President of UT Austin to Take the Reins at SMU
Jay Hartzell, the president of The University of Texas at Austin, will leave the state’s flagship public institution to become the 11th president of Southern Methodist University.
SMU’s Board of Trustees unanimously voted on Tuesday to name Hartzell SMU’s next president. He will begin in his new role on June 1.
“I will share with you that Jay didn’t apply for this job,” said David B. Miller, an SMU alum who chairs the Board of Trustees and serves as co-chair of the Presidential Search Committee. “We sought him out, and then very aggressively recruited him because of our very strong belief that he is the right person to direct and guide the institution to the next level.”
Hartzell has been a UT Austin faculty member since 2001, and was named the university’s 30th president in Sept. 2020.
Under Hartzell’s leadership, UT Austin has enrolled the largest and most diverse student body in its history and set all-time highs for graduation rates. In 2022, Hartzell launched Change Starts Here, a 10-year strategic plan which aims to make UT Austin the world’s highest-impact public research university. He also launched a capital campaign that is tied for the largest ever undertaken by a public university.
Before becoming president of UT Austin, Hartzell served as the dean of the McCombs School of Business.
During a press conference announcing his leadership of SMU, Hartzell listed several reasons for his decision to move to the much smaller, private university. First, he cited SMU’s “ascendancy.”
“This university is going great places. That’s known by many, certainly recognized by me,” Hartzell said.
Second, Hartzell credited the “incredible support” for SMU.
Third, he said that SMU’s location in Dallas creates opportunity for faculty and students.
“I think you’ve seen a lot of really big moves made by private universities in great cities,” he said. “And SMU is on that journey, and I am thrilled at the chance to see what I can do to help accelerate that trajectory further.”
Hartzell faced criticism at UT Austin last spring due to his use of law enforcement officers to disperse pro-Palestinian protestors, and his decision to shutter the Division of Campus and Community Engagement after the passage of SB 17, which prohibited public university DEI offices. An April 2024 letter signed by more than 650 faculty members stated that “(w)e, faculty members at the University of Texas at Austin, no longer have confidence in President Jay Hartzell.” A video on X showed protestors chanting loudly outside of Hartzell’s home and demanding that he resign.
At SMU, Hartzell replaces R. Gerald Turner, who made the decision in August to step down after 30 years as president.
The SMU Board of Trustees partnered with Isaacson, Miller, a firm specializing in higher education leadership, to conduct a national search for the University’s next president. SMU’s 15-member search committee included representatives from across the campus community and was guided by input from students, faculty, staff, alumni, and supporters.
