- Hi everybody, I'm Catenya McHenry
and welcome to our December Q&A with Lil.
Lil, we are nearing the end and almost to the end of the year.
What a crazy year it has been.
But welcome to the December Q&A, we'll start on a happy note.
- Thanks Catenya. - Good to see you.
Well, we are recording this one,
you know, we just had the town hall recently with our faculty and staff
but, of course, not everyone was able to attend
so this Q&A will cover some of the topics that we covered in the town hall.
So, let's begin with, I think, what's most on people's minds right now
is whether or not there will be layoffs this year.
So, can you address that?
- Sure, I'm happy to talk about that, Catenya.
As you know, we're expecting, in fiscal year 21-22,
about a 5% state budget cut and there's still uncertainty
because the legislature doesn't begin to meet until this January.
But there's not top down talk of layoffs.
University of Texas, and certainly Texas McCombs,
knows that our high-touch research and student organization
needs a lot of support and we built a really strong balance sheet
coming into this softening and, you know, our business college
is lucky to have multiple streams of revenue,
many of which are doing even better in difficult times
as students apply to our master's programs.
So, I want to reiterate, UT is not pressing me
to solve budget problems with layoffs and I'll keep you informed
as I know everything, but right now we're in good shape.
- Well, and I think a secondary question should --
sort of the same topic is merit raises and that came up in our town hall,
whether or not there would be merit raises this year,
so talk about that too.
- Well, I did re-bump this one up to the provost's office
and, you know, they cautioned, which is good in these times,
that when we're expecting some state budget cuts,
we should not expect across the board merit pools,
but we've had recessionary times before and when the economy recovers,
we work hard to catch up because both hiring and retaining
our valued talent is very important to Texas McCombs.
- Good. Alright, now let's talk about COVID-19 vaccinations.
I think most people know that Texas is a pilot state for receiving vaccinations
and UT is receiving some vaccinations, so can you talk about
just how that will be distributed and what you know about
the protocol that's being worked out and set up right now?
- Well, we are following national guidelines
and UT is a distribution source.
It's public on the Faculty Council website
so I'm going to paraphrase the best I can.
There's stages like 1A, 1B, 2, 3, and 4,
and our front line medical workers, like the doctors and nurses
in the School of Nursing and Dell Med
will be the priority recipients.
Stage 1B is going to reach to our campus community that is
in a high-touch, outward facing role,
and that would include our custodians, our food service workers.
I expect the general faculty and staff that are student facing
to be in stage two.
But we do have some staff members who are able to continue to work
fully remote from home.
They would probably fall in the stage three class.
But as I know things, I'll make sure you know things.
- Well, that leads to just giving a forecast
of what the spring semester will look like
and then leading into the summer and, of course, fall 2021.
It's kind of hard to think about it but I think we are so ready
to be out of 2020 that it's great to think ahead.
So, can you talk about what the spring semester will look like
and also leading into fall 2021?
- Sure. In the fall, about 50% of our classes met in a hybrid fashion,
which meant that students could come in person if they chose to
and the faculty learned that that's a difficult modality
if very few students choose to come to class.
We did learn in the fall that there are a lot of undergraduates
that are still living in, let's say, Dallas or Houston to save rent
and then a number of others who might be living
in West Campus or Riverside that on -- that actually prefer Zooming in
from their campus apartments.
So, we've had a little bit of a melt into spring.
We have about 40% of our classes hybrid.
And I do know from students who contact me personally
that the ones who do come to class in person
are very grateful because they know the faculty members
are going to an extra hassle and, of course,
assuming a small amount of personal risk to do so.
So, I want to thank those faculty members as well.
- Absolutely. - Now, we're planning ahead
for fall of 2021 to organize the class schedules
as if we're fully back in person because that's the most binding constraint.
If we find that we move a few of the classes online after that,
that's an easier pivot.
But we are working under the assumption that we can get
widespread enough vaccination, say at the 70% level by next August,
so that we could largely be back in physical community with each other.
- Good. And I know there was mention yesterday
that the vaccinations won't be required of our students and staff.
- Yeah, that's true.
We're a state university,
which means we're part of the state government of Texas
and so any mandates would have to originate with the state of Texas.
We can mandate vaccinations of various types
for students living in the dormitory because that's a separate contract,
but for the student population at large, we can't require it.
So, I know Eric Hurst was saying in the town hall,
he would take the vaccine today if he were in line.
I would too, and I think, to the extent our faculty
can help with that messaging to our students, that would help.
- Well, let's talk a little bit more about spring.
Thinking about the spring semester also brings up the question of graduation,
and May graduation, and in-person graduation.
So, there was some curiosity around whether or not we would have
in-person graduation, so speak to that, if you can, too.
- Thanks, Catenya.
I think there's still uncertainty but the latest,
and I'll always tell you what the latest is,
is that we're still working towards a campus-wide in-person graduation
in DKR Stadium the evening -- I think it's May 21st --
with all the celebratory fireworks we can get.
However, the university has decided that we cannot do
in-person, indoor graduations and so it's unlikely
that the individual colleges are going to be able to have
a return to the normal college or program level graduations.
So, we're going to be thinking creatively,
can we do any better than the prerecorded online graduations?
Can we do some live streaming?
But we're working on it and the president and provost office
is still thinking primarily health and safety,
so we're working on it. - Good.
Well, as we close out this December Q&A
and we close out this year, and I know, like I said earlier,
many of us are ready to end this year and move on to the next, 2021,
I would love for you to speak quickly to staff and faculty,
some of your well wishes for the end of this year
and close out this year for us in this Q&A.
- Gosh, Catenya, I think I'm just aware that people are exhausted right now
and we're hanging on by our fingernails for the holidays.
We're in the middle of final exams and we all wish our students well
and, of course, for faculty and staff
to help support them as we wrap up the semester.
McCombs is an excellent, moving to elite university.
Gosh, we are top-ranked in so many of our programs.
Only Wharton and Stanford has more top 10 programs than we do.
Accounting's number one, the BBA program's number five.
Marketing, three; management, four; finance, five;
business analytics and MIS, five.
Our MBA programs are doing great.
Our MS programs are booming in enrollment.
We are an elite, world-class university and you should all be very proud.
And (sighs) we need a break. - Yes.
- I am committed to not sending emails for a nice stretch of time to all of you
and I wish you a Zoom-free, or at least a business Zoom-free holiday.
Do everything you can to connect with friends and family.
Get some rest so that we can begin 2021 with energetic service
to our research and teaching and student and staff colleagues.
And happy holidays, I'm really proud to serve with all of y'all.
- Thank you Lil, so much.
Thank you for joining us on the December Q&A.
We will see you next year, next time, in January of 2021.
Happy holidays everybody, Hook 'em Horns.
- Happy holidays, Hook 'em.