Message from the Provost 2025

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce that the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has approved the creation of the School of Political Science, Public Affairs, Legal and Security Studies (PPLSS) within the College of Liberal Arts. The new school will offer the existing degree programs in Political Science and Public Affairs and undergraduate minors in Legal Studies, Global Security Studies, Globalization Studies, Public Administration, and Security Studies.

The School of PPLSS will gather faculty from Political Science, Public Affairs, and Security Studies under Dr. Dongkyu Kim as its Founding Director.  The school will begin operations in August 2025 with 32 full-time faculty and approximately 1,000 students. It will be the largest School within the College of Liberal Arts and the second one historically after the School of Interdisciplinary Programs and Community Engagement (SIPCE), founded in 2015.  SIPCE will continue its interdisciplinary curriculum with degree programs already in existence.  Some programs in SIPCE (i.e., Mexican American Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies) will now join the Department of Literatures and Cultural Studies.

As the UTRGV community works hard and steadily to become a top national research university that keeps serving the higher education needs of our entire region, the new array of programs and schools in the College of Liberal Arts will certainly support the growth of our students and faculty into higher levels of academic excellence, professional outlooks, and community impact.  As we move ahead, more information about PPLSS will be disseminated to the campus community. 

Sincerely,

Luis H. Zayas, Ph.D. 

Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs