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Black-footed cat

The black-footed cat (Felis nigripes), also called the small-spotted cat, is the smallest wild cat in Africa, having a head-and-body length of 35 - 52 cm. Despite its name, only the soles of its feet are black or dark brown. With its bold small spots and stripes on the tawny fur, it is well camouflaged, especially on moonlit nights. It bears black streaks running from the corners of the eyes along the cheeks, and its banded tail has a black tip.

The first black-footed cat known to science was discovered in the northern Karoo of South Africa and described in 1824. It is endemic to the arid steppes and grassland savannas of Southern Africa. It was recorded in southern Botswana, but only a few authentic records exist in Namibia, in southern Angola and in southern Zimbabwe. Due to its restricted distribution, it has been listed as a vulnerable species on the IUCN Red List since 2002. The population is suspected to be declining due to poaching of prey species for human consumption as bushmeat, persecution, traffic accidents, and predation by herding dogs.

The black-footed cat has been studied using radio telemetry since 1993. This research allowed direct observation of its behaviour in its natural habitat. It usually rests in burrows during the day and hunts at night. It moves between 5 and 16 km on average in search of small rodents and birds. It feeds on 40 different vertebrates and kills up to 14 small animals per night. It can catch birds in flight, jumping up to 1.4 m high, and also attacks mammals and birds much heavier than itself. A female usually gives birth to two kittens during the Southern Hemisphere summer between October and March. They are weaned at the age of two months and become independent after four months of age at the latest.

Taxonomy and phylogeny
The scientific name Felis nigripes was used by the British explorer William John Burchell in 1824 when he described the species based on skins of small, spotted cats that he encountered near Litákun (now known as Dithakong), in South Africa. Felis (Microfelis) nigripes thomasi was proposed as a subspecies by the South African mammalogist Guy C. Shortridge in 1931, who described black-footed cat skins collected in Griqualand West that were darker than those of the nominate subspecies. When the British zoologist Reginald Innes Pocock reviewed cat skins in the collection of the Natural History Museum, London, he corroborated that the black-footed cat is a Felis species.

The validity of a subspecies was doubted as no geographical barriers matching the observed differences exist between populations. In 2017, the IUCN Cat Specialist Group revised felid taxonomy and noted that the black-footed cat is most probably a monotypic species.

Phylogeny and evolution
Phylogenetic analysis of the nuclear DNA from all Felidae species revealed that their evolutionary radiation began in Asia in the Miocene around. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA of all Felidae species indicates that they radiated at around.

The black-footed cat is part of an evolutionary lineage that is estimated to have genetically diverged from the common ancestor of all Felis species around, based on analysis of their nuclear DNA. Analysis of their mitochondrial DNA indicates a genetic divergence of Felis species at around. Both models agree on the jungle cat (F. chaus) having been the first Felis species that diverged, followed by the black-footed cat.

Fossil remains of the black-footed cat have not been found. It possibly migrated during the Pleistocene into Africa. This migration was possibly facilitated by extended periods of low sea levels between Asia and Africa.

The following cladogram shows the phylogenetic relationships of the black-footed cat as derived through analysis of nuclear DNA:

Characteristics
The black-footed cat has tawny fur that is entirely covered with black spots. Its head is darker than the rest of the body but paler above the eyes. Its whiskers are white, and its ears bear grizzled dark brown hairs. On the neck and back, some spots are elongated into stripes. The spots form transverse stripes on the shoulders. The forelegs and the hind legs bear irregular stripes. Its tail is confusedly spotted. The underparts of the feet are black or dark brown. The throat rings form black semi-circles that vary in colour from dusky brown to pale rufous and are narrowly edged with rufous. Some individuals have a pure white belly with a tawny tinge where it blends into the tawny colour of the flanks. The ears, eyes and mouth are lined with pale off-white. Two black streaks run from the corners of the eyes across the cheeks. Individuals vary in background colour from sandy and pale ochre to dark ochre. In the northern part of its range, it is lighter than in the southern part, where its spots and bands are more clearly defined. The three rings on the throat are reddish brown to black, with the third ring broken in some individuals. The black bands are broad on the upper legs and become narrower towards the paws. The 25 to 30 mm long guard hairs are gray at the base and have either white or dark tips. The underfur is dense with short and wavy hair. The fur becomes thicker and longer during winter. The pupils of the eyes contract to a vertical slit, like in all Felis species. They are light green to dark yellow.

The black-footed cat is the smallest cat species in Africa. Females measure 33.7 - 36.8 cm in head and body length with a 15.7 to 17 cm long tail. Males are between 42.5 and 50 cm with a 15 - 20 cm long tail. Its tapering tail is about half the length of the head and body. Its skull is short and round with a basal length of 77 - 87 mm and a width of 38 - 40 mm. The ear canal and the openings of the ears are larger than in most Felis species. The cheek teeth are 22 - 23 mm long and the upper carnassials 10 mm long. It has small pointed ears ranging from 45 to 50 mm in females and 46 to 57 mm in males. The hindfoot of females measures maximum 95 mm and of males maximum 105 mm. Its shoulder height is less than 25 cm. Females weigh 1.1 - 1.65 kg and males 1.6 - 2.45 kg.

The African wildcat (Felis lybica) is almost three times as large as the black-footed cat, has longer legs, a longer tail and mostly plain grey fur with less distinct markings. The serval (Leptailurus serval) resembles the black-footed cat in coat colour and pattern, but has proportionately larger ears, longer legs and a longer tail.

Distribution and habitat
The black-footed cat is endemic to Southern Africa; its distribution is much more restricted than other small cats in this region. Its range extends from South Africa northward into southern Botswana, where it was recorded in the late 1960s. It has also been recorded in Namibia, extreme southern Angola and southern Zimbabwe. It is unlikely to occur in Lesotho and Eswatini. It inhabits open, arid savannas and semi-arid shrubland in the Karoo and the southwestern Kalahari with short grasses, low bush cover, and scattered clumps of low bush and higher grasses. The mean annual precipitation in this region ranges from 100 to 500 mm. In the Drakensberg area, it was recorded at an elevation of 2000 m.

Behaviour and ecology
The black-footed cat is nocturnal and usually solitary, except when females care for dependent kittens. It spends the day resting in hollow termite mounds and dense cover in unoccupied burrows of South African springhare (Pedetes capensis), aardvark (Orycteropus afer), and Cape porcupine (Hystrix africaeaustralis). It digs vigorously to extend or modify these burrows for shelter. After sunset, it emerges to hunt. It seeks refuge at the slightest disturbance and often uses termite mounds for cover or for bearing its young. When cornered, it defends itself fiercely. Due to this habit and its courage, it is called miershooptier in parts of the South African Karoo, meaning 'anthill tiger'. A San legend claims that a black-footed cat can kill a giraffe by piercing its jugular. This exaggeration is intended to emphasize its bravery and tenacity.

Unlike most other cats, it is a poor climber, as its stocky body and short tail are thought not to be conducive for climbing trees. However, one black-footed cat was observed and photographed resting in the lower branches of a camelthorn tree (Vachellia erioloba).

A female roams in an average home range of 6.23 - 15.53 km2 in a year, and a resident male in an area of 19.44 - 23.61 km2. The range of an adult male overlaps the ranges of one to four females. It uses scent marking throughout its range. Receptive females were observed spraying urine up to 41 times in a stretch of 685 m. They sprayed less frequently during pregnancy. Other forms of scent marking include rubbing objects, raking with claws, and depositing faeces in visible locations. Its calls are louder than those of other cats of its size, presumably to allow calls to be heard over relatively large distances. When close to each other, however, it uses quieter purrs or gurgles; when threatened, it hisses and growls. Adults move an average of 8.42 ± per night in search of prey. It is difficult to survey because of its highly secretive nature; moreover, it tends to move fast without using roads or tracks like other cats. In South Africa, a density of 0.17 /sqkm was estimated in Benfontein near Kimberley during 1998 to 1999, that fell to 0.08 /sqkm during 2005 to 2014. Farther south, in the Nuwejaarsfontein area, the estimated number of individuals during 2009 to 2014 was 0.06 /sqkm. These were probably exceptionally high densities, as both areas feature good weather and management conditions, while the number of individuals in less favourable habitats could be closer to 0.03 /sqkm.

