Hi everybody, I'm Catenya McHenry
and you are joining us today on our November Q&A with Lil.
Lil, welcome, it's so great to see you today.
- Thanks, it's good to see you, Catenya.
- Thank you. Well, we have a list of things we're going to talk about today,
but first, I wanted to start with, I surveyed my team last week
and I told them I was recording this today and I asked them,
"What do you guys want me to ask Lil?"
We know we have a town hall coming up and which, we'll talk about,
but they wanted to know more about you and what your day to day was like,
so I told them, "The one thing I do know about Lil for sure
"is that she gets up at an ungodly hour of 4:30 in the morning (laughs) everyday."
So let's start with when you wake up, what the rest of your day is like.
- Sure, Catenya.
Like all of you, I spend a lot of time on Zoom,
and if I don't get some exercise first thing in the morning,
it doesn't happen.
So I wake up by 4 or 4:30, drive straight into campus, park,
and walk down to the river and back to clear my head a little
and get, get my legs moving, and I get back and clean up
and try to be Zoom-ready by 7 or 7:30 every morning,
here in the Dean's Office.
And then, in a given week, if I think about what happens on a typical day,
a nine-hour day breaks down with
three one-hour meetings with groups of people internally.
So just this morning, Catenya and I were in the group of 20
of the McCombs' leaders,
the Associate Dean's Department heads' unit heads,
but earlier in the morning, I was in a two-hour meeting
with all the deans and the provosts,
and that meeting happens about every two weeks.
So in any given day, I've got three meetings with groups of people
inside McCombs, and one of those was a research workshop that brings in
behavioral scholars from around the globe,
and I was able to listen to that meeting for about an hour.
Another three hours during the day
would be a series of half-hour or hour individual meetings
with somebody inside the college.
So I might be meeting with Wendy Anderson who runs our development group,
or certainly with Eric Hurst or Caitlin Mullaney,
our two senior associate deans,
to see how I can help them with what they are doing.
And then, on a good day,
I have at least three one-hour meetings with an alum or a friend of McCombs
who has some outside perspective.
Either I'm thanking them for a recent financial gift,
possibly asking for a future financial gift
or, many of these alums come to McCombs with
a particular thing they want that's an experiential learning opportunity
for our students, that might advance their business.
So we're really lucky to have a hundred thousand alums,
and many of them are willing to lean in with a personal touch
to help advance the business school.
- That's awesome.
And then what do you do about dinner when you get home?
I hope your husband has dinner prepared.
Do you still have to make dinner after that full day? (laughing)
- No, my husband's been retired for a while,
so he plays a lot of golf, and he takes care of the dog,
and he takes care of me, and I won't say in what order.
- (laughing) Well that's a lot, so I --
We appreciate you and all of your work so far as interim,
and so it's nice to have an inside look
as to what things look like from your perspective.
McCombs anniversary,
we're in the midst of celebrating the 20 years since the gift was given,
so let's talk about that and just how exciting it is to celebrate 20 years,
and how fast that 20 years has gone.
- Yes, thanks Catenya.
Red McCombs gave a transformative naming gift 20 years ago,
and it was 50 million dollars,
which, at the time was the largest gift in UT's 117-year history.
We're planning activities, launching with the dean's advisory council
this Friday, November 13th,
and we've got a great video that tells the Red McCombs story
of the McCombs School of Business
with a fireside chat that I get to have
with his daughter, Marcia Shields,
and Red's grandson, Joe Shields,
both of whom are UT alums that love the school.
One of the things that transformational gift did
was allow us to use it to retain and reward
just the top-flight faculty we have,
and so it was instrumental in providing matching funds
for the numerous chairs and professorships and fellowships we have,
and provide some seed money for matching for scholarships.
So, this 20 years has carried us a long way, and we've climbed in rankings
and just in the prominence of our faculty, and so, we're so grateful for Red.
- And you know, the good thing about what we're doing
and the wonderful piece that we have on our website,
is not many people -- well, I think over the 20 years,
people have come and gone and really not known
who the school is named for and why it was called McCombs,
so the write-up is a great look at who he is,
and who he was with his wife, and their reasons for wanting to give the gift
and all of the things that have -- the wonderful things that have transpired.
So go to our website, we'll have the address right there on your screen
so you can read that wonderful history about Red McCombs and his wife.
So now let's lead in -- that is a great segway into advisory council,
which happens a couple of times a year.
Talk about the purpose of the advisory council
and what that group of people,
what their purpose is in coming together.
