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The University of Texas at San Antonio and UT Health San Antonio officially merged Monday to become the new institution, UT San Antonio.
Taylor Eighmy, the current UTSA president, serves as head of the inaugural university, which now includes around 40,000 students, 17,000 employees, and more than $486 million in annual research expenditures.
"We are launching a brand-new university to do all of this amazing innovation, education, and really focusing on making lives better here in our community, South Texas, the nation and the world,” Eighmy said. “It's just so powerfully important as to where we're going as an institution."
The merger was announced by the University of Texas System Board of Regents last year.
UT San Antonio is now the third-largest public research university in Texas, just behind Texas A&M and UT Austin. It has a combined 15 colleges and six campuses, with more than 320 undergraduate and graduate degrees and certificates.
“I cannot overstate the significance of what this new UT San Antonio will mean to Texas and the nation,” said UT System Board of Regents chairman Kevin Eltife. “This is and always will be about impact. It’s about bringing together two institutions that complement each other — one with academics, research, the arts, and athletics and another that has all that you could ask for to make patients’ lives better through health education, research, and clinical care.”
UT San Antonio is projected to have a $7 billion annual economic impact on San Antonio, with major contributions to the city’s largest industry—the $44.1 billion healthcare and biosciences sector.
The new institution includes the UT San Antonio Health Science Center, the only academic health center in South Texas with more than 200 medical and dental specialties. Its clinic and patient care operation see more than 2.5 million patient visits each year.
“Synergies of expertise that come together allow us to innovate. That’s going to be available now to students, to faculty, to scientists, to graduate students across the spectrum of this new university,” said Francisco G. Cigarroa, MD, senior executive vice president for health affairs and health system of UT San Antonio. “A discovery that happens here, that improves the quality of life, not only improves the quality of life for our children or for our loved ones, but that translates to the population at large and it’s going to have a global impact.”
The UT San Antonio Road Runners will continue to compete in 17 NCAA Division 1 sports in the American Conference.