Hunting and diet
The black-footed cat hunts at night irrespective of the weather, at temperatures from -10 to 35 C. It attacks its prey from the rear, puts its forepaws on its flanks and grounds the prey using its dewclaws. It employs three different ways of hunting: "fast hunt", "slow hunt", and "sit and wait" hunt. In a fast hunt, it moves at a speed of 2 to 3 km/h and chases prey out of vegetation cover. During a slow hunt, it stalks the prey at a speed of 0.5 to 0.8 km/h, meandering cautiously through the grass and vigilantly checking its surroundings while turning its head side to side. It moves between 5 and 16 km on average in search of small rodents and birds, mostly moving in small circles and zig-zagging among bushes and termite mounds. In a "sit and wait" hunt, it waits for the prey motionlessly in front of a rodent den, sometimes with closed eyes. Its ears keep moving, and it opens the eyes as soon as it hears a sound.

Due to its small size, the black-footed cat hunts mainly small prey such as rodents and small birds, but also preys on Cape hare (Lepus capensis), being heavier than itself. Its energy requirement is very high, with about 250 to 300 g of prey consumed per night, which is about a sixth of its average body weight. In 1993, a female and a male black-footed cat were followed for 622 hours and observed hunting. They caught vertebrates every 50 minutes and killed up to 14 small animals in a night. They killed shrews and rodents by a bite in the neck or in the head and consumed them completely. They stalked birds quietly, followed by a quick chase and a jump up to a height of 1.4 m and over a distance of 2 m, also catching some in the air. They pulled them down to the ground and consumed small birds like Cape clapper lark (Mirafra apiata) and spike-heeled lark (Chersomanes albofasciata) without plucking. They plucked large birds like northern black korhaan (Afrotis afraoides), ate for several hours, cached the remains in hollows and covered them with sand. Neonate springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) lambs keep hiding quietly in a hollow or under a bush for the first few days of their lives. A male pounced on a lamb resting in the grass, but abandoned the hunt after the lamb got up on its feet. It later scavenged the carcass of a recently deceased lamb weighing nearly 3 kg. It consumed around 120 g meat in each of several bouts of eating, starting from the thighs, making its way from the lower back through the flanks to the neck; later it opened up the chest and fed on the inner organs. Insects like harvester termites, grasshoppers and moths constituted about 2% of the prey mass consumed.

Altogether 54 prey species of the black-footed cat were identified, with the gerbil mouse (Malacothrix typica) being among its most important prey. Its average prey weighs 24.1 g with small mammals constituting the most important prey class, followed by larger mammals weighing more than 100 g and small birds. It is able to satisfy its daily water requirements through its diet, but drinks water when available.

Reproduction and life cycle
In captivity, male black-footed cats become sexually mature at the age of nine months, and females at the age of seven months. Their oestrus lasts around 36 hours, and gestation lasts 63 to 68 days. The female gives birth to up to two litters per year during the Southern Hemisphere summer between October and March. The litter size is usually one or two kittens, in rare cases also four kittens.

Wild female black-footed cats observed in the wild were receptive to mating for only five to ten hours, requiring males to locate them quickly. Males fight for access to the female. Copulation occurs nearly every twenty to fifty minutes.

Kittens weigh 60 to 93 g at birth; they are born blind and relatively helpless, although they are able to crawl after just a few hours. Their eyes open at three to ten days, and their deciduous teeth break through at the age of two to three weeks. Within one month, they take solid food, and are weaned at the age of two months. Their permanent teeth erupt at the age of 148 to 158 days.

Captive females were observed trying to shift their kittens to a new hiding place every six to ten days after a week of their birth, much more frequently than other small cats. They are able to walk within two weeks and start climbing at three weeks. In the wild, kittens are born in South African springhare burrows or hollow termite mounds. From the age of four days onward, the mother leaves her kittens alone for up to 10 hours during nights. At the age of six weeks, they can move fast and frequently leave the den. Kittens and independent subadults are at the risk of falling prey to other carnivores such as black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas), caracal (Caracal caracal) and nocturnal raptors. They become independent after three to four months and tend to stay within their mother's home range. Captive black-footed cats lived for up to 15 years and three months.

Diseases
Both captive and free-ranging black-footed cats exhibit a high prevalence of AA amyloidosis, which causes chronic inflammatory processes and usually culminates in kidney failure and death. Wild black-footed cats are susceptible to transmission of infectious diseases from domestic dogs and cats.

Threats
Known threats include methods of indiscriminate predator control, such as bait poisoning and steel-jaw traps, habitat destruction from overgrazing, declining South African springhare populations, intraguild predation, diseases, and unsuitable farming practices. Several black-footed cats have been killed by herding dogs. The majority of protected areas may be too small to adequately conserve viable sub-populations.

Conservation
The black-footed cat is listed on CITES Appendix I and is protected throughout most of its range including Botswana and South Africa, where hunting is illegal.

Field research
The Black-footed Cat Working Group carries out a research project at Benfontein Nature Reserve and Nuwejaarsfontein Farm near Kimberley, Northern Cape. In November 2012, this project was extended to Biesiesfontein Farm located in the Victoria West area. Between 1992 and 2018, 65 black-footed cats were radio-collared and followed for extended periods to improve the understanding about their social organisation, sizes and use of their home ranges, hunting behaviour and composition of their diet. Camera traps are used to monitor the behaviour of radio-collared black-footed cats and their interaction with aardwolves (Proteles cristatus).

In captivity
The Wuppertal Zoo acquired black-footed cats in 1957, and succeeded in breeding them in 1963. In 1993, the European Endangered Species Programme was formed to coordinate which animals are best suited for pairing to maintain genetic diversity and to avoid inbreeding. The International Studbook for the Black-footed Cat was kept in the Wuppertal Zoo in Germany. , detailed records existed for a total of 726 captive cats since 1964; worldwide, 74 individuals were kept in 23 institutions in Germany, United Arab Emirates, US, UK, and South Africa.

Several zoos reported breeding successes, including Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, Fresno Chaffee Zoo, Brookfield Zoo, and Philadelphia Zoo.

The Audubon Nature Institute's Center for Research of Endangered Species is working on advanced genetics involving cats. In February 2011, a female kept there gave birth to two male kittens – the first black-footed cats to be born as a result of in vitro fertilization using frozen and thawed sperm and frozen and thawed embryos. In 2003, the sperm was collected from a male and then frozen. It was used to fertilize an egg in 2005, creating embryos that were thawed and transferred to a surrogate female in December 2010. The female carried the embryos to term and gave birth to two kittens. The same center reported that on 6 February 2012, a female black-footed cat kitten, Crystal, was born to a domestic cat surrogate after interspecies embryo transfer.

title: Black-footed cat


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Michael Spence

Andrew Michael Spence (born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American economist and Nobel laureate.

Spence is the William R. Berkley Professor in Economics and Business at the Stern School of Business at New York University, and the Philip H. Knight Professor of Management, Emeritus, and Dean, Emeritus, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Together with George A. Akerlof and Joseph E. Stiglitz, Spence is a co-recipient of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, "for their analyses of markets with asymmetric information."

Career
Spence is noted for his job-market signaling model, which inspired research into this branch of contract theory. In this model, employees signal their respective skills to employers by acquiring a certain degree of education, which is costly to them. Employers will pay higher wages to more educated employees, because they know that the proportion of employees with high abilities is higher among the educated ones, as it is less costly for them to acquire education than it is for employees with low abilities. For the model to work, it is not even necessary for education to have any intrinsic value if it can convey information about the sender (employee) to the recipient (employer) and if the signal is costly.

Spence received his middle and high school education at the University of Toronto Schools of the University of Toronto. He later came back to Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto to serve as a member of the Rotman Dean’s Advisory Board.

Spence attended Princeton University as an undergraduate student and graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in philosophy in 1966, completing a senior thesis titled "Freedom and Determinism". Spence then studied at Magdalen College, University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and received a B.A./M.A. in mathematics in 1968. Spence then began graduate studies in economics at Harvard University with the support of a Danforth Graduate Fellowship in the fall of 1968. He received a Ph.D. in economics in 1972, completing a dissertation titled "Market signalling" under the supervision of Kenneth Arrow and Thomas C. Schelling. Spence was awarded the David A. Wells Prize for outstanding doctoral dissertation in 1972.

He stepped down as Dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1999 and joined Oak Hill Capital Partners. He is the Chairman of the Commission on Growth and Development, and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Spence joined the faculty of New York University's Stern School of Business on September 1, 2010. He joined the faculty of SDA Bocconi School of Management in Italy in July 2011.

