September 2026 Update
Dear Colleagues,
Welcome to the new academic year! A very special welcome to the 164 new faculty colleagues joining us this year! While we still wait for fall’s arrival in terms of cool weather, I hope you are settled into your classes and workload for the fall semester. It promises to be both an exciting and challenging year.
Let’s dive into some of the important issues and opportunities awaiting us in the coming year.
Critical Decisions from the BOR Meetings
In its August meeting, the UH System Board of Regents approved a merit increase for faculty and staff in addition to compensation increases related to tenure and promotion. Your chair or supervisor, working with HR, has already moved to implement the adjustment, which began on September 1, 2026. I wish more was possible, but as you may recall, university tuition has been frozen for four years, and enrollment revenue has been nearly flat due to the drop in international students.
The other critical decision from the Board of Regents was to certify core courses to comply with SB 37 in a timely manner. The Board’s decision was based on our recommendation, which was not given lightly. The provost worked with a faculty committee that worked tirelessly, spending many hours reading and deliberating every single course that was tagged during the administrative review. Their deliberations were based solely on the conditions required by SB 37. The courses removed from the core continue to be offered as electives.
What’s next for the core curriculum? Among other things, SB 37 also required the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to submit its recommendation to the legislature on the new core curriculum. The legislature will review and provide further input, which may require additional changes to our core.
Enrollment Shifts
As you probably have heard, we enrolled over 7,000 freshmen, the largest freshman class in UH history. This class was admitted from an applicant pool that was also larger than ever. Along with this exciting news comes responsibility. Other than providing enough course offerings, we must also ensure that these students receive sufficient wraparound services and a positive campus experience to persist and graduate.
UH continues to remain one of the nation’s top destinations for students seeking to transfer from two- or four-year colleges. Over 4,000 students have transferred to UH. Considering that we have a 7:4 ratio of freshmen to transfer students, we need to shift our course offerings accordingly.
Thanks to the hard work of departments and colleges, new graduate student enrollment is also up over 6%. Like everyone else, we suffered a sharp decline in graduate students, particularly master’s students, as international student enrollment dropped precipitously. However, many colleges have successfully reversed this trend by adopting new strategies and focusing on domestic students.
Growth at Sugar Land and Katy Campuses
Preliminary fall 2026 figures show more than 5,300 UH students taking classes across UH’s Sugar Land and Katy campuses. At Katy, that number is up nearly 49% from the same point last fall. In addition to engineering and nursing, the campus now has offerings from the Bauer College of Business, College of Education and College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.
New degree options at Katy this fall include an AI-focused master’s degree, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Multidisciplinary Engineering and a cross-disciplinary Master of Engineering from the Cullen College of Engineering.
At Sugar Land, UH is offering nearly 30 undergraduate and graduate programs.
Class Visits
Keeping up with the annual tradition, I will be attending many undergraduate classes in the next two weeks. If my office has reached out to you for your permission, I thank you in advance for allowing me to take a few minutes of your time. It is important for students to know that enrolling in a university does not guarantee graduation unless both of us — them and the University — stay focused on the mission and the goal.
UH Health
The University of Houston has officially launched UH Health, an initiative combining medicine, nursing, pharmacy, optometry, social work, population health, and many other health education, research, and community initiatives under a single, interprofessional collaborative enterprise. After year-long strategic planning, UH Health has also launched two new institutes:
- The Institute for Digital Healthcare Transformation unites experts across AI, engineering and clinical care to develop next-generation technologies that manage chronic diseases and improve access for underserved and rural populations.
- The Institute for Housing, Homelessness, and Health (IH3), funded by an initial grant of $5 million, connects housing, healthcare and policy data to help communities identify gaps and scale effective solutions for homelessness.
Legislative Budget Request
On behalf of the University of Houston, we have submitted our budget request to the Texas Legislature in preparation for the 90th Legislative Session. Here are a few of the highlights:
- Request to create the UH Health Science Center, combining Colleges of Medicine, Optometry, Pharmacy, Nursing and Social Work administratively. Along with it is our request to fund all these programs under the health-related institutions formula.
- Restitution of a 3% legislatively mandated budget reduction in our base budget request.
- Fully fund enrollment growth and increase funding for Texas Grants for our students.
- Funds for a new Optometry building and a new building at Tech Bridge. We have also requested additional facilities in Katy and Sugar Land if the Capital Construction Assistance Projects program is passed.
In addition, we are monitoring the development of two initiatives which could have long-term impact on UH. One, a performance-based funding model, which can shift how the state will fund universities in the future. Two, the Governor’s order to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to recommend how universities could offer three-year (90 credit hour) bachelor’s degrees. We will keep you posted as more information becomes available.
Faculty Update
I am pleased to announce that I have appointed Professor Patrick Peters from the College of Architecture to serve as the new Faculty Council President. I look forward to his leadership, and I thank former Faculty Council President Professor Elena Grigorenko for her service over the past year. You can view the full list of Faculty Council members on the Membership webpage.
I am also thrilled to share that Dr. Venkat Selvamanickam from the Cullen College of Engineering has been named Big 12 Faculty of the Year. This recognition comes on the heels of his spring induction into the National Academy of Engineering for his groundbreaking innovations in superconductivity. To top it all off, he earned the 2026 Farfel Award — our university’s highest honor for teaching excellence. Congratulations to all of our 2026 Faculty Award winners. Your dedication continuously propels our University to new heights.
Athletics
Houston Cougar football had a winning season opener defeating Oregon State. Students brought great energy despite the extreme heat. I hope you will come and enjoy the next game against Southern University on Saturday at 6 pm.
With both football and basketball ranked in pre-season polls and the addition of four new coaches for Baseball, Women’s Basketball, Men’s Golf and Women’s Golf, we can look forward to a great year.
A Nostalgic Journey of 100 Years at the State of the University Address
Please join me on October 8 at 10:00am at the Moores Opera House to take a 100-year journey together. Instead of the yearly updates, this address will focus on the milestones…the firsts…shaping our university over a century.
As I conclude, let me leave you with the books or films that I just finished and would recommend. Let me know if you have any good recommendations for me. In fiction, “Culpability” by Bruce Holsinger brings an interesting theme of ethics involving humans and machines. In non-fiction, “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt helped me better understand our students. Finally, for film, if you have not yet seen it, let me recommend “The Lunchbox” (2013). I just watched it and marveled at the theme once again.
Wishing you the best for the semester and the year. Send me an email about your accomplishments because it makes my day to read such emails, among all the others I receive.
With warm regards,
Renu Khator