New Dimensions: The Campaign for UT Dallas will support student scholarships, research, the arts and more.

The University of Texas at Dallas has publicly announced a $750 million comprehensive fundraising campaign that promises to have a transformative effect on students and programs across the University.

New Dimensions: The Campaign for UT Dallas is the second major fundraising campaign in UT Dallas’ history. Its launch signals the beginning of a concerted effort to expand financial support for students, generate new funding for groundbreaking research and expand the presence of the arts on campus.

“Excellence is embedded at UT Dallas,” said Dr. Richard C. Benson, UT Dallas president and the Eugene McDermott Distinguished University Chair of Leadership. “With the success of the New Dimensions campaign, our University will be strategically poised for the next 50 years and beyond.”

The campaign announcement came with more than $250 million already raised during a silent phase, which began in 2017 with a final $25 million gift from the late Margaret McDermott, UT Dallas’ farsighted principal benefactor and the wife of one of the University’s founders.

During the campaign’s virtual launch, Mary McDermott Cook, daughter of Eugene and Margaret McDermott, reflected on the progress that UT Dallas has made over its first 50 years and the critical contributions that philanthropy has played in the University’s development.

“When my mother gave the endowment for the [Eugene] McDermott Scholars in 2000, this was not the place it is today,” Cook said. “But since those kids came, they have changed this university and made us understand that UT Dallas can be the best of the best. I’m not telling you that money is the answer to everything, but it can help make UT Dallas exactly what it needs to be.”

Provost Inga Musselman has had a front-row seat to UT Dallas’ growth since her arrival on campus 30 years ago as an assistant professor.

“At the heart of every great university is the quality of education that it delivers,” said Musselman, who is also vice president for academic affairs and the Cecil H. Green Distinguished Chair of Academic Leadership. “Attracting exceptional students and recruiting outstanding faculty are synergistic – each in turn inspires the other. That is why this campaign at this time is essential to move UT Dallas into the future.”

What the University has aspired to be throughout its history is a destination for world-class research and education. Founded half a century ago as a school to train talented scientists and other professionals, UT Dallas rapidly grew to include eight academic schools and more than 40 research centers encompassing the sciences, business, arts and humanities, and engineering.

On the strength of the Realize the Vision campaign, which ended in 2014 with $273 million raised, UT Dallas realized many of its initial goals. Among them was recognition by the Carnegie Classification of Higher Education as an R1 doctoral university with “very high research activity,” which places the University among the top 146 in the country, often referred to as “tier one” status, and achieving benchmark criteria to qualify for funding from the National Research University Fund, an exclusive source of research support available to the state’s “emerging research universities.”

As one of the fastest-growing public doctoral universities in the U.S., UT Dallas has become an integral part of the local economy, driving innovation, invention and entrepreneurship while providing social mobility through affordable educational programs. As the University looks to the future, the New Dimensions campaign is designed to expand the ways in which UT Dallas can impact lives as a public research institution while ensuring the prosperity of the North Texas region.

“Just a few years ago, Dallas was the largest city in the country without a large, high-quality research university to power its growth,” said Ron Nash MS’79, a veteran business executive in the technology industry who is co-chair of the New Dimensions campaign alongside John Olajide BS’04. “Now, UT Dallas is that research institution for Dallas. It is a world-class university, an incredible economic engine for the region and a place that improves lives. For Dallas to maintain its standing as one of the best places to live, work and do business, we need UT Dallas to accelerate its growth and development.”

John Olajide BS’04

Ron Nash MS’79

Co-chairs of the New Dimensions campaign

Olajide, founder and CEO of Axxess, noted that, at their core, universities are designed to serve the good of their communities. Supporting UT Dallas, he said, has an exponential benefit as achievements on campus ripple out across the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and around the world.

“Serving others is UT Dallas’ mission,” Olajide said. “Supporting the New Dimensions campaign means exploring what is possible for the good of future students, for our community and for the world. It means giving those less fortunate than ourselves the ability to pursue their dreams and knowing that together we can leave the world better than we found it.”

The New Dimensions campaign is organized around three pillars: attracting the best and brightest students, enhancing lives through transformative research and transforming the arts on campus.

Scholarships build great universities. UT Dallas’ own history attests to the expansive power of financial aid in recruiting and retaining top scholars. The growth of the University’s student body and its parallel climb to “tier one” status can be directly traced to its commitment to student scholarships.

