 "Photo: Maddie Crum/The Daily Texan")
The Sheffield Room bubbled Thursday afternoon with chatter in German, Polish, Finnish and English. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst just stuck with English. Texan, to be exact.
“Texas doesn’t actually exist,” Dewhurst said. “It’s a state of mind. I guess what I’m saying is that we Texans take a lot of pride in being from Texas.”
Dewhurst spoke to a crowd of about 40 visiting masters students as part of the annual Information Technology and Energy Law judicial luncheon at the Law School.
The students are part of the Executive Master of European and International Business Law Program at the University of St. Gallen in St. Gallen, Switzerland, which partners with UT annually for a weeklong session.
Dewhurst focused his talk on state energy initiatives and the progressive move toward alternative fuels.
“I think, in Texas, all of us want to see economic fuels that are environmentally friendly, and that over time, we wean ourselves away from the dependence of foreign oil,” he said. “We are constantly looking for ways to increase energy efficiency without necessarily increasing generation.”
Dewhurst said business-friendly decisions in the state’s past leadership are the reason for Texas’ successful economic standing. He said it is important for governments to work with private industries and to give incentives to private companies for developing renewable energy sources.
“As we try to harness wind and solar [power], which are both inexhaustible and environmentally friendly, the challenge, obviously, is attractive prices to push industry and push development,” Dewhurst said.
He said the University’s law school will play an important role as a premier institution for environmental law.
The University of St. Gallen’s masters program takes students for weeklong intensive sessions at nine different higher-education institutions around the world over a period of 18 months. Each institution focuses on teaching specific modules, ranging from international taxation to competition law, and locations range from Shanghai, China to Vaduz, Liechtenstein. UT is joined by Harvard and New York University as the only U.S. stops.
“UT is one of the top universities in the U.S., and everyone in Europe knows about its reputation,” said Felipe Pérez Pose, a research associate in St. Gallen’s masters program. “We’re very proud to cooperate with the University, especially because UT law school is one of the leaders in energy and high-tech law. Energy isn’t just the field of the future — it’s the field of the present.”
The students are all full-time professionals in various fields. The median age of the program participants is 34 years old.
After each weeklong module, the students return to their respective jobs for about five weeks before the next session. While St. Gallen teaches in only German and English, the students come from a plethora of European countries.
Bartholomäus Rogowski works for Deutsche Bundesbank, which is the German equivalent of the U.S. Federal Reserve. He said he plans to stay in Austin a few more days to enjoy the city.
“After my exams on Friday, I’m going to the AC/DC concert,” Rogowski said. “And on Saturday, to the Longhorns’ game. It’s fantastic. A stadium of 80,000 people. I want to see that.”
Rogowski soon found out the stadium’s capacity was more than 100,000 people.
“Even better,” he said.
