Robert L. Duncan

Duncan served in the Texas State Senate from the 28th District, centered about Lubbock, from 1996, when he won a special election, until his resignation in July 2014, when he was named chancellor of the Texas Tech system. He previously served in the Texas House of Representatives from District 84 from his election in 1992 until 1996. On May 19, 2014, the Texas Tech University System Board of Regents named Duncan the sole finalist to succeed former U.S. Representative Kent Hance as the system chancellor.

Duncan holds bachelor's and law degrees from Texas Tech University. He practices law and is a partner at the Lubbock firm of Crenshaw Dupree & Milam, L.L.P. Duncan is married to the former Terri Patterson. He has two children from his first marriage to the former Lynne Stebbins, Lindsey and Matthew Duncan. Duncan, along with colleagues Bob Deuell of Greenville, John Carona of Dallas, Kevin Eltife of Tyler, and Kel Seliger of Amarillo, is considered one of the most liberal of the nineteen (as of 2013) Texas Senate Republicans, according to an analysis by Mark P. Jones of the Political Science Department at Rice University in Houston. Jones also found that these Republicans saw passage of 90 percent of the bills for which they had voted. In the 2014 primaries, Carona was narrowly defeated, and Deuell narrowly lost a runoff election with fellow Republican Bob Hall.

Robert Lloyd Duncan (born August 5, 1953) is an American politician and the fourth chancellor of the Texas Tech University System, serving from 2014 to 2018. Duncan is a Republican, who has served in both houses of the Texas State Legislature.

Duncan is the only son of the five children of Frank L. Duncan, a district conservationist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Vernon, and the former Robena Formby, who married Joe King of San Marcos and later Roaring Springs after the death of Frank Duncan. Robena Duncan King was the sister of Marshall Formby, an attorney and radio station owner from Plainview in Hale County, who served as county judge of Dickens County, as a state senator from Lubbock (then District 30) from 1941 to 1945, and was thereafter an influential member of the Texas Highway Commission. Marshall Formby was also an unsuccessful Democratic gubernatorial candidate in 1962, having lost out to John B. Connally, Jr. Duncan was a cousin of the late radio broadcaster Clint Formby of Hereford, Texas.