The University of North Texas (UNT) is a public research university based in Denton with programs in natural, formal, and social sciences, engineering, liberal arts, fine arts, performing arts, humanities, public policy, graduate professional education, and post-doc research. Ten colleges, two schools, an early admissions math and science academy for exceptional high-school-age students from across the state, and a library system comprise the university core. Its research is driven by about 34 doctoral degree programs. During the 2013-2014 school year, the university had a budget of $865 million, of which $40 million was allocated for research. North Texas was founded as a nonsectarian, coeducational, private teachers college in 1890; and, as a collaborative development in response to enrollment growth and public demand, its trustees ceded control to the state in 1899. In 1901, North Texas was formally adopted by the state. UNT is the main campus of the University of North Texas System, which includes additional campuses in Dallas, Fort Worth, and Frisco.
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Population, economic setting, and major location developments
The Denton campus is located in the largest populated region of Texas under two categories defined by the U.S. Census: (i) core based statistical area (CBSA; Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington--4th largest, nationally) and (ii) combined statistical area (CSA; Dallas-Fort Worth--7th largest, nationally). From an economic perspective, the Denton campus lies within the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan area, as defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, which as of 2011, had the sixth highest GDP (aka gross metropolitan product) of the nation's 366 metropolitan areas. As a state, Texas, as of 2011, had the second highest GDP in the country.
On behalf of the state, the university, in its civic advocacy for the state, prevailed with three new-location, capital-intensive expansions over the last forty-one years.
- The university acquired in 1975 and subsequently developed a medical school in Fort Worth
- The university created a campus in South Dallas in 2000
- The university laid the groundwork for establishing the first and only public law school in the region
In 1981, the university spun off its new medical school as its own independent institution under the UNT Board of Regents. In 2009, the University of North Texas at Dallas became its own independent institution. That same year, the Texas legislature approved the creation of University of North Texas at Dallas College of Law, opening in 2014 in Downtown Dallas as part of UNT Dallas. UNT and its three sister institutions are governed by the University of North Texas System, a system established in 1980 by the Board of Regents and legislatively recognized in 2003 by the 78th Texas Legislature.
In 2004, North Texas opened UNT Discovery Park -- 290 acres (1.2 km2) -- in Denton, north of the main campus with technology incubator facilities dedicated to science and engineering. In 2011, the College of Visual Arts and Design launched the Design Research Center in downtown Dallas in the Design District as a laboratory dedicated to design-driven solutions in a community of real-world professionals.
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Official designations
In 1985 the Governor's Select Committee on Higher Education recommended that North Texas be designated an "emerging national research university". Nine years earlier, in 1976, the Carnegie Foundation designated North Texas as a "Class 1 Doctorate-Granting Institution". And in 1988, U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett cited UNT for its innovative approach to undergraduate education in the Classic Learning Core, an integrated liberal arts curriculum similar to those usually found only in small, private colleges. In 1992, UNT was elected to full membership in the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. And, in 2011, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board included UNT as one of eight Emerging Research Institutions in its accountability system.
Enrollment
Certified enrollment as of the fall of 2013 was 36,198, the fourth largest in the state. For the 2011 academic year, the university awarded 8,608 degrees, of which 24 percent were at the graduate level. North Texas awarded 459 PhD degrees from fiscal years 2009 to 2011.
Overview of academics and collegiate units
Of the thirteen constituent collegiate units, ten sponsor 97 bachelor's degree programs, and the remaining three units serve other roles. The Toulouse Graduate School coordinates admissions, recruiting, and other aspects of the 81 masters and 34 doctorate degree programs offered by the ten collegiate units. The Honors College is described below. The Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science--for exceptional high-school-aged Texas scholars--awards high school diplomas that reflect two years of accelerated and enriched college classical core academics in biology, chemistry, physics, lab work, mathematics, English, history, political science, interdisciplinary seminar, and electives.
The student-faculty ratio at UNT is 23:1, and 28.8 percent of its classes consist of fewer than 20 students. The most popular majors include business, management, marketing, communication, journalism, English, multi/interdisciplinary studies, and visual and performing arts.
