Gov. Rick Perry appointed Robert Rowling, a Dallas oil and hotel tycoon, to The University of Texas System Board of Regents Tuesday night, for a term ending Feb. 1, 2005.
If his appointment is confirmed by the Texas Senate, Rowling will replace former chairman Charles Miller, who announced his resignation in May.
Rowling is worth about $2.7 billion and is the fourth-richest person in Texas, directly behind Ross Perot. Rowling's investment company, TRT Holdings Inc., owns the Omni Hotel chain and Tana Exploration Company LLC, which drills for oil in the Gulf of Mexico.
He is also a strong supporter of the Republican Party and a "Bush Pioneer," a title reserved for donors who raised more than $100,000 for the George W. Bush campaign in 2000.
Texans for Public Justice, a political watchdog group, said Rowling's record of campaign contributions should concern University students.
"This brings up the suggestion that Board of Regents seats are given to the highest bidder," said Bill Medaille, a TPJ analyst.
Since 1999, Rowling has donated more than $400,000 to statewide Republican campaigns, including $130,000 to Perry and $175,000 to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. In his most recent contributions, Rowling gave $25,000 each to Perry and Abbott in March and June, respectively.
Perry has known Rowling for a long time and believes he is a highly qualified asset to the board, said Robert Black, a spokesman for the governor.
Rowling also gave more than $110,000 in the last five years to political action committees that support Republican candidates in federal elections, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Rowling is not the only regent with strong ties to the Republican Party. Chairman James Huffines is also a Bush Pioneer, and Rita Clements is married to former Republican Texas Gov. Bill Clements. Cyndi Krier is a former Republican state representative.
The University Democrats say education policy determination should be a bipartisan effort.
"The current educational policies of the strongly partisan Republican-led Texas Legislature and governor have allowed tuition to increase by 30 percent and have hindered the average Texan's accessibility to higher education," said Marcus Ceniceros, president of the University Democrats.
Medaille said Rowling's contributions to Abbott's campaign are particularly disturbing because the System often asks the attorney general to rule on legal disputes. The System is currently involved in a lawsuit with the attorney general regarding his ruling that the System must honor a request for campus surveillance information filed by The Daily Texan.
"Students and the paper could really lose out," Medaille said.
Medaille said he is also concerned with Rowling's lack of educational experience.
"The Board of Regents should be education leaders, not money managers," he said.
Rowling's friends say he is a man who cares about the University and is qualified to lead.
"He is a wonderful, warm, generous man," said Wayne Lundquist, a Corpus Christi real estate businessman who has known Rowling for more than 15 years. "He went to UT, and he thinks education is the most important thing for the next generation."
Rowling graduated from the University in 1976 with a degree in business administration and earned a law degree from Southern Methodist University in 1979.
Lundquist said Rowling is also a "committed Christian."
At Rowling's request, Omni Hotels in 1999 became the first and only hotel chain to remove "adult movies" from its pay-per-view selection, said Caryn Kboudi, vice president of marketing for Omni Hotels.
Rowling went to work for his father Reese Rowling, a geologist, at Tana Oil and Gas Corporation in 1972. Ten years later, they founded the Teco Pipeline Company to move Tana products. The two sold most of Tana's assets to Texaco Inc. for $476 million in 1989. The same year, they formed TRT Holdings to manage their personal wealth. TRT acquired what would become Corpus Christi National Bank in 1990 and sold it to NationsBank four years later for $131 million in stock. TRT bought Omni Hotels in 1996 for $500 million, and the company announced a deal this June to buy Gold's Gym.
After his father died in 2001, Rowling donated $5 million to the University's athletics department for a new indoor practice facility. The east side of Darrell K Royal Stadium was named Reese M. Rowling Hall in honor of the donation.
Robert Rowling is a member of The University of Texas College of Business Administration Foundation and serves on the boards of directors for the SMU Tate Lecture Series and Young Life, a national Christian group that organizes activities for teenagers.
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