The University of Houstonâ€"Clear Lake (UHCL) is a four-year state university and one of four distinct institutions in the University of Houston System. Its campus spans 524 acres (2.12 km2) in Houston, Texas, with a branch campus in Pearland. Founded in 1971, UHCL has an enrollment of more than 8,500 students. The U.S. News & World Report ranks the university No. 74 in its Regional Universities (West) rankings, and No. 24 among public universities in the same category.
The university serves students in four academic colleges. UHCL offers nearly 90 degree programs: 40 bachelors, 44 masters, and two doctoral. Awarding more than 2,100 degrees annually, the university's alumni base exceeds 50,000.
History
In 1961 NASA announced that the Manned Spacecraft Center would be located in Houston just off the shores of Clear Lake. Early in the development of the Manned Spacecraft Center, a demand for graduate studies grew within NASA and the nearby space-related industries.
In 1964 the University of Houston (UH) began offering courses in physics, math, and various engineering programs to NASA employees at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC). On September 10, 1965, MSC Director Robert R. Gilruth formally requested that the University of Houston give immediate consideration to the establishment of a permanent graduate and undergraduate educational facility in the Clear Lake area. UH President, Philip G. Hoffman, replied that "…it would be difficult for us to be unresponsive to vital needs of the MSC and its staff," but indicated that "the acquisition of appropriate land in the Clear Lake City area would be of crucial importance to this project."
Humble Oil responded by donating 50 acres (200,000 m2) of land in the Clear Lake City development to the University of Houston for the establishment of a permanent undergraduate and graduate facility. A total of 487 acres (1.97 km2) would be donated from the Friendswood Development Corp. to become the University of Houston at Clear Lake City.
In 1968 the Coordinating Board of Texas College and University System authorized the University of Houston to build the Clear Lake Graduate Center (CLGC) on the original 50-acre (200,000 m2). In addition, the Coordinating Board called for the creation of a stand-alone university in Clear Lake to offer upper-division and graduate-level programs adjacent to CLGC. Four years later in 1971, the 62nd Texas Legislature passed House Bill 199 authorizing the creation of the University of Houston at Clear Lake City as a separate and distinct degree-granting institution.
The Clear Lake Graduate Center opened in January 1972. The first phase construction of the Bayou Building for the University of Houston at Clear Lake City (UH/CLC) began early in 1974. On June 1, 1974, the Clear Lake Graduate Center facility became part of UH/CLC and took on the name "Arbor Building." The Bayou Building opened in September 1974 and classes began at UH/CLC under the leadership of the institution's founding president, Alfred R. Neumann. The first-class day enrollment was 1,069 students with 60 professors comprised the charter faculty.
In 1977 the 65th Texas Legislature established the University of Houston System that included UH/CLC as a component institution. The University of Houston at Clear Lake City was renamed University of Houstonâ€"Clear Lake on April 26, 1983. During the 73rd Texas Legislature in 1993, an unsuccessful attempt was made by the City of Pasadena to change the institution's name to the University of Houston at Pasadena.
In January 2011, Senate Bill 324 was filed in the 82nd Texas Legislature for the institution's downward expansion by adding freshman and sophomore course offerings. The bill was passed and signed into law by Governor Perry on June 17, 2011. The university began offering freshman and sophomore classes in fall 2014.
Institutional structure
The University of Houstonâ€"Clear Lake (UHCL) is one of four separate and distinct institutions in the University of Houston System. The institution is separately accredited, offers its own academic programs and confers its own degrees, and has its own administration. UHCL is a stand-alone university; it is not a branch campus of the University of Houston (UH). Although UHCL and UH are both component institutions of the University of Houston System, they are separate degree-granting universities.
The organization and control of the University of Houstonâ€"Clear Lake is vested in the Board of Regents of the University of Houston System. The Board has all the rights, powers, and duties that it has with respect to the organization and control of other institutions in the System; however, UHCL is maintained as a separate and distinct institution.
Administration
The president is the chief executive officer of the University of Houstonâ€"Clear Lake, and the position reports to the chancellor of the University of Houston System. The president is appointed by the chancellor and confirmed by the Board of Regents of the University of Houston System. The president of the university was William A. Staples from 1995 to 2017. President Ira K. Blake came on board just before Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The UHCL administration is located in the Bayou Building.
Campuses
Main campus
The campus of UHCL is located on a nature preserve adjacent to the community of Clear Lake City. The campus consists of four classroom buildings: the Bayou Building, Arbor Building, Delta Building, and Student Services and Classroom Building. Additionally, the campus includes a physical plant maintenance facility, the University Forest Apartments, and the headquarters building of the Environmental Institute of Houston.
