Photo by Glen E. Ellman

There are places a city holds in trust, not for this generation but for all of them. Fort Worth has kept 3,600 acres of prairie, marsh, woodland and river bottom — four times the size of New York’s Central Park — inside its city limits for nearly a century. 

This issue of TCU Magazine tells the story of our growing partnership with the Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge, where our students and faculty are serving as stewards by mapping species, restoring native plants and doing the patient work of caring for something that belongs to everyone. 

That mission, knowledge deployed in service of others, runs through this entire issue. Our new AI initiatives are already extending that care beyond campus. Two TCU students used artificial intelligence to build an education platform designed to reach 2.9 billion people in the developing world through phone calls, no smartphone or internet required. The inaugural Chancellor’s Innovation Prize asked the campus community to identify its challenges and solve them with AI. The response reached every corner of campus, with ideas from students, faculty and staff now moving toward pilot. 

The tools change. Our purpose doesn’t. Students are learning to care for the land, the city and the world with every instrument available.

Together, we are becoming exactly who this community needs us to be.

Lead On and Go Frogs!