Bonfire Collapse - Texas A&M University (College Station, Texas - November 1999) » Texas A&M University

Texas A&M University is located in College Station, Texas approximately equidistant from three of the ten largest cities in United States, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio, and the state capital, Austin. The University’s enrollment in the fall of 1999 was 43,442 students, which places the school among the five largest universities in the nation. Originally founded as an all male institution, women now constitute almost half of the total enrollment. African Americans and Hispanics comprise approximately eleven percent of the student body.

The first public institution of higher education established in Texas, the University opened its doors with forty-eight students on October 4, 1876 as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas. A&M is a land grant; sea grant and space grant institution and owes its origin to the Morrill Act of 1862, which established the nation’s land-grant college system.

In 1963, the name of the institution was changed to Texas A&M University. Today, the school occupies a 5,200-acre campus with more than 100 buildings, with an assessed value of over $1 billion. The University is the home of the George Bush Presidential Library and the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets. Excluding the service academies, the Corps is the largest uniformed student organization in the nation with ROTC programs in all branches of the armed services. The current strength in the all-voluntary program is approximately 2,200 students.

In 1929, the State Firemen and Fire Marshal’s Association of Texas chose A&M as the site for a training program for volunteer firefighters. In 1931, the State Legislature instructed A&M to create and operate a permanent training school for both career and volunteer firefighters. In 1954, the training mandate was expanded to include industrial firefighters. The Firemen’s Training School (FTS) is now a part of the Texas Engineering Extension Service (TEEX), a division of the University, and has grown to become one of the largest fire training schools in the world.

Texas Task Force One, a FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Team, is also headquartered at the FTS. The USAR Team maintains more than $1.3 million dollars worth of state-of-the-art equipment and its members include 186 emergency services personnel from forty-eight organizations and departments throughout the state. Members are divided into three sixty-two-member teams, which are on a thirty-day rotational call. Each team has five components: a command structure, a rescue group, a medical group, a technical group, and a search group that has a canine search component.

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