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Editor’s note: This story contains explicit language.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, John Sharp received an unexpected call from an individual claiming to be Ben Carson, the U.S. secretary of housing and urban development. The purpose of the call was to request assistance from the Texas A&M System chancellor in organizing a trial to assess the potential of a compound derived from the oleander plant in combating the novel virus.
Sharp didn’t buy it. He figured it was a prank call from Rick Perry, the former Texas governor and then U.S. secretary of energy who was Sharp’s college dormmate and friend before becoming a political rival.
During an interview with The Texas Tribune last year, Sharp recalled his response to Perry, saying, “I told him, ‘Absolutely, Perry. You’re completely mistaken,'” as he navigated the sunny streets of College Station in his black pickup truck.
However, it was not a prank call; Carson was the one on the other end of the line. Sharp swiftly recognized his error.
Sharp chuckled as he recounted his words to the Cabinet member, “Apologies, Mr. Secretary, but I genuinely believed it was Rick Perry playing a prank on me.”
Then he got down to business.
Although the evidence was uncertain and the safety of testing the oleander compound on humans to combat the virus remained unknown, Carson remained convinced. This left Sharp in a predicament where there was no favorable outcome: either risk disappointing the head of a federal agency or grant the request, which would anger the faculty by approving a scientifically questionable experiment as a political favor.
Sharp took another route. He quickly used his political connections and donated funds to quietly allocate $50,000 for a private doctor to set up a trial.
Ultimately, The Dallas Morning News uncovered the story and the Food and Drug Administration sent the doctor a warning letter for giving people an experimental drug without their permission. But Sharp and Texas A&M emerged relatively unscathed.
Sharp, a former state comptroller and experienced legislator, has become the longest-serving chancellor in the history of the Texas A&M University System due to his skill in political maneuvering and desire to please various stakeholders. Over the course of his 12-year tenure, he has effectively managed the system’s significant growth and navigated the divergent expectations of university faculty, students, and conservative state leaders, who hold contrasting views on the operation of public universities. With a budget of $7.8 billion, Sharp has successfully balanced these competing interests.
He’s a master at getting more money from the Legislature. Research spending at the flagship campus at College Station now tops $1 billion, the first in Texas to reach that mark. He acquired a law school, launched new degree programs, and expanded the system’s presence in Fort Worth and Houston. This summer, the system announced it was going into space.
Stand next to Sharp for long enough and he’ll rattle off a list of A&M’s accomplishments: the law school is ranked in the top 30 in the country by U.S. News and World Report. The Wall Street Journal recently ranked the flagship the best university in Texas. Have you caught the latest episode of his weekly interview television show, ‘Around Texas?’
However, recently Sharp’s political tactics have failed to shield him and the system from the kind of disputes that are engulfing public universities in states controlled by Republicans.
His protégée, former Texas A&M University President Kathy Banks, was forced to resign in July after the Tribune reported that A&M had watered down a job offer to a Black journalism professor whom the university had recruited to revive its journalism program after conservative board members raised concerns with her credentials. The professor, Kathleen McElroy, decided to stay at the University of Texas, settling with Texas A&M for $1 million.
Days later, Sharp came under fire when the Tribune revealed that he was involved in the swift suspension with pay of a pharmacology professor, Joy Alonzo, who was accused by a politically connected student of criticizing Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick during a lecture. Text messages show Sharp updated Patrick within hours of the complaint that the professor was placed on leave “pending investigation re firing her.”
Both cases stirred outrage and accusations of political interference at A&M. More broadly, they raised questions about how anyone atop a major Texas public university — even someone as politically astute as Sharp — can navigate the competing forces pulling at higher education in such a conservative state.
And maybe more importantly — can all that money, growth, and the political wins be considered a success if some on campus say the flagship still doesn’t feel like a place that welcomes everyone to the table?
A handful of crickets
Sharp, a 73-year-old, attributes his hindered political career to a spontaneous choice he made to consume a large quantity of crickets.
Last year, while on a flight to Austin on the system’s private jet, he shared the story. Amidst the noise of the maroon and white plane’s engine, Sharp recalled being with Perry and a group of college friends during a weekend getaway. Their mission was to find small cans of Schlitz beer to add some excitement to their trip. However, during their search, Perry boldly displayed his displeasure towards passing motorcyclists by raising his middle finger.
Sharp recounted how the men, whose jackets proudly displayed the Bandidos motorcycle gang emblem, confidently parked their bikes before striding purposefully towards them. He was well aware that these individuals were not to be trifled with, particularly when faced with a rowdy bunch of intoxicated college students.
Sharp recalled Perry’s high-pitched squeals resonating behind him, similar to a pig trapped beneath a gate. In a panicked tone, he urgently shouted, “Take action! Take action!”
