The Women Behind Fort Worth's Higher Ed Boom

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Higher education has obviously put the fastest-growing big city in America in its sights.

An artist is making a lot of money on renderings. Texas A&M, Tarleton State, and UT Arlington all have big blueprints to expand their universities in Fort Worth.

As more and more move in and corporations seek to escape unfavorable circumstances elsewhere, the demand for education and a ready workforce has never been higher here.

Construction is underway in downtown on Texas A&M-Fort Worth, an urban research campus expected to be complete by the end of the decade. Tarleton State-Fort Worth is building off the Chisholm Trail Parkway in southwest Fort Worth, and UTA West will soon break ground in Walsh Ranch.

All three of those institutions, plus Texas Wesleyan, the oldest university in Fort Worth, and Tarrant County College will play an integral role in Fort Worth and Tarrant County’s future.

All five of those also have something in common.

They’re all led by women.

Kim McCuistion is the associate vice chancellor and director of the Fort Worth campus. Rachael Capua is the vice president and dean of Tarleton State-Fort Worth. Jennifer Cowley was tapped to lead UTA as its president last year.

At Texas Wesleyan, Emily Messer was formally installed as the 21st president, the first woman in the job in the school’s 133-year history.

Elva LeBlanc, once a student at Tarrant County College, today leads the community college, which boasts a robust offering in the trades.

We spoke to three, who shared their respective journeys and their aspirations for their institutions and the students they serve.

A Star in the East

Emily Messer leads Texas Wesleyan, a bright light on Fort Worth’s East Side.

Emily Messer’s professional journey, winding its way across the South and into Fort Worth, Texas, has all the feel of predestination, however one might feel how that could come about.

At a fraternity-sorority mixer as a college student, attendees were to dress how they saw themselves as fully grown adults making their contributions to society.

Messer went as a university president.

“I know, it’s crazy,” she says while we sit at a conference table in her office in the Oneal-Sells Administration Building, an edifice that has borne witness to each day and every significant moment of the school’s history.

“I got really involved as a student leader and kind of fell in love with it. It was kind of a joke that I loved being in college and that I was going to stay in college forever. And I have done that.”

Dr. Emily Messer today is the 21st president of Texas Wesleyan University, Fort Worth’s oldest university. She was formally installed in April, the first female president in the school’s 133 years, all of them in the historic Polytechnic Heights neighborhood.

The east, where the sun rises, has held significant places in literature and scripture. It symbolizes new beginnings and is frequently associated with spirituality, wisdom, and enlightenment.

And, so, it is that Texas Wesleyan remains a bright light on Fort Worth’s East Side.

Wesleyan is riding a wave of momentum that began with the sale of its law school to Texas A&M in 2013 and is surging with a resurrected football program that has fulfilled all of the school’s hopes and dreams when then-President Fred Slabach brought it back for the 2017 season.

It has met an economic expectation and made for a fuller college experience for students.

“Consistently since 2017, when we brought the program back, football has increased the revenue it brought to the university,” says Messer, now almost a full year on the job.

A new football stadium will be ready for play in 2026. The field, the track, and light standards are already in place. The school broke ground on the field house this summer. Next year, they will begin construction of the stands. It will seat about 7,500, one of biggest, if not the biggest, stadiums in NAIA.

The school, with an enrollment of 2,600, welcomed its biggest freshman class a year ago until this fall, another record setter.

Messer was raised in a blue-collar home in a small community outside of Gadsden, Alabama. Her father was a firefighter, and her mother made her profession managing the home.

She went to Jacksonville State University, earning a bachelor’s in English, a master’s in public administration, and, lastly, a doctorate in higher education from University of Alabama.

Messer’s immediate past experience was in the role of vice president for advancement and enrollment management at Jacksonville State University in Alabama.

She warns that she will likely “bore you to tears” about her message of “our people, our place, and our programs.”

“I think that’s why I’m so passionate about working in higher education, because my college experience molded me into who I am today,” she says. “I think what we do here is transforming lives of students.”

The university, traditionally a four-year liberal arts school, is reimaging itself in the 21st century. That includes courses in micro-credentials and certificates. The university already has micro-credentialing courses in its school of business.

“What are ways that we can accelerate the path to the workforce?” Messer says. “I think it’s taking a step back and reevaluating  what we are, continuing down the same path but adding different avenues.”

The Biggest Aggie in the New Aggieland

Having spent over 30 years as both a student and employee in the Texas A&M University System, Kim McCuistion hasn’t just witnessed the system’s growth, she’s played a key part in it.

Not sure anyone has ever posed this question, but we’ll ask it anyway: What is the most Texas A&M thing a Texas A&M grad has ever done? And we’re speaking in the professional context, mind you. Thus, maroon tattoos of “Gig ’em” are excluded.

Well, the career of Kim McCuistion, the associate vice chancellor and inaugural director for Texas A&M – Fort Worth, might be your answer.

Originally from the Houston area, though her mother is from the Bahamas, where she’d understandably spend summers visiting her grandparents, McCuistion would receive a bachelor’s in animal science from Texas A&M University’s flagship campus in College Station. She’d continue her education at Kansas State, which is probably the least Aggie thing about her. Though she’d make up for this by doing research on cattle nutrition while studying in Manhattan, Kansas.

She’d then make her way back to Texas and attend West Texas A&M, one of the 11 regional universities within the Texas A&M system. The Canyon-based campus is where she worked in Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service while earning her Ph.D. in agriculture.

