- Hi everyone. I'm Catenya McHenry.
Welcome to the October Q&A with Lil,
we are just moving so quickly through the year.
It feels like, and we're already in fall
and already thinking about the holidays,
but nonetheless here is our fall,
October Q&A with Lil
Thank you so much for joining us
and Lil, welcome to the October Q&A.
- It's good to see you Catenya! Yeah, let's get started.
- Yes! So we have a lot to talk about today.
We want to talk about COVID
and what updates there are there.
We want to talk a little bit about
the President's strategic plan
and how that applies to us here at McCombs.
We will talk about people, places and pursuits
under that strategic plan.
And then we'll also talk about our recent rankings,
which I would like to end on some good news.
So let's talk first about COVID.
I know in Austin, we're at stage three,
but tell me a little bit about what you know about what,
how things are unfolding and,
and what things look like on campus.
- Well, I, I think we're opening with good news,
not just ending with it.
So the positivity rates remain very low on campus
and as you noted, the county has reduced to stage three,
and I am just so pleased
at our students
in very large part masking in class.
It certainly gives our professors
with young unvaccinated children at home
a lot of comfort,
and we're ramping up even more testing.
So over at our MBA building, Rowling Hall,
there is pop-up testing,
COVID testing on Tuesdays between 9 and 12,
and it's easy and painless and takes only five minutes.
So, we want to continue to
test people so that we have good data
to give us comfort that
in fact, the spread is very low on campus.
- Very good. And that, that testing on those days is free.
So that's another incentive
Recently, President Hartzell unveiled his strategic plan
during his presidential inauguration.
So can you talk a little bit about what that means for each
of the colleges and of course, particularly McCombs.
- Sure.
It's, it's at the vision stage and the entire university
will be working over the next six months
to actually create a fleshed-out plan.
But the vision is that the University of Texas at Austin
can become the highest impact public research university.
And I share that aspiration for
the McCombs School of Business
and in doing so, we're going to lean into
our strengths in people and place and pursuits.
And I'm very excited.
And our senior leaders here at McCombs, are already doing
so many excellent things consistent
with the elements of President Hartzell's vision.
- Yeah.
Let's break that out a little bit
and talk about the people component.
What does that mean and how does that connect with some of
the initiatives that you've put in place and are putting
in place around diversity equity and inclusion?
- Sure. So here at Texas, McCombs,
we seek to just surround ourselves
with outstanding, exceptional and high potential
people in our faculty, staff, and students,
and to support that effort,
we're here at McCombs,
investing a little more in staff support
to help support student services and staff activities.
We're in the middle of interviewing
for Director of Inclusion and Community Engagement.
And here at McCombs, we say, you all all belong here.
And I'm particularly looking for someone
with expertise and experience,
but who channels that
attitude of wanting to bring people together.
So I expect we'll complete that hiring this semester.
- Good. And what's your vision?
your longterm vision for that person
of how they will involve not just students,
but also staff and faculty in that, in that process as well?
- Well, we already have an Associate Dean
who is a research tenured faculty member
in this space who is particularly helping
keep an eye on faculty recruiting processes to expand pools
and to socialize, to curate and socialize best practices
in the classroom.
And so the faculty member
and the staff person will work closely together
in making this the most welcoming educational environment
for everybody in the staff that support them.
- Excellent.
And how about the place component under that strategic plan?
How do you see that and,
and talk about some of the things that are happening around
that component?
- So we're in an exciting time in Austin, Texas
in the state of Texas.
I hope you've noticed that we're getting
lots of venture capital and even corporate headquarters
moving to Austin.
Just recently, Tesla has moved its world headquarters
from California to Texas.
We will continue to pursue out of Texas,
key city strategies because we build our reputation
by attracting some out-of-state students
and certainly placing students
into big cities like London and New York and Chicago
and Seattle and LA and San Francisco and Atlanta,
because as Longhorns
filled the globe,
people know more about our programs and want to
recruit from them.
But here in Austin,
our Senior Associate Dean for career management
and corporate relations,
Janet Wong's team has been collecting a bunch of great data,
about employers,
more than 6,000 people in Austin between two and 6,000,
one and 2000.
And we'll get those data
in front of all of our council meetings,
but her team's level of engagement at placing students
in these large employers is really great.
And I want to throw our doors open wider to make sure
we have engagement with all of these companies
to take Exec Ed
here with McCombs
to turn to our researchers
as thought leaders to participate in our boards and councils
and centers.
