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A lot can happen in a decade.
On Monday, Guy Bailey looked back on his tenure as president of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, recalling the ups and downs of turning two legacy institutions — the now-former UTPA and UTB (universities of Pan American and Brownsville) — into a one-of-a-kind institution, growing with it both personally and professionally.
“It’s been the happiest 10 years of my life and the most rewarding in a lot of different ways,” he said.
Bailey is celebrating his anniversary in the Valley this week, where he began his stint as UTRGV president on July 1, 2014. The university began operations in 2015.
Among his first experiences here, however, was during his time as president of Texas Tech University, increasing recruiting efforts in the Valley due to population decline in West Texas.
Upon taking the UTRGV job in 2014, Bailey had stepped down from his post as the president of the University of Alabama to look after his former wife, Jan Tillery-Bailey, in 2012. She died in September 2013.
Learning to have a strong sense of resilience from his mother, who died this year at the age of 97, Bailey said a life lesson from her was getting right back up when you get knocked down and to work as hard as you can for as long as you can.
And that’s what he decided to do.
Venturing into uncharted waters by being the president of a new institution, he knew it would require a lot of effort and time to make it work. Bailey said normally people will inherit a university and just manage it, but he wanted the chance to do something different.
“It’s been the hardest job in a lot of ways when you bring two institutions together, and essentially what we did was close them and start a new one,” he said.
In pretty much every applicable metric for a university, UTRGV has gone above and beyond under the leadership of Bailey. He said having such a positive impact on the university, the students’ lives and the Valley brings him happiness.
One of the reasons why Bailey wanted the job was due to the unique circumstances that the university was stepping into.
“You almost never get to do things from scratch,” he said. “We didn’t quite do it from scratch, but a lot of it we did.”
Bailey said one of the things he is proud of is the financial model that was installed to keep the average net academic costs for students low compared to other universities in the state and the county.
As a first generation college student himself, Bailey said this was one of the things he wanted to do for students in the Valley, many of whom are also first generation college students.
“We were able to do that in part because we could kind of plan it out at the beginning,” he said. “So at the very beginning, we made a decision that we would create the best value in American higher education. Not the cheapest but the best value. There’s a difference. It’s the best value for the best price.”
Ten years down the line, he said all of his expectations for the university have been exceeded.
Bailey credits a strong team around him for achieving all the milestones it has in the past decade.
“We’ve graduated a little over 54,000 students since we opened our doors,” he said. “Now, if you do the math, that’s almost 3% of the population in the Rio Grande Valley. Think about that. So give us another 10 years and suddenly you’re really talking about having a remarkable impact on the Valley.”
Entering Bailey’s office at Rio Bank Corporate Banking Center and glancing around, a person could tell several things.
One is that Bailey is a family man. In almost every space around the office are pictures of him and his wife, Val LaMantia, a philanthropist and owner of L&F Distributors, their children and especially all of their grandchildren.
“When I got here, I met another widow, Val LaMantia,” he said. “Val had been a widow I think since 2000. We started dating and boom — pretty soon we’re married. We have a family and grandchildren … that’s been so helpful to me. A wonderful marriage, a wonderful family. Ten years ago, I would have never thought that all of this would have happened.”
Going around his office explaining who is who in the picture with such joy, Bailey went into detail on a family portrait that was taken on his wedding day with LaMantia. He said no day or event has been more memorable than when they got married on Nov. 7, 2020.
Having a plethora of grandchildren born the last few years before they decided to tie the knot, they decided to get married in a church in Progreso and also baptize several of their grandchildren.
“It was a really meaningful event because of all of that and that’s about as memorable as any day I’ve ever had,” he said.
The second thing you might notice is that Bailey’s desk has a clutter of items, many which were books and articles. Even with his decades of knowledge in higher education, Bailey still continues to work and be well-informed on the latest news and trends in education and the world.
Bailey had papers on enrollment numbers, how to calculate return on investment for college degrees, academic fraud, population trends and even an article on the economics of the world’s most coveted handbags.
“I like to tell people if you go to an elite university, it’s like buying a purse,” he said. “You can buy a Chanel purse and that purse is going to cost you $10,000 … but it’s probably not any better than any other purse you can buy if you looked into quality. You’re buying a brand, you’re buying status. And so what I try to encourage students to think about is are you really paying for an education or are you gonna go somewhere to pay for status? You need to buy a quality education and not get caught up in buying Chanel purses.”
Asked what has kept him going through his 10 years in the Valley, Bailey replied, “The promise of being able to do something truly transformational for our students in the Valley. So, every time you get a little frustrated with something, what you have to tell yourself … higher education transformed my life all together. I look at the kids I grew up with and then look at my life, they’re just different worlds in many respects so, a lot of that is education.
“Without education that would have never happened. So being able to do the same thing for them and for the community is … very important to (my wife) and to me.”
Looking ahead to the next 10 years, Bailey said the best days of the university are still ahead.
“I get up every day excited about going to work and when you do that you need to keep doing it,” he said. “I’m having the time of my life and I’m able to see all my grandchildren on a pretty regular basis … and I can take a little time and enjoy ourselves and spend a weekend at the Island or do something and look forward to getting football started, physical therapy, optometry and all of these other programs.”
With 31,931 students enrolled last academic year, and a nearly 500% growth in annual external fundraising and annual research expenditures — compared to UTPA and UTB combined annual rates to name a few milestones — UTRGV seems to be in good hands going forward with a dedicated president.
“It has really been the best 10 years of my life and I’m really grateful to the people of the Rio Grande Valley for taking me and accepting me, to Val for marrying me and for my family,” Bailey said with a smile. “It’s just been wonderful being here. We have great people to work with … it’s been a lot of fun. When you’re having fun and you think you’re doing something worthwhile, I don’t know that you can legitimately ask for anything else.”
