- Hi, everybody. I am Catenya McHenry.
Thank you so much for joining us this month
on our Q&A With Lil.
Welcome to the April Q&A, Lil.
Every month, I'm so happy to see your face.
- So good to see you, Catenya.
I love doing these chats with you.
- Well, I think our faculty, staff,
and now our students appreciate hearing from you
on a regular basis.
So as you know, we're announcing these to students,
and the feedback has been really great.
So we -- This month we'll be talking about
several different topics:
one, the Dean's Advisory Council,
which we just, you just attended that.
So we'll talk about updates from there.
We're also talking about commencement plans for this May.
We are talking about summer programs
and what that will look like the summer.
We'll talk a little bit
about the importance of getting vaccinated,
which UT and UC Health has been really robust
in getting our community vaccinated.
And then the last thing we'll talk about
is our fall reopening plans and what that looks like.
So let's first talk about the Advisory Council
and how that Advisory Council meeting went this month, Lil.
- Gosh, it was great.
I feel so lucky to have so many prominent alums
who are CEOs and CFOs and managing directors,
all helping the school.
And you might ask, what do these advisors do?
Well, first we do like to use them for advice.
And one of the things we teed up during the social hour
is who should they be introducing to the Dean
and to the school,
both in terms of all the big new companies
that are moving here and senior executives
who are choosing to reside now in Texas
instead of New York and California.
We want those introductions, and that's a big help.
The other thing the advisors do
is they like to gather, this year virtually,
to learn from us and from each other.
And we featured a fireside chat about energy
with two of our advisors, Marcie Zlotnik and Jerry Thompson,
who have experience owning retail energy companies.
And they were talking about the deep freeze
that we had in Texas
and what the state of Texas could do differently.
And then our chairman, John Harkey,
interviewed Ethan Burris
and two of our friends of McCombs,
an alum, Ellen Black, and a friend Jason Ballard,
who are hugely successful entrepreneurs.
And so the whole theme was how much entrepreneurship
touches everyone at McCombs.
And then Michael Clement interviewed Coach Sarkisian,
"Mr. All Gas No Brakes," about not just football
but also leadership.
So it was really a great meeting.
It was so good to see more than a hundred
of our friends of McCombs in attendance.
- That's fantastic, and nice to have some celebrity guests
in attendance as well.
Well, summer is coming up.
Before we get to summer, commencement is, I think,
on top of many people's minds this year
as we prepare to usher off a new class into the world.
Commencement will look a little bit different this year.
We'll still have some virtual aspects,
but there will also be an in-person element to commencement.
So, talk a little bit about
what commencement will look like this year.
Obviously, we're still in a pandemic.
We're trying to stay as safe as we possibly can.
- Well, the University of Texas in Austin,
unlike most schools around the country,
are having at least one fully in-person event,
and it's the college or the university-wide ceremony
at DKR stadium.
And I look forward to representing the McCombs school there
with the entire campus community.
At the college and program level,
normally we would have in-person events
with individual name reading, in-person speeches,
hand shakes, the whole works.
We're unable to do that this year,
but we're doing two separate types of things.
First, we're having what we're calling magic moments
or special moments for name reading, video/photo capture.
And Senior Associate Dean Eric Hurst and I
are completely happy to devote the full three days,
of May 20th, 21st, and 22nd,
to covering all of those groups and programs
so that you can have a photo with your family if you want,
as part of those magic moments.
And then each program is putting together
its virtual ceremony with commencement speakers, et cetera,
and the BBA speaker is 2007 alum, Erin Patton.
She is a successful entrepreneur.
For MPA, it's Southwest Airlines CFO, Tammy Romo,
who had her BBA in 1984.
And for all the MBA programs,
we have planned to honor 1976 grad Connie Duckworth
who's the founder and CEO of Arzu Studio Hope.
So we hope you're going to participate
in some or all of those things.
I wish it were the normal we had two years ago,
but I still think we're doing as much as we possibly can.
And we want to include you as you're able.
- Absolutely.
And of course, nothing will take away
from the huge accomplishment that graduation is,
the symbolism around graduation,
and so it is an exciting time
to at least celebrate the accomplishment
and accomplishing just finishing school in a pandemic,
in the setting that we've been in for the last year
and a few months.
- Right, and Catenya, when you graduate,
we're not saying goodbye to you.
We want you to be part of this entire ecosystem
that you come here for school and you stay connected
through your whole life.