As of this year, 2017, North Texas is a ninety-two-year member of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and is among the twenty-seven universities in Texas at Level VI, the highest level. As of 2013, the university was home to seventy-one research centers and institutes, and sixty-one are sponsored by colleges. Three have been sponsored by the Office of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, and seven have been sponsored by the university's Office of Research and Economic Development. Seven years ago, North Texas launched fifteen research clusters--collaborative, cross-disciplinary teams composed of researchers, faculty, students, multiple departments and/or colleges and outside institutions. Simultaneously, the university launched six additional strategic research areas, some of which involving frontiers in science, medicine, and hi-tech.
Doctorates
In 2015, the National Science Foundation ranked UNT 83rd out of 428 academic institutions for cumulative number of doctorates awarded. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching classifies the University of North Texas as a research university with highest research activity.
Science doctorates
North Texas has offered non-science doctorates--doctorates of philosophy in music and doctorates in education--since 1951. But its science doctorates--doctorates of philosophy in chemistry, biology, and physics and doctorates in business management--were launched in 1964 and 1965, respectively. The College of Engineering has been offering PhD programs since its inception in 2003.
Non-science and engineering doctorates
Based on the number of non-science and engineering PhDs awarded at 2,722 national institutions of higher learning in the country, North Texas was ranked as follows:
- Top 50 for awarding 3,382 non-science and engineering PhDs from 1920 to 1999
- Top 50 for awarding 551 non-science and engineering PhDs from 1995 to 1999
- Top 50 for awarding 1,695 non-science and engineering PhDs to people who also earned their baccalaureate from the same institution
Ten colleges, two schools, and one academy
College of Arts and Sciences
The College of Arts and Sciences is composed of nineteen academic departments, twenty-three centers and institutes, seven interdisciplinary programs, five public services (including a psychology clinic and a speech and hearing clinic), and eight student services (of which seven are labs).
Department of Political Science
The research productivity (per capita) of the Political Science faculty ranks high, nationally; and the teaching quality by the faculty -- and service to the university -- has been thoroughly recognized through, among other things, university, state, and national commendations and awards. The Department is home to the only NSF-REU program (National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates) in political science. The Department is also nationally recognized for its Peace Studies programs and closely collaborates with UNT's Castleberry Peace Institute. From 2012 to 2016, UNT and distinguished faculty members had the honor of undertaking the editorial leadership for the American Political Science Review - widely viewed as the premier political science academic journal in the world.
Department of English
The English department has for decades been large. In 1961, it had more English majors than any other Texas institution. In 1963, a group of English majors founded the Folk Music Club, which attracted student musicians, several of whom later went on with other performing artists to define a Texas music and cultural movement in Austin that grew to national prominence and left a legacy that endures today (re: Sixth Street, South by Southwest, Austin City Limits, Austin City Limits Music Festival). Its student members included Spencer Perskin, Steven Fromholz, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Michael Martin Murphey, and Eddie Wilson (co-founder of Armadillo World Headquarters and current owner of Threadgill's in Austin). Other notable alumni include Larry McMurtry ('58; B.A., English), a prolific fiction writer who, in 1986, won a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his novel, Lonesome Dove; and Dick Penner ('58; B.A., English), who co-composed, with Wade Lee Moore, Ooby Dooby, which became a rockabilly hit for North Texas alumnus Roy Orbison. Former notable faculty include Arthur McCullough Sampley, PhD (1903-1975), Texas Poet Laureate from 1951 to 1953. Annie Webb Blanton (1879-1945)--professor of English from 1901 to 1918, suffragist, and author of a series of grammar textbooks. Blanton was elected Superintendent of Texas Public Instruction in 1918, making her the first woman in Texas elected to statewide office. The 1918 July Texas primary and November general election marked the first time Texas women could exercise their right to vote.
As of 2013, the creative writing faculty included Bruce Bond, Corey Marks, and Miro Penkov.
Department of Philosophy and Religion
J. Baird Callicott is a philosopher and prolific research scholar at the frontier of environmental philosophy and ethics. He is a UNT Distinguished Research Professor and Regents Professor in the department and the Institute of Applied Sciences at the university.
