Human Development and Family Sciences professor emeritus Karrol Kitt—vibrant, incisive, and perpetually poised to act—can distill her 38 years on campus into a metaphor that would be familiar to students who have taken her personal finance course. There, she talked about "the three-legged stool" approach to saving for retirement (stocks, bonds and cash), and now she says: "If my career were a stool, the three legs would include insurance regulation, student affairs, and education and research. I've had a wonderful career."
For the last 17 years, Kitt fought for and won improvements in transparency and regulation, while acting as a funded consumer representative with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. She spent equally long stretches on governing bodies across the UT Austin campus, from six terms on the Faculty Council to many years overseeing Student Affairs.
A legendary and award-winning teacher, Kitt taught an estimated 20,000 undergraduates, some representing different generations from the same family. Her classes were tough— "If personal finance were easy, we would all be millionaires," she quips—but life-changing.
Richard Hinojosa, who graduated in 2006, says he was profoundly affected by Kitt's academic mentorship. She routinely extended her office hours and even brought students freshly baked bread.
"Dr. Kitt had a unique way of stripping complex intellectual ideas down to a set of teachings that everyone in the class could relate to," he says. "I was a kid from a small town. She taught me to be myself and trust in my instincts, and I am eternally grateful."
To this day, he has her recipe for cinnamon and sugar bread.
