Vice Chancellor of Government Affairs Larry Lauer announced he is leaving that position, but he does not plan on moving to a beach house anytime soon.
Lauer will step down as vice chancellor of government affairs on Aug. 31. After working at TCU for 46 years, he has decided to return to his true passion of teaching and writing by serving as a senior fellow in the John V. Roach Honors College and the Schieffer School of Journalism.
“I’m not the kind to retire completely, so we started looking for a post-retirement way for me to retire on the one hand, but not fully retire on the other,” he said.
Lauer said he still wants to be a resource for the school after years of impacting the university in various ways.
“It will be very flexible. I’ll teach from time to time, I will continue to work with Bob Schieffer on our projects in Washington. Essentially, I will do whatever John Lumpkin and the faculty asks me to do,” Lauer said.
Lauer contributed to the development of the arched TCU logo, the mission statement and the Commission on the Future of TCU, said Tracy Syler-Jones, who took over the vice chancellor of marketing and communication position from Lauer about five years ago.
“It’s not just the visual things that you see that will remind you of Larry’s work, but also the behind the scenes,” she said.
As vice chancellor of government affairs, Lauer travels to Washington about once a month to represent TCU and discuss legislative affairs that impact major national universities like TCU. One of the more important legislative issues Lauer faces is financial aid and the Texas Equalization Grant. In the past, TCU had at least 1,300 students receiving some of that money, Lauer said.
Lauer worked alongside the late Phil Record, a colleague of Schieffer’s at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, to name the journalism school after Schieffer.
“I can’t imagine a single person anywhere in journalism that should rather have his name on our school. He represents our history book of broadcast news,” Lauer said.
When Lauer taught a class in the Honor’s College last fall, Schieffer came and spoke to his students.
“It’s cool because he is a TCU alumni and he came after he moderated the presidential debate. So we got to hear his thoughts on that,” said Lauren Blassberg, a senior finance major.
Senior biology major Addison White said he enjoyed how passionate Lauer is about marketing and communications.
“Some of the things he has done outside of the university, like in Washington, is inspiring, and that passion kind of inspired us as students to be passionate about the things we learned in class,” White said.
In addition to teaching, Lauer plans to continue writing his weekly blog.
“The next step is exciting for him, he gets to go back and teach his students. I think it’s fantastic that he keeps getting to do what he loves to do,” Syler-Jones said.
Lauer hopes to introduce some of the people he has met over the years in Washington to the Honors College students to discuss a number of issues facing the nation today.
“I’m really looking forward to it. There is a lot of freedom associated with it. I still have some energy in my health and not ready to quit completely, but ready to retire the responsibility of a Vice Chancellor,” Lauer said.