University of Texas President Jay Hartzell announced today that he would be leaving Austin to take over as President of Southern Methodist University beginning on June 1.
SMU is a significantly smaller school than Texas, coming in with an enrollment of 12,116 students, less than 25% of Texas’ 51,991.
Hartzell was hired as UT’s President in October of 2020, and played a key role in the Longhorns’ move to the SEC this year. Hartzell is a well-known champion of athletics and always has been. His first published academic paper discussed the Boston Celtics and their finances.
The Texas Longhorns have done well in the pool under his reign. Their women’s swim team has four consecutive top-three finishes at the NCAA Championships. The men had a rare off-year in 2023-24, finding themselves out of the top five. They finished in the top three the other three years of Hartzell’s presidency.
Hartzell took the helm at Texas during a pivotal time for college athletics which has seen a lot of change in the last four years with the introduction of NIL.
Many school presidents are having to reevaluate and readjust how they run things. In an interview with Yahoo last month, Hartzell discussed the impacts of revenue-sharing on college athletics. He described the fact that smaller schools are going to struggle in this new era.
“At the end of the day, you’re going to have a lot of them that are going to find themselves having to subsidize athletics even more,” he said. “It’s going to cause another cost pressure on the academic side of the house, where people are going to feel like they’re going to have to find ways to save money on academics to make sure they keep the athletic program where it is.”
Under the new NIL rules, SMU has become a legitimate sports threat after spending almost 40 years struggling due to penalties imposed by the NCAA for paying its football players. Earlier this year, the school accepted an invitation to join the ACC for the 2024-2025 season after competing as a mid-major school in the American Athletic Conference (AAC), for the last 10 years.
SMU’s current president, Gerald Turner, announced in August he would be retiring at the end of the school year after 30 years in the position. In 2016, he was the third highest-paid private school president, raking in $3.3 million. By comparison, Hartzell made $1.3 million in 2022.
While I’m sure the salary factored in, the less stress is a significant part of this. He got a vote of no confidence after the protests of the war in the middle east and police response to those protests last year. With the Texas legislature meeting this year, I’m guessing higher education and free speech issues are coming up again, in addition to the other surprises that pop up when they meet every two years. Presidents used to just worry about funding with the legislature. Now you never know what will come up. Also, it should be noted that the length of his tenure as UT president will be about average. It’s not a job that people stay in for… Read more »
The beginning of the end of the University of Texas swimming program.
Texas should have paid him more.
Jeez, Bowman is really cleaning house!
saw the headline and genuinely giggled out loud for a solid minute before even opening the article
So, what does Mike Bottom say about this?
Bowman to follow ?
Bwahahahaha
Can’t blame a guy for that type of upgrade