UTSA has set its sights on becoming a Tier-One university. In the past few years, the university has invested in research, heightened its admission criteria and developed a reputation for an outstanding academic environment.

Last week, UTSA began the fires steps in its Campus Beautification Campaign — the enactment of a 30 percent pay-raise to professors who receive a chili pepper on Rate-my-professor.com evaluations.

The equity pay increase was inspired by an independent study on student-course selection that revealed 58 percent of college students select their classes based on the attractiveness of their professors. The remaining 42 percent assembled their schedule based on three other factors: the propensity of the professor to give A’s, the ease of the class, the student’s desire to learn the material.

The university’s recreation center has seen an increase in its faculty attendance; professors are crowding the treadmills, Stairmasters and exercise balls.

Lifting a medicine ball overhead in weary frustration, Professor Carrie Weights said, “I’m head of my department, but I’m making less than a part-time lecturer because of the pepper-metric.”

Ethics professor Ted Mills believes the problem does not lie with the university itself, but rather with the rate-my-professor website. “There is no personality chili pepper,” said Mills, sweating profusely on an exercise bike. “And I have a great personality.”

The Rios Golden Cut salon on campus and the Shops at La Cantera have also had record numbers of faculty-customers.

UTSA predicts that as its professors collectively accrue more chili-peppers, the university will experience a spike in its application rates — rates hotter than those of UT Austin and A&M combined.

“I think this shows great progress for the school,” said former track-star and current UTSA president. “Student enrollment has increased 68 percent based on my abs and glute development alone. Imagine what we could do with an entire faculty of me.”