So the career management operation
now has a newly stood up alumni career management function,
and our executive education group has any number
of short courses and certificate programs,
culminating, when you retire, you might come back
for a Tower Fellows Program,
which is kind of like a comeback to campus camp
when you're established and want to meet other people
at that stage of life.
And you get behind the scenes looks at everything around UT.
So stay involved. Come back and visit.
- Yes, we love that.
Now let's talk about summer.
What, our summer of 2000?
What year are we in? (laughing)
- I know, I know.
- It seems like it all just merges together.
Summer '21, what our summer programs will look like,
and what we're offering different
that we haven't in the past.
Obviously, there will still still be
some virtual elements there, as well.
- Yes, so of our summer scheduled classes,
about 20% of them are hybrid, the way you've had
many of your classes this spring and fall.
80% are fully online.
One of the things UT's been emphasizing this summer
across campus is to try to put a few more required courses
fully online so that if you were out of town
doing a summer internship,
you might still be able to catch a course here or two
that you needed.
I think that's an enhancement.
As you know, our MS and our MBA programs
start a little sooner than the undergraduates.
We're still waiting to see if we can be fully back
at normal densities,
and I'll just say the faculty remain eager to see students.
And so we're waiting for further guidance about that.
- Yeah, so that leads us to talk about the effort
that UT has made with UT Health to get vaccinations
and also get as many people in the community within UT,
within McCombs, and within the Austin community vaccinated.
So can you talk a little bit about just vaccination,
how important that is, and what we all need to do
to get back to a safe space in being together?
- Well, I'll start by saying I am good to go.
I have had both my Pfizer shots, and my comfort level
being out in the world is just so much higher as a result.
And so I encourage all our faculty, staff, and students
to get vaccinated.
There are -- It's available for everyone over age 16.
So that should include our entire student population.
And we faculty really want to be back to normal in the fall
where we can have a full classroom of eager students,
but health and safety remain paramount.
So UT is still working through its guidance
about what does it look like in the fall?
And I think it's going to depend heavily
on having a high rate of community vaccination or immunity.
And so, gosh, anything I can do to encourage you.
We have supply, and we have enough appointments
that you could get both your shots
before the end of the semester.
And as you're thinking of returning
to parents and grandparents in your hometowns,
gosh, wouldn't it be great if you were fully vaccinated
and could return home
feeling like you were keeping them safe, too?
So I encourage you to take advantage of the availability
of both vaccine and appointments.
- Yeah, I have to tell you, I was a little reluctant,
and I kind of held out for a little while,
but I got my first shot recently.
I go for my second shot in a couple of weeks,
and I got it through UT Health.
And I have to tell you the process was so seamless
and just incredible.
I was in line, and actually I got in
before my appointment time.
Once I got in, the line moves quickly,
once I got in, it was just a well oiled machine.
So the process has been, was wonderful,
was so seamless, and I just am grateful
to all those who put the whole plan together.
It's just -- It works very well, so.
- And Catenya,
we're going to keep the hand sanitizer around.
And so I just can't wait for a hug and a handshake from you.
- I know. (Laughs) I miss,
that's the one thing I miss,
even though I've seen people in person,
it's like, I can't hug you.
I can only do the elbow bump,
so it'll be nice to hug people again.
- Yep.
- And that leads us to our last topic
is talking about fall reopening.
There is a plan and an intention to open in the fall.
And so let's talk about what that looks like for us.
- Well, here I'm going to hedge a little bit, Catenya.
I think President Hartzell is planning to give us
a little more guidelines about how to think about it
maybe yet this week.
One of the things that Senior Associate Dean
for Business Affairs, Caitlin Mullaney, and I,
and Senior Associate Dean Eric Hurst are all talking about
is that we want there to be optimal unit level decisions.
So you might imagine that staff who are student-facing,
we might need a few more people on campus regularly
than in units where the work
really could all continue remote.
And we just want to figure out what is the best practice
to support students and faculty and staff operations,
and then plan accordingly.
But I do think, given the nimbleness of our pivot
to fully remote work about a year ago,
that we're going to maintain an open mind
to arguments about what's the best practice in your unit
because I'm very aware that commuting is difficult
when we're back at normal traffic patterns.
And I want what works out the best for the entire college
and its constituents.
- Right, and what's the safest thing to do.
- And what's safe, absolutely.
- Yeah, well, thank you, Lil.
That about concludes it for our April Q&A.
I think we covered all the topics.
So thank you for making the time,
and thank you, faculty, staff and students
for watching and listening to our April Q&A.
We will see you next time.
Have a great day, everybody.
- Thanks.