Innovation
| UNT Bests |
|---|
| Graduate rehabilitation counseling program ranked best in the state and one of the best in the nation by U.S. News and World Report |
| Health librarianship program ranked second nationally by U.S. News and World Report |
| Texas’ best public administration (city management/urban policy) master’s program — ranked 10th nationally by U.S. News and World Report |
| Environmental philosophy program recognized as the best in the world by the International Association for Environmental Philosophy |
| Online M.B.A. ranked one of the top 25 best buys among distance programs |
| Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference of the Southwest considered among the nation’s best |
| Named one of America’s 100 Best College Buys® for 12 consecutive years |
| UNT Firsts |
|---|
| First jazz studies program in the U.S. |
| First emergency administration and planning program in the U.S. |
| First oil and petroleum accounting program in the U.S. |
| First business computer information systems program in the U.S. |
| First Ph.D. program in art education in the U.S. |
| First bachelor’s degree in electronic merchandising in the U.S. |
| First online school library preparation program in the U.S. |
| First accredited counseling program in the U.S. |
| First comprehensive training/research center for Spanish-language media |
| First graduate applied anthropology program in the U.S. offered completely online |
Numerous University of North Texas programs are recognized around the world for the power of their ideas. Nationally ranked programs include public administration, art, and library and information sciences, as well as the world’s leading program in environmental ethics. UNT also has the nation’s first — and best — jazz studies program, one of many excellent programs in its world-renowned College of Music.
Founded as one of Texas’ first colleges for teachers, UNT has led the way in introducing the nation’s first programs in business computer information systems and emergency administration and planning. The University also is home to the nation’s first accredited counseling program and art education doctoral program.
Discovery Park, UNT’s 285-acre research park, houses a unique combination of high-powered microscopes that give faculty researchers the ability to create stronger materials, smaller devices and personalized medical applications. The microscopes support nanotechnology research in the Center for Advanced Research and Technology, which received $15.7 million in defense funding during the last four years.
Students and learning are at the center of UNT’s mission to serve and improve society, and students learn from some of the nation’s leading scholars. UNT’s faculty, the University’s greatest asset, are recognized experts in their fields and are dedicated to the discovery of knowledge and the pursuit of scholarship that makes a difference.
Faculty and students engage in innovative research and creative activities that consistently break new ground. The exciting scholarship at UNT is broad based and far reaching, incorporating research in the humanities, social sciences and the arts, as well as the sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics.
UNT’s undergraduate and graduate students work alongside faculty throughout the research process so they may participate in and experience the creation and application of knowledge. This dedication to discovery is a hallmark of UNT’s status as a student-centered public research university, and it ensures UNT graduates emerge with the hands-on training necessary to become tomorrow’s researchers and industry leaders.
Music Studies
UNT remains the best at jazz education. Its jazz studies program — the first in the nation — is celebrating 60 years of success this year. Its world-class Grammy-nominated One O’Clock Lab Band (left) celebrated 40 years of recordings with the release of Lab 2007 and will tour major European jazz festivals this summer. With plans to unveil a doctor of musical arts degree in jazz studies, the world-renowned College of Music continues its leadership in and commitment to jazz as an integral part of music education.
Watch the behind the scenes videos about the making of Lab 2007
History Powerhouse
The 110-year-old Texas State Historical Association — Texas’ oldest such association and considered in academic circles the nation’s most dynamic regional history organization — has selected UNT as its new home. UNT’s strong foundation of expert history faculty and extensive library resources will support the association, formerly located at the University of Texas at Austin, as it preserves Texas’ heritage and furthers the appreciation, understanding and teaching of the unique history of the state. The UNT Press, with Texas history as one of its core areas, will provide new publishing opportunities. TSHA membership includes about 2,200 scholars and history enthusiasts.
Peace Studies
UNT is the first university in Texas and the Southwest to offer a major or minor in peace studies. Led by an endowed professorship, the Johnie Christian Family Professor of Peace Studies, the program provides students with an array of educational opportunities. A three-week course at the Hague, Netherlands, challenges students to conduct an independent research project based on attending trials and interviewing staff participants in the United Nations’ International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The course and its instructors — Kimi King (far right) and James Meernik — won the prestigious Rowman and Littlefield Award for Innovative Teaching in Political Science from the American Political Science Association.
Faculty Endowments
Barbara Stein Martin (third from right), who directs UNT’s school library certification program — the first in the nation to be entirely available online — was named the first Hazel Harvey Peace Professor in Children’s Library Services in 2007. The professorship is the first in Texas named for an African American woman. Peace (seated) was a longtime educator. In addition, Carol Ann Frost, a nationally recognized accounting scholar, became the first Bernard “Barney” A. Coda Endowed Chair. She also will serve as the accounting department’s doctoral coordinator and will mentor a new generation of accounting scholars. Coda is a Professor Emeritus of business.
