Dear Fine Arts Colleagues,
We write to share an important update on how scholarships will be managed in the College of Fine Arts. In an effort to streamline our processes and procedures and create a better experience for our students, we are appointing James Tolleson to oversee scholarships administration in the College of Fine Arts. To reflect these new duties, his title will change to Director of Admissions and Scholarships.
We’ve asked James to lead the development of a cohesive strategy that aligns scholarship administration more closely with recruitment efforts and prioritizes student impact. He will work closely with departments and units and provide proactive guidance on our scholarship strategy. This new approach will help us recruit and support talented students with high potential so that they are more likely to join our community and thrive once they are here.
Under James’ leadership, we’ll work to redesign the college’s varied procedures for scholarship financials, award administration, recipient selection, scholarship processing and endowment compliance. These processes have developed within relative silos across the college; thankfully, we now have an opportunity to utilize LASSO (Longhorn Awards & Student Scholarship Opportunities), a new campus-wide scholarship management system, to support the design of a more cohesive, efficient and strategic approach. The new system enables administrators to improve their stewardship of funds and offers a centralized process for posting, tracking and awarding scholarships that integrates with other university systems.
Finally, we want to thank the numerous faculty and staff who contribute to the awarding, administration and stewardship of scholarships. While it’s a privilege to impact students in this way, it is a lot of work! We’re excited for James to provide leadership to these efforts and support for those of you who contribute significantly to it. Please join us in congratulating and welcoming James to this new role.