Research and Applied Sciences
North Texas has been offering Bachelor of Science degrees for 99 years, master of science degrees (in biology, mathematics, chemistry, and economics) for 81 years, and doctor of philosophy degrees in several scientific disciplines--including chemistry, biology, and physics--for 52 years. North Texas is a sponsoring institution member (PhD-granting) of Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), a consortium of 105 major research universities that leverage scientific research through partnerships with national laboratories, government agencies, and private industry. It has been a member of the consortium since 1954. The college sponsors 24 distinct research units in the form of centers, institutes, clinics, and laboratories, including the Institute of Applied Science, which conducts science-based interdisciplinary environmental research about the human impact on the environment and uses its findings to develop solutions. Its collaborators include biologists, ecologists, geologists, engineers, computer scientists, chemists, geographers, archaeologists, policy experts, and philosophers.
Department of Physics
1951 Nobel Prize laureate Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (1903-1995) lectured in physics for three months in the fall of 1975 The department's Ion Beam and Modification Analysis Laboratory houses four active linear particle accelerators. The lab is among the more sophisticated ion beam facilities in the country. Three of the accelerators are housed in a 450 square-meter, ultra-clean, microbeam, raster-scanning, depth-profiling, Cs-sputtering ion source laboratory, one being a 3 million volt tandem Pelletron accelerator, Model 9-SDH, delveloped by National Electrostatics Corporation, and installed at North Texas in December 1989. It is the workhouse of the laboratory and is used for trace element analysis via accelerator mass spectroscopy. One of the older accelerators, a 2.5 MV, is used for routine PIXE, RBS, and NRA and for advanced undergraduate and first year graduate student laboratory experiments. A smaller laboratory, 78-square-meters, houses a 200 kilovolt Cockcroft-Walton accelerator and a 2.5 megavolt Van de Graaff. North Texas is the host of the International Conference on the Application of Accelerators in Research and Industry, held every November.
Department of Chemistry
Notable professors in Chemistry include Thomas R. Cundari, PhD, Guido Verbeck, PhD, Oliver Chyan, PhD (Analytic).
Department of Biology
The Department of Biology is located in a complex of two connected buildings, Life Science Complexes A and B. Complex A originally opened in 1966 as the Biology Building, while Complex B and the connecting atrium opened in 2011.
Some of the research throughout the university extends outside its campuses, including an aquatic biological field station at a nearby lake. Six years ago, North Texas partnered with the Chilean Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity at the University of Magallanes, along with several U.S. and Chilean non-profit organizations, to open the world's first environmental philosophy, science and policy field station at the southern tip of Chile in Puerto Williams on Navarino Island and the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve.
The biology department has for eighty-one years been a research pioneer in freshwater conditions. The water research program was initiated and spearheaded by the late Joseph Kean Gwynn Silvey, PhD (1907-1989), a renowned limnologist who joined the biology faculty in 1935 and served as chairman of the department from 1952 to 1973. In 2008, a lifesize bronze statue in his honor was installed in front of the Environmental Education, Science and Technology building.
Biochemistry is currently attached to the Biology Department, not Chemistry. It is noted for research in plant lipid research, among others. Notable professors are: Robert Benjamin, PhD; Warren Burggren, PhD; Rebecca Dickstein, PhD; and Richard A. Dixon, ScD.
Department of Sociology
Sociology was established in 1933 by the School of Arts and Sciences as the Department of Sociology and Economics under Jack Vernon Johnson, PhD (1884-1959), who chaired it until his retirement in 1954. Hiram Johnson Friedsam, PhD (1920-2007), a prolific researcher and notable pioneer in the study of aging, chaired it from 1954 to 1972. In 1969, Economics became its own department and the Department of Sociology adopted Anthropology, in name and mission. In 1973, the Department of Sociology and Anthropology moved from the School of Arts and Sciences to the newly created School of Community Services (which became a College and added "Public Affairs" to its name in 2005). From 1973 forward, the department launched several centers and institutes--notably the Center for Studies in Aging. More name changes followed--in the mid 1980s, the department was "Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work," in the mid 1990s, it was "Sociology and Social Work." In 1996, Sociology became its own department when Social Work merged into the Department of Rehabilitation, Social Work and Addictions. In 1997, Anthropology launched as an Institute and became a full department in 2002. In 2013, Sociology moved back to its founding constituent collegiate unit of 40 years, the College of Arts and Sciences. In 2015, Anthropology also moved back to the College of Arts and Sciences.
