The University of North Texas System is the only university system whose principal aim is to serve the residents of the North Texas region. Through its education, research, health care and public service missions, the system serves people in nearly every county in Texas. However, it is focused primarily on the 129 municipalities that comprise the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex — the consolidated statistical area made up of 12 North Texas counties.

The UNT System has a significant and increasing economic impact on the region, boosting economic activity by more than $1 billion annually. The futures of the region and the UNT System are inextricably intertwined, as the system helps North Texas become the No. 1 region in the nation in terms of economic success, quality of life and effectiveness in meeting the needs of its increasingly diverse population.

The UNT System comprises UNT at Denton, the UNT System Center at Dallas and the UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth. As the leading public university of the Metroplex, UNT at Denton is the flagship of the system. As the state's fourth-largest university, it enrolls more students than any other university in the region — nearly 28,000 students in Fall 2001. Many of its programs are nationally ranked, and the Carnegie Foundation lists UNT in the top tier of U.S. doctoral/research universities.

The UNT System's impact on the region was magnified by the 1999 launch of the UNT System Center at Dallas, which is providing greater public higher education access to the citizens of southern Dallas and Ellis counties. Its Fall 2001 enrollment of 1,024 is a full year ahead of projected enrollments. When enrollment reaches 2,500 full-time equivalent students, the UNT System will open the already statutorily created UNT-Dallas — the first public university within the Dallas city limits.

The UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth is dedicated to educating health care professionals and researchers, emphasizing the primary health services most needed by the state of Texas. The Health Science Center comprises the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, which includes the Physicians and Surgeons Medical Group, one of the largest multi-specialty medical group practices in the region; the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences; a physician assistant studies program, one of only a handful in the nation offered at the master's-degree level; and a School of Public Health, the first such school in the region. Approximately 800 students are enrolled at the center.

The UNT System's enterprises entered this decade with considerable emphasis on research and discovery. The system's overall success in these arenas is increasingly and inexorably connected to its strong leadership role in research that will help drive the economy of the Metroplex and the state.

UNT biologist Warren Burggren studies the developing hearts of animal embryos to learn more about the human heart. The large size of the embryo in an emu egg makes its cardiovascular system easier to observe.