HARLINGEN — He’s back.
Not that he ever left, but Dr. Nolan Perez has so impressed Gov. Greg Abbott that he’s been reappointed for second term on the University of Texas System Board of Regents.
“I feel fortunate, honored, and grateful,” said Perez, who has also served on the Harlingen school board for many years.
Abbott first appointed Perez, a gastroenterologist, to the UT Board of Regents in 2019.
“During that time, my colleagues on the board and I worked hard to make decisions to support our institutions and particularly our students, faculty, staff and patients,” he said.
Perez pointed out the difficulties of the past year caused by the pandemic. He felt honored, he said, to collaborate with regents, chancellor and UT presidents to tackle those challenges.
“I feel a profound sense of responsibility to the 250,000 students and more than 100,000 faculty, staff, researchers and health care professionals who count on the regents to make the right decisions to ensure we remain a university system of the first class,” he said.
Since he was first appointed two years ago, the board of regents has merged UT Tyler and UT Health Science Center at Tyler.
“Bringing these two institutions together will provide students, faculty and researchers exceptional opportunities to learn, teach, conduct research and deliver health care in a fully integrated academic and medical setting,” he said.
“We’re now hoping to create Texas’s newest medical center in Tyler.”
He’s proud of having participated in decisions to make education more accessible, affordable and equitable across the UT system. An extension of that is providing funding sources to advance scientific discovery and scale up educational and health care opportunities for all Texans.
“The Rio Grande Valley is on the ascendency in so many educational and health arenas,” he said. “I’m grateful to countless leaders who worked over many decades to make that happen, sometimes in the face of headwinds.”