In 1993, just a few years after the Texas Legislature authorized the University to enroll freshmen for the first time, the Academic Excellence Scholarship program began awarding merit-based scholarships to incoming freshmen. On the strength of this benefit, UT Dallas saw its freshman enrollment grow from 95 in 1992 to 452 in 1993. Additionally, UT Dallas is now among the top 10 universities in the country with the greatest number of National Merit Scholars, with approximately 200 each year.

Over the following decades, UT Dallas’ student body has grown to nearly 30,000. Top applicants cite the University’s scholarship programs as a main reason for considering UT Dallas as a preferred destination.

UT Dallas is also known for its affordability. The University ranks 40th among the nation’s public schools in 2021 Princeton Review rankings based on academic excellence, affordability and career prospects for graduates. Combined with the 2021 U.S. News & World Report Best Value Schools list, in which UT Dallas ranks in the top 50 nationwide and third in Texas among public schools, the accolade shows the University is committed to affordability while delivering an exceptional college experience.

“The education process is basically empowering talented students and faculty to create greatness,” said Dr. Hasan Pirkul, dean of the Naveen Jindal School of Management and the Caruth Chair. “UT Dallas has one of the lowest student debt averages at graduation in the nation. Scholarships play a big role in this.”

The New Dimensions campaign has prioritized increasing UT Dallas’ endowments for scholarships and fellowships. Achieving this goal would expand access for students of all backgrounds, incentivize even more top talent to choose UT Dallas and maintain affordability. Current University expenditures for merit- and need-based scholarships are significant and largely dependent on variable institutional and state funding. Generating new endowed financial aid resources would solidify UT Dallas’ ability to meet students’ needs in perpetuity. By providing the ability to continue to recruit a talented and diverse student body, financial aid endowments directly support UT Dallas’ core mission of educating students who eventually can become local leaders in the public and private sectors.

“You want the best and brightest coming to you,” said Dr. Stephanie G. Adams, dean of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science and holder of the Lars Magnus Ericsson Chair in Electrical Engineering. “You want people with different backgrounds and lived experiences because they will bring those experiences to the processes and products they create.”

The School of Interdisciplinary Studies’ Academic Bridge Program is one example of the University’s commitment to attract and help all students succeed, including high-potential students from Dallas-area urban high schools who didn’t receive a university-track curriculum. With support from the Texas Legislature and private donors, the program begins the summer after high school with peer mentorship, financial support and rigorous academic coaching.

More than two-thirds of all UT Dallas graduates remain in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex after graduation. Corporate partners, such as State Farm, recognize the role that UT Dallas plays in training a talented workforce. 

“We at State Farm are able to use incredibly talented students from UT Dallas,” said David Gwarda, assistant vice president at State Farm and a member of the UT Dallas Executive Board. “They’re highly accomplished with new technologies; they’re very innovative; they possess strong leadership skills; and they are passionate about problem-solving.”

As a university dedicated to innovation and invention, UT Dallas works to create solutions for the most pressing issues facing the world today. Challenges in the areas of climate change, health care, brain performance, cybersecurity and manufacturing inspire students and faculty to new heights of ingenuity. UT Dallas must expand opportunities for impactful basic and applied research that contributes to society’s growth and development.

“Research is probably the foundation for every single new discovery that’s made,” said Dr. Sandra Bond Chapman, chief director of the Center for BrainHealth, professor of psychology in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), and the Dee Wyly Distinguished University Chair in BrainHealth. “It helps us to explore the unknown, to define solutions and to keep improving them.”

UT Dallas is already home to unique programs that have redefined areas of scientific inquiry across many fields. For instance, an on-campus wind tunnel – the Boundary Layer and Subsonic Tunnel – allows researchers to explore the next level of wind engineering to understand the effects of wind on the natural and built environment. The Texas Biomedical Device Center, supported in part by Texas Instruments (TI), facilitates the work of scientists and engineers who develop novel technologies to restore quality of life lost to neurological injuries and disease. A dashboard created by Dr. Timothy Bray, associate professor of practice of public policy and political economy and director of the Institute for Urban Policy Research within the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, has provided critical COVID-19 information for the past two years that has helped city and county governments stay ahead of the pandemic. The Callier Center for Communication Disorders is one of a select few such centers in the nation that combine clinical care, graduate student training and research within one institution, while BBS’ graduate programs in audiology and speech-language pathology are ranked among the top 10 in the U.S. The Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies is one of the few programs in the country to offer graduate certificates in Holocaust studies. Scientists in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics have made pioneering discoveries in every realm, from the smallest nanotechnologies to the largest, designing and building equipment to explore Venus, Mars, the moon and Halley’s comet. And these are only a handful of the many programs and initiatives that have direct implications for improving quality of life across the spectrum of health and well-being – all at UT Dallas.

