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[undisciplined]

It's a matter of knowing the nephew of your son's football coach's plumber who owns the transmission shop and hunts with the mayor's ex wife's brother who can sell you a new car at slightly below invoice.

Hey! I think I lived in this town!

[gennimom]

Canyon was glad A&M got them first. That meant the Nance Ranch still had a reason for existing.

The funny thing about playa lakes is, they aren't necessarily formed by runoff. They have a base made of clay that swells when wet. The water comes up from underneath, causing the clay to swell that then prevents the water from going back down. Which is how one of my profs at WT A&M explained it to me. If you take off at the right time of day to fly from Amarillo to Lubbock at 12,000 feet, it looks like someone threw shiny coins all over the ground. Cool stuff.

[losemygrip]

Wow, Tech has branch campuses now?  Geez.  I didn't think there were enough students in the panhandle!  But I really don't think it's EVER been larger than U.H.  (I'm partial to U.H. because it was my first job out of grad school and I loved the students, though not the administration.)

But to answer the original poster, I think A&M would be best since it has the best academic reputation, likely can offer better salary, and is much closer to places like Houston and Austin.

[mrhistory]

Wow, Tech has branch campuses now?  Geez.  I didn't think there were enough students in the panhandle!  But I really don't think it's EVER been larger than U.H.  (I'm partial to U.H. because it was my first job out of grad school and I loved the students, though not the administration.)

But to answer the original poster, I think A&M would be best since it has the best academic reputation, likely can offer better salary, and is much closer to places like Houston and Austin.

TTU has been expanding as fast as possible. They hope to have 40K students on the main campus by 2008---they are well over 30K now. Another reason my friend started looking. They want size up and rankings up but they are only putting money in hard science and especially those Homeland Security-related contract areas.  They are enlarging classes like crazy apparently. (Always nice when you also are pushing for more research output...)

One of my closest friends at my current position is a UH grad. And, I agree on A&M, they have lots of oil funds like UT and a classmate who got an offer was given a very sweet deal on research, conference and pay amounts.

[takapa]

One of my former doc students took a job at Texas Tech.  She loves it there for many of the reasons stated above: cheap place to live, easy commute, etc.  The place has no real crime to speak of either.  The support for faculty there appears quite good.  Of the doc students I've mentored in the last five years she has the best supports in terms of seed money for research, doc and master's student research assistants, etc.

A point of clarification: In the old Carnegie system they were Tier 2, not 3.  In the new system, they are "RU/H: Research Universities (high research activity)".  This is due to the fact that the medical school is its own separate institution despite being on the same general campus.  Although the addition of the medical campus would not necessarily place them in the first category (RU/VH: Research Universities (very high research activity)), it would appear to be close.  Combined they have well over 30k students in Lubbock alone.

Another former student took a position at A&M.  Of course, A&M is a much larger U, with around 45k students.  A&M has received more grant funding than UT Austin every year for decades, with about $100 million more this last year.  Great supports for my protege there as well, although a more competitive "what have you done for the department lately" attitude.  From the descriptions of both students, College Station seems to be much more of a "this place is only here because of the U" town.  Of course, east Texas is much greener than west Texas.  But, I'm from California and to many westerners like myself that green bit isn't too important.

I'm sure you have these, but below are two links FYI.  The first is to Carnegie.  I find that people have all kinds of ideas about what their ranking is and they are frequently in error so I go there to see for myself.  The second is for "The Center" at the University of Florida.  They track a multitude of data on U's including research funding (hence my reference to A&M above). 

http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/classifications/

http://thecenter.ufl.edu/

[prytania3]

Natalie Maines is the lead singer of the Dixie Chicks. She is also the one who, while in England, said she was ashamed to be from the same state as the President.

She's not--that nutball is from Connecticut.

[gennimom]

Huh? Prytania, Natalie did do that while they were on tour in England. It is part of the reason the Dixie Chicks cancelled most of their recent tour in the South. Nobody was buying tickets.

Now I don't know if she is originally from CT, but they are based out of Texas now. Or maybe not. TX may have kicked them out.

[prytania3]

Huh? Prytania, Natalie did do that while they were on tour in England. It is part of the reason the Dixie Chicks cancelled most of their recent tour in the South. Nobody was buying tickets.

Now I don't know if she is originally from CT, but they are based out of Texas now. Or maybe not. TX may have kicked them out.

I was talking about Bush--that nutball. He and his whole clan are from Connecticut--NOT TEXAS. They just pretend they're from there.

[athena1]

I was talking about Bush--that nutball. He and his whole clan are from Connecticut--NOT TEXAS. They just pretend they're from there.

ROFL!

[azonda]

Southeast Texas in general has nothing to offer. Life in Texas for non-Texans is very inhospitable. Do your homework before you relocate here. I don't know where you are now, but I'll gladly trade places!

[azonda]

One more thing -- it doesn't matter where Bush was born. He IS a Texan. Please don't insult CT.

[prytania3]

One more thing -- it doesn't matter where Bush was born. He IS a Texan. Please don't insult CT.

The whole clan is from Greenwich, and Connecticut is a crooked state, and one I particularly like insulting for its crookedness, and I'm sorry if you don't like that--but them's the facts.

[azonda]

Why don't you take them there facts and compare them to Texas. Honestly, every state is crooked. CT certainly isn't clean, but I'll take it over Texas any day!

[mrhistory]

One more thing -- it doesn't matter where Bush was born. He IS a Texan. Please don't insult CT.

The whole clan is from Greenwich, and Connecticut is a crooked state, and one I particularly like insulting for its crookedness, and I'm sorry if you don't like that--but them's the facts.

I have lived in both.  And, I will say Texas' is more "up front" in the sense of "we are doing what we want to do and the hell with you. My brother in law owns Company X and of course he'll get the contract at double the bid. That's just the reality!"  As for Bush?  I'd argue he and the clan are sui generis---he spent more pre-adult years outside of Texas (prep, college, summers)   than in and most adult summers from news reports in Maine so I'm afraid that my home region of NE has probably more blame for whatever you think of him pro or con. His political tactics? I'm with Molly Ivins---he learned them in the halls of Texas Oil Power.

The one question I heard over and over in west Texas during my own sojourn there was "where is that accent from??? His native-born wife and daughters don't have one!"  Despite their overwhelming "approval" of him, people did laugh at the accent because he sure didn't sound like anyone from Midland/Odessa or even Lubbock. It too is sui generis.