It's been a while since you've heard from me, but the news I have today is rather newsworthy. As you will see from this morning's official press release HERE, we've got a rather big change headed our way. Six weeks from now, Paige will transition from being Dean of the School of Business at Trinity to being Dean of the School of Business at the University of Kansas, and I will be joining her there.
Our time at Trinity has been well spent and I have really enjoyed working with TU students and Accounting faculty. However, we are excited about pursuing this new opportunity. I will be returning to life as a regular (i.e., non-administrative) senior faculty member and Paige will be responsible for making a strong business school even stronger.
For those of you who are not familiar with KU, here are some fun facts:
- It is one of only 34 public universities to be a member of the Association of American Universities (which basically is the top pedigree that a research institution can have).
- Lawrence is very much a college town, and fewer people live in Lawrence than live in College Station. Both of these things make me exceptionally happy.
- Although Lawrence is in Kansas, it might not be what you think of when you think of Kansas. I'm looking forward to a bit of fall color on campus.
- James Naismith, inventor of the game of basketball circa 1891, was the founder of KU's basketball program.
- The "Rock Chalk" of the "Rock Chalk, Jayhawk, KU" cheer comes from a transposition of chalk rock, which is the name of the limestone outcropping found on Mount Oread, site of the KU campus.
- The School of Business is housed in the fabulous new Capitol Federal Hall. This may or may not qualify as a fun fact to you, but it's nice -- as husband of the new Dean -- to know that fundraising for facilities is not going to be necessary!
And with that, I will close. The next few weeks are going to be completely ridiculous as we try to get our house packed up and begin our move north. We technically start at KU on July 1, but I will be working from San Antonio for at least part of July, tying up all manner of loose ends, and helping Hunter and Hadley move into their new places in San Antonio and College Station. Reagan is settled in Austin (working as a junior software engineer for Epicom and loving it) and Hollis obviously will be coming with us. He's adjusting pretty well for now and we hope and pray that his experience starting high school in a new city will be as positive as Hadley's was.
Once we're settled, I'll send another update. Lawrence is only 40 minutes from Kansas City, so we hope you'll stop by if you're in the area.
Rock Chalk,
Mike
