I want to start this week’s blog by congratulating all of our graduates! Some of our institutions have already had their commencement exercises, and some are still to come. But whether you’re already recovering from the festivities or still waiting on pins and needles for the day you’ve been working towards, I am very proud of you – as I know all your friends and family are.

Congratulations to everyone for making it through another academic year. We won’t see some of you again for a few months, but rest assured, my colleagues and I will be here waiting for you, and working in a variety of ways to assure a bright future for you, and for our institutions.

Given the amount of construction going on throughout the system, your campus is likely to look a little different by the time you get back from summer break. I had an opportunity to visit with the men and women of the Office of Facilities Planning and Construction, who were in Austin this week for a conference. These highly-trained, highly-skilled engineers, architects, designers, and managers are building everything from dorms to museums to medical schools.

At the risk of understatement, we entrust OFPC with a lot of responsibility, and a lot of money. At any given time, the organization has about 50 active projects costing between $3.5 and $4 billion dollars. 

It’s important to note that even as we delve more and more into online education, the physical facilities of our institutions are always going to be very important. And of course, they are more than structures. You might say they are the physical expression of hopes and dreams.

As I told the OFPC group, more times than I can count, during the 37 years I spent in the military, I’d be in some far away outpost and think of my beloved alma mater. The image that invariably popped into my head would be of the UT Tower. The Tower represented home, and the thought of home was a great comfort.

Now, not everything OFPC builds is going to have quite that much emotional resonance. For example, UT Dallas’s new parking structure is very important, but it’s not especially poetic. Except, in its way, it is. UT Dallas is growing fast, both in enrollment and in stature. More and more young men and women are building tremendous futures there. But before they do, they need to park their cars.

I left the OFPC conference feeling prouder than ever that we have so many talented professionals devoting themselves to the UT System. 

I hope every member of our team shares my pride in the men and women wearing the caps and gowns this month. Because while the graduates deserve the acclaim, the fact is we all helped get them across the finish line.

I want to wish you all a great Memorial Day weekend. I hope you’ll take a moment to thank every veteran you know. Believe me, they will appreciate it.

Many thanks, I will write again soon.