On an April morning during her senior year at TCU, Cheril Becker-Boustead ’02 was searching — again — for a parking spot. After 20 minutes of circling campus, she finally found a space and sprinted to her ethics class. There, another student offered to sell her a raffle ticket for the opportunity to become the chancellor for a day.

Becker-Boustead shook her head. The speech communication major, then in her late 20s, had two kids in elementary school. She didn’t need one more responsibility. “But you’d get Chancellor Ferrari’s parking spot,” the hopeful vendor told her. “Sold,” Becker-Boustead said, handing over her dollar.

A week later, as the winner of the raffle, she felt the thrill of triumph as she eased her Jeep into Michael Ferrari’s reserved spot. In Sadler Hall, she shook hands with the chancellor, handed him her backpack and watched as he headed off to her first class.

Becker-Boustead sat down at his desk and looked at her schedule for the day. Suddenly she realized what she’d gotten into — she hadn’t just won a parking space. “It turned out to be so much more than that,” she said. “That’s where it got fun.”

C.J. Striebinger ’01 learned what it was like to be in chancellor’s Michael Ferrari’s shoes after winning the Big Switch in 2000. “People are always coming in because he’s like the complaint desk.” Courtesy of TCU Library Special Collections | Linda Kaye

Becker-Boustead was one of about two dozen students who became chancellor for a day through the Big Switch, which ran from the mid-1990s until 2019. The annual event was coordinated by the Student Foundation, whose members have represented TCU at admission, alumni and advancement events.

On the appointed day, the winner would meet the chancellor in his office, or the two would have breakfast together in a campus dining hall. Then they would trade places. The student learned a bit about university administration, and the chancellor sampled life as a TCU student.

Becker-Boustead spent her morning in back-to-back half-hour meetings with five vice chancellors. At lunch, she debriefed Ferrari, who turned over the notes he’d taken in her classes that day.

The experience was more than Becker-Boustead had bargained for when she bought the raffle ticket. But it opened the door to a collegial relationship with the chancellor. During her remaining weeks at TCU, she kept in touch with Ferrari, stopping by his office to visit whenever she was in Sadler Hall. “That was a cool byproduct,” she said.

“The big thing I always learned — and it was a good reminder each time — is all the time pressures on students.”
Chancellor Victor J. Boschini, Jr.

Over the years, the structure of the Big Switch evolved. When it began, during the tenure of William E. “Bill” Tucker ’56 BDiv, the chancellor biked the few blocks to campus and spent a full day attending classes. After Victor J. Boschini, Jr. became chancellor, the switch turned into more of a shadowing experience, with Boschini accompanying the student to class and the student joining him in meetings.

Although the chancellors for a day met with senior TCU leadership, the students weren’t actually making decisions on behalf of the university. The meetings were more of a simulation.

Matt Chisholm ’07, who traded places with Boschini just months into his first year, remembers Don Mills ’72 MDiv, the former vice chancellor for student affairs, presenting him with information as though Chisholm were chancellor. “The meetings were totally staged, but in a really fun, interactive way,” he said.

Mills said he and Tucker chose an actual project on the chancellor’s agenda — streamlining registration, minimizing construction-related disruption or, yes, improving parking — and Mills walked the student through a realistic decision-making process.

Sometimes the student’s feedback influenced TCU policy. Mills said that after the launch of Frog Camp in the mid-1990s, a Big Switch student asked how TCU could expand access to camp. Partly because of that input, TCU eventually made Frog Camp free to all students.

“You know that look on a student’s face that they understand what you’re talking about and get that it’s important? He was giving me that kind of visual feedback,” professor Ralph Carter said after witnessing Chancellor Michael Ferrari during the Big Switch. Courtesy of TCU Library Special Collections | Linda Kaye

It was helpful hearing a typical student’s perspective, Mills said. “When you talk to the president of the student body, they’re a politician, and they want to know, ‘OK, if I say this, how will that affect what other students think?’ ” he said. The winner of the Big Switch raffle was more representative of the average student.

While the student met with administrative leaders, the chancellor went to class. “We’d always let the professors know that the chancellor was going to be in their class so they wouldn’t have a heart attack,” said Mary Nell Kirk, who worked as an assistant to the chancellor from 1991 to 2020.

When Ferrari attended a political science class in Becker-Boustead’s place, Professor Ralph Carter was even more excited than during his typical amped up teaching sessions. The discussion among his 40 students was especially vibrant that day, owing partly to the chancellor’s presence, he said. As for Ferrari, Carter described him as an attentive student.

“You know that look on a student’s face that they understand what you’re talking about and get that it’s important? He was giving me that kind of visual feedback,” Carter said.

Boschini once sat in on — or, more accurately, stood through — a ballet class. Students teased him that he should have tried to dance. But even without participating, he learned a valuable lesson: A ballet student’s schedule is incredibly demanding, with class, plus rehearsal, plus conditioning work in the evenings. The chancellor made a similar observation when he shadowed a student-athlete.

“The big thing I always learned — and it was a good reminder each time — is all the time pressures on students,” he said. The experience helped him stay connected to the day-to-day reality of student life.

The Big Switch stopped during the pandemic, but Boschini said he’d welcome its return. “It was really great for me,” he said, “because I learned a lot about students and our campus experience that I would never have learned sitting in my office.”