Department of Communication Studies
The Intercollegiate Debate Team is active in the National Debate Tournament and Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA). In September 2012, the team was ranked first in the state and 95th in the world by the International Debate Education Association (IDEA). UNT's Director of Debate, Brian A. Lain, PhD, was coach of the 2012 American National Debate Team sponsored by National Communication Association. North Texas won the second annual National Debate Tournament in 1948 and is the first Texas institution to have won it in its seventy-year history. (Baylor has since won the tournament twice.)
In 2015, the Department of Communication Studies became the home of UNT's Computer Mediated Communication Research Lab.
College of Business
The College of Business is host to five academic departments: (i) Accounting, (ii) Finance, Insurance, Real Estate and Law, (iii) Information Technology and Decision Sciences, (iv) Marketing and Logistics, and (v) Management. It offers seven undergraduate programs, fourteen MBA and master of science programs, and six PhD programs. In Fall 2011, the college moved into a new state-of-the-art Gold LEED certified $70 million facility named the Business Leadership Building. The college is accredited in both business and accounting by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business--accreditation for the former stretches back fifty-five years (1961) and the latter, twenty-nine years (1987).
Undergraduate business education
In 2011, 4,272 students were enrolled as business majors at the undergraduate level--15% of total undergraduates at the university.
Business Graduate School
In 2011, 718 students were working on graduate degrees--639 at the masters level and 79 at the PhD level. 470 were in the MBA program, half of whom were full-time, 169 were in Master of Science programs for accounting, 15 were in the Business Computer Information Sciences. The MBA alumni include Michael R. Bowlin (BBA '65/MBA '67), former President and CEO of ARCO. The college is host to three research centers, one applied academics center, and one institute: (i) the Center for Decision and Information Technologies; (ii) the Institute of Petroleum Accounting; (iii) the Murphy Center for Entrepreneurship; (iv) Center for Logistics Education and Research; and (v) the Professional Development Institute.
U.S. News & World Report's "2013 Best Online Education Programs" ranked North Texas 20th in the nation among the Best Online Graduate Business Programs.
College of Education
The College of Education is a legacy of the university's founding as a teachers college one hundred and twenty-six years ago. The college is organized as four departments and one center: (i) Counseling and Higher Education, (ii) Educational Psychology, (iii) Kinesiology, Health Promotion and Recreation, (iv) Teacher Education and Administration, and (v) The Kristin Farmer Autism Center. As of the Fall 2012, enrollment was 4,178--27% at the graduate level (609 masters, 416 doctoral, 86 post doctoral). As of the 2010-2011 school year, the college certified over 1,147 teachers, the second largest number in the state by a university. Thirty-eight years ago (March 1979), the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board approved renaming the "School of Education" to the "College of Education." At that time, the college was the largest in Texas and the Southwest, the largest doctoral program in the state, and the twenty-fifth largest producer teacher certificates in the United States. Its prior name, "School of Education," dates back to 1946, when the teachers college outgrew itself and reorganized as six schools and colleges. The doctor of education program is in its sixty-seventh year and the masters program is in its eighty-first year.
U.S. News & World Report's "2013 Best Online Education Programs" ranked North Texas 13th in the nation among the Best Online Graduate Education Programs. The online programs include a master's degree in educational psychology with a concentration in gifted and talented education and a new accelerated online master's degree in educational leadership.
College of Engineering
The College of Engineering, founded in 2003, inherited longstanding programs (i) Computer Science, (ii) Information Technology, and (iii) Engineering Technology--with majors in (a) Construction Engineering Technology, (b) Electronics Engineering Technology, (c) Manufacturing Engineering Technology, (d) Mechanical Engineering Technology, and (e) Nuclear Engineering Technology--and launched (iv) Computer Engineering, (v) Electrical Engineering, (vi) Materials Science and Engineering, (vii) Mechanical and Energy Engineering, and (viii) Biomedical Engineering (2014). The college is host to three research centers, one of which being the Net-Centric Software and Systems Center (launched February 24, 2009), a research consortium hosted by UNT and organized as a National Science Foundation Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (NSF I/UCRC). It is primarily funded by industry members (which as of 2012 consist of 16 corporations) and universities (which as of 2012 consist of 5). The focus is developing computing models for the future--models that go beyond applications with preordained fixed capabilities--models capable of services that are dynamically created, verified, and validated in the field and on the fly.
