This week, The Texas Tribune published a story detailing the political forces that contributed to the ouster of Texas A&M’s president Mark Welsh, the four-star general who was ultimately deemed unfit to manage the flagship university in College Station.
Welsh, who was beloved by faculty and students, was pushed out shortly after a video was published online showing him defending a teacher who had taught gender identity in her classroom. But he didn’t lose his job over that incident alone.
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Welsh suffered death by a thousand cuts: a compounding of culture war controversies that ultimately led some members of the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents to lose faith in his leadership. And a relentless drumbeat of far-right criticism from websites like Texas Scorecard that made regents increasingly crave a more proactive, conservative president.
Chancellor Glenn Hegar would sum it up in his own email to the school’s top administrators after Welsh resigned. “I have learned that major events are often a cumulation of small things that build up over time and that cumulation is rarely seen or heard,” Hegar wrote. “Most events do not happen in a vacuum, which means an easy answer does not bring the clarity we seek.”
For this story, the Tribune reviewed thousands of pages of public records and talked to more than 50 people.
Here are six takeaways from our reporting:
Abbott played an influential role
Gov. Greg Abbott was skeptical of Welsh from the start. In November 2023, before Welsh was named permanent president, he met Abbott in Austin for the first time. During that meeting, the governor peppered Welsh with questions about a recent Texas Scorecard article that dug up old statements Welsh made about diversity. Abbott was unimpressed by Welsh’s answers. “There’s no doubt the governor was looking for somebody that was conservative in nature, and I think that he felt that maybe Mark was not as conservative as he was hoping he would be,” A&M Regents Board Chair Robert Albritton said.
Abbott, who appoints all the regents, made it clear when he wanted them to make certain decisions. When he came back from a trip to Israel in 2023, he told former Chancellor John Sharp he wanted the regents to close its long-time campus in Qatar. Over Welsh’s objections, the regents sided with Abbott and shuttered the engineering school.
The governor would continue to air his skepticism with Welsh online. And as Welsh’s days were coming to an end, he told Albritton that while it was the board’s decision, “it’s probably time for a change.”
Sharp’s retirement was a “negotiated exit”
The reporting sheds new light on former Chancellor John Sharp’s retirement from the A&M System. For more than a decade, the board of regents was largely deferential to Sharp’s larger-than-life, politically savvy leadership style. But more recently, they were signaling a need for change.
Sharp’s 2023 performance evaluation said stakeholders sometimes felt “bowled over” by his bold leadership style and asked him to loop them in on decisions more often.
While Sharp would say in his retirement announcement the following year that he informed the board of his plans to leave at the end of the 2025 legislative session, Albritton and two system administrators confirmed Sharp’s departure was a “negotiated exit.” Albritton said that while Sharp positively advanced the university, many board members “felt it was time for a change.”
Regents were setting a new tone
Every university system in Texas is overseen by a nine-member board of regents, who are appointed by the governor for six-year terms.
In 2023, three new regents would roll onto the A&M board as the political pendulum was swinging further to the right in Texas and the state’s most powerful lawmakers would make their expectations for regents clear. Before the Senate voted to approve Abbott’s appointments, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick interviewed prospective regents at all the university systems about their views on DEI. He wanted them to take a stronger stand against what he viewed as liberal indoctrination on college campuses.
State statute also says the governing boards are expected to defend a public university’s institutional independence.
“This board really doesn’t buy into that,” said one A&M System administrator who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly. “The board thinks they are the representatives of the people, funneled through the people’s top elected official: the governor.”
A&M Board Chair Albritton acknowledged the board has to pay attention to the lawmakers who fund them. He added they’re not trying to micromanage, but the regents have a responsibility “to make sure things do not spin out of control.”
A steady drumbeat of online outrage
Welsh grew defensive as alumni, lawmakers, and regents pressed him over a steady stream of controversies driven by online misinformation and Texas Scorecard, a conservative website writing about Texas politics. By the end of his two-year presidency, Scorecard had published more than 115 posts about A&M.
Emails reveal regents were increasingly sensitive to the negative coverage.
“When does our administration’s obsession with student sexual preferences and lifestyles finally stop?” Regent Michael Hernandez wrote in an angry email to Welsh when contacted by Scorecard about various LGBTQ+ events and courses on campus.
Welsh’s patience also appeared to grow thin at points. In December 2024, an alum emailed Welsh, citing a Texas Scorecard post, and accused him of leading the university down a “WOKE path.”
“You clearly don’t know me at all,” Welsh wrote back. “I have no idea what ‘WOKE path’ even means, and I’m certainly not leading anyone down one.”
Board members felt Welsh was leaning on them to make unpopular decisions
In an interview, Albritton told the Tribune that board members were frustrated that Welsh relied on the board to make difficult decisions that the board felt should be made at the presidential level. For example, the regents took board votes to eliminate an LGBTQ minor, and to close the Qatar campus. They were also frustrated that Welsh didn’t fire the Corps commandant sooner.
“It just got to a level of frustration that Mark always wanted to have a board action in order to make decisions that the board felt should be made at the presidential level, without board involvement,” Albritton said.
Welsh defended himself in an email to the Tribune.
“I have a pretty long track record of professional decision making, which I’m very comfortable standing behind, including decisions made as president of A&M. I made hundreds of decisions in that job, both easy and hard. Every decision I made was in the best interest of the university. I think the real issue was in a very small number of cases, the board felt a different decision would have better served the university,” he said.“In those situations, the board had every right and authority to overturn my decision or direct specific action. All I asked is that they do so formally and be accountable for their action. I believe that’s a fairly routine standard of practice for corporate governance in our country.”
Welsh’s replacement was lined up before he was removed
Without Welsh’s knowledge, Albritton was pitching candidates to replace him.
A few days after videos were posted online showing Welsh defending a teacher who taught gender identity in a class, Albritton reached out to Tyson Voelkel, then president and CEO of the Texas A&M Foundation. He asked if Voelkel would be interested in the interim job.
Voelkel rejected the offer via text, calling it a “mistake” to push out the current president, according to an administrator who reviewed the message. He alerted Welsh that he had received a call offering him the job. Last month, Voelkel abruptly announced his resignation from the A&M Foundation.
Texas A&M University System Chancellor Glenn Hegar then floated the job to former state Sen. Tommy Williams, days before Welsh resigned. The board officially named him interim president in early October.
Disclosure: Texas A&M Foundation and Texas A&M University System have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.