World Premiere
The Houston Symphony Orchestra presented the world premiere of Solstice for Trombone and Orchestra by Cindy McTee (left), composer and Regents Professor of music, in January 2008. Hailed by critics as a composer whose music reflects a “charging, churning celebration of the musical and cultural energy of modern-day America,” McTee also has been commissioned by the Amarillo, Dallas and National Symphony Orchestras, as well as numerous other organizations. Leading orchestras, bands and chamber ensembles in Japan, South America, Europe, Australia and the United States have performed her music in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and the Sydney Opera House.
Listen to mp3s of her music and view the scores
Fulbright Scholars
Three faculty members — representing history, business and art — were named Fulbright Scholars in 2007. Constance Hilliard is spending the entire 2007-08 year teaching African American cultural history at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, Japan. Ted Farris, based in Austria in spring and summer 2008, is studying cash-to-cash financial flows of European business as the first key measurement of the supply chain. He will be speaking at top universities throughout Europe. And Nada Shabout will spend fall 2008 in Amman, Jordan, teaching contemporary Arab art history while researching the topic for her book and continuing her efforts to document missing Iraqi modern art. She also is teaching at MIT this spring.
Read about Nada Shabout's journey to document missing Iraqi modern art from UNT Research magazine
Computational Chemistry
UNT’s status as a national center of excellence in computational chemistry earned Wes Borden, professor and Welch Chair of Chemistry, and Tom Cundari, professor of chemistry, the honor of working with 50 other researchers across the nation in the Center for Enabling New Technologies through Catalysis on a $15 million National Science Foundation grant. The UNT chemists are seeking an environmentally friendly way to convert benzene and ammonia directly to aniline, a chemical used to synthesize polyurethane foam. The professors also will provide training in computational chemistry to other CENTC researchers.
Solid-state Lighting
Undergraduate students in Mohammad Omary’s advanced inorganic chemistry class conduct independent research experiments. Last year, the hands-on learning led to the selection of the students’ research for presentation at an American Chemical Society national meeting. Omary and his research team are exploring optoelectronic applications of luminescent materials. Recently, they have been working to design bright phosphors for efficient organic light-emitting diodes, which are considered a long-term solution for researchers working to develop solid-state lighting that is longer lasting, more energy efficient and has less environmental impact than incandescent and fluorescent lighting. The research is supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Bioplastics
Nandika D’Souza, associate professor of materials science and engineering, and her research team, which includes undergraduate students Hua H. Chen and Samin Odhwani, are conducting federally funded research to develop packaging nanocomposite materials made from plant sources that meet the mechanical properties of plastics made from petroleum and sensor textiles. These new materials, or bioplastics, could be thrown into compost or the ocean without endangering the environment. The materials also may be used in tissue engineering and have other biomedical applications.
Emergency Operations Lab
The Department of Public Administration is creating an Emergency Operations Center Lab that will serve as a teaching and research tool for undergraduate and graduate students and professionals working in the emergency administration field. Sophisticated simulator software will provide students with real-time training in crisis decision-making. The department’s undergraduate emergency administration and planning program was founded in 1983 as the first of its kind in the nation. The simulator’s advanced technology capabilities will allow UNT to remain the best in the nation at training the next generation of emergency managers.
Economic Education
Recognized by UNT students as a TopProf, Steven Cobb directs the Center for Economic Education. The center promotes the integration of economics into elementary and secondary school curricula by training about 1,000 of Texas’ K-12 teachers each year to develop economic lessons and use new teaching methods and materials. As an international trainer for the National Council on Economic Education, Cobb also has trained more than 500 economics teachers and university faculty members in Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia, Palestine, Paraguay, Mexico, Central and Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, and he was one of the first trainers to lead courses in South Africa. His outstanding dedication to teaching has earned two national awards.
Nutrition Podcasts
Priscilla Connors, associate professor in the School of Merchandising and Hospitality Management, and a group of UNT theatre alumni created a series of podcasts that includes complete lessons from an online textbook Connors designed for Principles of Nutrition, a distributed learning course launched in 2002. With this addition to the course, students now can learn about the importance of healthy eating habits while they drive, exercise or just walk across campus to their next class. UNT is the largest provider of online credit courses among Texas public universities.
Texas Fashion Collection
UNT’s Texas Fashion Collection is one of the nation’s most important collections of historic fashion. The collection is dedicated to the preservation and documentation of historically significant fashion and offers educational resources for students, researchers and the general public. In fall 2006, UNT opened Fashion on Main in Dallas as a dedicated exhibition space for selections from the collection. In 2007, “Reflections: Work by Michael Faircloth” displayed highlights from the career of the UNT alumnus. Designs from the collection also were recently featured at Southern Methodist University’s Meadows Museum in “Balenciaga and His Legacy” and displayed with fashions from Neiman Marcus in an exhibit celebrating the store’s 100th anniversary (left).
Search the gallery of designs in the Texas Fashion Collection
4
Four new living-learning communities opened in campus residence halls in 2007.
Top 100
UNT is named one of the top 100 colleges for Hispanic students and one of the nation’s top 100 colleges graduating the most African Americans.