The Laboratory for Recreational Computing (LARC) was founded in 1993, distinguishing North Texas as one of the first universities in the country to offer courses in game programming. LARC began offering a certificate program in 2008. More than 500 students have passed through UNT's gaming courses and today many of UNT's graduates are making an impact in the $18-billion gaming industry. In 2010, GamePro and The Princeton Review ranked North Texas in the top 50 of 500 institutions in North America for places to study game design. In addition to the certificate program, Gaming Design offers programs leading to degrees for Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering, Master of Science, and Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science & Engineering. Notable alumni include Cesar Stastny (BS Computer Science, '04), Director of Technology at Treyarch and member of the design team for Call of Duty: World at War.
College of Information
The College of Information was created in October 2008 by consolidating two existing academic units: Learning Technologies (formerly within the College of Education) and the School of Library and Information Sciences. The School of Library and Information Services was created in 1970 as an outgrowth of its former structure as the Department of Library Services. The college sponsors three research centers, one being The Texas Center for Digital Knowledge. U.S. News & World Report's "2014 Best Grad Schools" ranked three of its graduate programs as among the nation's best: Library and information Sciences (21st), Health Librarianship (6th), and School Library Media (8th)
College of Merchandising, Hospitality, and Tourism
The college is structured as a professional school with a global perspective. Enrollment exceeded 1,500 in fall 2011, a 51-percent increase over six years. The college offers bachelor's degrees with majors in digital retailing, home furnishings merchandising, hospitality management and merchandising, and master's degrees in hospitality management, international sustainable tourism and merchandising.
College of Music
The College of Music is a comprehensive institution of international rank. Its heritage dates back one hundred and twenty-six years, when North Texas was founded. The college has the largest enrollment of any music institution accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music. It has been among the largest music institutions of higher learning in North America since the 1940s. The music library, founded in 1941, has one of the largest music collections in the United States, with over 300,000 volumes of books, periodicals, scores, and approximately 900,000 sound recordings. North Texas was first in the world to offer a degree in jazz studies. U.S. News and World Report ranked the jazz studies program as the best in the country every year from 1994, when it began ranking graduate jazz programs, to 1997, when it retired the category. The One O'Clock Lab Band has been nominated for 7 Grammy Awards.
College of Public Affairs and Community Service
The College of Public Affairs and Community Service, formerly named "College of Community Service," adopted its current name in 2005. The college is organized in six departments, one of which is the Department of Public Administration, home of the nation's first comprehensive degree program in emergency and disaster management that launched thirty-three years ago (1983). The degree incorporates interdisciplinary curricula from other colleges that include applied philosophy and environmental ethics. The degree is tailored for both management practitioners and researchers and is collaborative with the Federal Emergency Management Agency Region VI--based in Denton--which oversees Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. Denton became home to FEMA when its predecessor, the Office of Civil Defense and Mobilization, constructed the nation's first Federal underground defense center in 1959.
The college is host to five research institutes, one being the Turkish Institute for Police Studies (TIPS). The institute has, since its founding in 1999, been based at North Texas. Its mission is to draw upon practical experience of the Turkish National Police (TNP)--in areas of terrorism, organized crime, narcotics, administration, intelligence, and investigation--and enhance it with an academic and theoretical foundation at the masters and doctorate level at U.S. universities. TIPS also serves as a bridge between the TNP and U.S. law agencies. The institute also coordinates the placement and academic monitoring of students in over twenty-four U.S. Universities, including UNT, American University, Rutgers, University of Maryland, Michigan State University, University of Cincinnati, John Jay College, Kent State University, Sam Houston State University, and the University of Central Florida. TIPS holds professional development worldwide in areas of human rights, police intelligence, community policing, police training, forensic sciences, cyber crime, terrorism, crime analysis, criminology, corruption, juvenile justice, and police administration.
US News 2012 Grad School survey ranked Public Affairs 54th in the country, and its sub-category, City Management and Urban Policy 9th.
The Rehabilitation, Social Work and Addictions, another department within the college, received a ranking of 13 by US News 2012 graduate school survey. In 2017, the school is to be renamed "College of Health and Public Service".