He is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and the Philip H. Knight Professor Emeritus of Management in the Graduate School of Business. Spence is also a Commissioner for the Global Commission on Internet Governance. Additionally, Spence is also a member of the Berggruen Institute's 21st Century Council.

He is the author of three books and 50 articles, and has also been a consistent contributor to Project Syndicate, an international newspaper syndicate, since 2008. Among his beliefs are that high-frequency trading should be banned.

Spence had both Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer in a graduate-level economics class at Harvard. In a 1999 Fortune interview, however, Gates and Ballmer admitted not attending class and passing only after cramming for four days before the final.

Honors and awards
Spence is an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He was the recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001, as well as the John Bates Clark Medal from the American Economics Association in 1981.

Spence was elected as a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 1976 and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1983.

Personal life
Spence currently lives in Milan, Italy with his wife and children.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Michael Spence


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Null fill in radio engineering is used in radio antenna systems which are located on mountains or tall towers, to prevent too much of the signal from overshooting the nearest part of intended coverage area. Phasing is used between antenna elements to take power away from the main lobe and electrically direct more of it at a more downward angle in the vertical plane. This requires a phased array. Changing the relative power supplied to each element also changes the radiation pattern in this manner, and often both methods are used in combination.

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Texas Tech University

Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on October 2, 1923, and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the flagship institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University System. As of Fall 2023, the university enrolled 40,944 students, making it the sixth-largest university in Texas. Over 25% of its undergraduate student population identifies as Hispanic, so the university has been designated a Hispanic-serving institution (HSI).

The university offers degrees in more than 150 courses of study through 13 colleges and hosts 60 research centers and institutes. Texas Tech University has awarded over 200,000 degrees since 1927, including over 40,000 graduate and professional degrees. Texas Tech is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity." Research projects in the areas of epidemiology, pulsed power, grid computing, classics, nanophotonics, atmospheric sciences, and wind energy are among the most prominent at the university.

The Texas Tech Red Raiders are charter members of the Big 12 Conference and compete in Division I for all varsity sports. The Red Raiders football team has made 40 bowl appearances, which is 17th most of any university. The Red Raiders basketball team has made 14 appearances in the NCAA Division I Tournament. Bob Knight, who has the fifth-most wins as a head coach in men's NCAA Division I basketball history, served as the team's head coach from 2001 to 2008. The Lady Raiders basketball team won the 1993 NCAA Division I Tournament. In 1999, Texas Tech's Goin' Band from Raiderland received the Sudler Trophy, which is awarded to "recognize collegiate marching bands of particular excellence".

Establishment
The call to open a college in West Texas began shortly after settlers arrived in the area in the 1880s. In 1917, the Texas legislature passed a bill creating a branch of Texas A&M to be in Abilene. However, the bill was repealed two years later during the next session after it was discovered Governor James E. Ferguson had falsely reported the site committee's choice of location. After new legislation passed in the state house and senate in 1921, Governor Pat Neff vetoed it, citing hard financial times in West Texas. Furious about Neff's veto, some in West Texas went so far as to recommend West Texas secede from the state.

In 1923, the legislature decided, rather than a branch campus, a new university would better serve the region's needs under legislation co-authored by State Senator William H. Bledsoe of Lubbock and State Representative Roy Alvin Baldwin of Slaton in southern Lubbock County. On February 10, 1923, Neff signed the legislation creating Texas Technological College, and in July of that year, a committee began searching for a site. When the committee's members visited Lubbock, they were overwhelmed to find residents lining the streets to show support for hosting the institution. That August, Lubbock was chosen on the first ballot over other area towns, including Floydada, Plainview, Big Spring, and Sweetwater.

Construction of the college campus began on November 1, 1924. Ten days later, the cornerstone of the Administration Building was laid in front of 20,000 people. Speakers at the event included Governor Pat Neff; Amon G. Carter; Reverend E. E. Robinson, Colonel Ernest O. Thompson; and Representative Richard M. Chitwood, the chairman of the House Education Committee, who became the first Texas Tech business manager. Chitwood served in the position only fifteen months; he died in November 1926. With an enrollment of 914 students—both men and women—Texas Technological College opened for classes on October 1, 1925. It was originally composed of four schools—Agriculture, Engineering, Home Economics, and Liberal Arts.

Military training was conducted at the college as early as 1925, but formal Reserve Officers' Training Corps training did not start until 1936. By 1939, the school's enrollment had grown to 3,890. Although enrollment declined during World War II, Texas Tech trained 4,747 men in its armed forces training detachments. Following the war, in 1946, the college saw its enrollment leap to 5,366 from a low of 1,696 in 1943.

Expansion and growth
By the 1960s, the school had expanded its offerings to more than just technical subjects. The Faculty Advisory Committee suggested changing the name to "Texas State University", feeling the phrase "Technological College" did not define the institution's scope. While most students supported this change, the Board of Directors and many alumni, wanting to preserve the Double T, opposed it. Other names—University of the Southwest, Texas Technological College and State University, and The Texas University of Art, Science and Technology—were considered, but the Board of Directors chose Texas Tech University, submitting it to the state legislature in 1964.

A failed move by Governor John Connally to have the school placed into the Texas A&M University System, as well as continued disagreement and heated debate over the school's new name, kept the name change from being approved. In spite of objections by many students and faculty, the Board of Directors again submitted the change in 1969. It finally received the legislature's approval on June 6, and the name Texas Tech University went into effect that September. All of the institution's schools, except Law, became colleges.

Texas Tech was integrated in 1961 when three African-American students were admitted. After its initial rejection of the students' enrollment and the threat of a lawsuit, the university enacted a policy to admit "all qualified applicants regardless of color". The university offered its first athletic scholarship to a black student in 1967, when Danny Hardaway was recruited to play for the Red Raiders football team. In 1970, Hortense W. Dixon became the first African American student to earn a doctorate from the university. In 1972 Charles Henry became the first full-time African American faculty member.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the university invested US$150 million in the campus to construct buildings for the library, foreign languages, social sciences, communications, philosophy, electrical and petroleum engineering, art, and architecture. Some other buildings were significantly expanded.

On May 29, 1969, the 61st Texas Legislature created the Texas Tech University School of Medicine. The Texas Legislature expanded the medical school charter in 1979, creating the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. TTUHSC, which is now part of the Texas Tech University System, includes Schools of Allied Health Sciences, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. It has locations in four Texas cities in addition to the main campus in Lubbock.

In 2011, the combined enrollment in the Texas Tech University System was greater than 42,000 students—a 48% increase since 2000. Chancellor Kent Hance reiterated plans for Texas Tech's main campus to reach enrollment of 40,000 students by 2020, with additional 5,000 students at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and 10,000 students at Angelo State University.

Recent history
In 1996, the Board of Regents of Texas Tech University created the Texas Tech University System. Former State Senator John T. Montford, later of San Antonio, was selected as the first chancellor to lead the combined academic enterprise. Regents Chair Edward Whitacre Jr. stated the move was made due to the institution's size and complexity. "It's time," he said, "to take the university into the 21st century". The Texas Tech University system originally included Texas Tech University and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. On November 6, 2007, the voters of Texas approved an amendment to the Texas Constitution realigning Angelo State University with the Texas Tech University System. Kent Hance, a Texas Tech graduate who had served as United States Representative and as one of the three elected members of the Texas Board which regulates the oil-and-gas industry, assumed the duties of chancellor on December 1, 2006.

Although growth continued at Texas Tech, the university was not immune to controversy. In 2003, a third-year student at the Texas Tech School of Law filed suit against the university over its policy on free speech zones, which restricted student speech to a single "free speech gazebo". The following year, a federal judge declared the policy unconstitutional.

To meet the demands of its increased enrollment and expanding research, the university has invested more than $548 million in new construction since 2000. It has also received more than $65.9 million in private donations. In April 2009, the Texas House of Representatives passed a bill to increase state funding for seven public universities. Texas Tech University is classified by the state as an "Emerging Research University", and is among the universities that will receive additional state funding for advancement toward "Tier 1" status. Three funds—the Research University Development Fund, the Texas Research Incentive Program, and the National Research University Benchmark Fund—have been established and will provide $500 million in grants and matching funds during fiscal years 2010 and 2011. On September 2, 2009, the university announced it had received private gifts totaling $24.3 million. Of these, $21.5 million are eligible for match under the Texas Research Incentive Program.

