Top Ten Moments: October 2025

I enjoyed thanking our non-tenure line faculty members at our appreciation reception. They teach a huge number of our students, so I am thankful that we were able to develop a promotion pathway in 2023. Now my next goal is to change their title so we can stop defining them by what they are not.

When TXST becomes an R1 institution after 2027 when they complete their next analysis, it will partly be because we have grown the size and quality of our graduate program. We now have more than 5,000 students in The Graduate College, and I loved chatting with them.

Many thanks to Vice President for Round Rock Julie Lessiter for joining my podcast, The Current, to share her TXST story. I’m so grateful for all she does to lead Round Rock. We have a record 3,000 students there this semester, and applications are up 132% today compared to last year.

What a great celebration of our newest national champions! Congratulations to the TXST National Student Advertising Team for winning the American Advertising Federation’s National Student Advertising Competition. We had to celebrate with some championship rings.

Homecoming 2025 was a hit! I had tons of fun at the TXST’s Got Talent show watching so many great acts with magician and comedian host Michael Kent, jogging with almost 1,300 students in the Boko Glow Run, seeing the big crowd at the Homecoming Parade, and counting down the first racers during the Soap Box Derby.

It was nice to welcome new Meadows Foundation CEO Eric Meadows to TXST for a tour of all that our university has to offer. The foundation's support for water research at TXST and our incredible breakthroughs has been vital over the years. We also showed him The Wittliff Collections, including the new Taylor Sheridan and Jerry Jeff Walker exhibits.

Many thanks to the McCoy College of Business Hispanic Business Student Association for inviting Beth and me to chat about our leadership stories. What an inspiring group of students.

Beth and I loved taking in the wonderful annual showcase of the TXST dance faculty. One of my favorite parts of watching this every year is hearing their students cheer them on.

By 2050, the Austin-San Antonio metroplex is going to be huge with an estimated nearly nine million people living here. San Marcos and TXST will be the center of that universe. It was an informative discussion of that future hosted by the Austin Business Journal and San Antonio Business Journal.

I loved attending the Heart Gallery of Central Texas “Be Inspired” gala to talk about foster care. At TXST, we have resources through the CARE Team for students with experience in the foster care system. Thank you to the Weismans for inviting me to speak, and congrats to Hannah Rucker for being honored.