New Sign up for MyNews Receive headline news, full articles and breaking news via the Web or wireless device. Sign up for free e-mail alerts about breaking news, entertainment tips, daily recipes, sports teams or travel. The Dallas Morning News Several Texas universities are looking to Austin for a loftier status. They want to be known as flagships, a designation that could give them millions of research dollars and a chance to woo the world's best professors. That idea, proposed by state university leaders, could become one of the thorniest higher-education issues in the Legislature.
Flagship means they get the best students.
They get the best professors. To be a flagship, a university must produce numerous graduates with doctorates and have good research programs. He said the University of Houston and Texas Tech were logical choices for new flagships. But several universities could fit the bill, said Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas. The flagship discussion could become a sticky one for legislators, he said.