1st
In 2007, for the 24th time in the past 25 years, a student team represented UNT at the annual National Debate Tournament. Also, Moot Court team ranked first UNT’s among all Texas schools in 2007, and 10 UNT students advanced to the national tournament in 2008.
60
More than 60 UNT research centers and institutes add to the numerous opportunities for faculty and students to find solutions to real-world problems.
Improving U.S. Aircraft
Researchers from UNT and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory are working to characterize, model and simulate the structure and mechanical properties of advanced aerospace materials used in structurally significant aircraft components. This research is critical for developing a better understanding of how specific materials-related issues can help reduce the risk of catastrophic failure in aircraft structural components. The research also is helping the Air Force in developing better materials for next generation aircraft structures to be subjected to extreme environmental conditions, including higher temperatures and mechanical stresses. The intent is to aid the U.S. Air Force with its continued efforts to maintain and extend the life of aging aircraft.
Endangered Language
Timothy Montler (left), Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of English, is creating a dictionary and electronic text archive of Klallam, the native language of the Klallam tribes in northwest Washington and southern Vancouver Island, with a $317,502 Documenting Endangered Languages grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. This remarkable work that includes the development of tools to teach Klallam will ensure the survival of the language, which was rapidly disappearing 15 years ago because few tribal members grew up speaking it.
Watch videos of tribe members speaking the Klallam language
Urban Watersheds
Bill Buckles and Xiaohui Yuan use an optical remote sensing technology called LiDAR, or light detection and ranging, in their research on watersheds in urban environments. The two professors of computer science and engineering earned National Science Foundation and Department of Defense grants for their work, which can help predict flood damage and save lives by showing how watersheds connect to each other. The researchers are collaborating with colleagues from Hefei University of Technology in China.
Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court relied on Chad Trulson’s research into racial integration in Texas prisons when making a decision about prisons in California. Trulson, associate professor of criminal justice, is collaborating with a colleague at the University of Texas at Dallas to study the impact of desegregation on Texas prisons.
Metropolitan Opera
In April, tenor Richard Croft (left) will sing the lead role of Gandhi in the New York Metropolitan Opera premiere of Philip Glass’ 1980 opera Satyagraha (in collaboration with the English National Opera). The professor of music earned rave reviews for his lead in the Salzburg Festival’s summer performance of Armida and previous performances of Mitridate and Orphee. Salzburg is one of today’s most prestigious centers of summer music, and two UNT students also studied there in 2007.
Mapping Diseases
Using technology such as geographic information systems and computer models based on satellite and statistical data, medical geographer Joseph Oppong identifies where infectious diseases occur and predicts how they will spread. Often assisted by undergraduate student researchers, the associate professor of geography has mapped AIDS, the SARS virus and Buruli ulcer disease. He is currently mapping geographic patterns of tuberculosis genotypes in Texas’ Tarrant County and is seeking to determine why African Americans have much higher rates of TB than other Americans. The topic is of keen interest to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other groups concerned with health disparities.
Geoarchaeology
Expertise in the emerging field of geoarchaeology and the discovery of two fossils — an almost complete skull and a separate skullcap — led Reid Ferring, professor of archaeology, geology and physical geography, to conclusions that are causing archaeologists and anthropologists around the world to alter their perceptions of the early history of the human species. Since 1993, Ferring has worked as part of an international research team excavating an ancient site beneath a medieval ruin in the Republic of Georgia.
Anshel Brusilow
Anshel Brusilow, Regents Professor of music and conductor of UNT’s Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra, will conduct his final concert with the UNT Symphony and Grand Chorus April 23. He is retiring at the end of the 2007-08 concert season after a UNT career spanning 35 years. The Lupe Murchison Foundation granted $500,000 to UNT for the Anshel Brusilow Chair in Orchestral Studies. The gift will go toward a $1 million endowment to honor Brusilow, with proceeds primarily funding scholarships for orchestral students. An accomplished violinist who entered the Curtis Institute of Music at age 11, Brusilow served as associate concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra and concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra. He also conducted the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, leading its first tours of Central and South America.
Music and Medicine
UNT’s Texas Center for Music and Medicine is dedicated to educating students about the health risks associated with performing. The center’s work on noise-induced hearing loss helps students and professionals save their hearing for longer musical careers, improving their quality of life. Founded in 1999, the center includes researchers and clinicians from UNT’s College of Music and College of Arts and Sciences, as well as the UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth, a top medical school for primary care.
Professional Science Degrees
A grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation enabled UNT faculty to plan a series of professional science master’s degree programs that will launch in fall 2008. The programs aim to provide science-trained professionals with an understanding of business so they may fill the next generation roles in industry that will require both technical and practical skills. Professional science master’s degree programs in biotechnology, environmental science, industrial chemistry and applied economics at UNT and other UNT System institutions will combine advanced training in science and mathematics with professional development courses in business. UNT also is creating guidelines for how other Texas universities may develop and implement similar programs.