In late 2011 and throughout 2012–13, construction began on several new buildings on campus. The construction included a new $20 million Petroleum Engineering and Research building, a new building to house the Rawls College of Business, two new residence halls, a $3.5 million chapel, and extensive remodeling of the building that previously housed the Rawls College of Business. In 2021, construction began on the new $100 million, 125,000-square-foot Academic Sciences Building.

The university system's endowment reached $1.043 billion in March 2014, surpassing one billion dollars for the first time.

Centennial Celebration
Texas Tech celebrated its centennial with a year-long schedule of events. The centennial kickoff was on December 2, 2022, at the annual Carol of Lights, with a conclusion at the 2023 Carol of Lights.

Academics
By enrollment, Texas Tech is the sixth-largest university in Texas and the largest institution of higher education in the western two-thirds of the state. In the Fall 2014 semester, Texas Tech set a record enrollment with 35,134 students. For the 2014 enrollment year, most students came from Texas (95.17%), followed by New Mexico, California, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Florida. Altogether, the university has educated students from all 50 US states and over 100 foreign countries. Enrollment has continued to increase in recent years, and growth is on track with a plan to have 40,000 students by 2020. From 1927 to 2011, the university awarded 173,551 bachelor's, 34,541 master's, 5,906 doctoral, and 7,092 law degrees.

The 2023 U.S. News & World Report rankings listed the university at 216th nationally and 116th amongst public schools. The 2013 Shanghai Jiao Tong Rankings placed Texas Tech University at 401 worldwide, which tied it with fellow Big 12 schools Oklahoma and Kansas State, among others. The Princeton Review ranked Texas Tech among the 125 best colleges in the Western United States in its 2015 edition. In 2010, the Wall Street Journal ranked the university 18th in its ranking of graduate desirability for job recruiters. Three of the university's undergraduate programs are ranked by PayScale as in the top 20 nationally in mid-career salary: Art, Physical and Life Sciences, and Education. In its 2015 edition, U.S. News & World Report noted the university has a "selective" undergraduate admissions policy. As a public university, Texas Tech is subject to Texas House Bill 588, which guarantees Texas high school seniors in the top 10% of their graduating class admission to any public Texas university. In 2012, 20.3% of incoming freshmen were admitted in this manner. About half of incoming freshmen finished in the top quarter of their graduating classes. In 2016, the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education listed Texas Tech among 115 most prominent research schools, commonly known as "Carnegie Tier One".

Texas Tech University is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The university offers 150 bachelor's, 104 master's, and 59 doctoral degree programs. Texas Tech has five satellite campuses in Texas—in Abilene, Amarillo, Fredericksburg, Highland Lakes, and Junction. Texas Tech also has a satellite campus in Europe, in Seville, Spain, and one in Escazú, San José, Costa Rica. Additional study-abroad programs are offered in various countries, such as Denmark, England, France, and Italy.

The Office of International Affairs supports and facilitates the international mission of Texas Tech University. It provides services for faculty and students, offers international educational and cultural experiences for the school and community, and contributes to the university's globalization process and its effort to grow as an international educational and research center. The International Cultural Center provides a continual series of conferences, lectures, art exhibitions, and performances.

Colleges and schools
Texas Tech has expanded from its original four schools to comprise ten colleges and two schools.

In the 2015 U.S. News & World Report report on higher education, the Whitacre College of Engineering was ranked 94th in the nation. In 2009, the college's Petroleum Engineering Department was ranked 10th best in the nation. The college offers 11 engineering programs accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. On November 12, 2008, following a $25 million gift from AT&T in honor of alumnus Edward Whitacre Jr., the college was formally renamed the Edward E. Whitacre Jr. College of Engineering. The largest academic division on campus, the College of Arts & Sciences offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in a wide range of subjects from philosophy to mathematics. In 2004, the College of Mass Communications and the College of Visual & Performing Arts were created from programs organized within the College of Arts and Sciences. The College of Mass Communications changed its name to the College of Media & Communication in 2012 and offers degrees in several areas, including advertising, journalism and electronic media, and public relations. The College of Visual & Performing Arts was renamed in honor of the contributions by the J. T. & Margaret Talkington Foundation in 2016; Programs offered through Talkington College are accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, the National Association of Schools of Music, and the National Association of Schools of Theatre.

Once the Division of Home Economics, the College of Human Sciences now offers degrees in applied and professional studies, design, human development, nutrition, hospitality, and retailing. The College of Human Sciences' Department of Personal Financial Planning was ranked in 2011 as the top program out of ten standout programs by the industry newsletter, Financial Planning. The Huckabee College of Architecture, founded in 1927, offers programs accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board.

The Rawls College of Business, which is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, is the university's business school. The college offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in business disciplines. In its 2016 "Best Grad Schools" rankings, U.S. News & World Report ranked the graduate business program 91st in the United States. The college's health organization management degree program was ranked 41st. From its origin in 1942, the business school was known as the Division of Commerce, until it was renamed the College of Business Administration in 1956. In 2000, following a $25 million gift from alumnus Jerry S. Rawls, the college was formally renamed the Jerry S. Rawls College of Business Administration.

In 1967, both the College of Education and the Texas Tech University School of Law were founded. The College of Education instructs future teachers and is accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. The School of Law is an American Bar Association-accredited law school on the main campus in Lubbock, and came in 2nd statewide in the 2013 Bar Examination pass rate with 95.45 percent. The school offers Juris Doctor degrees which can be earned in conjunction with Master of Business Administration or Master of Science degrees through the adjacent Rawls College of Business.

All graduate programs offered at Texas Tech University are overseen by the Graduate School, which was officially established in 1954. The university's Honors College allows select students to design a customized curriculum that incorporates a broad range of disciplines, and offers students the opportunity for early admission into Texas Tech University's medical and law schools.

In September 2008, the University College was established. Formerly known as the College of Outreach and Distance Education, the college was created by bringing together the Division of Off-Campus Sites and the Division of Outreach and Distance Education. Texas Tech's six in-state satellite campuses are under the auspices of the college. Additionally, it oversees the Texas Tech University Independent School District.

The Texas Tech University System also operates a medical school, the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. It offers Schools of Allied Health Sciences, Biomedical Sciences, Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy. While it is a discrete entity, separate from Texas Tech University, it offers joint degrees (such as MD/MBA) through coordination with the university. Further, the Health Sciences Center is on the university's main campus in Lubbock. In addition to the Lubbock campus, TTUHSC has campuses in Abilene, Amarillo, El Paso, Dallas, and Odessa.

Research
Classified by the Carnegie Foundation in 2016 as one of only 115 research universities with "highest activity", Texas Tech University hosts 71 research centers and institutes. According to the National Science Foundation, Texas Tech had $226.7 million in research development funding and expenditures, ranking Texas Tech 120th in the nation.

In 2008, a team of researchers from Texas Tech University and Harvard University announced the development of an siRNA-based treatment that may ultimately counteract the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Human cells infected with HIV, injected into rats, have been cured by the experimental treatment. Clinical trials on humans are expected to begin by 2010. Texas Tech researchers also hold the exclusive license for HemoTech, a human blood substitute composed of bovine hemoglobin. HemoBioTech, the company marketing the technology, believes HemoTech will diminish the intrinsic toxicities that have stifled previous attempts to develop a human blood substitute. On January 14, 2008, Texas Tech University announced the creation of the West Texas Influenza Research Center. The university has concluded human clinical testing of oral interferon in a five-year study of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and continues its study of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Following the May 11, 1970, Lubbock Tornado that caused 26 fatalities and over $ (2013 dollars) in damage in Lubbock, the National Wind Institute (formerly the Wind Science and Engineering Research Center or WISE) was established. The National Wind Institute Center, which includes 56000 sqft of indoor laboratory space, is focused on research, education, and information outreach. The interdisciplinary research program studies methods to exploit the beneficial qualities of wind and to mitigate its detrimental effects. The center offers education in wind science and engineering to develop professionals who are experts in creating designs which deal effectively with problems caused by high winds. The Center instituted the nation's first Ph.D program in Wind Science and Engineering in 2003. National Wind Institute researchers contributed significantly to the development of the Enhanced Fujita Scale for rating the strength of tornadoes.

