Texas Business reports: The Texas Wesleyan University Board of Trustees has approved a letter of intent for Texas Wesleyan University and Texas A&M University to enter into a strategic partnership that would provide legal education in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex for decades to come.

Under the proposed multi-million dollar agreement, the school would be known as the Texas A&M School of Law at Texas Wesleyan University.

“Last October, Texas A&M System chancellor John Sharp approached me about a unique strategic partnership,” Texas Wesleyan president Frederick G. Slabach said in a prepared statement. “After months of careful consideration, we both consider this to be a mutually beneficial collaboration with limitless possibilities.”

Among the future offerings would be a joint law school JD/Texas Wesleyan MBA program and also a Texas Wesleyan undergraduate/law school 3+3 program. These new programs exemplify how the partnership would allow for the development of collaborative academic programming that will have a lasting impact on students.  

“In creating the Texas A&M University School of Law at Texas Wesleyan, we are finally expanding the Texas A&M brand into the field of law with a focus on emerging fields that require a growing legal expertise,” said chancellor Sharp.

Sharp also put the law school partnership in the context of recent major announcements, saying,

“In the last week we have received one of the largest federal grants since NASA was brought to Texas to develop life-saving vaccines and medical therapies, we announced a concession agreement for facilities and food services valued at more than a quarter billion dollars, and today we are forging a new partnership to create a long-sought Texas A&M School of Law, which will have a profound impact on the future of Texas,” he said.

Under the agreement, Texas A&M would acquire ownership and operational control of the law school as a going concern and all faculty and staff of the law school would be employees of Texas A&M. Texas Wesleyan University would retain ownership and control of the law school building and four city blocks of land at the downtown Fort Worth campus and would lease the facilities to Texas A&M.

“The synergy of this strategic partnership is extraordinary,” said Kenneth H. Jones Jr., chairman of Texas Wesleyan’s board of trustees. “Texas A&M stands to benefit from an already established, ABA-accredited law school. Fort Worth and the metroplex would lay claim to an institution poised for first-tier status. And Texas Wesleyan would gain new academic programs that drive our vision of preparing motivated students for graduate school.”

Among the future offerings would be a joint law school JD/Texas Wesleyan MBA program and also a Texas Wesleyan undergraduate/law school 3+3 program. These new programs exemplify how the partnership would allow for the development of collaborative academic programming that will have a lasting impact on students.