- Gosh, well I appreciate that we have
both active and ameritus or life council members,
who just love the school so much
that they want to be plugged-in in a formal way,
at least twice a year, to hear how the school's doing,
and sometimes at these council meetings,
when it's an all-day, in-person event,
we can actually tap them for small-group advice about things like our curriculum
or other initiatives we're doing.
These are financially very generous people,
and so if you think about who's funding our scholarships,
who's helping us with the newly-envisioned renovation of our undergraduate
and teaching facilities in the Mulva Hall and Hildebrand Hall projects,
our advisory council are the people who are really stepping forward
to help us with that.
And as an interim,
I've been trying as fast as possible
to have friends of Jay become friends of Lil,
because they're already friends of McCombs.
And both our current chair, our outgoing and our incoming chair,
and many others on the council,
I've been able to just call and actually ask for advice.
When we were deciding whether to reopen the AT&T Center,
we have people on the advisory council who deal with hotels.
I could seek their advice.
As we have PR issues,
I check in with our chairs and the executive committee of that council.
So I'm very grateful.
- Good.
So let's talk about the staff at -- Faculty Staff Town Hall
that's coming up; we're working on.
The last we had one was right at the height of COVID,
so what are you hoping to accomplish with this --
the one that is in the works that's being planned right now?
- Gosh, if it's been since July, maybe I've waited too long, Catenya.
So, we're about, this week, to launch a few questions out to the faculty.
Just like in July, the main question is,
"What can we answer for you?"
And I thought, at that Town Hall,
I would give the brief dean's update
that the advisors would see at the advisory council,
and then, partnering with Senior Associate Dean Eric Hust
on the academic side, and Senior Associate Dean Caitlin Mullaney
on the operational side, that Catenya,
you could pose those Q&As to the three of us in an interview format
and we'll know which questions came from faculty and which from staff.
And of course, we're wrapping up the semester, and I know everyone
is pretty tired from the spring, the summer, the fall,
but as we restore ourselves over the break,
we need to look forward to the spring and then to the next academic year,
so Eric and Caitlin and I are just interested in "What else is on your mind?"
or suggestions, as we pivot from doing what was needed
to what would be the optimal position for the McCombs School
in a post-COVID world.
- Good.
So make sure you guys look for that survey.
That should be in your inboxes soon.
So, now let's talk about Thanksgiving break.
This'll be the first time that obviously, we've been in the situation
we have with working from home,
so what will be the protocol for Thanksgiving break
and the protocol for our buildings, as well,
and the operations of our buildings and facilities?
Well, Senior Associate Dean Caitlin Mullaney
will be in touch with the faculty, staff, and students
inside McCombs reasonably soon.
As you know, Thanksgiving week is our last week for in-person classes.
That doesn't mean the semester's over, it just means your remaining days of class
are fully online, as is final exam week.
And we will be
curtailing business -- or building access after Thanksgiving
significantly, so faculty and staff and PhD students
or other students that have a staff or teaching role
will still be able to get into the building
with their proximity card,
and that'll be true in December and in January,
before the first day of class,
and then during that very narrow period right around the holidays in late December
we're going to lockdown even further with fewer days
that we would call "skeleton staff days,"
because after all, most people have been working from home throughout the fall.
So in prior years, we might've made every department have someone in the office
every day that wasn't a holiday,
and I think we can shrink that quite a bit this year.
So what Eric and Caitlin and I really hope is that
staff will use some accumulated vacation to get some true restoration.
And faculty, of course, I know your job never quite leaves your head,
but let's try to get some real rest with family and friends
so that January, we come back with renewed energy.
- Yes. That's what we need, renewed energy.
- Mm-hmm.
- As we wrap up this one,
I know this wasn't planned,
but I would love to know what you're thankful for
since we're in the season of Thanksgiving, Lil.
- Oh my gosh!
I'll say again what I said in July,
this set of colleages, who care so much about McCombs
that in spite of our fatigue,
have the best interest of our students in mind everyday.
I'm thankful to work with y'all,
and on a personal note, I had a fourth grandbaby this fall
that I did get up to New York to visit briefly,
and so I'm grateful to have these grandchildren and children and
yeah, husband and dog,
so it's a nice mix of professional and personal in my life,
and thank goodness, it's November and the weather's perfect.
This is what we live in Texas for.
- Tell me about it! I know, right?
Where else can you live where you have a little mix of spring and fall (laughs)
- Yep.
all in the same week, and sometimes in the same day? (laughing)
Well this has been a great talk, Lil.
It's always good to catch up with you and get some questions answered.
Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the November Q&A with Lil.
We will see you next time.
Thanks again for joining us, Lil.
- Hook 'em Horns!
- Alright, Hook 'em Horns!
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