Hi, everyone. It is so great to see you.
We are into our December Q&A with Lil, and we are so glad that we have come
to the end of the year. I think many of us are excited to get
some rest and celebrate the holidays. Before we do, we want to end this year
on a good note. Lil, welcome to the December Q&A.
It's great to see you.
- Thanks, Catenya. It's been a wonderful semester to be back in person,
faculty, students, and staff.
- Yes. So, as we end, we have, of course,
a packed Q&A, where we're going to talk about a lot of topics.
First, we're going to talk about a prestigious award given to
one of our faculty members
and the area that we're doing around research.
We're going to talk about December, our December grads;
they have gone off to the next chapter and phase of their lives.
We're going to talk about our 100-year celebration next year.
We'll also talk about some of the things around being home for the holidays,
as well as COVID-19 testing and what students and staff should expect to do
leaving and then returning back next year, and then we'll talk about some of your
plans for the holidays.
So, let's first talk about a prestigious award that's been given to one of our
professor of finance, Laura Starks.
- Thanks, Catenya.
One of our big focuses, both in prior years and now,
is sustainability and energy transition.
And just any minute, it is being announced that our own
Finance Chair, Professor Laura Starks, with her co-authors,
has won the Moskowitz prize for the best research paper
in sustainable finance,
and it's titled "Corporate ESG Profiles and Investor Horizons."
Congratulations, Laura Starks. This is great news.
- That is so wonderful. Congratulations to her.
Well, something else to celebrate is our graduates,
our December graduates that have graduated already and gone off to
what's next in their lives. So, what would you like to say
and highlight about our December graduates?
- Well, I was so happy so many BBA graduates brought their families
to celebrate in (inaudible) auditorium,
so we could shake hands, say hello, take photos with family.
And as we send you off, I want to remind you that we have
launched an alumni career management function.
So you have access to Career Resources, your whole life, and there's a holiday
career strategies webinar on December 14 at noon, central time.
If you Google McCombs alumni career management, you will find all those
resources. We are here for you in every step of your career.
- That's exciting for our grads to be able to have support after they graduate
because so many graduates, they go on, and they can't find jobs, and it's really
hard to just transition from school to life.
So, it is so great that (inaudible) department
is doing such wonderful things staying connected with our alumni.
Well, and we have 100,000 alumni,
so it's worth connecting to alumni career management, because you want
that network working for you when you're 30, or 40, or 50 years old,
transitioning to your next important job.
- Right, I love that. Longhorns for life.
- Longhorns for life. - Yes, so as we come to
the end of this year, beginning of next,
we have a big celebration. Looking back on 100 years
of the business school, we'll be celebrating our
centennial next year. So, can you give us a preview of what
we can expect and just how excited you are about celebrating such a great history
here in McCombs? - Gosh, it's quite an honor to be Dean
as we turn the 100-year mark. We'll be celebrating throughout 2022,
so you can expect at least one bullet about this every month
when Catenya and I do our Q&A, but we'll have an opening event in
January for all of our McCombs' community, including students, and staff,
and faculty, and some alums that all of you will want to meet.
- Yeah, it'll be great to look back and look forward at the same time,
which is always exciting.
Now, we are talking about home for the holidays,
and many people are embarking on traveling,
whether it's by car, plane, train, boat, whatever it is,
planning to just spend some quality time being home.
So there's some things you want to talk about around just the idea and the theme
of being home for the holidays.
- Sure. So I have one more announcement
for the students from the career management team.
They encourage you, if you still want some input and help from their team,
there's no reason why you can't book a January appointment before you leave
for the holidays with one of your career coaches and then spend
some time while you're resting, and recharging, and eating cookies to think
about your career goals so that you arrived back on campus
ready to have those conversations so that we can help you
if you feel a little behind.
Just get in touch with the career team. They are here to support you.
And I would echo for everyone watching the video
that it's really important to unplug,
turn off your email. I promise I'll spend at least one
email-free week, and I sure hope all of you will too
so that we come back here with our usual exuberance in January
for the spring semester. - Yes and totally refreshed,
which I'm looking forward to taking a three-day nap.
- Yes.
- My blinds closed, door closed. I'm excited about it.
Well, as students, and staff, and faculty prepare to leave campus,
we want to remind everyone about our COVID-19 testing and the importance
of doing that before you leave and also when you return.
We'll talk a little bit about that as well.
- Yes, so we're still being quite successful at University of Texas;
the positivity rate ticked up an inch post-Thanksgiving,
but campus-wide, it is still less than half of a percent positive.
And we had more than 5,000 tests in the last week.
And so we're doing a great job, but of course, you want to return home
to your friends and family safe for them and safe for us.
So, I often get a free, no-waiting test, walk-up at Rowling Hall
on Tuesday mornings,
and it's also really easy to make an appointment right over at the Jester
and Speedway location, which I did last week.
I'm happy to be negative again. And I plan to have a test before
I go travel and, of course, before, when I come back to campus,
so I recommend that to everyone. - Yes. And we have the web address
right on your screen. There's also a QR code
you can put your phone to to see all the locations all across campus
very quickly; you can access that. So, as we come to an end,
I'd love to know what your plans are for the holidays.
I know you have family, and children, and grandchildren,
so I think we'd love to hear what you're planning to do over the holidays.
- Thanks, Catenya. My two granddaughters who are five
and three years old live in New Jersey. I'm starting there. And then I'll go to
New York for a few days with my two grandsons who are three and one,
and then we'll come back to Texas, and Jim and I and the dog will get
a couple of very quiet nap-filled days down at the beach at Corpus Christi.
So I expect to return in early January excited to get back and well-rested.
- Sounds fun. Well, I hope everyone has a wonderful
holiday season, and I hope everyone can get some rest and time with family
and come back refreshed in 2022. It's hard to believe we'll be saying that:
2022. Nonetheless, thank you so much for joining us today on our
December Q&A. Thank you to all of our faculty, staff for all your hard work
during the year to make being here and educating students a pleasure.
Happy Holidays, everybody. We'll see you back here in January.
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