During cricket season, as Sharp recalls, he scooped up a multitude of insects from the ground and proceeded to stuff them into his mouth.
Sharp admitted that he was equally frightened as Perry when the cricket juice streamed down his face, causing the onlookers to remark, “Oh, you’re incredibly intoxicated. We should depart.”
Sharp’s college career at Texas A&M, from which he graduated in 1972, was rowdy but productive. He attended an A&M in transition from an all-male, racially segregated school that had just accepted its first Black student six years prior to his arrival. He served as student body president, and was part of the Corps of Cadets, a tradition-bound ROTC-like program.
After college, Sharp followed well-worn grooves into Texas politics, landing a job at the Legislative Budget Board. In 1978, he was elected to the Texas House as a 28-year-old representing his native Victoria County, in southeast Texas. Four years later, the conservative Democrat was elected to the Texas Senate.
Sharp was elected to the Texas Railroad Commission in 1986, where he assumed responsibility for supervising the state’s oil and gas industry. Following this, he went on to serve two terms as the state comptroller during the 1990s.
But the political grounds shifted under him. In 1998, Sharp ran against his former classmate Perry for lieutenant governor and lost by two percentage points. It was the beginning of Republican dominance in the state. Four years later, after Perry ascended to governor, Sharp lost the same race by six percentage points to then-Land Commissioner David Dewhurst.
Sharp concluded that consuming those crickets during his college years had been the most significant political blunder of his life.
He jokingly remarked, “Had I not consumed those crickets, the motorcycle gang would’ve taken Perry’s life, and I would’ve become the governor of Texas.”
But the antics might have helped him land another job. In 2011, the Perry-appointed A&M System Board of Regents parted ways with Chancellor Mike McKinney — a former Perry chief of staff.
Perry’s old dormmate, known for eating crickets, took his place.
“He swings for the fences”
When Sharp became chancellor in 2011, Perry was pushing a new vision for Texas higher education concocted by a right-leaning advocacy group to overhaul tenure, create a merit-pay system for teachers and reimagine budgets for research and teaching. The A&M faculty had revolted against Sharp’s predecessor, McKinney, over some of the ideas. The president of the University of Texas at Austin at the time called the debate a fight for the soul of his university.
Sharp wasn’t particularly interested in entering that political maelstrom, and the momentum for the idea was fading. He had other plans in mind.
First, he outmaneuvered state leaders skeptical of approving new law schools in the state by acquiring Texas Wesleyan University’s law school.
Next, he initiated a nearly $500 million redesign of Kyle Field, making it the largest football stadium in the state with more than 100,000 seats (edging out rival UT-Austin by 2,614 seats).
The big ideas kept coming.
He added “Texas A&M” to the names of multiple government agencies within the system, making clear who was saving Texans from floods, fighting wildfires and designing streets. He oversaw a vast enrollment expansion at A&M, growing it from 49,861 students in 2011 to 77,496 this fall. The system turned an empty field in Bryan, next to College Station, into a research campus known as RELLIS. There, the system is investing in hypersonics research, building a kilometer-long tunnel where researchers can test projectiles moving 10 times the speed of sound. Texas A&M edged out the University of Texas System to land a contract to manage and operate Los Alamos National Laboratory with the University of California. Last year, the federal government extended that contract for five more years.
In the span of 12 years, Sharp has successfully recruited 46 faculty members who have been recognized as esteemed researchers in engineering, medicine, and the sciences by being elected to the National Academies. Additionally, Sharp has played a significant role in establishing a unique educational program, which allows students to pursue both a medical degree and a master’s in engineering concurrently, making it one of the few programs of its kind in the country.
Roderic Pettigrew is one of the superstar faculty whom Sharp recruited to run that dual-degree program in Houston, known as EnMed.
Pettigrew explained that his interest in A&M extended beyond teaching the inaugural class of “physicianeers,” as they are referred to by the university. He admired Sharp’s willingness to take risks and was impressed by how swiftly he acted upon the concept.
Pettigrew stated, “He’s aiming for a home run.”
Still, Sharp and his maroon empire have failed to shake a long-standing criticism that A&M is not committed enough to boosting student diversity and making A&M a more welcoming place for historically excluded students.
Complaints persist about the low number of Black students enrolled at the flagship compared with Texas’ population, where Black students represent 3% of student enrollment compared to 13% of the Texas population. And students and alumni of color remain disappointed that the statue of Lawrence Sullivan Ross, a former Confederate general and president of Texas A&M who was later credited with saving the school from financial ruin, remains on campus after a renewed push in 2020 to remove or relocate it. The university’s refusal to remove the statue solidified beliefs among some students and alumni of color that only the loudest and wealthiest voices are heard.
“I don’t think stakeholders like ourselves really mattered to A&M,” Erica Davis Rouse, a 1995 graduate of the university and current president of the Black Former Student Network, said. “We don’t have the money. We don’t have the political capital, and we don’t have the numbers as far as just the sheer number of Black Aggies who have come through A&M.”