College of Visual Arts and Design
The College of Visual Arts and Design has the 10th largest enrollment of any art and design school accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, and the second largest of any that awards doctorates. The college name changes reflect the curricular expansion of programs. In 1992, what then had been the "Department of Art" within the College of Arts and Sciences, became "School of Visual Arts;" and in 2007, it became the "College of Visual Arts and Design." Art classes began at UNT in 1894, four years after its founding. Master's degrees were initiated in the 1930s and the first master of science degree in art was awarded in 1937. US News 2012 grad school survey ranked fine arts 62nd in the nation.
Fashion
Since 1972, the college has served as curator and custodian of the Texas Fashion Collection that was started by Stanley Marcus in 1938.
Design Research Center
The Design Research Center (DRC) is sponsored by the Department of Design and is strategically located in downtown Dallas in the heart of the Design District. The center serves as an interdisciplinary structure that draws upon scholars and design practitioners to develop solutions for basic and complex social, environmental, technological, economic, and public policy problems.
Its interior design program is accredited by the Council for Interior Design Accreditation.
G. Harvey (Gerald Harvey Jones; born 1933), widely known for his paintings of romantic town street scenes from turn-of-the-century America, is a noted alumnus. Other alumni include Erick Swenson, Ron English, Jesús Moroles, and Robert Longo. The faculty includes Nada Shabout, PhD, and Terry Barrett, PhD. Numerous visiting professors include art innovator György Kepes (1944) and Carlos Mérida (1944).
Honors College
The Honors College offers academic enrichments, including honors seminars and exclusive classes for high-achieving undergraduates. There is no age limit. Its classes can either supplement or substitute core coursework. Its objective is to challenge exceptional students at higher levels and to promote leadership. The college is an autonomous collegiate unit on equal footing with the other collegiate units. Academically, it offers no degrees; but its courses are integrated with the baccalaureate programs of the nine constituent colleges and the journalism school. Graduates are awarded a special medallion. The college offers many perks, including scholarships, exchange programs, and exclusive housing--Honors Hall.
The college began as an honors program forty-five years ago (Fall 1971). Its initial enrollment of 50, back then, quickly grew to 400. But the program lost support under a system of borrowing faculty members. The Honors Program was reconstituted in 1994 and was elevated as a college in 2005.
Mayborn School of Journalism
Curricular journalism at North Texas dates back to 1945. As a department, Journalism eventually became part of the College of Arts and Sciences. The Graduate Division of Journalism began in the fall of 1970 under the direction of Reginald Conway Westmorland, PhD (born 1926). In 1999, twelve years after the death of Frank W. Mayborn, its graduate program was renamed the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism. On September 1, 2009, the entire program was elevated as its own collegiate unit and named the Frank W. and Sue Mayborn School of Journalism. Eight Pulitzer Prizes have been won by five of its alumni, among whom are Bill Moyers and Howard Swindle. Other notable alumni include Samir Husni, a world-renowned expert on print journalism, and Cragg Hines. Since 1969, the news-editorial sequence has been accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications; and since 1986, entire program has been accredited. The school is in its twelfth year as founding host of the annual Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference.
Virginia Ellison (née Virginia Jones Paty; 1920-2009)--a North Texas alumna (BA, English, '41) who also taught English and journalism, sponsored the Student Press Club, and served as director of publicity at North Texas from 1942 to 1944--won a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship in 1945, the year she earned a degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is the mother of Keith P. Ellison, Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science
TAMS is a two-year residential early college entrance program that has, since 1987, served exceptionally qualified Texas students who otherwise would be attending high school as juniors and seniors. It was the first of its kind in the nation and, as of 2012, the only in the state and one of five in the nation.
Toulouse Graduate School
The Toulouse Graduate School, founded seventy years ago, is the academic custodian and administrator of all graduate programs offered by nine colleges and one school. It maintains records, administers admissions, and serves various roles in recruiting. It was renamed in 1990 in honor of Robert Bartell Toulouse, EdD (1918-2017), who joined in 1948 as a professor in the College of Education, then served dean of the Graduate School from 1954 to 1982. Toulouse, now professor emeritus, has served other roles at the university, including provost and vice president of academic affairs from 1982 to 1985.