The New Dimensions campaign will support critical projects like these that unite the campus’s intellectual and physical resources in ways that distinguish UT Dallas and enable new discoveries. In addition to funding endowed positions for faculty and providing research support for graduate students, the construction of a translational biomedical engineering and sciences building on the UT Southwestern Medical Center east campus is a center point of this effort. Ground was broken in November for construction of the new building that will catalyze a unique partnership between UT Dallas and the academic medical center. The 150,000-square-foot building is made possible by a transformative gift from TI and funds from the Permanent University Fund of the UT System. The new facility has been named the Texas Instruments Biomedical Engineering and Sciences Building.

“Our new joint building aims to bring together scientists, clinicians and engineers to be synergistic in ways that we have not seen in the past,” said Dr. Joe Pancrazio, vice president for research and innovation and professor of bioengineering. “That building is a physical manifestation of our growing partnership. It will allow our faculty to have access to the patients and clinicians they need to accelerate the advancement of medical technology.”

Critical improvements to the structure of research programs across UT Dallas will help integrate diverse teams of scientists while providing new opportunities for students to begin their careers with hands-on experience working with renowned faculty in world-class laboratories.

“At the end of the day, for the most important problems of the day – energy, water, health – there is no single group or discipline that can address everything needed to solve these problems,” said Dr. Mario Rotea, professor of mechanical engineering, director of the Wind Energy Center at UTD, and site director for the National Science Foundation-funded Center for Wind Energy Science, Technology and Research, an Industry-University Cooperative Research Center. “Collaboration is the way of the future, and it’s in the DNA of UT Dallas.”

Creativity and innovation are at the core of a UT Dallas education. In every academic department, students and faculty combine technical expertise with imagination, seeking answers to difficult problems informed by diverse experiences and perspectives. The creative arts help these skills flourish while encouraging collaborative interdisciplinary work across fields. Augmenting UT Dallas’ traditional focus on the sciences, engineering and management with enhanced art programs can create a more engaging campus life, attract multitalented students and cement a new destination in North Texas for cultural appreciation and dialogue.

“UT Dallas is an institution that is birthed through innovation, prototyping and product development,” said Dr. Andrew Scott, associate professor of arts and technology. “We use that same level of inquiry and focus when studying artistic problems and processes to create something that can convey an idea.”

The arts are indeed different at UT Dallas. Through programs in the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication; the School of Arts and Humanities; and the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, work takes place at the intersection of art history, data science, technology and new media. Blending traditional approaches with cutting-edge analytic techniques, UT Dallas is bringing the best discoveries of modern science to bear on timeless works of art and intellectual questions.

The University broke ground in May on a new museum and performing arts complex – the UT Dallas Athenaeum – that will be a home for internationally renowned art collections and a physical laboratory for interdisciplinary research. The Athenaeum will house several collections of recently acquired gifts of art, including the Trammell and Margaret Crow Museum of Asian Art and Carolyn Brown’s collection of thousands of print and digital photographic images spanning her 50-year career. The facility will also feature a 600- to 800-seat performance hall and additional spaces for classes and lectures. It will be the first complex of its kind in Texas north of Interstate 635 and will create a new arts district catering to schoolchildren, families and art afficionados, as well as students and the campus community.

“The arts in Dallas are heavily located downtown,” said Dr. Michael Thomas, director of the O’Donnell Institute, associate provost, professor of arts and humanities, and the Richard R. Brettell Distinguished University Chair. “As a university you have an obligation to engage people beyond your walls. This is an important part of what our role can be within the larger community.”

New scholarships for student artists and funds for visiting artists would enhance the UT Dallas experience for students and the greater community, creating a vibrant campus culture and enticing highly motivated students to enroll at the University.

“This is a campaign primarily about people,” said Benson during the virtual campaign launch. “It’s about students whose lives will be changed by the opportunity a scholarship provides. It’s about the inventors who make their dreams a reality on our campus and then go out and change the world. It’s about patients who receive unparalleled care from our clinicians backed by cutting-edge research and technology.”

Kyle Edgington PhD’13, vice president for development and alumni relations, said, “UT Dallas is committed to serving our communities, and this campaign will define what that impact looks like for the next 50 years and beyond. I invite all of our alumni, corporate partners, neighbors and friends to join us in shaping this new era.”

To learn more, visit newdimensions.utdallas.edu.

– Daniel Steele