Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the start of the 2023 spring semester! I hope you all had a wonderful and restful winter break and that you have arrived at The University of Texas at Arlington ready to take on every opportunity ahead.

The spring term is always an exciting time, as it often marks a very important stage in the academic journey for our students. For some, it may be their first semester, while for others, it may be the last stretch before graduation. No matter where they are, I am confident that every UTA student will enter the workforce prepared to take on today’s leading issues and make an impact.

I want to share my sincere thanks with each of you who will help guide our students this semester and work to ensure their continued success. You are our campus’ life force, and I deeply appreciate your efforts to support our students.

Maverick Experience

This spring semester at UTA is packed full of activities. We have some high-energy and beloved events, both new and returning, and I hope to see you at them this semester!

I invite you to join us March 21 in Texas Hall for our next installment of the Maverick Speaker Series, with special guest Indra Nooyi. Indra has held executive positions at major companies all over the world, and notably was the chairman and chief executive officer of PepsiCo from 2006 to 2019. She is a member of the board of Amazon and an adviser to several early-stage companies as well. In 2021, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. She will have professional and personal insight that I know our entire Maverick family will find valuable.

March will also feature the UTA Bed Races, happening March 29 at Maverick Stadium. This is our longest-running tradition on campus, where teams of five race to get wheeled beds across 40 yards in the fastest time. I hope you’ll join me out there to cheer on our students!

It is an exciting semester for our athletics as well. Our men’s and women’s basketball seasons continue this spring, and our 2023 softball and baseball schedules and season tickets are now available. Join us on Jan. 28 for UTA softball’s inaugural First Pitch Banquet, where you can meet first-year head coach Kara Dill and the entire 2023 team. There will be a Q&A with Coach Dill, a silent auction, and more. Then our 2023 softball slate will begin with the first four games on UTA's home turf of Allan Saxe Field, hosting Texas Tech and Tulsa as part of the Maverick Invitational on Feb. 10-11. Our first home game of the 2023 baseball season will be on Feb. 21 against Dallas Baptist at Globe Life Field. I wish the best of luck to our entire Athletics Department this semester. Be sure to turn out to our games and show your support.

Our Path Forward

I could not be more excited to share that we will be making important strides this semester in the strategic planning process, which will guide UTA as we chart our path forward into the future. Our strategic plan is a roadmap of the priorities and aspirations of our University and is a critical piece in ensuring our place as leaders in academics, research, and public service across the Metroplex.

The strategic planning process began on my first day, as I have had the opportunity to listen to thousands of UTA students, faculty, staff, alumni, partners, and so many others.

People and Culture
We continue to make important progress on all our strategic themes, and I would like to take a moment to provide updates on several key efforts around our people and culture.

Our Office of Talent, Culture, and Inclusion (TCI) has been hard at work with several efforts, one of which is providing a more affordable approach to and expansion of our employee tuition assistance. The new program, starting this summer, will provide enhanced funding to eligible employees to cover up to six hours of tuition and fees each semester of enrollment at UTA. More details on these updates will follow in the coming weeks so that those interested can begin to make plans to apply for a program of interest. I look forward to many more of you becoming UTA alumni and having the opportunity to enhance your knowledge and skills.

We have also heard about the desire for expanded development opportunities, and TCI will be launching a comprehensive professional development platform provided by Academic Impressions (AI) in early February. This platform will offer customizable online resources—such as leadership development, personal development, and job-specific skill training—to enhance the existing professional development portfolio of UTA faculty and staff at all career levels. The platform will provide access to live and recorded virtual training, webcasts, on-demand learning, virtual conferences, and individually customized learning plans, with single sign-on access for institutional-wide use. The topics covered in this program include leadership, institutional and academic planning, student success, enrollment management and marketing, institutional advancement, diversity, equity, and inclusion, Title IX, compliance, and many others. As TCI approaches the launch of AI’s learning and development platform, more campus messaging will follow.

You may know that our faculty partnered with the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) to run the first systematic survey of UTA faculty members in more than a decade during the spring 2021 term. The COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey and Evaluation, Review, and Initiatives Committee created actionable recommendations, including a focus around faculty salaries. This work led to the formation of the Faculty Compensation Committee, which has reviewed and made recommendations regarding the utilization of approximately $1M to support faculty salary market adjustment. This work is coming to completion, and we expect to be able to announce the results later this semester. Thank you to the committees for their efforts and to everyone who has participated to provide feedback and support.

Campus Updates

You may have seen, or perhaps are teaching a class in, our new School of Social Work/College of Nursing and Health Innovation Smart Hospital building. I am excited to share that the building is now operational and that our students will begin learning in this new state-of-the-art facility this semester. We plan to host an official ribbon cutting for our new building later this spring.

Other facility updates include our Life Sciences building renovation and new addition, which was approved in November 2022 by the UT System Board of Regents. We will keep you updated as this project progresses.

UTA has so much to be proud of as we kick off 2023. I appreciate your continued commitment and trailblazing spirit as we enter the new semester and can’t wait to hear about your many successes throughout the year.

I look forward to seeing many of you at the annual UT Day at the Rodeo hosted at Dickies Arena this weekend and at many of our other exciting events we have scheduled this semester!