No more lone stars at the University of Texas
For generations after its founding in 1881, the University of Texas at Austin seemed to have only one long-range game plan: its football program. As recently as 1975, a university committee evaluating academic standards concluded that U.T. was "not yet a university of the first class." But in recent years this sprawling, state-chartered institution, with 48,000 students, 2,100 faculty and 6,300 courses, has been playing a kind of academic catch-up gameraiding superstar talent from the faculties of such schools as Harvard and Princeton. Its weapon: a gusher of endowment money, fueled by oil...