And so it's a great lift to all of that,
that our career management team already has those tight
relations.
- Yeah.
And in addition that, I mean,
we have a lot of connecting that, that department and
Janet is, is working to, to maintain.
And so they invite executives to come either to
host an event or be a speaker in class,
but those are opportunities for students
to get in front of those executives.
So can you talk a little bit about that and how important it
is for students to not only know about the opportunity,
but make sure they're participating in the opportunity.
- Sure!
So, we're trying to always have
a first-class experience here so often for an info session,
it's not just a lower level recruiter from that company,
but we are such a premier school that we can often attract
senior managers and even C-suite executives.
And I'm sympathetic to students with crowded calendars
as we've come out of COVID
because just last night I had
three events I had to get to between 6:00 PM and 9:00 PM
and I made it to all three,
but I would urge all of our students and faculty
that attracting companies like this depends very much both
on the advance RSVPs,
and attending every single thing you RSVP yes for,
Because after all we're Texas,
we have good manners and top flight professionalism,
and how all of us behave
in showing up for the things we said we would
is part of how we build that reputation.
- Let's talk about the pursuits component
under that strategic plan.
Some of the things that we're looking, looking forward to.
- So I think McCombs is just a big leader
in our co-curricular
and extracurricular experiential learning
that complements our in-classroom education.
As an example of this, John Harkey and Peni barfield
just committed a $10 million gift
to raise matches
for an entire $20 million endowment
for the Harkey Institute for undergraduate entrepreneurship.
So within the McCombs School,
We have 800 entrepreneurship minors
that are non McCombs students, plus McCombs students.
And we are cultivating
an entrepreneurial mindset
so that you can leave here
and get a job with a company that will
encourage your innovation
and,
change mindset
so that,
if at some point you want to attract venture capital money
and become a one-time or a serial entrepreneur,
you're, you'll have those skills to do that.
And we are trying to cultivate
a change mindset inside McCombs.
So, I am always eager to praise any staff member who says,
well, gosh, we might've done it that way before,
but here might be a better way to do something.
So, I want us to live into the attitude that we're trying to
help our students embrace.
- Well, and proof of all of that hard work and,
and all the pursuits and,
and new initiatives is our rankings
- Ah!
- and our rankings speak a lot to
the work that is happening inside McCombs.
So let's talk about our recent rankings and, and,
and how things are looking for McCombs.
- So US News and world report just came out
with their undergraduate rankings
and the BBA program is number five nationally,
and we are the only university
that has all of the specialty rankings in the top 10.
And, that there are no other university this year
for whom that's true.
We have among our specialty one-year master's programs,
at least three of the programs
in the top five again this year.
and Catenya, remind me, who's doing MBA rankings these days.
- QS
- QS World University, yes.
- Excellent.
So we're number 17 in the MBA rankings,
and we are making significant investments
in our alumni relation connections
over the next couple of years,
as well as, better use of branding
in our outside media company
to just leverage out even more the excellence
that's happening inside McCombs.
So that, more people know all of the good that we do here.
- Yeah. And when you see rankings like this,
how does it give you
a validation
for not only the things that you
are implementing across campus?
I mean, across McCombs and across the college,
but all the work that, that is combinated
that happens on a daily basis.
Like when you see these rankings,
how does it make know that you're doing the right thing
or going in the right direction?
- Well, I, I try to hold them with
the appropriate amount of respect
because chasing rankings can seem like teaching to the test.
- Uh-huh
- Let's see what the old midterm was
and teach those problems to do that thing.
I want to go back to President Hartzell's aspiration
to be the highest impact public research university.
Rankings are one way to measure that.
But I appreciate that the communication department is
tracking things like earned media and the degree to which
stories about our research get retweeted.
So we can all be ambassadors in our reputation for impact
and it's our students that become CEOs,
30 years down the road.
And our it's our research scholars that go
to do
things that impact what's happening in business today,
or doing foundational analytic modeling that helps us think
about predictions in a whole new way.
- Yeah.
- So we're not chasing the rankings.
I am just gratified that
they are a reflection of much of the good work
we're doing here.
- Awesome! Well, thanks for the prompts to our department.
(laughing)
woohoo!
(laughing)
Well, that is all we have for the October Q&A.
Thank you so much Lil for this.
We will see you guys back here in November
for a November Q&A.
In the meantime, enjoy the rest of the month,
enjoy Halloween,
and thank you for your time Lil
and thank you for watching.
We'll see you guys next time.
(bright music)