Dear Horned Frogs,
Welcome home!
There is nothing quite like the last week of August on this beautiful campus. Residence halls fill up. Our world-class faculty put the finishing touches on their courses. Spaces that were quiet just a few weeks ago are buzzing again. And somewhere well beyond Fort Worth, our alumni see a photo of the Campus Commons on social media and remember what their first week at TCU felt like.
That’s why “home” feels like the right word. It belongs to the first-year student unpacking a room, the professor beginning another semester, the staff member who keeps this place running, the fans who cheer us on and to every Horned Frog who carries TCU with them long after they leave. All of you are part of this, and all of you can call this place home.
As we begin the fall term, here’s where we stand and what lies ahead.
TCU in 2026
Close to 13,000 students now live and learn at TCU, representing all 50 states and more than 70 nations. Our incoming class is one of the largest in university history, and it arrives on a campus that is growing along with its student body.
Behind every student is a community invested in their success. Faculty challenge and mentor them in the classroom. Staff create the environment where they can thrive. Alumni demonstrate what a TCU education makes possible. Growth is possible because we instill a strong foundation.
And we are growing intentionally. The measure of our progress is not how large TCU becomes. It is whether the things that make TCU distinctive endure as we grow: classes small enough for real conversation, faculty who know their students by name and a community where Horned Frogs look out for one another. Those are the standards we hold ourselves to, and they are not negotiable.
Always Lead Into the Future
Our strategic plan, LEAD ON: Values in Action, charts our course, and this year its four pillars move from planning into practice.
Student-centered growth. Everything we build, from residence halls to academic spaces to parking garages, exists so a larger TCU still feels like a place where every student is known, supported and connected.
Research, scholarship and creative activities. Horned Frogs are taking on questions that reach far beyond our campus, from the economic impact of a global home-based airline at the Center for Supply Chain Innovation to human performance at the Roach Institute of Athlete Engineering to a partnership between Taylor Sheridan’s storied Four Sixes Ranch and the College of Fine Arts. Undergraduates are working in labs and studios alongside our faculty, not waiting their turn.
Athletics. Our teams compete at the highest level of college sports, and this fall they carry TCU somewhere it has never been. On Aug. 29, our football team plays North Carolina at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland, the first football game TCU has ever played outside the United States. A sea of purple, an ocean away.
Community engagement. Fort Worth is now the 10th largest city in America, and its momentum and ours share the same story. Horned Frogs teach in its classrooms, care for patients in its hospitals and clinics, launch companies in its business districts and serve across every corner of North Texas every week of the year.
A Path to TCU for Every Horned Frog
Higher education is being asked important questions about value, cost and purpose. We welcome those questions because we are confident in our answers, as we continue to attract the best and brightest students to our campus. As we strive to meet the challenge of the moment, a newly announced initiative is designed to raise $300 million in scholarship funding to help outstanding scholars become proud Horned Frogs.
This new TCU Scholarship Initiative exemplifies our commitment to keeping a TCU education within reach of every qualified student, while our increase in external research funding is a signal that the work being conducted by our students and faculty is becoming increasingly ambitious. When paired together, more Horned Frogs than ever before will be able to take advantage of the opportunities a TCU education provides.
TCU was founded on the conviction that education should form character as surely as it builds careers, and that conviction has not aged a day.
All In, All the Time
A strategic plan is just a set of intentions until people act on it. This one asks something specific of each of us.
To our students: ask the hard questions, in class and out of it. Go to office hours in September rather than the week before finals. Say yes to the opportunities you may have been talking yourself out of.
To our faculty: keep doing what our students remember decades later, which is setting a high standard of scholarship that doesn’t sacrifice relationships or student wellbeing. Research and teaching are inseparable here, and that is by design.
To our staff: you make this university work, often without an audience. A campus this size runs on judgment and care that rarely appear in a headline, but we see and value your work every day.
To our alumni: stay close. Take the call from a student who wants to know how you built your career. Hire a Horned Frog. Come back for a weekend and remind yourself what you are a part of.
And to all of us: when something here can be better, say so. Some of our best decisions have started with a community member who was willing to speak up.
The momentum is ours
You will hear a great deal this year about our momentum, and it is real. New construction. New research. New records. All of it is worth celebrating.
But momentum is not something a university generates on its own and then hands to its people. It is the other way around. Every milestone mentioned describes something a Horned Frog decided to do, whether that Frog is getting settled into a residence hall, grading papers or reading this from an office a thousand miles away.
We are not part of the momentum. We ARE the momentum. And I’m excited to see where it takes us next.
Welcome home. It’s good to have you here.
Bring your all to TCU.
Lead On and Go Frogs,
Chancellor Daniel W. Pullin
