Dear Mavericks,

Last Friday was my investiture ceremony where I shared how our state and Maverick community needs us to dream big. From our students who dream of their futures, to our faculty and staff who dream of transformational change at the state and national levels, to our alumni and community supporters who dream for us to be seen internationally as a place of excellence and boundless opportunity. I also shared a dream of my own, that as true partners in supporting our region’s economy, culture and society we will come to be seen as one of the most impactful and inclusive research universities in this country. That by working together, we will be a force for positive impact across Texas. It was wonderful to see so many in our Maverick family in attendance, you can read my remarks and more about our dreams at UTA on my website.

We are well on our way, too, as we also announced the latest UTA accomplishment: receiving the Seal of Excelencia for 2022 . This is an extraordinary honor for our University, and we continue to gain national recognition for the impactful work we are engaged in.

This fall, we’ve set another record for our largest incoming class, with 4,463 first-time-in-college students enrolled at UTA. This was also the first semester students were eligible for our new Blaze Forward program, which is providing financial support to 3,472 students this fall. We are committed to helping our new and continuing students realize their dreams of a UTA degree.

As you know, I have been actively engaged in listening sessions across campus and in our community, and I continue to reach out to our Maverick family to hear your ideas about how UTA can venture to new heights. It is through these conversations that we are setting priorities and making progress toward our five strategic themes, below you can learn about the actions we are taking to make UTA even stronger.

People and Culture

I am pleased to share that we are strengthening our employee awards and recognition program with the new Maverick Performance Excellence Awards. This award, which is now open for nominations, is a peer-to-peer recognition program where employees can nominate a colleague to receive paid time off for exceptional performance. You can learn more about the criteria and how to nominate someone for this and all our employee awards on HR’s webpage.

As we announced last week, we are creating the new Office of Talent, Culture, and Inclusion to align our existing offices of Human Resources and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. This new office is the result of input from many internal and external stakeholders and will better position the functions of our diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. A support unit like this will allow us to focus on attracting and retaining top talent, supporting an inclusive workplace, and advancing the development of our employees. We also have officially launched our search for our inaugural vice president for talent, culture, and inclusion. The resounding feedback I heard is that we should aspire for a Maverick community that has greater representation, and I feel strongly this is a positive step toward that goal.

Research and Innovation

As we continue to grow in our research efforts, it is important that we recruit exceptional research faculty who will build upon our already strong research portfolio. Soon, we will begin cluster hires to advance two of our research themes - in Culture & Societal Transformations and in Data-Driven Discovery. More details on the searches and the search committees will be forthcoming from the provost’s office, as we look for an outstanding group of scholars to join us at UTA.

Our Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation is currently developing a new center that will provide needed support to our faculty. I have heard your desire for greater support as you seek grant funding. You will be hearing more about our new Proposal Development Center in the weeks ahead from the VPRI’s office. This new center, supported by an investment of NRUF funding, will help jumpstart our faculty’s efforts to explore new ideas and achieve external funding as they strive toward groundbreaking discoveries, advancing society, developing new technologies, and more.

Student Success

Our latest achievement, earning the Seal of Excelencia, is a prestigious honor that highlights our commitment to accelerating Latino student success. As one of only six institutions to earn this certification nationwide in 2022, UTA stands out among our peers for our measurable impact in creating an environment where Latino and Latina students thrive. We want students across North Texas and beyond to know that we are committed to access and inclusion of students from all backgrounds. One new way we will help our Latino and Latina students thrive is through a new initiative titled the Empowerment, Development and Growth in Education for Hispanic Graduate Students, funded by a Title V Department of Education grant. This project will develop a comprehensive set of support programming specifically for graduate students, as well as comprise a professional development component that will provide instructors in graduate programs with in-depth training on incorporating cultural relevance into the classroom.

As we continue to expand access to students across North Texas and beyond, we are also working to ensure all students long-term success. That is why I am pleased to announce our new Nationwide Insurance Faculty Fellow for Equity in Student Success. This important role will support UTA’s efforts to ensure that we are creating equitable student success outcomes. We will always put our students first, and that means understanding the unique resources they need and working toward closing gaps so they all graduate and achieve success. The provost’s office will soon be soliciting nominations for this important role.

I have heard from our community the importance of doing more to support our graduate students. We are preparing plans to increase our level of tuition support for our PhD and terminal master’s degree students working in Graduate Teaching/Research Assistantships starting with the spring semester, as a way to honor their many contributions to UTA. More details will be sent out soon from the Graduate School as we finalize these plans.

Finance and Infrastructure

In order to continue to support the tens of thousands of students at our University, we are working to update and modernize several of our student-centered spaces around campus. I am pleased to share with you the progress on several new and ongoing projects.

Our new Greek Life Center will begin construction in the spring and will be situated at the entrance of Greek Row Drive and North Davis Drive. The new center will provide an identity to the UTA fraternity and sorority life community, along with a shared space for community programming and events. This project will ease the space challenges of our 30 Greek organizations. The opening is planned for the 2023-24 academic year; be on the lookout for more updates as we progress.

We have exciting updates on our new Health Sciences Quad, including the near completion of our new School of Social Work/College of Nursing and Health Innovation Smart Hospital Building. Construction on this new facility will be substantially complete near the end of the year, and we expect to have classes in there beginning spring 2023. This has been a two-year-long project, and I want to thank everyone for your hard work and patience as you navigated through the construction on our campus. Our next focus will be on the Life Science Building. Constructed in 1970, this building is expected to undergo renovation beginning in early 2024.

I am pleased to announce our newest project: the renewal and redesign of the north and south bridges that span Cooper Street. Our goal is that the new design will create an iconic welcome to our campus, improve safety and longevity and ensure that the bridges are easier to maintain going forward. They will also provide a refreshed look to promote UTA to everyone who drives down Cooper Street and strengthen our connection with downtown Arlington.

As we are now into a new budget cycle, I want to emphasize our commitment to being good stewards of public funds. That is why we also continue to look at increasing transparency and focusing on financial strategies that support strategic investment.

Alumni and Community Engagement

UTA has a strong support network among our alumni and community, and we have been actively working to engage. We are seeing renewed energy across our chapters as this September the Fort Worth Alumni Chapter held its first in-person meeting since 2020, and the Black Alumni Chapter held a leadership meeting as well. I appreciate both groups inviting me to join and engage with them.

We are excited to welcome Marie Schultz, our new vice president for development and alumni relations who will join UTA on Nov. 14, and we look forward to updating you on our alumni and community engagement progress under her leadership later this year. UTA has also now officially welcomed our new vice president for marketing, messaging and engagement, Yolanda Bevill, who began this week and will play an integral role in our engagement efforts.

I'd like to share with you what I told our alumni at the Fort Worth event: Help us tell our story. We need our entire Maverick family helping to tell the story of the innovative research, academic excellence, and essential community service happening at UTA.

As the semester is now in full swing, I continue to explore avenues to hear directly from our community. Each member of our Maverick community has ideas to share that will contribute to our long-term success. I encourage you to send me your dreams and ideas for our shared future at president@uta.edu. My next update to the campus will come toward the end of the semester, where I look forward to sharing more about our progress. You can also check the my office's website to stay up-to-date on what we're hearing, doing, and exploring related to our five strategic themes.