College of Texas President Jay Hartzell introduced right this moment that he could be leaving Austin to take over as President of Southern Methodist College starting on June 1.
SMU is a considerably smaller faculty than Texas, coming in with an enrollment of 12,116 college students, lower than 25% of Texas’ 51,991.
Hartzell was employed as UT’s President in October of 2020, and performed a key function within the Longhorns’ transfer to the SEC this 12 months. Hartzell is a well known champion of athletics and at all times has been. His first revealed tutorial paper mentioned the Boston Celtics and their funds.
The Texas Longhorns have completed effectively within the pool underneath his reign. Their girls’s swim staff has 4 consecutive top-three finishes on the NCAA Championships. The lads had a uncommon off-year in 2023-24, discovering themselves out of the highest 5. They completed within the high three the opposite three years of Hartzell’s presidency.
Hartzell took the helm at Texas throughout a pivotal time for faculty athletics which has seen a number of change within the final 4 years with the introduction of NIL.
Many faculty presidents are having to reevaluate and readjust how they run issues. In an interview with Yahoo final month, Hartzell mentioned the impacts of revenue-sharing on school athletics. He described the truth that smaller faculties are going to wrestle on this new period.
“On the finish of the day, you’re going to have a number of them which might be going to seek out themselves having to subsidize athletics much more,” he stated. “It’s going to trigger one other value stress on the tutorial aspect of the home, the place individuals are going to really feel like they’re going to have to seek out methods to economize on lecturers to verify they maintain the athletic program the place it’s.”
Underneath the brand new NIL guidelines, SMU has turn out to be a reputable sports activities risk after spending nearly 40 years struggling as a consequence of penalties imposed by the NCAA for paying its soccer gamers. Earlier this 12 months, the college accepted an invitation to affix the ACC for the 2024-2025 season after competing as a mid-major faculty within the American Athletic Convention (AAC), for the final 10 years.
SMU’s present president, Gerald Turner, introduced in August he could be retiring on the finish of the college 12 months after 30 years within the place. In 2016, he was the third highest-paid non-public faculty president, raking in $3.3 million. By comparability, Hartzell made $1.3 million in 2022.
