- Hi everyone, welcome to the new year,
welcome to a brand new semester
and welcome to a new January, 2022 Q and A with Lil,
it's great to be back, I guess, in sort of, I don't know,
we are excited about starting the new year,
we're kind of starting it the way we did last year,
but, nonetheless we're here and it's great to see you Lil,
happy new year to you.
- Happy new year Catenya, I'm happy to be back
and I'm in the office today.
- Good.
Well, we have a lot to talk about today,
we know that in-person classes,
we had sort of a little shuffle and shift for the semester
so we'll talk about that, we'll talk about
some COVID guidelines around that,
some COVID testing, we'll also talk about
some scholarship success that we've had,
and we are excited to celebrate some new gifts also
and we'll talk about our D, E, and I recruiting
where we are on that, and then we'll talk about
some new leadership that is in place here at McCombs.
So let's start with where we are with just opening campus
and the delay in in-classes, oh, in-person classes.
- Yes, thank you, Catenya.
UT is looking at this weekly and right now
as we start classes, January 18th,
we expect most courses will be online
through to January 28th, but certain faculty
will choose to teach in-person and provide access
to our remote learners and so I urge faculty
to communicate regularly and often
and students need to check their email
and their Canvas pages too,
communication's a two way street and you both need to help.
- Yes.
Can you give an update just on our guidelines
around just COVID-19 testing, masking,
all things related to COVID-19?
- Well, we're expecting the week of January 31st
to resume in-person classes at our normal density
and so please students, faculty, staff,
when you return to campus, get tested,
get vaccinated, boosted, if you can,
masks are still highly encouraged in group setting,
the walkup testing over in the student union
is open every day, I've asked UT to reopen
our Rowling Hall pop-up location,
and we'll let you know by email if we do,
we expect normal classroom density
and use your best judgment about optional group activities
being sensitive to your group members wishes.
- And on your screen right now,
we have a QR code that you can put your phone to
to see where the testing locations are
all throughout campus, so that'll help you navigate
what works best for you.
- And let me talk about our staff as well, Catenya,
because we care about staff too,
so unit leaders are being urged to be flexible
about remote work while we watch the COVID cases,
stay safe, enjoy the time that you're avoiding
the commute to invest in yourself
and I just remind all our UT employees
that we have learning and development opportunities,
free access to LinkedIn Learning, go to UT Learn
to learn more and the HR group,
we'll email more about this later this month
and I use LinkedIn Learning, often it's to hone
my business skills, sometimes it's pure fun.
Last year, I watched a series of LinkedIn videos
about hand drawn animation,
and maybe eventually my Bebo drawings will come to life.
(Catenya laughs)
- Always a lifelong learner, I love it.
Let's talk about some successes we had around scholarships
and we just completed the Texas challenge scholarship drive
so, talk about our results and the great news
we have to share there.
- So, UT has been matching our scholarship donations
through the end of last year and 92 separate alumni
and friends donated more than $26 million
that got matched one-to-one and that nearly $53 million
will spin off two and a half for 2.4 million
of scholarship funds per year for our students
from lower income families
and so I'm just so proud of our alumni and friends,
some of whom are your own very generous faculty members.
- That's so fantastic.
You know, I love hearing stories of students
who otherwise would not be able to go to school
and get an education, has it not been
or have it not been for the scholarships
and so it's so fantastic that those students
don't have that burden and that worry
about how they're going to pay for school
thanks to these scholarships, so that's so fantastic.
Let's talk a little bit about the Harkey gift as well
because we haven't talked about that yet
and how McCombs is going to benefit from that gift.
- Well, back last Fall, John Harkey
and Peni Barfield committed $10 million
in matching funds for the Harkey Institute,
which hosts the entrepreneurship minor,
and we have a lot of success there;
it's more than 800 students from inside and outside McCombs,
and those entrepreneurship programs are ranked
number four undergrad, number five graduate,
and I just want to nudge our McCombs students
about our business minors because our college hosts
more than 4,000 students from across campus
in these business minors, and I hope you will help
make all those other students feel welcome
in our classes and in our facilities,
both because we are a human-centered college
and these students expand your network.
The science, or economics, or fine arts student you meet
in a business minor class could be your next
business partner or client someday.
- Excellent.
Let's shift now and talk about where we are
with DE&I recruiting and hiring.
- Sure, we had three searches that are open this year,
two are still underway.
We have an active committee searching nationally
for a full professor that we can encourage
to apply to our associate Dean position,
we are reopening our search for a staff-level director
of inclusion and community engagement
after our preferred candidate chose a corporate offer,
but we do have success in our student services.
We have a new director of DEI for graduate programs,
Zerina Hamulic moved from
BBA to graduate
with deep experience in two community organizations
that prepare underrepresented and first-generation
college students for higher education and college,
and we're really lucky to have Zerina accept that position
to help our graduate student programming.
- Excellent, well, also new is some new leadership positions
throughout McCombs, so talk to us about
some of the, well, same faces in new position.
- I'm just really thrilled that several new colleagues
accepted leadership positions.
Management Professor Ethan Burris
is the new Senior Associate Dean
for Academic Affairs,
Marketing Associate Professor Ty Henderson
is our new Associate Dean
for Undergraduate Programs,
and Management Professor Caroline Bartel
is our new Department Chair for Management.
I am so pleased to work with all of them,
and they started January 1.
- Excellent. Congratulations to them as well.
Well, that wraps it for our January Q and A.
Thank you so much for your time, Lil, and joining us,
and thank you to all of our audience members
who are watching; we appreciate your time and attention,
and we will see you next time.
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