While the area was proud of its football teams, it also wanted its academic programs to prosper and grow.  Thus, the administration started seeking new ways

to expand the curriculum offerings.  To do this they felt another name change would be necessary. They proposed that A&I become a university and be called the University of South Texas.  Students, faculty, administrators, even towns people were excited about such a change.  A poll showed strong support from all but the Alumni and Coach Steinke.  In the Legislature two bills were introduced to make the Texas College of Arts and Industries a university.  The bill that survived was the bill that renamed the school Texas A&I University -- the name supported by Coach Steinke and the Alumni. The school continued its historic growth pattern with an expanded mission and a wider offering of courses.

     All over the nation in the 1960s the young people were agitating for change and at Texas A&I that movement was also forming. Led by leaders like José Angel Gutiérrez and Carlos Guerra who were Chicano voices that would be heard by Brown Power advocates even outside the state of Texas.  The Kingsville campus

came alive with protestors and speakers corners. For too long Mexican American students had faced discrimination in housing, and in academics. Kingsville was a segregated community and the campus community tolerated a de facto segregation, although the Board of Directors

repeatedly issued statements supporting integration and toleration.  Spanish surnamed students had been enrolled in sizeable numbers since 1925 and the school was especially interested in educating the dominant minority as evidenced by the creation of many special programs  and classes, but, there was not equality. The school created an ethnic studies program that did not satisfy the militant Chicano movement. The protestors wanted a Hispanic president and more Hispanic professors. The movement for change was everywhere and the administrators, and many of the faculty,  were unprepared to satisfy the new demands from a changing and nontraditional student body.

     The changes being demanded were more than just those from the dominant minority group. There was also the demand for change in the world of academia. The future of colleges and universities throughout the country was to join into larger systems with fewer administrators and more efficiency.  There were demands for changed curriculum and  fewer student restrictions. The students were now older. There were more women. There were more nontraditional students. The school was growing because the population of South Texas was growing. South Texans were demanding more opportunities for educational programs closer to their homes.

In the Valley Pan American University at Edinburg was also growing and seeking additional programs and money. In Laredo there was a move to expand the local junior college. Corpus Christi, a city that had

never forgiven Kingsville for getting the College in 1925, pressed even harder for a University in their community. The administration in Kingsville recognized that to survive the competition they would need to form a system that would include all of the schools in South Texas. With approval from the Coordinating Board the Board of Directors created the Texas A&I University System with upper level campus at Laredo and Corpus Christi and the Citrus Center in Weslaco.

1968-1988