* On the evening of Thursday, April 16, the gala dinner for the inaugural Texas Global Alumni Summit was held at The Westin Josun Seoul. * Participants began arriving at 5:30 p.m. to pick up their pre-registered name badges and joined a reception featuring light finger foods, wine, and water.

* On April 17, plenary sessions—the second day of the inaugural Texas Global Alumni Summit—were held at The Westin Josun Seoul. * An early morning breakfast offered additional opportunities for networking. * The first plenary session, “Dean’s Roundtable: Innovation Across Borders,” brought together Dr. Sonia Feigenbaum and the deans of

* On the evening of April 17, a chimaek (fried chicken and beer) dinner was held at Banpo Hangang Park in Seoul as the closing gathering following the inaugural Texas Global Alumni Summit. * Walking into Sebitseom, beautifully illuminated along the Han River, guests arrived at the after-party reception venue. * Hosted by

The milestone: * Michael and Susan Dell have become UT Austin's first-ever billion-dollar donors, with a new $750 million commitment announced this week. (Fortune) * The gift ranks among the largest philanthropic contributions ever made to a U.S. university. (UT News) What's being built: * Two new flagship

* Several campus construction efforts advanced this spring, with two major projects underway at the Main Building and Tower and at Battle Hall. * The Main Building and Tower restoration is slated for completion in summer 2027. The exterior is currently wrapped in scaffolding, which UT covered with a fabric overlay in

* UT Austin's Moody College of Communication announced in March that it will offer three new minors — digital game industries, advertising, and radio-television-film (RTF) — starting fall 2026, open to all students regardless of major. * Senior Associate Dean Cassandre Giguere Alvarado explained that advertising and RTF are Moody's

* UT Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences is working to weave artificial intelligence more deeply into its academic programs, with new faculty and undergraduate courses set to roll out this fall. * Two newly appointed assistant professors in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences — Dapeng Feng and Fa Li

• Dr. Jongyun Jung, a visiting post-doctoral researcher at UT Jackson School of Geosciences and his colleagues’ discovery of a new dinosaur species, Doolysaurus huhmini was made possible through micro-CT scanning at the University of Texas High-Resolution X-ray Computed Tomography (UTCT) facility. UTCT is a pioneering institution that was the first

* The inaugural Texas Global Alumni Summit “Innovation Across Borders” is accepting sponsorships. * Details about various sponsorship packages spanning individual or in-kind and presenting sponsor can be found on the website: https://cvent.utexas.edu/event/c04122cb-5a82-4397-bd9a-8cd4cc42de68/sponsorship- * Sponsoring the event will provide opportunities to enhance your brand value, connect more

* Students Demand Action brought together roughly 200 members of the UT community at South Mall Tuesday evening for a candlelight vigil honoring those lost and injured in the West Sixth Street shooting — a tragedy that has shaken the university and the broader Austin community. * The names of three lives lost

* Actor Timothée Chalamet sparked controversy in the arts world after comments made during a CNN and Variety Town Hall with Matthew McConaughey (RTF ’93, professor of practice at the Moody College of Communication) at the University of Texas at Austin (UT), where he said “and I don't wanna

Institutional Restructuring * The UT System Board of Regents approved the creation of a new School of Computing, set to open in Fall 2026, consolidating the disciplines of computer science, information, and statistics and data sciences under one roof within the College of Natural Sciences (UT News – School of Computing). * The

* UT researchers are deploying AI-powered digital twins — virtual replicas of real-world systems that use artificial intelligence to update in real time, predict future behavior, and guide high-stakes decisions across energy, medicine, defense, and natural hazards. * Unlike commercial AI that simply finds patterns, UT's scientific AI is trained through