Former UT President
Larry Faulkner
Notes from Evan Smith
"The eyes of Texas, predictably, are upon him. This summer, the president of the University of Texas at Austin, Larry Faulkner, surprised no one by announcing he would soon step down from that lofty post after seven years in which he presided over the mythical 40 acres and shepherded tens of thousands of students from application to diploma. During his tenure, the university raised more than $1.6 billion toward its capital campaign goal, acquired extraordinary works and collections at the newly renovated Harry Ransom Center and the soon to be completed Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, which, upon its opening in February 2006, will be the largest university art museum in the country, reopened the UT tower, initiated a massive strategic planning process in advance of UT's 125th birthday, and saw its football team recapture the magic of its national championship glory years -- if not a national championship itself. Not bad for a chemist, right? Sixty-year-old Faulkner, who was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, earned his undergradutate degree from SMU and his Ph.D. in chemistry from UT. After serving on Harvard's faculty in the early '70s, he took a job at the University of Illinios at Urbana-Champaign, where he remained for 25 years -- first teaching, then heading the chemistry department, then serving as dean of the college of arts and sciences and finally provost. In 1998 he was chosed to succeed Robert Berdahl, his onetime college at U of I, as the 27th president of UT Austin, a job with the biggest constituency this side of Texas governor, and maybe more raw power. When Faulker formally steps aside early next year, we'll still able to call him Mr. President -- he has accepted the enviable job of running the Houston Endowment, a peerless charitable organization -- and he promises he'll still bleed burnt orange. Once a Longhorn, always a Longhorn." - Evan Smith, Texas Monthly Talks, Broadcast 10.13.05
