Texas Legislature approves bill creating UNT-Dallas

The Texas House of Representatives gave unanimous support on April 19 to House Bill 1417, legislation that will statutorily establish the University of North Texas at Dallas. The vote was 141-0 in favor of passage.

The House action follows unanimous passage of the Senate version (Senate Bill 576 was written and sponsored by Sen. Royce West of Dallas) on March 28. The next step in the lawmaking process is for the approved bill to go to Gov. Rick Perry. The governor is expected to sign the bill on or around May 10. When enacted, the legislation will provide UNT with the authority and time to plan the establishment of the first four-year public university in the city of Dallas.

Under this new legislation, when the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board certifies that the UNT System Center enrollment has reached 2,500 full-time equivalent (FTE) students for one semester, UNT-Dallas can begin offering courses and granting degrees. In the meantime, the System Center will continue to offer courses leading to UNT degrees and certificate programs. Current System Center enrollment is 570 students and approximately 230 FTEs.

"We applaud Rep. Jesse Jones of District 110 for the terrific job he did in steering the bill toward unanimous passage," says UNT System Chancellor Alfred F. Hurley. "We also are deeply indebted to Reps. Tony Goolsby (District 102), Helen Giddings (District 109), Terri Hodge (District 100) Myra Crownover (District 64) and Kenny Marchant (District 99), who were joint sponsors and authors of the House measure."

"There is a great need for a state-supported university in the city of Dallas, strategically located to serve all citizens in our state," says Jones. "The overwhelming support of local governments, the business sector and civic leaders, along with the increasing number of students now attending the UNT System Center at Dallas, suggest that the time is ripe to establish UNT at Dallas."

West, who has actively championed the case for a public university in southern Dallas since he introduced the idea for a feasibility study in the 75th Legislative Session during the spring of 1997, says, "This is truly historic. Generations yet unborn will benefit from this team of legislators working for the common good of providing access to affordable and quality higher educational opportunities."

West and the Southern Dallas County Higher Education Feasibility Study Task Force selected UNT to be the educational partner for addressing the public university needs of southern Dallas in September 1998. The task force chose UNT's proposal over others from the Texas A&M University System and Texas Tech University.

Upper-division and graduate courses have been offered since January 2000 at the UNT System Center at Dallas. The 78,239-square-foot facility is located at 8915 S. Hampton Road, three blocks south of I-20.

The effort to establish the System Center has been supported during the interim through an initial state appropriation of $4.2 million. And in February of this year, UNT achieved one more milestone toward establishing a full university in Dallas when area business and civic leaders met the UNT goal of raising $2.6 million in private contributions to supplement the legislative appropriation.

"Sen. West and Rep. Jones are to be congratulated for their leadership in proposing an opportunity to plan properly the development of this critically important response to higher education needs of southern Dallas County and Ellis County," Hurley says.

"All of us in the UNT System are very pleased by the progress of this bill," says Hurley. "UNT-Dallas will ensure public university access to a very large population that has been under-served."

BY RODDY WOLPER rwolper@unt.edu

Other featured articles in this issue

• UNT inaugurates 13th president
• Community leaders discuss education, workforce issues
• Spring graduation is May 12
• Faculty Senate approves grading change
• UNT to help improve Internet2
• Faculty, staff recognized at Honors Day celebration
• UNT researcher to conduct time-of-day testing on schizophrenia patients
• Staff Council discusses smoking, beautification issues
• Rancher offers a new field of dreams for stargazers

homepage