This bank president is a Bush appointee who heads the Texas A&M University regents. Powell blocked a ’96 plan for the technical-oriented school to start a humanities center. “We want to ensure that research dollars aren’t used to persuade or encourage questioning certain events or our perspective of history,” Powell said. Powell supported the regents’ decision to make the George Bush School of Government independent of A&M’s liberal arts program. Some faculty members protested the decision, arguing that removing the school from broader academic oversight might turn it into a retirement home for ex-politicians. Powell has served on the board of the Texas Cattle Feeders Association. Its ex-director, Pioneer Teel Bivins, helped cripple state environmental protections against animal fecal pollution, thereby rolling out the brown carpet that turned the Texas Panhandle into a capital of corporate hog farming.