Despite Sharp’s insistence on his commitment to solving these problems, his track record implies that he hasn’t approached the issue with the same level of aggression as he has with other concerns raised by state officials.
When lawmakers in 2015 wanted to allow licensed gun owners to carry guns on public university campuses, Sharp sided against his fellow higher education leaders who opposed the measure.
Sharp reassured the lieutenant governor in a letter that he had no concerns regarding the bill’s effect on campus safety, as Texas A&M is deeply rooted in military tradition.
Instead, he took advantage of the opportunity to express his primary worry, which centered around money. He emphasized that “the sole matter of importance is adequately financing the higher education of these students!”
Two years later, when Hurricane Harvey ravaged the Gulf Coast, Gov. Greg Abbott asked Sharp to lead the state’s rebuilding efforts. He took on the assignment while staying in his perch at A&M, working essentially two full-time jobs for more than a year. At the end, he produced a 177-page report with 44 recommendations to make Texas more resilient to hurricanes.
There were numerous initiatives at Texas A&M that either secured new funding or led to the establishment of new centers.
Nim Kidd, the head of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, a state agency responsible for coordinating disaster response, expressed that when someone like him enters the Capitol and promises to construct a certain project in exchange for funds, people are willing to ask, “How much do you need?” This statement was made in reference to Kidd’s collaboration with the Texas A&M System in 2019 after their joint efforts in dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.
Occasionally, his ideas don’t evoke such a positive response. He had to abandon a proposal to merge two of the system’s regional universities located in Texas’ Gulf Coast after some lawmakers and community members expressed outrage. And his outspoken opposition to Texas Tech University’s pitch to open a veterinary school in Amarillo was panned as provincial and embarrassing; it was ultimately ignored.
Sharp’s vibrant character and unwavering loyalty to his alma mater have, on various occasions, garnered positive media attention.
Once he returned from lunch to the A&M System office with a bunch of parakeets and tried to teach them to say the official Aggie greeting, “Howdy.” Another time, he shot off an email in the middle of the night asking for road strips to be installed on a main College Station thoroughfare so it sounds like the start of the Aggie War Hymn — “Hullabaloo, caneck, caneck” — when driven over.
He even decided to propose to his now-wife on stage at a Robert Earl Keen show christening a new campus park.
Sharp got down on one knee and proposed to Keen just as he was about to lead the Aggie crowd in a rendition of “The Road Goes on Forever.”
‘If not Sharp, then who?’
Sharp entered this year’s legislative session hoping his relationships would bring another windfall for his schools. The Legislature had a $32.7 billion surplus, and he wanted to send the message that universities were a great place to spend a big chunk of it.
However, the culture wars continuously hindered progress.
The lieutenant governor, angry over some Texas professors’ embrace of critical race theory, threatened to eliminate tenure at public universities and made banning diversity, equity and inclusion offices a legislative priority.
Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist residing in Washington state, has played a prominent role in leading a national movement against what he perceives as left-wing indoctrination in education. He has been instrumental in developing legislation that has been adopted in various states, aiming to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices in public universities.
Throughout the legislative session, Rufo targeted various public universities in the state, including Texas Tech University, UT-Austin and Texas A&M, conducting his own public shaming tour by posting selected documents he obtained via open records requests and presenting them as evidence that school leaders were creating a “DEI bureaucracy that promotes every fashionable left-wing delusion.”
When Abbott sent a letter prohibiting state agencies and public universities from considering diversity in hiring, labeling them as political litmus tests, Sharp went a step further. Days later, he banned the use of “diversity statements” in job applications and prohibited the consideration of race in admissions, even though Texas A&M had not considered race in admissions for two decades.
“No university or agency in the A&M System will admit any student, nor hire any employee based on any factor other than merit,” Sharp said in a directive to university leaders. (This occurred a few months before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the use of race in college admissions this summer.)
Sharp proposed a unique strategy regarding tenure, understanding the detrimental impact removing this longstanding practice would have on Texas A&M’s recruitment of exceptional individuals. Instead, he suggested that legislators incorporate Texas A&M’s tenure policies into state legislation, providing a legal framework for granting and revoking tenure statewide. Additionally, he joined other chancellors in the state to commit to maintaining stable tuition rates for the upcoming two years, contingent upon receiving $1 billion in new funding from the surplus.
However, Sharp’s attempts to extinguish a political fire were constantly thwarted as another one erupted.
Alonzo’s suspension was promptly executed following a statement made by the lieutenant governor, claiming that the A&M pharmacology professor had criticized him during a lecture. The university, currently advocating for increased funding from lawmakers, swiftly placed her on leave as soon as Patrick contacted them. Sharp informed Patrick that she could potentially face termination, depending on the outcome of the investigation.
