‘He helped us become who we will be in the future.’ Faculty react to President Calhoun’s Retirement

By MACY MAXWELL/Contributor

The reaction to Dr. Kirk Callhoun’s announcement that he is retiring as president at the end of May has been mixed among the faculty and staff. However, all agree that his legacy was the merging of UT Tyler and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler.

Mitzi Harris, Calhoun’s longtime senior executive assistant, had a very emotional reaction to the announcement.

“I cried but after I cried, I was relieved,” Harris said. “I felt joy. I am so excited for him! He has so much to offer.”

Harris has worked with Calhoun for over 20 years, beginning when Calhoun was president of the Health Science Center, a hospital and medical research facility originally not affiliated with the university.  

When UT Tyler and the Health Science Center merged in 2021, Calhoun was named president of the combined institution. He replaced Dr. Michael Tidwell, who previously was UT Tyler president.

Harris said Calhoun is very community minded and civic oriented and believes he will use retirement to accomplish other goals.

He will be free to do more projects to improve healthcare, she said.

Harris said Calhoun’s greatest accomplishment was establishing the medical school.

In January 2023, Gov. Greg Abbott, joined Calhoun and UT System leaders to break ground on the $308 million UT Tyler Medical Education Building, set to open in 2025, as home to the School of Medicine.

“I think he is most happy about that medical school,” Harris said. “He wanted one when he came here 22 years ago.”

She said although many thought a medical school was an impossible task, Calhoun was determined to lay the groundwork for it to eventually happen.

“For it to actually happen during his tenure is a big miracle,” she said.

DEPARTMENT CHAIR

Dean of The College of Arts and Sciences Neil Gray, who has worked at UT Tyler for 29 years, expressed sadness of the president’s retirement.

“From the selfish side of things, I am sad to see him go,” Gray said. “He will be the dad of the new UT Tyler. He helped us become who we will be in the future.”

The dean had nothing but praise for Calhoun.

“He really has been a great president. He is a great and inspiring leader,” he said.

During Calhoun’s tenure as UT Tyler president, the university experienced record enrollment growth, historic philanthropic giving and a major expansion of its nursing program, according to a news release from the university.

FACULTY

Danny Mogle, an adjunct lecturer and adviser to The Patriot Talon student media, said the announcement of Calhoun’s retirement came as a surprise to many. Mogle has only been at UT Tyler less than three years.

“I’ve talked to some colleagues, and some said it caught them by surprise,” Mogle said, “but others said that was the big plan. He was going to oversee this coming together of UT Tyler and the UT Health Center, and once that got done, he was going to retire.”

When talking about the merging of UT Tyler and UTHSCT, Mogle said he could only imagine the challenges Calhoun had to face during the process.

Communications professor Anita Brown, who has taught for seven years at UT Tyler and was a teaching and lab assistant before that, said her reaction to Callhoun’s retirement was mixed. She said she doesn’t know him well, so it wasn’t as an emotional reaction.

“It was somewhat indifferent but also a little disappointing because we just got him,” Brown said.

Brown said in her 11 years here, she’s seen three presidents come and go and is now about to witness the introduction of a fourth.

UT System Board of Regents President Kevin Eltife, a Tyler native, will lead efforts to find Calhoun’s replacement, the university said in a news release.