Texas Tech has made many contributions to NASA projects. Daniel Cooke, Computer Science Department Chair, and his colleagues are working to develop the technical content of the Intelligent Systems Program, and have been awarded a five-year budget valued at $350 million. University scientists have also teamed with NASA's guidance, navigation, and control engineers to develop the Onboard Abort Executive (OAE), software capable of quickly deciding the best course of action during an ascent failure. The Texas Tech Space Research Initiative has also partnered with NASA to perfect methods for growing fresh vegetables in space and to determine the most efficient ways to recycle wastewater. In November 1996, the university dedicated the Charles A. Bassett II Pulse Laboratory to honor engineering alumnus and Gemini-era astronaut Charles A. Bassett II. In total, Texas Tech has helped to produce five astronauts including Bassett, Paul Lockhart, and Rick Husband; Husband was commander of STS-107, the final flight of Space Shuttle Columbia.

In 2008, the pulsed power electronics laboratory received $4 million in federal funding. Among other things, the money will be used to create compact generators for weapon systems designed to destroy improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The College of Engineering's Nano Tech Center has received approximately $20 million in grants toward its work in applied nanophotonics, the creation and manipulation of advanced materials at the nanoscale that can produce and sense light. Texas Tech's Center for Advanced Analytics and Business Intelligence performs grid computing research through collaboration with the SAS Institute that seeks to improve the speed with which large quantities of data (such as those present in genomics and global economics) can be processed.

Texas Tech's College of Agricultural Science and Natural Resources has received state and federal grants for research projects including the fiber properties of cotton, the antibacterial properties of cotton fabric, and the development of chemical-warfare protective fabrics. The college has also created two grass variants, Shadow Turf, a drought-tolerant turf grass that thrives in shade, and Tech Turf (marketed as Turffalo), a turf grass with the rich color and texture of Bermuda and the resilience of buffalo grass.

Research institutes
Research institutes at the university include:

 * National Wind Institute: A wind research institute at Texas Tech, created following the 1970 Lubbock Tornado.
 * Architectural Research and Design Center
 * Center for Early Head Start: A federally funded program that provides continuous and comprehensive child development and family support services to approximately 100 Lubbock families with children from 0-3 years.
 * The Scaled Wind Farm Technology (SWiFT) Facility, in collaboration with the National Wind Institute, Sandia National Laboratories, and Vestas. It is located off campus, at the Reese Technology Center.

Online and regional learning programs
Texas Tech offers online and regional programs in addition to programs offered on the main campus. There are programs that are fully online, hybrid/blended, and at regional sites. The university offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees, as well as a graduate certification preparation program, at the regional sites of El Paso, Fredericksburg, Highland Lakes, Center at Junction, and Waco.

Texas Tech's online engineering program also gained recognition from U.S. News & World Report, ranking 20th on their list of the best graduate online engineering programs.

Campus
The Lubbock campus is home to the main academic university, law school, and medical school (Health Sciences Center). It is one of two institutions (the other being UT Austin) in Texas to have a graduate school, law school, and medical school on its main campus. The campus, which boasts Spanish Renaissance architecture, was described by American author James A. Michener as the "most beautiful west of the Mississippi until you get to Stanford" and by Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated as "easily one of the ten most beautiful campuses" he had seen. Many buildings on campus borrow architectural elements from those found at University de Alcalá in Alcalá de Henares, Spain, and Mission San José in San Antonio. A large section of the campus built between 1924 and 1951 is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Texas Technological College Historic District. This area is roughly bounded by 6th Street on the north, University Avenue on the east, 19th Street on the south, and Flint Street on the west. In 2008, the Professional Grounds Management Society awarded Texas Tech the Grand Award for excellence in grounds-keeping, and merit awards in 2007, 2010, and 2014.

In 1998, the Board of Regents of the Texas Tech University System created the Texas Tech University Public Art Collection to enliven the campus environment and extend the university's educational mission. It is funded by using one percent of the estimated total cost of each new building on campus. The collection features pieces from artists such as Tom Otterness and Glenna Goodacre. Public Art Review has ranked the Texas Tech University Public Art Collection among the ten best university public art collections in the United States.

The university also hosts the Museum of Texas Tech University, which was founded in 1929 and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. The museum is home to over eight million objects and specimens and houses the Moody Planetarium, art galleries, a sculpture court, and a natural science research laboratory. It also operates the Val Verde County research site and the Lubbock Lake Landmark, an archaeological site and natural history preserve in the city of Lubbock. The site has evidence of 12,000 years of use by ancient cultures on the Llano Estacado (Southern High Plains), and allows visitors to watch active archaeological digs. Visiting scientists and tourists may also participate in the discovery process. Lubbock Lake Landmark is a National Historic Landmark, which lists it on the National Register of Historic Places, and is a designated State Archaeological Landmark. Texas Tech is also the location of the Southwest Collection of historical archives and the sponsoring institution of the West Texas Historical Association. Located on the northern edge of the campus is the National Ranching Heritage Center, a museum of ranching history. The site spans 27.5 acre and is home to 38 historic structures that have been restored to their original condition. Structures represented at the center include a linecamp, a dugout, a bunkhouse, a blacksmith shop, a cowchip house, a schoolhouse, corrals, shipping pens, windmills, chuckwagons, and a coal-burning locomotive.

The university maintains a number of libraries, some general-purpose and some dedicated to specific topics such as architecture and law. Among the most notable of these are the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library and the Vietnam Center and Archive, the nation's largest and most comprehensive collections of information on the Vietnam War. On August 17, 2007, the Vietnam Center and Archive became the first US institution to sign a formalized exchange agreement with the State Records and Archives Department of Vietnam. This opens the door for a two-way exchange between the entities.

Student life
There are over 516 student clubs and organizations at Texas Tech. Many students participate in Greek Life. Texas Tech Greek Life includes 12 Panhellenic Sororities and 24\2 InterFraternity Council Fraternities, as well as groups in the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) and Multicultural Greek Council (MGC). The Student Union Building, located centrally on campus, is the hub of daily student activity. It houses restaurants, coffee shops, a book store, meeting rooms, lecture halls, movie rooms, and study areas, as well as the offices and meeting rooms of several student organizations and the Student Government Association. Directly next to the Student Union Building is the School of Music, home of the Texas Tech Goin' Band from Raiderland. The 450-member band, which was awarded the Sudler Trophy in 1999, performs at all home football games and other events.

Approximately 20% of students live on campus, and most students live on campus for at least a portion of their academic careers. Students with fewer than 30 hours of academic credit are required to live in university housing unless they receive an exemption. Specific residence halls and communities exist for graduate students, athletes, and various specific interests and academic disciplines. Every resident on campus is a member of the Texas Tech Residence Hall Association which provides various on campus programming and leadership opportunities. RHA is led by an Executive Board and Senate with student representatives from each residence hall. The organization is also a member of the South West Affiliate of College and Universities Residence Halls.

International honor societies Phi Beta Kappa (liberal arts and sciences), Delta Epsilon Psi, Beta Gamma Sigma (business), and Tau Beta Pi (engineering) have chapters at the university. Professional, service, and social fraternities and sororities on campus include Alpha Phi Omega (service), Alpha Kappa Psi (business), Delta Sigma Pi (business), Alpha Omega Epsilon (engineering), Phi Alpha Delta (law), Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia (music), Kappa Kappa Psi (band), and Tau Beta Sigma (band). Professional development and research organizations hosted by the university include the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program, the Center for the Integration of Science Education and Research, the Society of Engineering Technologists, Student Bar Association, and the Texas Tech Forensic Union. Texas Tech is also the only Power Five university in Texas that is a Hispanic-serving Institution. Spirit organizations representing Texas Tech include the High Riders, Saddle Tramps, and the Sabre Flight Drill Team.

The university maintains KTXT-FM 88.1, formerly a student radio station focusing on alternative, indie rock, industrial, and hip hop music. After 47 years, the station went off the air on December 10, 2008. It returned in May 2009 with a different format and plans to eventually return to its former style. National Public Radio station KTTZ-FM 89.1, which features classical music and news, is also found on campus. Additionally, the university owns and operates Public Broadcasting Service television station KTTZ-TV. Students run a daily newspaper, The Daily Toreador, until 2005 known as The University Daily. The university also produces a yearbook, La Ventana.