The appointment of McElroy, a former New York Times employee, as the head of the university’s revamped journalism school infuriated the governor-appointed regents at the flagship campus.
“We were going to start a journalism department to get high-quality conservative Aggie students into the journalism world to help direct our message,” wrote one regent in a group text message. “This won’t happen with this type of hire!”
An uproar ensued after the Tribune uncovered both stories. Faculty members sounded the alarm, expressing concerns about potential threats to academic freedom. Department leaders were left wondering about the implications for their ability to attract new talent. The incidents garnered significant attention in national news outlets.
The uproar, particularly the mishandled hiring of McElroy, a Black woman, reignited doubts regarding Sharp’s dedication or competence in safeguarding A&M against political intervention.
Sharp’s refusal to remove the Sul Ross statue was remembered by students and alumni. During an interview last summer, Sharp defended his stance by stating that removing the statue would damage the close connections with the outspoken Texas A&M alumni community.
Sharp stated that the statue would never be removed, as its removal would have caused significant damage and rendered the situation with the former students even more difficult to manage.
Instead, Sharp and the Board of Regents put $100 million toward student scholarships across the system and added a statue of Matthew Gaines, a Black state senator who was instrumental in pushing the state to create Texas A&M and Prairie View A&M.
According to the university’s data, Sharp has stated that the true effects of the scholarship program will require additional time to be accurately assessed. However, initial data for this autumn semester does indicate some minor advancements. The enrollment of black students has risen by 10% from the previous year, now totaling 2,643 individuals. Nonetheless, this figure still remains around 3.4% of the overall student population. In contrast, white students constitute 50% of the total enrollment, while Hispanic students represent approximately 23%.
Students of color are expressing that simply reaching out is not enough to create a welcoming environment at their school. While state leaders criticized diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in colleges, these students hoped that Sharp would support these initiatives just as strongly as he supports tenure.
Nicolas Le, a sophomore at Texas A&M University with Mexican and Vietnamese roots, expressed to the Tribune that there must come a time when one takes a firm stance against it. He acknowledged the financial support originating from them, yet believes that certain principles and ethics should be upheld.
Despite some professors and alumni expressing outrage, there appeared to be little desire for Sharp to depart.
Rouse, the president of the Black Former Student Network, questioned, “If it’s not Sharp, then who else could it possibly be? We cannot afford to regress any further than we already have.”
Looking forward
If Sharp has his way, he’ll have at least five more years to cement his legacy in the A&M System. In 2021, the board extended Sharp’s contract through 2028. By then he will be 77 years old. It’s hard to think about who might fill his shoes; it’s not a conversation Sharp really wanted to entertain.
He still has goals to accomplish, which include enhancing Texas A&M’s medical school and elevating the RELLIS research campus to a national laboratory. Additionally, he has demonstrated his proficiency in navigating the corridors of the Texas Capitol when required.
However, suspicions towards the leadership of Texas A&M University remain. The Faculty Senate continues to carry out its own inquiries into the circumstances surrounding McElroy’s employment and the suspension of Alonzo, the professor who reportedly voiced criticism towards Patrick during a discussion on the opioid epidemic. Faculty representatives have occasionally expressed their disapproval of Sharp throughout these controversies, but have also acknowledged their gratitude for his willingness to involve all interested parties.
According to Tracy Hammond, president of the Texas A&M Faculty Senate, considering the challenges he has encountered and the complexity of the opposing stances at present, he has been commendably successful in his efforts to reconcile all factions.
A few weeks after Banks — who, months earlier, Sharp was calling the best president in A&M history — was forced out, A&M released a scathing report on what went wrong with her hiring, as well as a separate investigation into the disciplinary action taken against the opioids expert who was accused of criticizing the lieutenant government.
Sharp’s letter to the Aggie community was included in the report, emphasizing the importance of unity.
He penned, “The moment has arrived for us to unite, restore harmony within our abode, and pledge to prevent any future recurrence. Each one of us needs to recommit to the principles that characterize and unite us as Aggies.”
Sharp expressed regret for the way McElroy was treated, but stood by his approach to the Alonzo case, considering the significance of maintaining the lieutenant governor’s satisfaction.
He penned, “The media has brought to my attention the suggestion of letting calls from state officials go to voicemail. While I understand this notion may be intended as a clever expression, I have always found that when you stop answering people’s calls, they tend to stop responding to yours as well.”
Sharp has numerous calls to make, considering he still has five years remaining on his contract.
Disclosure: Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, theTexas A&M University System, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas System have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
Correction, : A previous version of this story incorrectly stated John Sharp's graduation year. It's 1972. Due to an editing error, it also gave a misleading description of Matthew Gaines' impact on A&M. As a state senator, he was integral to the founding of the university.
