The job abandoned by Jay Hartzell last week requires withstanding pressure from the highest offices in the state and criticism from the student body. I say: Bring it on. <br> Dan Solomon writes about politics, music, food, sports, criminal justice, health care, film, and business. <br>Just a week into the new year, University of Texas president Jay Hartzell tendered his resignation, announcing that he’d accepted the same position at Southern Methodist University, a few hundred miles up the road in Dallas. It was the sort of move that one struggles to claim as “lateral.” UT is one of the largest public universities in the nation, with four and a half times as many students as SMU, and an endowment nearly ten times as large as the private research university in Highland Park. <br>In an interview with the <em>Dallas Morning News</em>, Hartzell explained how SMU’s recruiting process won him over. “They painted this idea of a university that is going places and has aspirations to be truly one of the great private universities in the country,” <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2025/01/07/exclusive-interview-why-did-jay-hartzell-leave-ut-job-to-become-smu-president/" target="_blank">he told the paper</a>. “That’s an exciting thing.” Sure! That sounds like it might be exciting. He mentioned the school’s research focus, its newly-competitive football team, as well as its base of passionate alumni, by way of explaining SMU’s appeal. But citing those assets raises a particular question: um, doesn’t UT have all that stuff too? <br>It’s not hard to guess why Hartzell might have wanted out at UT. In the interview, he dodges with great diplomacy a question about whether political interference from the state’s leaders—who in 2023 banned DEI offices at<a href="https://compliance.utexas.edu/sb17" target="_blank"> state universities,</a> and could find creative new ways to get involved in the current session—got him thinking about updating his resume. “I think there’s always tension since I’ve ever been paying attention,” he insisted, noting that former president William Powers, who served from 2006-2015, had a troubled end to his tenure. (Powers resigned to avoid being fired amid pressure from Rick Perry.) This was Hartzell’s counterpoint to claims that the politics of leading UT have never been worse: actually, they’ve always sucked. And though Hartzell hasn’t commented on it directly, his departure comes after months of pro-Palestine student protests on his front lawn.<br>Whether it’s uniquely bad now, or if Hartzell is just the latest bump along a road paved with the good intentions of Powers, Greg Fenves, and other used university presidents, one thing is clear: Someone is going to have to be the President of the University of Texas. <br>That person will have to navigate both choppy political waters and the ire of students who found Hartzell’s leadership to be contrary to the values they sought to see represented at their school. During Hartzell’s tenure, the university <a href="https://www.kut.org/education/2024-04-02/ut-austin-dei-diversity-law-sb-17" target="_blank">fired dozens of employees</a> for having been previously involved in the school’s DEI initiatives, and eliminated the <a href="https://catalog.utexas.edu/archive/2020-21/general-information/student-services/division-of-diversity-and-community-engagement/" target="_blank">Division of Campus and Community Engagement</a> and <a href="https://thedailytexan.com/2024/01/18/multicultural-engagement-center-closes-because-of-senate-bill-17/" target="_blank">Multicultural Engagement Center</a>—all <a href="https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/state/2024/04/02/texas-senate-bill-17-anti-dei-ut-fires-four-staff-related-positions-two-sources-confirm/73179902007/" target="_blank">in response</a> (or over-response) to <a href="https://thedailytexan.com/2024/04/02/university-to-close-division-of-campus-and-community-engagement/" target="_blank">state law</a>. It also called for the <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/30/ut-austin-protest-arrests/" target="_blank">deployment of militarized police against </a>students protesting the war in Gaza, which was accommodated by the state and praised by Governor Abbott, but not especially popular among the student body. It’s a tough job! Lean in one direction, and Greg Abbott could well be breathing down your neck and <a href="https://x.com/gregabbott_tx/status/1878977524568674730?s=46&t=vI0p9Bboeo-Y2wsD-TVbbQ" target="_blank">threatening to have you fired</a>; lean in the other, and students are likely to <a href="https://x.com/stop_sweeps_atx/status/1785488157535879380" target="_blank">post up on your lawn shouting “shame!”</a> for all the neighbors to see. Who would want a job that virtually guarantees that you’ll face the ire of either some of the state’s most powerful individuals or the very students you’re ostensibly there to serve? <br>Fortunately, I have an answer to that question: Me! I’ll do it.<br><br>You may be asking yourself, “What qualifications does this guy have to run the tenth-largest university in the country, with an endowment of nearly $20 billion?” I must acknowledge that I have virtually none. But I would argue that’s an asset. As Hartzell’s move to SMU makes clear, the headaches associated with running a public university are such that pretty much anyone who’s qualified to do the job would rather hop to a small school with more easygoing politics.<br>Sure, it’s possible that there’s an array of ambitious middle-managers with higher ed experience who think they’re up for the job, or perhaps an out-of-state administrator who sees the complicated position of UT President as her ticket out of running the local community college in East Dogfood, Indiana. But there are only two possible outcomes for those candidates: Either they attempt to navigate this untenable dynamic and then crash and burn, bringing ruin to what was once a promising career in academia; or they simply grab the next parachute out of Austin, using their tenure as a resume-boost so they can give an interview to the daily paper in Seguin that they always saw themselves at Texas Lutheran in two years. Why would either kind of careerist striver be better suited to the task than I am? <br>Here are my qualifications: I’m good at ignoring what young people are doing (just try to ask me what my nephews are into!), which will help me avoid the pitfalls of my predecessor. I’ve worked a large variety of jobs in a number of fields, which has taught me how to labor under a swathe of capricious individuals, fevered egos, and imperious personalities—a skill that would be invaluable in navigating the university under the watchful eye of Texas’s leaders. I’m a journalist, which means I’m used to people being mad at me, so no problem there. Furthermore, I just googled “what does a university president do?” and <a href="https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/what-does-a-college-president-do" target="_blank">the first link</a> was to a story from <em>U.S. News and World Report</em> that started off by explaining why it’s a bad job, and then went on to say that the “typical responsibilities include fundraising for the school, ensuring the budget is balanced and being the outward facing leader, voice and representative of the institution,” none of which frankly seems that hard. <br><br>As for why I would <em>want</em> a job that everyone seems to agree stinks, there’s a simple answer: <a href="https://www.utsystem.edu/sites/default/files/documents/report-state/2023/salary-supplementation-reports-fy-2024/fy-2024-salary-supplementation-reports-combined.pdf" target="_blank">According to state financial records</a>, Jay Hartzell was paid $1,432,730 in 2024. I would very much like to make $1,432,730 dollars in a year, and I can accept that doing so requires balancing two wildly different sets of interests without alienating either side so thoroughly that my neighbors can’t sleep or that Greg Abbott is calling for my head on X, formerly Twitter. I’ve had to manage similar dynamics to keep my job at a pizzeria. I can definitely do it for $1,432,730. Honestly, you can pay me <em>half</em> that amount and I’ll still be able to pull it off for a year or two—at which point, who knows, maybe the dynamics have changed and the job won’t be quite as depressing to an actual qualified candidate? In a state that values fiscal responsibility above all else, I’m prepared to walk the walk. 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