{"id":417037,"date":"2026-08-26T08:20:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T08:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/417037\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T08:20:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T08:20:24","slug":"ut-austins-new-vice-president-for-student-experience-has-extensive-dei-background","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/417037\/","title":{"rendered":"UT-Austin\u2019s New Vice President for Student Experience Has Extensive DEI Background"},"content":{"rendered":"

The University of Texas at Austin recently promoted a staff member with an extensive history of left-wing scholarship to a newly created \u201ccabinet level\u201d position.<\/p>\n

University President Jim Davis<\/a> announced that Miguel Wasielewski<\/a> would serve as the first \u201cVice President for Student Experience\u201d on June 1<\/a>. This new position will oversee several functions related to student affairs and \u201cenrollment management.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davis appears to have promoted Wasielewski without a search firm, committee, or competitive search.<\/p>\n

On June 10, Texas Scorecard submitted an open records request for \u201c[D]ocuments relating to a search firm or committee related to the hire for a Vice President for Texas Student Experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

On June 24, UT-Austin replied that there were no records responsive to this request.<\/p>\n

Wasielewski\u2019s PhD. dissertation,<\/a> \u201cA Study of the Non-Academic Factors Influencing Four-Year Degree Completion among African Americans and Latinos at a Public Research University,\u201d contains a series of racially inflammatory assertions. Examples include:<\/p>\n

\u201cClassroom discrimination complicates interaction with faculty and peers for ethnically diverse students.\u201d (p. 36)
\n\u201c[P]olicies that favor awarding merit-based aid instead of need-based aid can impact the economic and racial diversity of a student body. For instance, schools that choose to allocate discretionary funding to National Merit scholars (high academic achievers) rather than the financially needy Pell grant population will experience a reduction in socioeconomic diversity.\u201d (p. 39)
\n\u201cIt is imperative for students to be prepared to navigate a diverse campus, especially when the campus has some degree of racial\/ethnic hostility.\u201d (p. 42)<\/p>\n

In 2014, Wasielewski co-authored an article<\/a>, \u201cA Hole in the Soul of Austin: Black Faculty Community Engagement Experiences in a Creative Class City,\u201d that bemoans a \u201cdearth of Black-centered activities\u201d in Austin.<\/p>\n

Wasielewski has also served on a steering committee<\/a> to guide the university\u2019s efforts as a \u201cHispanic Serving Institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wasielewski\u2019s appointment comes as student affairs positions have come under scrutiny for attempts to repackage left-wing content using new phraseology.<\/p>\n

A recent Texas Scorecard investigation<\/a> into the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) conference highlighted a series of less politically charged terms that expressed similar goals to DEI.<\/p>\n

UT-Austin is a component<\/a> of the University of Texas System. The UT System is overseen by a Board of Regents<\/a> that is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Texas Senate. Kevin Eltife<\/a> of Tyler is the current board chairman.<\/p>\n

If you are a student, parent, faculty member, or concerned citizen who would like to partner with us to promote transparency in taxpayer-subsidized higher education, please email scorecardtips@protonmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\n Adam Cahn is a journalist with Texas Scorecard. A longtime political blogger, Adam is passionate about shedding light on taxpayer-subsidized higher education institutions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The University of Texas at Austin recently promoted a staff member with an extensive history of left-wing scholarship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,16658,289],"class_list":["post-417037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-dei","tag-higher-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}