In first full day leading UT-Austin, Jim Davis replaces chief academic officer

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Jim Davis, the new interim president of The University of Texas at Austin, wasted no time making his mark on the Forty Acres.

One day after University of Texas System Chancellor James Milliken tapped him to lead the state’s top research university, Davis replaced the school’s chief academic officer.

Davis on Thursday named David Vanden Bout, who had been dean of the College of Natural Sciences, interim provost. The move came just weeks after former President Jay Hartzell named Rachel Davis Mersey provost.

“During more than 27 years at UT Austin, David has earned the trust of our faculty and deans,” Davis said in a statement. “His academic leadership and deep experience on the frontier of science greatly enhances our broad teaching and research mission.”

Hartzell had named Davis Mersey as provost in early January, just one day before he announced he would be leaving UT-Austin at the end of the academic year to become president of Southern Methodist University, a private research university in Dallas.

On Wednesday, Milliken named Davis as the university’s interim president, ending Hartzell’s tenure a few months early. Davis had been the UT-Austin’s chief operating officer. The university did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.

The swift change in the UT provost’s office caught faculty by surprise, adding to an already anxious mood on campus amid the sudden leadership changes, an ongoing legislative session and mounting uncertainty as the Trump administration slashes research funding and issued guidance telling colleges to end race-conscious programming or risk losing federal funding.

“You’re taking your top leadership and putting it in a snow globe and shaking it,” said Michael Harris, an expert on higher education leadership at Southern Methodist University.

Harris said the whiplash leadership changes in the UT Tower could foreshadow the type of interim president Davis might be.

“I would say it is pretty unusual as your first day as interim to replace the provost, especially one who has been in the role a short period of time,” he said.

Mersey Davis, who had been dean of the Moody College of Communication, was named interim provost by Hartzell in late August after former provost Sharon Wood returned to the faculty. Mersey Davis previously worked as director of global research and partnerships at Meta.

The UT Board of Regents has not said whether it will conduct a national search for a permanent president.

Karma Chavez, a UT-Austin professor and member of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors, said the rapid-fire appointments to these vital roles on campus are disconcerting for a research university.

“People really want to get some assurances that we’re going to go through a normal hiring process for a full-time president and that person will go through a normal hiring process for a new provost,” she said. “Instability of this sort is never a good thing.”

Jim Davis has been a fixture in the university since 2018 when former UT-Austin President Greg Fenves hired him as vice president of legal affairs. Hartzell promoted Davis to senior vice president and chief operating officer in 2023, expanding Davis’ authority in the president’s office. Prior to joining the university, Davis worked as a deputy attorney general for civil litigation under Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for nearly four years.

Chavez said she hopes Davis will be a strong and decisive leader. But she said some faculty are worried about Davis’ lack of academic experience.

“I think faculty are also quite concerned about the appointment of someone who is not academic and has no classroom experiences,” Chavez said.

Harris, who studies higher education leadership, said interim leaders often fall into two roles: a caretaker who is tasked with keeping the trains running while the university does a national search or an interim who has been given an agenda to clean up an issue on campus before a new president can start with a clean state.

“Is this a sign of things to come in that he's been given a charge to do something and this is the proverbial first shoe to drop?” Harris said.

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

Disclosure: Moody College of Communication | The University of Texas at Austin, Southern Methodist University, University of Texas at Austin and University of Texas System have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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