previously that that's probably the project you're most excited about
- Yeah.
- In the plan. I invite everybody to go take a look at it. We're calling it Bobcat Landing, but I think we gotta get more creative than just another Bobcat something.
- Yeah, yeah. But that hillside below Old Main will become just one of the most iconic and breathtaking spots at any university in the country. And that, we hope, is probably a year or two away.
- That spot there. And then looking at Alkek back towards Old Main, where you can see the whole Quad, where that kind of opens up there will be unbelievable. Maybe we'll call it Algoe Landing. How about that?
- Let's not go that far .
- Algoe Memorial maybe? Alright, Eric, we also have another part of the podcast. Every week, listeners send in questions for me. And so you get to be the podcast host now and ask me a question. I've not seen the question. I have no idea what it is.
- All right, Kelly. What is a daily ritual or routine for you that feels non-negotiable?
- Wow, that's a good one. You know, I actually, this is very personal. And I don't think I've ever really shared this very much, but you know, I think all of us have our thing that is who we are. And that's not part of our public persona, not part of our job. But I'm actually a pretty spiritual person. And if I'm not careful, the day can get away from me, and I'll have not engaged in that part of my life. And I like to be, I have a holistic approach to me, and what I've discovered is if I wait to do that at the end of the day when I'm the most tired or the most busy that I can't do that or I'll forget to do it and I'll miss that part of who I am. And so to me it's the morning routine of just me thinking about what the day is to come, but also thinking about me and my relationship with others, which is also very important to me, and kind of like a spiritual preparation for the day. So, to me, it's the morning routine. And what's actually interesting is that Beth actually gets up a little earlier than I do. I go to bed really late, and she gets up early. So it is just me by myself back in the back bedroom, kind of getting ready, and I'm in a kind of a constant moment of prayer thinking about, not praying like in the traditional sense, but thinking about the day that's to come, preparing for it, and then trying to get my head straight for the day. And so that's become the way I start the day. Like, I don't eat breakfast. I don't have to spend my time combing my hair anymore, because I've got the short hairdo that I'm sporting right now. But that's how I kind of clear my head. And if I don't do it, if I get rushed in the day and don't do it, I feel like I've missed something. So that's probably it. What about you?
- Well, I'm glad you mentioned staying up late, because for those of you who are listening or watching that don't know this about Kelly, a lot of us are convinced he doesn't sleep at all. He does 26 hours a day of work. So it's pretty amazing. For me, the prayerfulness thing is something that I, luckily, I don't have to think too much about myself because my mom sends me a Facebook message every day,
- Oh, is that right?
- Asking, have you prayed today?
- Oh, that's funny.
- For me, it's probably making sure that I find time to connect with my wife, my partner, 28 years we've been married. And you know, it's one of those things, especially our three daughters now have all left the house, you can sort of get in a routine. And if you don't-
- You're just roommates.
- You're just roommates, yeah. And to be thoughtful and purposeful not to let that happen, to find time to connect every day is something that's important to me.
- Yeah, that's great. I love to hear that. Thank you for sharing that very personal insight, and thank you for joining us here on "The Current." It's always great to learn more about what's happening here at Texas State. It's a complicated place. 41,000 students, five or 6,000 employees. It's hard to keep track of all of them. Eric, you have to keep track of all of 'em. But thank you Eric for joining us. Thank you for joining us as well. Until next time, States Up, everyone.