Sticking to the A&M system, her first post-doctorate job would be at Texas A&M Kingsville, where she was on faculty at King Ranch Institute for Ranch Management and would eventually become the interim dean of the honors college.

“I realized the impact you could have university-wide and not just with the classroom interaction per se,” McCuistion says about her time in Kingsville. “That was the foot in the door into administration.”

She’d spend 17 years in Kingsville before accepting a position as chief of staff at yet another Texas A&M System university, Tarleton State in Stephenville, before becoming the vice president and dean of Tarleton State – Fort Worth. This coming less than a year after Tarleton State - Fort Worth cut the ribbon on its first building of a planned 80-acre expansion in southwest Fort Worth. And she’d see the groundbreaking of a second building in March 2022. Three months later, she would take on another ambitious expansion project in the Texas A&M System after becoming the first vice chancellor and director of the new Texas A&M – Fort Worth.

“I’ve been with the same employer for over 20 years,” McCuistion says. “So, I’ve been able to craft this fun career path while staying within the Texas A&M University System.”

But make no mistake, the new school, which will be in a planned state-of-the-art campus in southeast downtown Fort Worth, is not your everyday, run-of-the-mill, prestigious university. No, this facility, which will be the lynchpin of a planned innovation district, will co-op with commercial industry partners and future employers to collaborate on research — almost a school and incubator hybrid. The campus will also initially house five of the eight state agencies under the Texas A&M University System, and students will have degree opportunities in law, engineering, and the health sciences.

And as far as what the future holds for Texas A&M’s growth in Fort Worth, anything is possible.

“We need to see what programs thrive and are successful that need additional space,” McCuistion says. “And see how we can accommodate that with future buildings.”

So, to return to the initial question — having studied, researched, and taught agriculture; attended or worked at three separate Texas A&M regional universities; and currently heads one of Texas A&M’s most massive projects — McCuistion would give any Aggie a run for their money.

Persistence and Retention

Rachael Capua has made a career out of ensuring the underdog makes it to the finish line. And her work at Tarleton State Fort Worth will be no different.

Rachael Capua had wanted to start her college journey attending TCU. You know, go to welcome week, take a pic with the mascot, live in the freshmen dorm, wear purple to Saturday football games — first-year stuff.

“But I did not get accepted initially,” Capua says. “So, transfer for me was the path … and it would end up being one of the best decisions I could have ever made.”

She’s proud to be a second-generation community college graduate.

“My mother was a community college graduate, and my father was a student veteran,” she says. “I actually watched my dad walk the stage and get his bachelor’s degree after serving in the service. Literally, in my office, I have my mother’s framed community college ID, student ID, and I have framed my father’s graduation picture of his class graduating.”

After receiving an associate degree from Collin College in Frisco, Capua would end up finishing her last two years at TCU as a chancellor’s scholar — a relief, given the financial constraints of having grown up in a single-parent household. “That means I literally went to TCU on a full tuition-and-fee scholarship, having not been accepted two years before,” Capua says.

This experience would play a pivotal role in her career endeavors. “Everyone with a doctorate [Capua received her doctorate in education from SMU] has a research and dissertation focus. All of us [doctoral candidates] have an interest. And, for me, my dissertation and my research are literally in community college-to-four-year transfer student persistence and retention.”

So, the fact that Capua, in her current position as vice president and dean of Tarleton State Fort Worth, mainly serves students transferring from community colleges is about as apropos as one can imagine.

After all, she’s made a career out of it. Before arriving at Tarleton State Fort Worth in March 2023, Capua had worked as the assistant director of sophomore and junior year experience at TCU, was the manager of internal communications at TCC, and was the director of college and career success at Tarrant To & Through Partnership.

Of course, with Tarleton State Fort Worth now offering first- and second-year courses at its southwest Fort Worth campus beginning in the fall 2024 semester, she’ll now be overseeing more “traditional” students, too.

Though Tarleton State University’s flagship campus is in Stephenville, the school has had a presence in Fort Worth since 1978, when it occupied a section of an office building off of Camp Bowie Boulevard. In 2014, Tarleton State Fort Worth received a gift from the Walton Group of 80 acres off Chisholm Trail Parkway in the southwest side of the city. Three years later, the college would release a 172-page master plan, which included renderings of a 30-plus-building-strong, full-fledged college campus. Until this year, the university has only offered upper-level and graduate courses, but it’s not conjecture to state the school’s long-term plans include creating a four-year university experience with this 80-acre plot of land.

And don’t forget, with Tarleton State a part of the Texas A&M system, they’ll be offering classes and degrees at the upcoming downtown Texas A&M-Fort Worth, as well.

“I think what makes our system [Texas A&M] so strong for Fort Worth is that we have a lot of resources and support going into the new Texas A&M-Fort Worth development and as well Tarleton State Fort Worth,” Capua says. “With our infrastructure and our acreage, it allows us to do some really creative things to support Fort Worth and surrounding communities.”

And, with the booming population on the west side of the metroplex, these public institutions of higher education are filling a void. They’re becoming a necessity.

“All of us have an important role to play in what we call the higher education landscape,” Capua says. “And each of us has a really important role to play. We have a responsibility to serve a growing population region like we are, and we have to step up in big ways.”

Editor's note: This story first appeared in September's issue of Fort Worth Magazine.