Athletics
Texas Tech's athletic teams are known as the Red Raiders with the exception of the women's basketball team, which is known as the Lady Raiders. Texas Tech competes in NCAA Division I FBS (formerly Division I-A) and is a member of the Big 12 Conference. From 1932 until 1956, the university belonged to the Border Intercollegiate Athletic Association. After being rejected eight times over more than 20 years, the Southwest Conference admitted Texas Tech on May 12, 1956. When the Southwest Conference disbanded in 1995, Texas Tech, along with the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, and Baylor University, merged with schools from the former Big Eight Conference to form the Big 12. Athletic Director Kirby Hocutt is a member of the College Football Playoff committee. Texas Tech varsity teams have won two NCAA national titles, most recently the men's outdoor track and field championship in 2019, while the Lady Raiders basketball team won the school's first ever title in 1993.

The Texas Tech Lady Raiders, led by player Sheryl Swoopes and head coach Marsha Sharp, won the 1993 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship. The men's basketball team has made 14 appearances in the NCAA Men's Division I Tournament. Bob Knight served as men's basketball coach from the beginning of the 2001 season until February 4, 2008. On January 1, 2007, he set the record for most coaching victories in men's NCAA Division I basketball history when the Red Raiders defeated the New Mexico Lobos, 70–68. Upon Knight's retirement, his son Pat Knight became the head coach of the team for several seasons until Billy Gillispie replaced him. In 2013, Tubby Smith replaced Gillispie. After Tubby Smith's departure in 2016, Chris Beard, an assistant under Bob Knight, came aboard. Beard quickly achieved national attention, leading the team to its first Elite Eight appearance in just his second season. He led the Red Raiders to the Final Four in his third year, losing in the National Championship game to Virginia. The Red Raiders current head coach is Grant McCasland

Since 1999, Texas Tech has played home basketball games at United Spirit Arena, a 15,020-seat multipurpose facility which cost $ in dollars to build. In addition to serving as home to the men's and women's basketball teams, the Red Raider volleyball team uses the arena. Texas Tech students broke the Big 12 Conference record for student attendance at the United Spirit Arena during a February 25, 2014 loss to Kansas State. The record of 6,086 students fell less than 2,000 short of the national record.

The Red Raiders football team, is a member of the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly known as Division I-A) and is coached by Joey McGuire. Throughout the 2000s, then head coach Mike Leach lead the team to national prominence. In 14 of its last 15 seasons, the Red Raiders have finished with a winning record, the fourth-longest such streak in the nation at the time. The Red Raiders have made 36 bowl appearances, which is 17th most of any university. From 1932 to 1956, as members of the Border Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the Red Raiders won eight conference championships and one co-championship, the most held by a Border Conference member. After joining the Southwest Conference, the Red Raiders added conference co-championships in 1976 and 1994.

Jones AT&T Stadium is home to the Red Raiders football team. The stadium, named for Clifford B. and Audrey Jones, opened in 1947 and has a capacity of 60,454. In 2000, the stadium was renamed Jones SBC Stadium after SBC Communications made a $30 million contribution to the university. Following SBC Communications' acquisition of AT&T Corporation in 2006 and its subsequent adoption of the AT&T name, the stadium was renamed Jones AT&T Stadium. The stadium's original seating capacity was 27,000, but it was expanded in 1959, 1972, 2003, 2009, 2010, and 2013.

On August 7, 2008, the Board of Regents of the Texas Tech University System announced a $25 million expansion project. The expansion added a Spanish Renaissance-themed façade to the stadium's east side. In addition to the improvements to the facility's exterior, the expansion added 1,000 general-admission seats, 550 club seats, and 26 suites. Texas Tech allocated $19 million to the expansion and added another $6 million through fund-raising initiatives. On November 20, 2008, university officials announced the project's fundraising goal had been exceeded. The expansion' groundbreaking ceremonies took place on November 29, 2008, and construction was completed before the 2009 football season.

In January 2013, construction added another 368 seats in the north endzone and two observation decks. The $11 million project also includes a significantly upgraded jumbotron with a new sound system, a Spanish Renaissance-themed colonnade, and a north end zone concourse that connects the two stadium halves. Along with the other additions, 157 feet of ribbon board will be added on the north end zone, more than 160 linear feet in the northeast and northwest corners of the stadium, and 94 lineal feet in the south end zone over the athletic offices. The construction was completed during the 2013 season. The stadium's capacity is 60,454, making it the third-largest on-campus stadium in Texas.

The Red Raiders baseball team played its first game in 1925. The team has two conference championships, two conference tournament championships, and has made nine NCAA Division I Baseball Championship tournament appearances. Larry Hays coached the team from 1987 to 2008 and compiled a .639 winning percentage. Following Hays' retirement on June 2, 2008, Assistant Coach Dan Spencer was promoted to head coach. Dan Spencer was replaced by Tim Tadlock following the 2012 season and made its first appearance in the College World Series in 2013. At least 20 former Red Raiders baseball players have gone on to play in the Major Leagues. The team plays its home games at Dan Law Field at Rip Griffin Park. The field, renovated in 2012 and on the main campus in Lubbock, has a seating capacity of 5,050.

Texas Tech's track and field teams have been led by head coach Wes Kittley since 2000. Under Kittley, the men's team won the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championship in 2019, and has produced seven Olympic medalists, 16 national champions, over 200 All-Americans and 119 Big 12 Champions including Michael Mathieu, Sally Kipyego, Kennedy Kithuka, Shereefa Lloyd, Gil Roberts and others.

In addition to varsity sports, the university's Sport Clubs Federation offers 30 recreational and competitive sport clubs, including polo, rugby union, lacrosse, fencing, and soccer. In 2006, Texas Tech beat rival Texas A&M to win the United States Polo Association National Intercollegiate Championship.

Mascots
The Masked Rider is Texas Tech University's oldest mascot. The tradition began in 1936, when "ghost riders" were dared to circle the field prior to home football games. The Masked Rider became an official mascot in 1954, when Joe Kirk Fulton led the team onto the field at the Gator Bowl. According to reports from those at the game, the crowd sat in stunned silence as they watched Fulton and his horse Blackie rush onto the football field, followed by the team. After a few moments, the silent crowd burst into cheers. Ed Danforth, a writer for the Atlanta Journal who witnessed the event, later wrote, "No team in any bowl game ever made a more sensational entrance." In 2000, The Masked Rider tradition was commemorated with the unveiling of a statue outside of the university's Frazier Alumni Pavilion. The sculpture, created by artist Grant Speed, is 25% larger than life.

Today, the Masked Rider, with guns up, leads the team onto the field for all home games. This mascot, adorned in a distinctive gaucho hat like those worn by members of the marching band, is one of the most visible figures at Texas Tech.

Texas Tech's other mascot, Raider Red, is a more recent creation. Beginning with the 1971 football season, the Southwest Conference forbade the inclusion of live animal mascots to away games unless the host school consented. For situations where the host school did not want to allow the Masked Rider's horse, an alternative mascot was needed. Jim Gaspard, a member of the Saddle Tramps student spirit organization, created the original design for the Raider Red costume, basing it on a character created by cartoonist Dirk West, a Texas Tech alumnus and former Lubbock mayor. Although the Masked Rider's identity is public knowledge, it has always been tradition that Raider Red's student alter ego is kept secret until the end of his or her tenure. The student serving as Raider Red is a member of the Saddle Tramps or High Riders.

Carol of Lights
The Carol of Lights is an annual event, sponsored by the Residence Halls Association, traditionally held the first Friday in December, to celebrate the holiday season. The event begins with a carillon concert, from the 43 bells in the west tower of the Administration Building followed a torch-light processional by the Saddle Tramps and High Riders spirit organizations. The Texas Tech Trombone Choir and combined choirs lead the crowd in singing carols and the illumination ceremony culminates with a soloist performance of "O Holy Night" in the Science Quadrangle. This is followed by the lighting ceremony, where 13 buildings within the Texas Technological College Historic District are illuminated with the over 25,000 red, white, and orange lights. The lights remain on the campus buildings until the first week when students come back from the holiday break.

In 1959, Texas Tech University Board of Directors member Harold Hinn planned and provided the funding to cover the Science Quadrangle and Administration Building with 5,000 lights. However, students were away on Christmas break and did not see the display. The following year, the Residence Hall Association sponsored the event under the name "Christmas Sing". In 1961, the event was renamed Carol of Lights and the display increased to 16,000 lights. The tradition has since grown to include decorations like the 38-foot lighted Christmas tree, 3,000 luminaries lining the sidewalks of Memorial Circle, and a 21-foot fresh pine wreath hung on the Physics/Geosciences building built by Women's Service Organization.

