"As one of the youngest institutions in the 15-member UT System, UTSA has made remarkable progress in only 35 years," Romo said. "Over the next decade, this new vision will transform UTSA into the premier research university that the eighth-largest city in the country deserves."

-Ricardo Romo, President, The University of Texas at San Antonio

Specifics of the university's "Roadmap to Excellence" initiative include:

• Hiring 600 new faculty -- 75 a year for 8 years; faculty will then total more than 1,000.
• The creation of 10 distinguished chairs, each funded at $1 million; 3 chairs funded at $500,000 each and 2 distinguished professorships funded at $250,000 each.
• Adding two doctoral programs a year over 10 years to the existing 12 programs to reach a total of 32. A physics doctorate will be offered in partnership with San Antonio's Southwest Research Institute, the first partnership of its kind established in Texas.
• The creation of 3 new research centers including the San Antonio Institute for Cellular and Molecular Primatology, the Institute for Aging Research and the Institute for Bioengineering and Translational Research.