Editor's Note: The following interview was conducted and published prior to President Jay Hartzell's announcement that Mersey would serve as Interim Executive Vice President and Provost, and that Dr. Anita Vangelisti would become Interim Dean of Moody College. 

In Focus: Mersey opens up about Moody College, the current campus environment, building Moody’s future and even getting recognized around Austin.

By Logan Dubel, Editor-in-Chief

When I first reached out to then-interim Dean Rachel Davis Mersey in July 2023 for an interview, I wasn’t sure if she’d agree to a profile a mere month into what was supposed to be a temporary  appointment. To my delight – as the new editor for a student publication aiming to produce its first-ever  summer print issue – she said yes. In that  conversation, we talked about everything from growing up as a military brat to her career in media and academia and her love of InStyle magazine.  

But when I asked whether she had interest in filling the role of dean permanently, she didn’t jump to say,  “absolutely.” Fresh off her leave of absence from UT to work at Meta, where she spearheaded research partnerships with fellow academics, Mersey said she wanted to be a good steward for the college. She wanted the Forty Acres’ history books to reflect the accomplishments of students and faculty during her tenure, without her name draped in a Texas-sized banner over the Moody Bridge.   

Then, in January, the Board of Regents announced her as Moody’s seventh dean. 

“Two things really changed. The first is someone asked me to apply and when the institution asks you to apply for a role, it causes you to slow down and think about your position and how you can be  helpful. Being asked was a big part of the puzzle,” Mersey said. “But honestly, being asked only gave me a moment to slow down and think about my own situation. I lost my dad about two years ago at this time, and when asked to be interim, I was still going through a lot of personal feelings of loss. By the time we started talking about the permanent role, I started to see my life on the other side.    

“I came to a moment where I realized I didn’t have to do the job as I saw other people do the job. If the institution asked me to serve and made me an offer, I would have the freedom to do the job in the best way that I thought for Moody. So, I applied just like  everyone else.

“I think it (the process) prepared me for what the six months have been since, and what the years ahead will look like.”   Those months included the implementation of SB 17, the Texas bill banning diversity, equity and  inclusion programs and offices at public institutions including UT, and tense protests over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.   

“This is a time to take care of a community and take care of one another. It’s a time to have transparent conversations and be willing to be challenged,” she said. “I believe deeply in hearing the things that someone needs to say even if it stings.   “You get on the other side of it and think the fall’s just going to be roses and tulips, and the reality is, the war between Hamas and Israel is still going on. There’s a hotly contested election happening in this country. So, I think a lot about what is the care that our community needs right now. I leaned into that as an interim, and I hope I’ve continued to do that as a permanent dean, and I think you’ll see more of that as we move forward.”   

As students arrive back in Austin for a new year, as much as Mersey wants them to stay in the know about the world around them, she said she’s more concerned about students’ health than headlines.   

“Think about how to care for yourself in these  challenging times,” she said. “That advice is different for everyone. Some people need a walk, some  people need a Slurpee, some people need a  punching bag, some people need to go for a swim, some people need to read a book and some people need to go out with their friends. That self-care is  something that can be hard when you’re in college because there’s so much pulling at your time.  

“As much as I want to say please read the  newspaper, at the end of the day, (you need to care for yourself because) that’s the thing that’s going to help you get from one day to the other.”  

Mersey’s commitment to that caring means  being visible, and not just for the tough moments. Her @texasmoodydean Instagram account is  covered with pictures of her enjoying doughnuts with students, sporting her newest burnt orange sneakers along with trendy content from other Moody faculty. Mersey introduces herself in all introductory COM 301 classes, and said it’s not a performative gesture, but vital to her role.   

“It’s helpful for students to just be like, ‘Oh, that’s the lady.’ It changes the interactions when you pass someone on the street,” she said. “I can’t tell you how it’s (the job) changed dining for me in Austin. I was in line at Central Market the other day and someone was like, ‘Are you the dean?’ The number of times I’ve gone through the drive-thru at Chick-fil-A and someone has said, ‘Are you the dean?’   

“It changes the nature of the interaction and not every one of those interactions ends with ‘I love your sneakers.’ Sometimes it’s ‘I’m having a problem with something.’ Typically I’m not usually the direct  person to solve it, but I can help them find the  person… I think it has mattered to what Moody is today, and I hope that model at least gets talked about on campus in a positive way.”   

It’s these interactions that Mersey credits with  driving her passion for key initiatives, including increasing sports media opportunities for students at the dawn of UT’s arrival in the SEC, incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) in the  classroom and connecting students with all Austin has to offer.   

The university’s commitment as a whole to  addressing AI is definitive, with President Jay Hartzell posing alongside signs dubbing UT “the  epicenter of AI excellence” in metro stations throughout the nation’s capital. Mersey said AI’s presence at Moody could be set in stone, quite  literally.   

“We’re looking at the beginning of discussing a  massive renovation for the CMB complex focused on (AI),” she said. “I’ve been working quite a bit with Texas Immersive, which uses AI a lot in their storytelling, on starting to say, how can our buildings really look like Moody buildings? How can you walk into these  buildings and know this as a College of  Communication? We’re talking now about some course projects that could potentially animate our spaces, and might use AI to show that these are places where technology is happening, where media is happening and where content creation is  happening.   

Although AI took the world by storm in 2022 with ChatGPT, Mersey said at Moody, it wasn’t new.   

“In Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, but also in some of our other departments where they work with large language models, they’ve been working in that space for a long time. The more students that we can get interested in research that sets them up for maybe a graduate school path or a research path is also exciting to me,” she said. “One thing I never want to lose track of as the dean is the fact that we have tons of students who moved into the content creation or media side of the business, but we also have a really important track in  research, and that’s a place where AI has been a part of the industry for a lot longer.”    

UT’s impact and reach undoubtedly spans far and wide, and for Mersey, whether it’s in AI or animation, she said she most looks forward to the day when she sees Moody students she knows changing the world.   

“I’m most interested in the diversity of voices that they’re (this generation) going to bring to this field, whether you’re going to become a speech language pathologist that sees patients or you go work for the NBC affiliate in Phoenix, Arizona,” Mersey said. “I am really interested in the storytelling approach, because the voice that people bring in storytelling is changed.  

Mersey now serves as Interim Executive Vice President and Provost of UT. In this role, she is UT's chief academic officer. Stay tuned for updates in the coming months regarding leadership inside the Tower, as well as here at Moody.