Leading Forward: Ethan Burris

Champions great teaching and student success 

If you’ve ever wondered who helps shape the academic experience at Texas McCombs — from faculty hiring to curriculum innovation — say hello to Ethan Burris.

Ethan Burris, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at McCombs, oversees the academic engine of the school, supporting both the discovery of new knowledge through research and the way that knowledge is shared in the classroom. Working closely with the faculty across departments, curriculum committees, and academic innovation teams, he focuses on helping faculty members succeed.

Title: Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs  
Works closely with: Faculty across departments, curriculum committees, academic innovation teams, and student support services 
Years at UT: 20.5 
Hometown: Indianapolis, Indiana 
Education: B.A. ’99, Washington University; Ph.D. ’05, Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management
First job: My first job was paperboy for the newspaper, but my first professional job was assistant professor at McCombs. 
 

How do you foster a culture of teaching excellence and support faculty development at McCombs? 

I’m in charge of all the academic operations for McCombs — everything that happens in both the discovery of new knowledge on the research front and the dissemination of that knowledge on the teaching front. A lot of my time is spent on the faculty side: how do we hire new talent, how do we invest in them professionally, and what are the resources they need to conduct their work. Everyone has different experiences inside the classroom, so we think a lot about what resources and professional development opportunities can help coach, mentor, develop, accentuate, and celebrate their successes in teaching. We celebrate teaching excellence through annual teaching awards, which is honestly one of my favorite meetings — getting to brag about all the great things our faculty members do. 

But excellence also comes from enabling faculty to succeed. One major investment is through the Office of Instructional Innovation and programs such as our Teaching Fellows. These are faculty members who volunteer to take on special projects that aim to elevate teaching across the school — everything from rethinking how a core accounting course has been taught for decades to working on ways to strengthen the culture around teaching at McCombs. We also support faculty members who may be struggling in the classroom. The instructional innovation team works closely with them, and on average they’re able to raise course evaluation scores from about a 3.5 to about a 4.1 in a single semester, which is close to the college average. So we really tackle teaching excellence from multiple angles — celebration, professional development, and hands-on support. 

What recent academic innovations or curriculum changes are you most excited about, and why? 
 
A lot of the excitement right now is around AI, and I think about it at three levels. First are brand-new standalone courses that didn’t exist even a year or two ago — classes in generative AI, agentic AI, AI in finance, and strategy-focused AI. These all bubbled up from faculty members who saw that students needed this content to be prepared for the workforce. Second is how AI is being integrated across all classes, not just AI-focused ones. Whether it’s accounting, marketing, or management, faculty members are rethinking pedagogy, assignments, and classroom activities to reflect the reality that students will be using this technology as soon as they graduate. Finally, at the program level, departments are stepping back to look at entire degree requirements. They’re talking to recruiters, alumni, and hiring managers to identify skill gaps and then adjusting core requirements and electives to meet those needs. That kind of systematic alignment between curriculum and careers is incredibly exciting. 

Can you describe your approach to supporting student well-being and engagement? 

Supporting student well-being really starts with investing in great people. The staff members who interact with students every day — academic advisers, career advisers, peer advisers, and care counselors — are absolutely critical. We’ve worked to increase staffing and resources in these areas so students can get support when they need it. Our care counselors play a vital role, and early on we negotiated additional resources to expand that support. We’ve also focused on giving staff members the infrastructure and tools they need to care for students at scale. The classroom is the other main point of contact students have with McCombs, so faculty members are on the front lines as well. Through professional development and Faculty Friday sessions, we help the faculty create environments where students are engaged, learning, and comfortable raising concerns when something isn’t right. At its core, student support is about strong advising, strong care systems, and classrooms where students feel seen and supported. 

• Hidden campus gem: Texas EXpresso in the Etter-Harbin Alumni Center (Texas Exes) has a few tables in the back, right on Waller Creek.  

• Favorite Austin hangout: Epicerie is an all-day café and mom-and-pop grocery shop I can walk to from our house in the Rosedale neighborhood. It has the best beignets. 

• Burnt orange gear:  My “alright alright alright” burnt orange hat