Upon being appointed University President Mark Yudof’s chief of staff in 1997, Tonya Moten Brown said, “Every day will be different and a new challenge.”
So far, her job has certainly lived up to her expectations, especially while coordinating the academic misconduct investigation for the past six months.
Friday afternoon, Yudof added supervision of the athletics department to her list of duties. Brown will help establish a system of institutional oversight to prevent further misconduct.
The duty is the latest in a long history of assignments Yudof has handed Brown. She first met Yudof while he taught one of her classes at the University of Texas-Austin in the mid-1980s.
Brown received her law degree from the Texas-Austin School of Law in 1987 after completing a bachelor’s degree in personnel-labor relations at the University of Pennsylvania.
After graduation, she worked as a trial attorney for two Houston-based law firms for seven years.
Brown then became assistant dean for admissions for the School of Law at Texas-Austin in 1994.
She was hired as Yudof’s chief of staff on Aug. 4, 1997, and earns $105,000 annually.

Craig Gustafson welcomes comments at [email protected].