The majority of the 524-acre (2.12Â km2) UHCL campus lies within the corporate limits of Pasadena, while only the part of campus south of Horsepen Bayou lies within the city of Houston. The campus sits in a bottomland hardwood forest adjacent to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center and the Armand Bayou Nature Center and is home to a wide range of wildlife including alligators, wild turkeys, bobcats, and whitetail deer.
The vast majority of classroom space is located in the Bayou Building, which is the largest building on campus. It also houses the campus book store, several computer labs, and all of the university's science laboratories. The Delta Building houses the Computer Science and Engineering program as well as many computing labs and classrooms. The Arbor Building was constructed in 1971 and was the first building on campus. It is home to UHCL's acclaimed studio art programs. The Student Services and Classroom Building was completed in 2005 and houses business and education classrooms. A large part of the facility is dedicated to student service functions, including the Dean of Students' office, the registrar, cashier, and financial aid offices. The Fitness Zone workout facility on the second level of the SSB has cardio and weight training equipment for student use.
The Bayou Building is also home to the Alfred R. Neumann Library. UHCL’s library, the 80,000-square-foot (7,400 m2) Neumann Library contains over 480,000 volumes and over 1000 journal and periodical subscriptions. The library has online access to over 100 subscription-only research databases and the Texshare interlibrary loan service which allows students to check out items from any academic or public library in Texas. Additionally, the library houses the University Archives, which includes the NASA Johnson Space Center History Collection.
Branch campus
UHCL operates a branch campus situated on 40 acres of land in Pearland. City of Pearland officials and UHCL administrators began discussing opportunities to work together in 2004. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board approved the addition of the campus in 2007 and construction began in 2009. The 30,659 square foot building opened for classes in August 2010. Before the campus opened, a scholarship endowment was established to benefit Pearland residents who attend classes at the center.
The Pearland Economic Development Corporation leased some of the campus space for its new headquarters. The campus includes a library and a student lounge in addition to classroom and laboratory space. During its first semester, the campus enrolled over 500 students; UCHL's total enrollment that semester was over 8,000 students for the first time.
Upon its opening, the Pearland campus offered undergraduate and graduate courses in education and several social science disciplines. In September 2013, the campus added a degree program to its offerings, the Bachelor of Applied Science in Information Technology. The new major is the seventh complete degree program offered on the campus.
Academics
The University of Houstonâ€"Clear Lake (UHCL) is separately accredited, offers its own academic programs, and confers its own degrees. Students who graduate from UHCL will have diplomas under the name University of Houstonâ€"Clear Lake.
The university is organized into four academic colleges: the College of Business, the College of Education, the College of Human Sciences and Humanities, and the College of Science and Engineering. The College of Business has the largest undergraduate enrollment and awards the most bachelor's degrees annually.
UHCL awards the undergraduate degrees Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Business Administration and Bachelor of Social Work (BSW). At the graduate level it awards the degrees Master of Arts, Master of Science, Master of Business Administration, Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA), and Doctor of Education (EdD). The EdD program in Educational Leadership, initiated in January 2007, is the first doctoral degree program offered by the university.
UHCL is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Many of the university's Schools and academic programs have individual accreditation through other governing bodies such as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), the American Chemical Society (ACS),the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT), and the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).
Rankings
The U.S. News & World Report ranks the university No. 74 in its Regional Universities (West) rankings, and No. 24 among public universities in the same category.
Notable alumni
- Guion Bluford â€" astronaut
- Gregory Chamitoff â€" astronaut
- John E. Davis (Class of 1987) - Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives from Houston since 1999
- Kevin Eschenfelder â€" sportscaster
- Michael Fincke â€" astronaut
- Michael E. Fossum â€" astronaut
- Stephanie Guerrero â€" model and former Miss Texas USA 2004
- Gregory J. Harbaugh â€" astronaut
- Dean A. Hrbacek â€" attorney, politician, and former mayor of Sugar Land, Texas
- Lauren Lanning â€" Miss Texas USA 2006
- Bruce McCandless II â€" astronaut
- Charles McClelland â€" Houston Police Chief
- Richard Mastracchio â€" astronaut and engineer
- John Muratore â€" professor of Aviation Systems at the University of Tennessee Space Institute and former NASA engineer
- Story Musgraveâ€" physician and a retired astronaut
- Randy Weber U.S. Congressman from Texas
- Bruce Webster â€" software engineer, an entrepreneur, and a former game programmer
References
External links
- Official website