Double T
The most readily identified symbol of Texas Tech is the Double T. The logo, generally attributed to Texas Tech's first football coach, E. Y. Freeland, was first used as decoration on the sweaters for the football players. The Double T existed in its original form as an official logo from 1963 to 1999 and was updated in 2000. The new logo maintains the original premise, but incorporates three-dimensional beveling effects coupled with white trim.

To recognize the importance of the Double T to Texas Tech, the class of 1931 donated the Double T bench. By tradition, freshmen are not allowed to sit on the bench, which is in the courtyard of the Administration Building. The logo is further embodied in the Double T neon sign, donated by the class of 1938 and affixed to the east side of Jones AT&T Stadium. At the time of its purchase, this was reputedly the largest neon sign in existence.

Will Rogers and Soapsuds
One of the most well-known landmarks on campus is the statue of Will Rogers on his horse Soapsuds. The statue, entitled "Riding Into the Sunset", has resided at the center of the campus since it was dedicated on February 16, 1950, by Rogers' longtime friend Amon G. Carter. Carter claimed that Texas Tech was the ideal setting for the statue, and that it would be an appropriate addition to the traditions and scenery of West Texas. The statue, estimated to cost $25,000 ($239,000 in 2013 dollars) when it was dedicated, stands 9 ft and weighs 3200 lb. The inscription on the plaque at the base of the statue reads: "Lovable Old Will Rogers on his favorite horse, 'Soapsuds', riding into the Western sunset."

The statue continues to be a part of school tradition. Before every home football game, the Saddle Tramps wrap it with red crêpe paper, a tradition dating back to 1969 and a loss to Texas A&M after which the statue was found covered in maroon paint in an apparent prank. In times of national tragedies, the statue has also been wrapped in black crêpe paper.

According to one campus legend taught to students during freshman orientation, the statue was originally to be positioned with Will Rogers facing due west, so it would appear he was riding into the sunset. However, that position would cause Soapsuds' posterior end to face due east, a dubious greeting to visitors entering by the main eastern campus entrance where the statue is placed. The horse's rear would also be facing downtown Lubbock, potentially insulting the Lubbock business community. The legend holds that this problem was solved by Tech's Civil Engineering department, who calculated that a 23° turn of Soapsuds' head to the north would line up Soapsuds' rear end directly toward College Station, Texas, home of the rival Texas A&M Aggies. Modern surveys and satellite imagery have determined the statue's posterior end actually points roughly equidistantly between College Station and Austin, home of another rival team, the Texas Longhorns.

Texas Tech ring
While the class ring had occasionally used a universal design, by the late 20th century, various styles were available. In 1999, the university reverted to a single ring design for the university's graduates. The new Official Texas Tech Alumni Association Class Ring symbolically captures the essence of Texas Tech with the prominent Double T logo surrounded by the school's full name and date of foundation. By tradition, undergraduates wear the ring with the Double T logo facing themselves. Upon graduation, the ring is turned so the logo faces outward.

One shoulder of the ring displays an image of the Administration Building, with the bells which represent victory. The other shoulder contains the university seal: an American eagle perched above a book, representing the church; a star, representing the State of Texas; a key, representing home; and, a lamp, representing knowledge. These elements are separated by a cross featuring ten cotton bolls, one each for Lubbock and its nine surrounding cotton-producing counties.

Notable alumni

The Texas Tech Alumni Association, with over 27,000 members, operates more than 120 chapters in cities throughout the United States and the world. Throughout Texas Tech's history, faculty, alumni, and former students have played prominent roles in many different fields. Among its Distinguished Alumni is Demetrio B. Lakas, President of the Republic of Panama from 1969 to 1978. Three United States Governors, Daniel I. J. Thornton, Governor of Colorado from 1951 to 1955, John Burroughs, Governor of New Mexico from 1959 to 1961, and Preston Smith, Governor of Texas from 1968 to 1972, are graduates of the university. Texas Tech alumni have also served in the Texas Legislature, including State Representative Justin Holland from 2017 to present.

Five astronauts, including Rick Husband, the final commander of Space Shuttle Columbia and recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, graduated from the university. U.S. Marine Corps Major and Medal of Honor recipient George H. O'Brien Jr. is a distinguished alumnus. Richard E. Cavazos is a two-time Distinguished Service Cross recipient and the first Hispanic and Mexican American to advance to the rank of four-star general in the U.S. Army. United States Air Force Major General Wendy Motlong Masiello, one of the highest-ranking women in the United States Department of Defense, is a 1980 graduate of Texas Tech's Rawls College of Business Administration. Alumna Arati Prabhakar, the former head of DARPA, was the first woman to head the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Ginger Kerrick, American physicist, was the first Hispanic female NASA Flight Director. Charles Q. Brown Jr. is the first African-American to be appointed as chief of staff of the United States Air Force and the first African-American to lead any branch of the United States Armed Forces. Texas Tech's influence on the business world is seen in such people as General Motors Chairman and CEO Edward Whitacre Jr., Finisar CEO Jerry S. Rawls, Belo Corporation CEO Dunia A. Shive, and ExxonMobil board member Angela Braly, ranked by Fortune magazine as the most powerful woman in business. Scott Pelley, anchor and managing editor for CBS Evening News and correspondent for 60 Minutes, is a graduate of the College of Media & Communication.

Texas Tech alumni have also made contributions to sports, music, and acting. Texas Tech Red Raiders have gone on to play in the NFL, NBA, WNBA, and MLB. Two of the most notable football players are Donny Anderson who as a member of the Green Bay Packers when they won Super Bowl I & Super Bowl II, and longtime Miami Dolphins All-Pro linebacker Zach Thomas. Alumni standouts include 2018 and 2022 NFL MVP and two-time All-Pro quarterback Patrick Mahomes, two-time Bilentenkoff Award-winning wide receiver Michael Crabtree, Danny Amendola, and Wes Welker. Others among the university's alumni are folk rocker John Denver, country singer Pat Green, mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, actor Barry Corbin, Friday Night Lights actor Brad Leland, and actor George Eads. John Hinckley Jr., who attempted to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1981, attended the university sporadically from 1973 to 1980.

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Devils Tower

Devils Tower (also known as Bear Lodge) is a butte, possibly laccolithic, composed of igneous rock in the Bear Lodge Ranger District of the Black Hills, near Hulett and Sundance in Crook County, northeastern Wyoming, above the Belle Fourche River. It rises 1,267 ft above the Belle Fourche River, standing 867 ft from summit to base. The summit is 5,112 ft above sea level.

Devils Tower National Monument was the first United States national monument, established on September 24, 1906, by President Theodore Roosevelt. The monument's boundary encloses an area of 1347 acres.

Name
Indigenous names for the monolith include "Bear's House" or "Bear's Lodge" (or "Bear's Tipi", "Home of the Bear", "Bear's Lair"); Cheyenne,, Daxpitcheeaasáao ("Home of Bears" ), "Aloft on a Rock" (Kiowa), "Tree Rock", "Great Gray Horn", and "Brown Buffalo Horn".

The name "Devil's Tower" originated in 1875 during an expedition led by Colonel Richard Irving Dodge, when his interpreter reportedly misinterpreted a native name to mean "Bad God's Tower". All information signs in that area use the name "Devils Tower", following a geographic naming standard whereby the apostrophe is omitted.

In 2005, a proposal to recognize several indigenous ties through the additional designation of the monolith as Bear Lodge National Historic Landmark were opposed by United States Representative Barbara Cubin, arguing that a "name change will harm the tourist trade and bring economic hardship to area communities". In November 2014, Arvol Looking Horse proposed renaming the geographical feature "Bear Lodge" and submitted the request to the United States Board on Geographic Names. A second proposal was submitted to request that the U.S. acknowledge what it described as the "offensive" mistake in keeping the current name and to rename the monument and sacred site into Bear Lodge National Historic Landmark. The formal public comment period ended in fall 2015. Local state senator Ogden Driskill opposed the change. The name was not changed.

