Commentary

In honor of President David Daniel’s first week at The University of Texas at Dallas, we are running the column that appeared in The Dallas Morning News on February 13, 2005 – only a few days after being named president.

UTD President David E. Daniel: UTD has Makings of Greatness

Unbeknownst to some, North Texas has a higher-education jewel that is evolving into one of the nation's best universities. I'm talking about the University of Texas at Dallas, which, I am convinced, has the potential to become one of the great universities of the world. Far-fetched? Highly improbable? Not to me. On Thursday, I enthusiastically accepted an offer to become UTD's next president.

In recent years, the competition in higher education has grown so intense that it is difficult to find a university anywhere that doesn't aspire to move up in the national rankings – to become a Tier I school or to move up within Tier I. While it is commendable for institutions to set lofty goals, the reality is that most have no chance of achieving such coveted status.

There are two reasons to be skeptical.

First, universities that are legitimately of the first rank will not stand still while lesser institutions are making their moves. No, one mark of the greatness of a world-class university is its insistence on continually getting better – and having the resources to do so.

Second, the fundamentals are simply not in place for most institutions to succeed. Many have different missions or priorities. Indeed, institutions of higher learning – from community colleges to world-class research universities – meet different needs. Not all can or should be research-intensive Tier I schools. Others lack the critical mass or history of excellence necessary to catapult themselves to the highest levels of academic achievement. Others are geographically challenged, estranged by distance from cultural centers or cutting-edge medical schools. And finally, most do not possess the resources necessary to match the hopeful rhetoric.

Fortunately for residents of the Dallas region, UTD possesses the ingredients required to become a great university.

First, UTD has come farther in a shorter period than almost any university in history. Yes, I am aware of the astounding success story of the University of California, San Diego, which already has achieved Tier I ranking. But it's been around nearly a decade longer than UTD, which became a university in 1969 but didn't admit freshmen until 1990. Yet only 15 years later, UTD has nationally recognized programs in such areas as audiology, brain health, nanotechnology, space sciences, sickle cell disease research, arts and technology and computer science – to say nothing of the top college chess team in the Western Hemisphere.

Second, UTD has a phenomenally high-quality undergraduate student body, along with a burgeoning graduate- and postgraduate-level research capability that has attracted two Nobel laureates to the faculty. These are exceptionally rare achievements, ones that bode well for the future.

Third, UTD stands alone among institutions of higher learning as the beneficiary of an economic-development agreement known as Project Emmitt. Under the agreement, whose signatories include Texas Instruments, the state of Texas and the UT System, UTD will receive up to $300 million in public and private funds to enhance the capabilities of its already highly regarded Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science. This incredible endeavor represents a private-state university partnership of a scale usually found only at the largest and very best universities.

Finally, UTD has Dallas and North Texas, which provide a wealth of resources and economic power rivaled by few places in the world. Most university presidents would die for this type of resource base. Equally important, Dallas and North Texasneed great universities. The cultural, intellectual and economic stimulus that a world-class university provides is almost synonymous with being a world-class city. Think of Los Angeles (USC and UCLA), San Francisco (Stanford and Berkeley), Chicago ( University of Chicago and Northwestern), Atlanta (Georgia Tech), New York (NYU and Columbia) and Boston (Harvard and MIT). Add Singapore (National University of Singapore), Beijing ( Tsinghua University) and London (nearby Oxford and Cambridge), and one realizes that the link between globally competitive cities and great universities is unambiguous.

Dallas' and UTD's futures are inextricably linked. To reach its full potential, the Dallas area must be home to at least one world-class research university.

UTD will become a great university because the fundamentals are right. They include a proven ability to attract top students, to develop successful programs and to form public-private partnerships at the highest level of size and impact; the presence of a world-class medical school nearby (the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas); location in one of the nation's largest and most vibrant metropolitan areas; Dallas' need for a world-class research university to fulfill its potential; being part of one of the nation's largest and most respected public university systems; and the potential to partner with other universities.

None of this is going to be easy, even for a university that holds as much promise as UTD. The effort to provide Dallas with a Tier I research university to complement its existing first-rank medical research institution is going to take a great deal of work and the support of a lot of people.

So, as I prepare to assume the presidency of the University of Texas at Dallas in a few months, I begin by making the case that all of us in North Texas are in this together, and I call on you to get involved and to work with us to make a very, very good university, UTD, one of the great universities of the world.