![\"Countdown](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/DEP-018-UComm-Commencement-Graphic-FY22_bookish-300x76.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe silver-faceted dome of Gampel Pavilion may mark the home of UConn basketball, but that iconic landmark means a lot more than sports to Kyle Muncy and his daughter, Taylor Muncy.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s where Kyle first walked in his UConn cap and gown, earning his undergraduate degree in communications from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 1992.<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s where he worked, handling public relations for the UConn Men\u2019s Basketball team, for 17 years \u2013 often bringing a very young Taylor with him for weekend games, where she\u2019d be watching a kid\u2019s show on television or coloring or playing, in his office below the arena, as the crowds roared in the stands and the players thundered down the court above.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a long way from her being two or three years old and Coach Calhoun walking in the office while she’s sitting there,\u201d he says. \u201cHe was very focused, and not on the three-year-old sitting in the chair watching TV.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t have cared less, either,\u201d Taylor says with a laugh.<\/p>\n
Gampel Pavilion is where Kyle and his wife watched with pride as their daughter accepted her own undergraduate degree from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences \u2013 hers a double major in human rights and history \u2013 in 2019, crossing that same stage some 27 years after her father and mother, in the same building where they had met while working as students.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had been in that building for hundreds of games, where you couldn’t hear yourself think \u2013 nights where I thought I had the best job in the world, nights where I had the worst job in the world,\u201d Kyle says. \u201cBut being at Taylor’s undergraduate ceremony \u2013 I remember thinking, this is the coolest time that I’ve ever been in this building. I mean, there’s something that hits a little different when you’re a parent and you’re watching your child graduate. And May 9 will probably be pretty close to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He adds, \u201cWhere we’re going to be on May 9, it certainly was not the intent. It’ll just be a really awesome coincidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
On May 9, Kyle and Taylor will again walk through the doors of Gampel, and don their UConn regalia \u2013 both of them, together \u2013 as they each earn their second degrees, this time from the School of Business.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey say the best-laid plans are not planned at all,\u201d Kyle says, \u201cand we didn\u2019t plan it. Not a stitch of it, I promise.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Taylor, a passion for human rights and a strong interest in corporate social responsibility that grew during her time as an undergraduate led her to seek a master of business administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy senior year, I wrote my thesis in human rights on the environmental impacts of fast fashion, and I got really into sustainability and kind of the human rights that go along with that,\u201d she says. \u201cI knew that was what my focus was going to be for my career, and I thought that business would be a good way to make the business case for that and to do that in a corporate world.\u201d<\/p>\n
She enrolled in the School of Business\u2019s full-time general business track MBA program<\/a>, taking five to six courses each semester to complete the program in two years. She was nervous initially, she says, because she\u2019d only worked for a year after graduating and before starting the masters program.<\/p>\n \u201cThat’s not typical for an MBA, usually it’s more mid-career,\u201d she says, \u201cand I felt like a lot of my experiences here at UConn\u2013 whether it was the work experience I had or just the classes, the clubs \u2013were a lot more relevant to what we were talking about in the MBA courses than I would have expected. The MBA program gave me a chance to reflect on that and realize how much I did do while I was here and how much I got out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Taylor knew from the outset that she\u2019d finish her MBA in 2022, but what she didn\u2019t know was that she\u2019d end up graduating alongside her father \u2013 that came as a surprise to their entire family, even him.<\/p>\n \u201cShe had gotten a jump on me in terms of knowing that she was going to go in the program,\u201d says Kyle, who is UConn\u2019s long-serving director of brand partnerships and trademark<\/a> management, overseeing the University\u2019s trademark licensing and branding portfolio and exclusive brand partnerships.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, it was more just on a whim. I literally came in on New Year’s Eve morning of 2019 and said, \u2018Jeez, I\u2019m turning 50 next year, and it’s 2020, and what am I doing with myself?\u2019\u201d he explains. \u201cAnd I said, you know, why don’t I just apply for the program? I applied for it. One of my mentors sent in a letter reference that day. So, showed up in the morning with nothing on my to-do list, and by the afternoon I was like, \u2018I think I’m going to be in grad school.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Kyle](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Muncys_220411a022-300x200.jpg\")