The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents named M. Katherine Banks the sole finalist for president of A&M’s flagship campus. State law requires that the board wait 21 days before meeting again to give final approval to the appointment of Dr. Banks as president. If approved she will be the second woman to lead the university and will begin her new job on June 1.
Texas A&M University is one of the nation’s largest campuses with more than 53,000 undergraduate students and nearly 15,000 graduate students, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Education. Women make up 47 percent of the undergraduate student body..
Dr. Banks currently is dean of the College of Engineering at Texas A&M. She also is vice chancellor of engineering and national laboratories for the A&M System — a title she will retain.
“This is a tremendous honor,” Dr. Banks said. “The core values of Texas A&M, its rich traditions, unique culture, and commitment to the greater good is the very foundation of this great university and resonates deeply with me. I hope to build upon that framework in our pursuit of preeminence, without losing what makes Texas A&M so special. Texas A&M is one of a kind, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
Dr. Banks is a distinguished professor and member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Before coming to Texas A&M in 2012, she was chair of the department of civil engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Dr. Banks is a graduate of the University of Florida. She holds a master’s degree in engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Ph.D. in engineering from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.