“There is a gunman in the library. Campus is on lockdown.” That was the text that I got yesterday morning from our Dallas recruiter Jill, who was at the University of Texas at Austin. She was there with two other recruiters and a number of individuals from our Houston and Dallas offices, as the entire team was scheduled to participate in on-campus interviews. Obviously, based on the turn of events, the interviews never happened, and we spent the morning communicating instead about news updates and the team’s safety.
The tragedy yesterday at UT Austin highlights, for me, the connection between our community and the campus community. Our company is filled with proud alumni from the schools where we recruit. Our employees have siblings, children, and other loved ones who attend the schools that we visit each season. Our people make a commitment to those schools with their time and effort, through participation in events on campus and hiring and mentoring students in our practice. When something happens on one of our campuses, it affects us very profoundly, whether we are physically present or not. Yesterday’s crisis hit home for many reasons, but most significantly for the way that it reinforced that invaluable sense of community.
— Bridget