Geology
The landscape surrounding Devils Tower is composed mostly of sedimentary rocks. The oldest rocks visible in Devils Tower National Monument were laid down in a shallow sea during the Triassic. This dark red sandstone and maroon siltstone, interbedded with shale, can be seen along the Belle Fourche River. Oxidation of iron minerals causes the redness of the rocks. This rock layer is known as the Spearfish Formation. Above the Spearfish Formation is a thin band of white gypsum, called the Gypsum Springs Formation, Jurassic in age. Overlying this formation is the Sundance Formation. During the Paleocene Epoch, 56 to 66 million years ago, the Rocky Mountains and the Black Hills were uplifted. Magma rose through the crust, intruding into the existing sedimentary rock layers.

Geologists Carpenter and Russell studied Devils Tower in the late 19th century and came to the conclusion that it was formed by an igneous intrusion. In 1907, geologists Nelson Horatio Darton and C. C. O'Harra (of the South Dakota School of Mines) theorized that Devils Tower must be an eroded remnant of a laccolith.

The igneous material that forms the Tower is a phonolite porphyry intruded about 40.5 million years ago, a light to dark-gray or greenish-gray igneous rock with conspicuous crystals of white feldspar. As the magma cooled, hexagonal columns formed (though sometimes 4-, 5-, and 7-sided columns were possible), up to 20 ft wide and 600 ft tall.

As rain and snow continue to erode the sedimentary rocks surrounding the Tower's base, more of Devils Tower will be exposed. Nonetheless, the exposed portions of the Tower still experience certain amounts of erosion. Cracks along the columns are subject to water and ice erosion. Portions, or even entire columns, of rock at Devils Tower are continually breaking off and falling. Piles of broken columns, boulders, small rocks, and stones, called scree, lie at the base of the tower, indicating that it was once wider than it is today.

The geologically related Missouri Buttes are located 3.5 mi northwest of Devils Tower.

Native American cultural beliefs
According to the traditional beliefs of Native American peoples, the Kiowa and Lakota, a group of girls went out to play and were spotted by several giant bears, who began to chase them. In an effort to escape the bears, the girls climbed atop a rock, fell to their knees, and prayed to the Great Spirit to save them. Hearing their prayers, the Great Spirit made the rock rise from the ground towards the heavens so that the bears could not reach the girls. The bears, in an effort to climb the rock, left deep claw marks in the sides, which had become too steep to climb. Those are the marks which appear today on the sides of Devils Tower. When the girls reached the sky, they were turned into the stars of the Pleiades.

Another version tells that two Sioux boys wandered far from their village when Mato the bear, a huge creature that had claws the size of tipi poles, spotted them, and wanted to eat them for breakfast. He was almost upon them when the boys prayed to Wakan Tanka the Creator to help them. They rose up on a huge rock, while Mato tried to get up from every side, leaving huge scratch marks as he did. Finally, he sauntered off, disappointed and discouraged. The bear came to rest east of the Black Hills at what is now Bear Butte. Wanblee, the eagle, helped the boys off the rock and back to their village. A painting depicting this legend by artist Herbert A. Collins hangs over the fireplace in the visitor center at Devils Tower.

In a Cheyenne version of the story, the giant bear pursues the girls and kills most of them. Two sisters escape back to their home with the bear still tracking them. They tell two boys that the bear can only be killed with an arrow shot through the underside of its foot. The boys have the sisters lead the bear to Devils Tower and trick it into thinking they have climbed the rock. The boys attempt to shoot the bear through the foot while it repeatedly attempts to climb up and slides back down leaving more claw marks each time. The bear was finally scared off when an arrow came very close to its left foot. This last arrow continued to go up and never came down.

Wooden Leg, a Northern Cheyenne, related another legend told to him by an old man as they were traveling together past the Devils Tower around 1866–1868. An Indigenous man decided to sleep at the base of Bear Lodge next to a buffalo head. In the morning he found that both he and the buffalo head had been transported to the top of the rock by the Great Medicine with no way down. He spent another day and night on the rock with no food or water. After he had prayed all day and then gone to sleep, he awoke to find that the Great Medicine had brought him back down to the ground, but left the buffalo head at the top near the edge. Wooden Leg maintained that the buffalo head was clearly visible through the old man's spyglass. At the time, the tower had never been climbed and a buffalo head at the top was otherwise inexplicable.

The buffalo head gives this story special significance for the Northern Cheyenne. All the Cheyenne maintained in their camps a sacred teepee to the Great Medicine containing the tribal sacred objects. In the case of the Northern Cheyenne, the sacred object was a buffalo head.

N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) was given the name Tsoai-talee (Rock Tree Boy) by Pohd-lohk, a Kiowa elder, linking the child to the Devils Tower bear myth. To reinforce this mythic connection, his parents took him there. Momaday incorporated the bear myth as unifying subtext into his 1989 novel The Ancient Child.

U.S. history
Fur trappers may have visited Devils Tower, but they left no written evidence of having done so. The first documented non-Indigenous visitors were members of Captain William F. Raynolds's 1859 expedition to Yellowstone. Sixteen years later, Colonel Richard I. Dodge escorted an Office of Indian Affairs scientific survey party to the massive rock formation and coined the name Devils Tower. Recognizing its unique characteristics, the United States Congress designated the area a U.S. forest reserve in 1892 and in 1906 Devils Tower became the nation's first National monument.

Climbing

As of 1994, climbing Devils Tower had increased in popularity. About 1.3% of the monument's 400,000 annual visitors climbed Devils Tower, mostly using traditional climbing techniques. The first known ascent of Devils Tower by any method occurred on July 4, 1893, and is credited to William Rogers and Willard Ripley, local ranchers in the area. They completed this first ascent after constructing a ladder of wooden pegs driven into cracks in the rock face. A few of these wooden pegs are still intact and are visible on the tower when hiking along the 1.3 mi Tower Trail at Devils Tower National Monument. Over the following 30 years, many climbs were made using this method before the ladder fell into disrepair.

The first ascent using modern climbing techniques was made by Fritz Wiessner with William P. House and Lawrence Coveney in 1937. Wiessner led almost the entire climb free, placing only a single piece of fixed gear, a piton, which he later regretted, deeming it unnecessary.

In 1941 George Hopkins parachuted onto Devils Tower, without permission, as a publicity stunt resulting from a bet. He had intended to descend by a 1,000 ft rope dropped to him after successfully landing on the butte, but the package containing the rope, a sledge hammer and a car axle to be driven into the rock as an anchor point slid over the edge. As the weather deteriorated, a second attempt was made to drop equipment, but Hopkins deemed it unusable after the rope became snarled and frozen due to the rain and wind. Hopkins was stranded for six days, exposed to cold, rain and 50 mph winds before a mountain rescue team led by Jack Durrance, who had successfully climbed Devils Tower in 1938, finally reached him and brought him down. His entrapment and rescue was widely covered by the media of the time.

Today, hundreds of climbers scale the sheer rock walls of Devils Tower each summer. The most common route is the Durrance Route, which was the second free route established in 1938. There are many established and documented climbing routes covering every side of the tower, ascending the various vertical cracks and columns of the rock. The difficulty of these routes range from relatively easy to some of the most challenging in the world. All climbers are required to register with a park ranger before and after attempting a climb. No overnight camping at the summit is allowed; climbers return to base on the same day they ascend.

The Tower is sacred to several Plains tribes, including the Lakota, Cheyenne and Kiowa. Because of this, many Native American leaders objected to climbers ascending the monument, considering this to be a desecration. The climbers argued that they had a right to climb the Tower, since it is on federal land. A compromise was eventually reached with a voluntary climbing ban during the month of June when the tribes are conducting ceremonies around the monument. Climbers are asked, but not required, to stay off the Tower in June. According to the PBS documentary In the Light of Reverence, approximately 85% of climbers honor the ban and voluntarily choose not to climb the Tower during the month of June. However, several climbers along with the Mountain States Legal Foundation sued the Park Service, claiming an inappropriate government entanglement with religion.

Wildlife

Devils Tower National Monument protects many species of wildlife, such as white-tailed deer, prairie dogs, and bald eagles.

In popular culture

 * The 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind used the formation as a plot element and as the location of its climactic scenes. The film's popularity resulted in a large increase in visitors and climbers to the monument.
 * The butte appears as a natural wonder in the Gathering Storm DLC of the strategy game Civilization VI.

National Register of Historic Places
Four areas of Devils Tower National Monument are on the National Register of Historic Places:

 * Entrance Road
 * Entrance Station
 * Old Headquarters Area Historic District
 * Tower Ladder

title: Devils Tower