Robert Gates, the new President of Texas A&M, has narrowed the scope of former president Bowen's "Vision 2020." Apparently there were 12 goals in Vision 2020 and Gates narrowed it down to a manageable 4. The main push of Vision 2020 was apparently to make Texas A&M just like every other state university in the nation. You can imagine how popular this was with Aggies. I was at an Aggie baseball game last year when Bowen threw out the first pitch amidst deafening boos and not a few angry shouts. They grew to a fever pitch when the announcer mentioned Vision 2020, but turned to adulation with the mention of Bowen's imminent retirement. What a way to go, huh? Here's a taste:

It’s been 3 1/2 years since then-President Ray Bowen unveiled Vision 2020, the first long-range planning document to come out of A&M in two decades. The aim was to have the university ranked in the top 10 among public universities by the year 2020.

Yet last year, A&M dropped out of the best 50 universities as ranked by U.S. News and World Report. In a recent interview, Gates put much of the blame for the slip on shrinking faculty.

Gates said the shrinkage developed as professors retired and, in an attempt to shave costs, the university replaced them with lower-paid lecturers or no one at all.

He said professors also must be paid more — particularly full professors, who make an average of $10,000 less than their University of Texas counterparts.

Hunh. Did you forget something, Bowen? Also, more talk on diversity, which no university president anywhere can spend less than 20% of his thoughts on.