Austin American-Statesman, Jan. 5, 2008

A donor supporting a medical school in Round Rock, just north of Austin, has offered to give land to Texas A&M University for a medical school branch. Last year, the Legislature appropriated $9 million to the A&M Health Science Center's College of Medicine to offer training in hospitals and clinics in Round Rock. UTMB has for years sent students to Austin for some of their training, with about 85 such students here at any given time.

Avery family offers 15 acres for future school in Round Rock.

By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, January 05, 2008

The Avery family, which has emerged as a major donor to higher education and health care in Williamson County, is offering to give land in Round Rock to the Texas A&M University System for a medical school branch.

Such a donation could accelerate the A&M system's plans for medical education in Round Rock, while the University of Texas System considers whether and how it might establish a medical school branch less than 20 miles down the road in Austin.

The Avery family has been in discussions with A&M system officials for months.

Dr. Nancy Dickey, vice chancellor for health affairs and president of the system's Health Science Center, said this week that the family has offered to contribute land, but she declined to specify the acreage.

Charles Avery said Friday that he and his siblings - Christina Avery Fell, Nelson Avery and John Avery - have offered 15 acres as a gift, along with up to 35 additional acres at a reduced price.

"We're excited about it," Charles Avery said, adding that nothing has been firmed up "other than a handshake."

The 50-acre tract would be part of an emerging higher education and health care complex in Round Rock. The A&M parcel would be west of FM 1460 and south of County Road 112, and it is part of about 1,000 acres owned by the Avery family. The area was previously under consideration as a new home for Concordia University Texas, but the school decided to move to a site in Northwest Austin.

The Avery family has previously donated 101 acres for a branch campus of Texas State University-San Marcos and $1 million to the Seton Williamson Foundation. In addition, it has offered to give 9 acres to Austin Community College.

Discussions with the family are ongoing, Dickey said. When the talks are completed, the matter will be taken up by the A&M System Board of Regents, whose formal acceptance is needed for donations. Action by the regents probably will take place early this year, Dickey said.

"It is our expectation, once the decisions regarding a campus site are completed, that we will embark on how to get a building on there sooner rather than later," Dickey said. "We would like to start construction by January 2009."

Dickey said donations would be sought, as well as state funding when lawmakers convene in 2009. She said she didn't know how much the project would cost but said construction of such buildings generally runs $350 a square foot to $600 a square foot.

Last year, the Legislature appropriated $9 million to the A&M Health Science Center's College of Medicine to offer training in hospitals and clinics in Round Rock. Sixteen third-year medical students are expected to begin training in July. Plans call for adding fourth-year students and expanding the roster to 40 to 80 students during the next several years.

Dickey said the long-term goal is to offer all four years of medical education in Round Rock, supplementing similar arrangements in Temple and College Station, the two sites where the medical school has long-standing programs.

In addition, discussions are under way concerning the possibility of expanding A&M's Round Rock initiative to include other health care training, perhaps in pharmacy and public health.

"There's been huge enthusiasm in the community, and the discussions with the Averys are part of the community embracing the opportunity," Dickey said.

Meanwhile, the UT System is considering various options for expanding medical education in Austin, where health, civic and business leaders have long sought a medical school for a city that is among the largest in the country without such an enterprise.

UT-Austin's Dell Pediatric Research Institute, under construction at the site of the former municipal airport, will foster collaboration involving its medical researchers, physicians at the adjacent Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas and researchers on the main campus. The UT Medical Branch in Galveston has for years sent students to Austin for some of their training, with about 85 such students here at any given time, said Dr. Kenneth Shine, the UT System's executive vice chancellor for health affairs.

More recently, the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, at Shine's request, has begun studying the feasibility of establishing a medical school branch in Austin.

"It's going to be several months before their analysis is completed and considered as one of the possible options we might undertake," Shine said.

"The feasibility of doing something here depends a great deal on whether one can create efficiencies of scale, share faculties between UT-Austin and whoever is doing medical branch activity and provide help with infrastructure. The community would have to be willing to make substantial commitments of resources," Shine said.

How much might need to be donated? "I can't tell you," Shine said. "That's part of the feasibility study.

"If you were to try to create a completely new independent medical school here (from scratch), the cost of that could easily be a billion or 2 billion. When you have an existing accredited program, it becomes much more feasible to find a way to do something as part of that program at a different location."

Whether the state Legislature would be willing to fund two medical schools in Central Texas is an open question. A report in 2002 by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the state agency that oversees higher education, said any new medical schools should be established in El Paso and the Lower Rio Grande Valley, which it called the areas of greatest need.

A Texas Tech University System medical school has been established in El Paso, but a proposal to authorize a medical school in the Valley passed the Senate and died in the House last year.

rhaurwitz@statesman.com; 445-3604