DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 27, 2026--
The SW Graduate School of Banking (SWGSB) at SMU Cox has added a new trustee to its board roster of highly respected advisors. Kit Sawers, inaugural CEO of Southern Methodist University’s (SMU) new Dallas Office and a vice president of the university, has joined the SWGSB board as the SMU representative.
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“We are honored to welcome Kit Sawers to our board of trustees. Her experience and perspective will strengthen SWGSB’s leadership and impact within the community banking industry,” said SWGSB President and CEO William T. Chittenden, Ph.D. “We look forward to her counsel as we build on our legacy and continue to elevate the educational experience we provide as the nation’s premier graduate school of banking.”
In her role at SMU’s Dallas Office, Sawers leads SMU’s engagement across the region, bringing together business development, executive and continuing education, research collaborations, and student career pathways.
Sawers most recently served as the president and CEO of Klyde Warren Park, one of the nation’s most successful urban parks, welcoming more than two million visitors annually. She brings deep experience advancing major initiatives that drive impact. Previously, Sawers was chief development officer for the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and founded Fay+Sawers Productions, where she produced major events, including the grand opening of Klyde Warren Park and programming tied to Super Bowl XLV. Earlier in her career, she spent a decade at SMU in leadership roles focused on academic programming and public engagement, including directing the Willis M. Tate Distinguished Lecture Series and the SMU Athletic Forum. A Dallas native, Sawers earned her B.A. from the University of Virginia and her J.D. from SMU Dedman School of Law.
ABOUT THE SW GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BANKING AT SMU COX
Since 1957, the nationally recognized SW Graduate School of Banking at SMU Cox (SWGSB) has educated and empowered community bankers in all positions, regulators, experienced, new, and aspiring bank directors, and other financial services professionals with knowledge and relationships that strengthen careers, organizations, and communities. SWGSB is a nationally recognized leader in banking and commercial lending education, bank management training, and bank director training programs. Learn more at swgsb.org or call 214.768.2991 for more information.
The SW Graduate School of Banking (SWGSB) at SMU Cox has added Kit Sawers, inaugural CEO of SMU's new Dallas Office, as a trustee to its board roster of highly respected advisors.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he is renaming Lake Ontario to be known as “Lake America” in the United States as he escalates his trade war with Canada.
The Republican president signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to update the lake's name in the U.S. geographic naming service. Trump cannot force Canada to follow his preferred naming convention, however.
Trump has been floating the idea of the name change in recent days as the U.S. announced it was imposing 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods over the weekend after talks between the countries broke down. Trump has been needling America’s northern neighbor since he returned to the White House last year, suggesting the ally with whom the U.S. once had warm relations should instead be absorbed as the 51st state.
Canada responded to Trump’s import taxes this week by imposing retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion worth of American goods, including steel, dairy products, appliances and farm equipment.
Trump, who signed the order as he was sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, had a large sign behind him propped on a stand with a map of the Great Lakes. Over Lake Ontario, in big red letters, the map read “Lake America.”
On the other side of the president was another map with the words, “MAKING THE GREAT LAKES EVEN GREATER.”
Trump said as he was signing the order that he'd “notified all of the various people that we have to notify. So, we’ve done everything that you have to do.”
“And this is official, effective immediately,” he added.
But the executive order Trump signed shows that the changes are supposed to be made within 30 days.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected the move, invoking the lake’s Indigenous roots and noting that the name predates both Canadian Confederation and the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
“Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario — then, now and always," he wrote.
Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston dismissed Trump’s move in a social media post, writing: “We’re into some real foolishness now. It’s Lake Ontario, buddy.”
The lake is one of multiple Great Lakes that the U.S. and Canada share borders along.
There is no single international body that determines names of international bodies of water and Trump has wide latitude over how the U.S. government recognizes geographic places and landmarks.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has traded insults with Trump, this week brushed aside the prospect of Trump changing the lake's name as “a lot of rhetoric.”
The name Lake Ontario comes from the Huron Indigenous people’s word “oniatarí:io,” which means “lake of shining waters.” The province of Ontario, founded in 1867, took its name from the lake.
Trump said that while his action was not meant to send any particular geopolitical message, “Canada’s been ripping us off for a long time” on trade and military issues.
“They wanted to be treated like a state and they’re not a state,” the president said. “We just can’t do that anymore.”
“We love the people of Canada,” Trump added. “I don’t think their representatives do, an appropriate job. Maybe they’ll change. I really don’t know. It doesn’t make much difference.”
The move is reminiscent of his move last year to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”
Trump scribbled his name with a Sharpie pen on the executive order, then held it up for the cameras, offering, “And we filed all the necessary papers, documents, everything else.”
He also suggested his push to rename bodies of water may not be finished.
“So, if you think about it, we have a gulf and we have a lake. Now, all we need is an ocean,” Trump said. “So maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific. Maybe we’ll change them.”
Associated Press writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Donald Trump holds up a signed executive order in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
City Councillor Renaldo Agostino looks at the Detroit skyline across the Detroit River Monday, Aug. 24, 2026, in Windsor, Ontario (AP Photo/Mike Householder)
People look out across Lake Ontario from the harbor in Toronto, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026. (Keito Newman/The Canadian Press via AP)
President Donald Trump listens to a question from a reporter in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
