Why UTRGV's senior vice president for research met with the South Texas Alliance of Cities

Rio Grande Guardian's Podcast

Dr. Can (John) Saygin says when he gets together with UT-Rio Grande Valley President Guy Bailey, the discussions are often about ways the university can create visible societal impact.

Dr. Saygin is senior vice president for research and dean of the graduate college at UTRGV.

“So, any any topic I bring up with him, we always get to the point and say, when are we going to see this impact in the community?” Saygin said, in an exclusive interview with the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service.

Saygin said he had visible societal impact on his mind when he recently met with the South Texas Alliance of Cities.

“Meeting with the mayors, it's almost like starting with the end in mind. You can paint the picture with them and say, if we have the land, if we have this, if we have the economic development corporation working with us, we could build this infrastructure,” Saygin said.

“And then, when you go backwards, and you put in the layers of technology, people, and workforce development training. Then the whole formula looks very exciting.”

The South Texas Alliance of Cities comprises mayors from most of the big cities in the Valley, plus those from San Antonio and Laredo. The group met recently at UTRGV’s School of Medicine and invited Dr. Saygin to make a presentation.

Saygin said he took the opportunity to tell the mayors about UTRGV’s plans to become a leading research university.

“When I think about the research topics from genome research to cancer research, smart technologies for safer railways, sustainable agriculture, mental health initiatives, clinical research, well, these are pretty high-level research topics and UTRGV is there,” Saygin said.

"I tell everybody, we have R1 faculty, just the institution needs to reach the status of R1. So, explaining this to the mayors, they were very excited.”

Saygin lived in San Antonio for 16 years when he worked for UT-San Antonio. He therefore knows San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg quite well.

“So, we talked about UTSA’s success story how it changed the city. But the formula is a little bit different for South Texas. It's not just the verbal partnership, yeah, let's go ahead and do it with mayors, school districts, economic development corporations. We can go after big, large brands, and actually put words into actions and that's what I told them. And, actually, it was very timely because we are going after an Environmental Protection Agency grant proposal.”

Saygin said the EPA grant would involve technology and have an impact on the community.

“In order to make that impact, we need 100 percent the mayors’ buy-in. They have to support it. If they don't support it, our research is going to come to a dead end. So, they are true partners for us.”

Saygin said his presentation was well received by the mayors.

“We talked about what's next, what can we do. So, I pretty much talked about reaching out to their offices for letters of support. But not just letters of support, letters of commitment, which is the highest level of partnership,” Saygin said.

“And then we talked about involving the economic development corporations into our workforce development programs. They're already part of it but we need more expanded coverage when we do these things. So, they were very excited.”

Here is the full interview with Dr. Saygin.

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