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UTPB head used education to transcend troubled times
Midland Reporter-Telegram
Sunday, May 11, 2008 David Watts says schooling is 'means to better life and understanding'
By Bob Campbell
ODESSA -- It stands to reason David Watts made education his life's work because a high school teacher turned his life around when it was headed in the wrong direction.
The University of Texas of the Permian Basin president's father Bill was a Texas A&M-trained electrical engineer who became an Episcopal minister and died of an undiagnosed brain tumor at age 34 in San Antonio.
Watts' mother Kay Campbell enrolled at the University of Texas in Austin to be a social worker and he was a high school sophomore whose behavior three years after the trauma echoed his confusion.
"It's hard for a 13-year-old to separate all the things you're feeling," he said. "I admired my mother and her courage, but I had rocky times and was lost in space until a teacher sat me down and said, 'You have potential that you're letting go to waste.'
"I saw she was right, I was wasting a great opportunity. Education was a means to work through our grief and move on with our lives."
Watts earned a bachelor's degree at UT and a master's and Ph.D. in sociology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He joined Ohio University in Athens, chaired the sociology-anthropology department and led a similar department at Texas State in San Marcos.
He was arts and sciences dean at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond and academic affairs vice president at Jacksonville State in Alabama before arriving at UTPB in 2001.
"Education is the key," said Watts, 62. "That's why I do what I do. It's the means to getting a better life and understanding and greater meaning in life. I love teaching and universities. They're wonderful places.
"Texas has not done the best job of including all segments in higher education, so we need to bring in anybody and everybody who can do the work and meet academic standards -- men, women, African-Americans and Hispanics. I'm proud 37 percent of our student body is Hispanic."
The 6-feet-3 academician and his wife Denise Cabra's children are twins Allis Varnado of Austin and Millie Rizzuto of San Diego, Megan Watts of Tuscaloosa, Ala. and Bill, a lineman on Trinity School's state champion six-man football teams. Watts' mom and sister Tinka Langfeld are in D'Hanis, west of San Antonio. Working 10-12 hours a day, he has expanded his job with UTPB's partnership in the Andrews County High Temperature Teaching & Test Reactor and construction of a performing arts center, science and technology building and student center.
With enrollment burgeoning from 2,200 in 2001 to 3,557 last fall, the school is set to teach chemical, petroleum and mechanical engineering.
Watts enjoys the Permian Basin's importance as an oil and gas region and its frontierism. "Thirty five-plus years ago, this was nothing but pastureland," he said, stretching his long arms out.
"They hunted rabbits here. Ellen and W.D. Noel and Ted Roden and others who worked to establish UTPB were pioneers and that spirit still lives. Speaker of the House Tom Craddick's vision to make West Texas a better place is remarkable."
One of Watts' best friends is Jacksonville State President William Meehan, who said he "sets high standards but understands nobody is perfect and is fair.
"David's Christian faith is strong and he devotes a good bit of time to his family," Meehan said. "He came in early and stayed late and was active in Rotary and the chamber. He's held almost every position in the academic house and knows how it moves and works."
Watts took outings to DeSoto State Park and Little River Canyon Field School Biology Station in Alabama and now hikes in the Guadalupe and Chisos Mountains. He joins delegations to Dongying, China, Midland's sister city, in part because his doctoral research was into American drug policies developing from U.S. involvement in curbing China's opium problem in the 19th and 20th centuries.
His dissertation was "Narcotics Control: A Study in Social Order." He did research at Texas State on conquering the addictions of high school and college students and faculty members.
The Watts attend Odessa's First United Methodist Church and keep four cats -- all strays taken in by Denise, including a rare British Blue shorthair with orange eyes who had a litter in the Odessa YMCA Garden.
He still has his dad's knee-length senior A&M Corps of Cadets brown handmade boots. When asked if he ever puts them on, he laughed and said, "Oh, no, Dad had smaller feet." Story located at the Midland Reporter Telegram . |
