October 2012

Jess Hay: A Voice of Support for UT Dallas

A few nights ago, I had the pleasure of announcing our current standing in the ongoing fundraising campaign. We're at $127 million and growing!

It's great to have this kind of news—one of the best parts of being president. But many hands achieve such results. For this issue of The President's Viewpoint, I'm ceding the platform to an individual whose interest and hard work has helped bring us this far and will help see us through: Jess Hay, honorary co-chair of the Realize the Vision Campaign Council, and former University of Texas System regent. Jess' remarks at a recent campaign Volunteer Summit were a moving reminder of the reasons for my commitment to this University. An excerpt:

These are my reasons for encouraging all citizens of this region to support The University of Texas at Dallas. Simply stated, the evolving nature of UTD is of vital importance:

Jess Hay at the September Volunteer Summit

• Importance to the destiny and limitless potential of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.
• Importance to the cause of higher education.
• And finally, importance to the requisite partnership among our community, our state, our nation and our education enterprise—a partnership that provides the cornerstone for a secure and innovative future for us and for generations of this region yet to be.

From its inception, driven by the vision of its founders, The University of Texas at Dallas has been sharply focused on becoming a premier research center. In the intervening half-century, it steadily has moved forward toward the achievement of that objective.

As a result, it has attracted:

• A distinguished faculty, widely acclaimed by the national academic community.
• More National Merit Scholars than all but two of our state's universities.
• And a student body whose entering aggregate average SAT scores typically exceed those of all other public universities in Texas.

In short, UTD today provides superlative teaching for thousands of outstanding students who in the near term are destined to contribute much to the economic and social fabric of our state and region.

Concurrently, the University's accomplished faculty is producing an increasing volume of first-rate, nationally acclaimed research that has triggered significant increases in private and federal funding for UTD's rapidly expanding endeavors. This basic research inevitably will produce related applied research and significant innovation, which together will enhance our prospects for economic and social enrichment in the future.

Thus my reasons for supporting UTD's current capital campaign may be summarized as follows:

• UT Dallas through its history has been an institution committed to outstanding teaching of highly qualified students and to the pursuit of intellectual inquiry aimed at increasing materially the range of knowledge available for the use of our society in designing enhancements to our future.
• The implied linkage between those two activities, in fact, does exist. It will serve us well as we move through the 21st century and beyond. We benefit from the innovative progress that surely will flow from preparation of our promising youth for productive participation in our world of tomorrow and from continuing inquiry into the mysterious and yet-to-be-discovered forces of nature that drive and potentially enrich our prospects as individuals and as a society.

UTD is committed to both of those noble purposes, and its related endeavors clearly are worthy of our enthusiastic and generous support.

About This Newsletter

The President's Viewpoint is a periodic newsletter distributed to a select group of alumni, friends, faculty and staff. It comes from the desk of Dr. David E. Daniel, president of The University of Texas at Dallas, and provides the ultimate insider’s view on the news and concerns of the University.