Video Transcript: Dean Hart Welcome


My name is Rod Hart and I'm Dean of the College of Communication at The University of Texas.  
One of the special delights of this job is the ability to meet with students on a fairly regular 
basis and find out what's on their mind.  A  teacher who doesn't ask questions and listen to the 
answers isn't much of a teacher and so one of my jobs that I take very seriously is the idea of 
staying in touch with the kids on our classes and the kinds of questions and hopes and dreams 
they have as well.  
	
You know the college has always been built around the various kinds of platforms of communication 
in an area of media convergence. These media are crossing and mingling in new and interesting ways.  
We gotta make sure that our students are able to be agile enough to be able to tell those stories 
in whatever the venue happens to be at the time.  If the student doesn't have something important 
to say, there's no amount of fancy footwork or electronic wizardry that are going to change that.  
So, we gotta make sure as a college and as a university that our students have the kind of in 
depth and profound education that when they leave here, not only will they know how to say things 
but they'll have something that is of great personal moment, great philosophical depth, great 
moral value, and so in some senses the great challenge of our college is to make sure that our 
students leave here as university students more than anything else. 

One of the neatest part of being dean of this college is teaching young people who don't see  
limits as built into their lives, that they have the capacity to stretch themselves, that they 
weren't  finished when they were started.  So I think this college and the possibilities  of 
communication in the future just sits particularly well in the state of Texas where limits have 
never been acknowledged and where possibilities have always been cherished.