Dear Friends and Colleagues,
In the past few months, I’ve been touring cities across our Lone Star State to visit with our Advisory Council members, alumni and supporters of the college. We’ve been celebrating our dear colleague Executive Director and Assistant Dean for Development Sondra Lomax as she nears her retirement later this summer.
At each of these meetings, we’ve been sharing achievements from this past year and looking at aspirations for the year ahead. We’ve had engaging conversations about the deep value of a creative education in this new economy because creativity is such a foundational and sought after skill in the current job market.
We’ve also talked about how our college is still a major producer and incubator of talent in this generation of artists, creatives and scholars. Alumna Kimberly Belflower’s (B.F.A., Theatre, 2017) play John Proctor is the Villain was nominated for seven Tony Awards this season. Studio Art Assistant Professor of Practice Eli Durst was named a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow. And our faculty members have collected multiple competitive teaching awards this year: Theatre Professor Megan Alrutz was inducted into the UT Austin Academy of Distinguished Teachers, Longhorn Band Director Cliff Croomes received the 2025 Dads’ Association Centennial Teaching Fellowship, and Ethnomusicology Professor Robin Moore received our college’s Distinguished Teaching Award. We have three faculty members — Arts and Entertainment Technologies (AET) Chair Michael Baker, AET Associate Professor of Practice Jesse Contour and Design Associate Professor of Practice Gray Garmon — currently in Norway after being selected to lead a student team for the President’s Award for Global Learning.
We experienced the warm embrace of everyone on our travels and there’s real pride and enthusiasm for the good work of our faculty, alumni and students.
Sincerely,
