June 16, 2000 UNT Inhouse publication: Regents study future structure of UNT system

homepage

Regents study future structure of UNT system

In preparation for the next Texas legislative session, the UNT Board of Regents has undertaken a study to determine the future structure of its newly authorized formal system.

The study includes the development of a proposal to the 2001 Legislature for funding to support the system structure. The board expects to implement a full, new system structure no later than September 2001.

The future structure will include a system chancellor, presidents of UNT and the UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth, and vice chancellors or associate vice chancellors responsible for oversight of customary system areas such as administrative affairs, finance, governmental relations, health affairs, marketing and communication, and planning. Most of the proposed system positions will be structured initially to allow incumbents to hold responsibilities at both the system and university or health science center levels.

Currently, Alfred F. Hurley holds the positions of UNT System chancellor and UNT president. Benjamin Cohen is the interim president of the UNT Health Science Center. Ronald Blanck, who will retire at the end of June from the U.S. Army as its surgeon general, with the rank of lieutenant general, will begin his UNT Health Science Center presidency in August.

In the new system structure, Hurley will be full-time chancellor with an as-yet-unidentified individual as the UNT president.

During its regular 1999 session, the Texas Legislature granted system status to UNT, subject to review by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. In July 1999, the coordinating board confirmed that status.

The UNT System is one of only six public university systems in the state. The system comprises UNT in Denton; the growing UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth; and the UNT System Center at Dallas, which is on the pathway to become the first public university in the city of Dallas.

In 1975, the then private Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine in Fort Worth came under state supervision and was placed under the direction of the UNT Board of Regents. As UNT's partner, the college became a health science center in 1993 with the only school of osteopathic medicine in Texas, as well as a graduate school in biomedical science and the region's only school of public health.

The System Center at Dallas, which opened its facility near I-20 and Hampton Road in January 2000, offers residents of southern Dallas and northern Ellis counties the first convenient access to bachelor's and master's degree programs from a public institution in that area.