Student Experience

A college experience rich in opportunity can change students’ lives. At UNT, the path to success is defined through hands-on learning, one-on-one support and a commitment to high-quality teaching. The classroom is only part of the learning environment. Lectures, concerts and performances challenge and expand individual points of view and encourage critical thinking.

Academic Success Initiatives

UNT students are supported by a strong resource system that focuses on providing a solid foundation. With the UNT Student Writing Lab that helps with all aspects of writing, a Learning Center that offers tutoring and study skills workshops, and an award-winning Student Money Management Center dedicated to teaching responsible financial management, students have access to the resources they need to help them academically and personally. The newest addition to UNT’s support system is a Veterans Center dedicated to meeting the needs of students transitioning from military life. No matter what they need to succeed, UNT students have a place to turn for help.

Students hanging out at Honors Hall

Honors Hall, the residence hall exclusively for Honors College students, opened in 2007. It features study rooms with library access, a computer lab and music practice rooms. The hall also houses visiting scholars who interact with students and give lectures and seminars.

Mentoring

Three-fourths of UNT’s 1,200 Emerald Eagle Scholars are the first in their families to go to college. UNT gives them the opportunity to earn a degree, and mentors such as Min "Serena" Luo give them the support to see it through. Luo, an advertising junior who was in the inaugural class of scholars, provides encouragement for her fellow scholars. She is one of the many peer, faculty and staff mentors who make mentoring a core part of UNT’s culture of success. All UNT students can sign up for mentoring by a fellow student or a faculty or staff member through the Office of Student Success Programs.

One Book, One Community

UNT regularly hosts diverse speakers such as U.S. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, former president of Mexico Vicente Fox, financial guru Suze Orman and authors such as Jeff Goodell, who wrote Big Coal, the book at the center of UNT’s One Book, One Community program for 2009. Throughout the year, students explored America’s energy future through panel discussions and lectures with individuals such as John Hofmeister, founder and CEO of Citizens for Affordable Energy and retired president of Shell Oil.

Living-Learning Communities

UNT opened 4 new living-learning communities in 2009.

UNT’s pledge to create an all-encompassing student experience on campus includes understanding that learning opportunities occur in many places. UNT’s Residents Engaged in Academic Living (REAL) Communities, including four that opened in fall 2009, bring students who share the same major or interest together with a faculty mentor. These living-learning communities offer opportunities for students interested in:

  • art and design
  • global learning
  • the health professions
  • health and wellness
  • jazz studies
  • radio, television and film

There also are communities for students who transferred to UNT or who are Emerald Eagle Scholars. UNT SERVES is a REAL community offered to students interested in getting more involved in volunteerism, service and leadership.

Studying Abroad

A student’s understanding of the world is amplified by an appreciation for other cultures. UNT students experience the world and gain firsthand knowledge through study abroad programs on nearly every continent. In summer 2009, for example, students traveled to Morocco to study Arabic and explore the culture through language, literature, art, politics, geography and calligraphy. In Costa Rica, a group of Emerald Eagle Scholars explored the rain forest, toured coffee and banana plantations, learned about organic farming and visited an active volcano. This winter, another group of Emerald Eagle Scholars visited Argentina and Chile, while a group of environmental philosophy students traveled to Padyatra in India to better understand the importance of forested ecosystems in rural communities.

At UNT, problems are just solutions waiting to be discovered. Through an education steeped in research and creative activities, students and faculty put their ideas in motion.

Foundation Support

UNT prides itself on forming partnerships with various foundations to give students the means to pursue their passions. For example, 10 of UNT’s top visual arts and music students each year earn prestigious Priddy Charitable Trust Fellowships in Arts Leadership to support their development as future arts leaders. The 40 graduates of the program are working in museums, educational institutions, performing arts organizations and community arts agencies across the nation. And UNT recently was selected as an affiliate of the Terry Foundation, Texas’ largest private scholarship program, making UNT’s top incoming freshmen eligible to receive the prestigious scholarships. UNT’s inaugural class of 16 Terry Scholars will be selected from a group of 32 finalists by a Terry Foundation interview panel this spring.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

UNT undergraduate students have opportunities to make their own scientific discoveries through programs such as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science Education Alliance. In fall 2009, 24 freshmen in Lee Hughes and Robert Benjamin’s Principles of Biology class isolated bacteriophage, or viruses that infect bacteria, from soil samples they collected. They then purified and characterized the bacteriophage and extracted its DNA. In the spring, the students used bioinformatics tools to analyze and annotate their bacteriophage’s genome — a portion or all of which may be previously unknown to science. UNT was the first Texas university invited to participate in this program.

Forensic Science

As a senior, Pedro Davila (’09) conducted joint research on the analysis of trace fibers with chemistry faculty member Guido Verbeck that was accepted and published by the Journal of Forensic Sciences. In UNT’s forensic science program, the only one in Texas and one of only 20 in the nation to be accredited, undergraduate students majoring in biology, chemistry or biochemistry take forensic courses including criminal investigation, biomedical criminalistics and forensic microscopy.

UNT ranks 45th nationally for the number of degrees awarded to undergraduate ethnic minority students.

— Diverse: Issues in Higher Education magazine

Engineering Researcher Incubator

Students in Matthew Traum’s Texas Undergraduate Researcher Incubator are on the fast track as engineers-in-training, conducting research usually reserved for graduate-level students. Most recently, students demonstrated a method of generating electricity focusing concentrated sunlight on a thermo-electric generator that is more efficient than conventional photovoltaic cells.