Libraries
UNT Libraries are made up of four public service points and two remote storage facilities. Willis Library is the main library on campus, housing the business, economics, education, humanities and social sciences collections along with microforms and special areas such as the Music Library, Government Documents, the Digital Library Division, Archives, and the Rare Book and Texana collections. The Media Library in Chilton Hall houses a large collection of audiovisual materials, including films, audiobooks, and video games (see Game Design, above). Video recording equipment and gaming consoles are available for checkout. The Eagle Commons Library in Sycamore Hall focuses on physics, chemistry, biology, art, psychology and mathematics. It also houses the Collaboration and Learning Commons, a place to study in groups, create multi-media projects, and record presentations. The Discovery Park Library supports the College of Engineering and the College of Information, Library Science, and Technologies. It covers multiple areas of engineering, library and information science, and learning technology.
Other academic programs
The Intensive English Language Institute (IELI)
Established in 1977, IELI is the largest intensive English program (IEP) in North Texas, serving international students who wish to learn academic English in preparation for university studies in the United States. IELI is a constituent of UNT International (UNT-I), an interdisciplinary unit and exponent of globalization in higher education that provides leadership and support of international teaching, research, and study-abroad initiatives. As of July 2015, IELI has been located in Marquis Hall on the UNT Denton campus.
History
Student life
All freshmen are required to live on campus to satisfy a residency requirement. 15.5% of students, or 5,620, live in on-campus residence halls. In addition, 37.3%, or 13,494, live within the city of Denton while 4,021, or 11.1% live outside of the city of Denton but within Denton County and 36.1% or 13,043 students live outside of Denton County.
There are 13 residence halls on the Denton campus. UNT also offers the Residents Engaged in Academic Living (REAL) Communities program. The REAL communities offer students the ability to live with other residents in their major, and allow them to interact with each other and participate in programs that are geared toward their major or discipline. On August 22, 2011, fifty-two-year-old Maple Street Hall became the first all-vegan ("Mean Greens") college cafeteria in the country.
The social Greek community is made-up of four councils that oversee 39 fraternities and sororities. Four percent of students of both genders are members of social fraternities and sororities.
Traditions
North Texas adopted green and white as its official primary colors during the 1902-1903 school year. In recent years, black has been added as another primary color.
UNT's mascot, the American eagle, was adopted on February 1, 1922, as a result of a student-faculty council debate and ensuing student election.
The eagle has had three nicknames, beginning with "Scrappy" in 1950. The human costumed eagle character, launched in 1963, carried the name "Scrappy" until 1974--during the throes of the Vietnam War--when students adopted the name "Eppy" because it sounded less warlike. Since then, the name has switched back and forth, from Eppy to Scrappy; but for the last twenty-one years, the name "Scrappy" has endured.
In the spring of 2002, a student group attempted to make the albino squirrel the school's secondary mascot. The student body narrowly rejected the measure. In August 2006, the albino squirrel, believed to bring luck to students who spotted him before an exam, was killed by a red-tailed hawk. By May 2007, another albino squirrel had been born on campus.
The name "Mean Green," now in its fiftieth year, was adopted by fans and media in 1966 for a North Texas football defensive squad that finished the season second in the nation against the rush. That season, Joe Greene, then a sophomore at North Texas, played left defensive tackle on the football team and competed in track and field (shot put). The nickname "Mean Joe Greene" caught-on during his first year with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1969 when Pittsburgh fans wrongly assumed that "Mean Green" was derived from a nickname Joe Greene had inherited while at North Texas. The North Texas athletic department, media, and fans loved the novelty of the national use of its nickname, and its association with Joe Greene's surname and university's official school color. By 1968, "Mean Green" was branded on the backs of shirts, buttons, bumper stickers, and the cover of the North Texas football brochure.
Francis Edwin Stroup, EdD (1909-2010), emerged in 1939--ten years after graduating from North Texas--as the winning composer (lyrics and music) of a university sponsored fight song competition organized by Floyd Graham. He taught summers at North Texas from 1939 to 1942. The song, "Fight, North Texas," has endured for seventy-seven years and the lyrics have changed minimally to reflect the name changes of the university. While serving as an Associate Professor at the University of Wyoming from 1946 to 1950, Stroup rewrote the lyrics for the chorus to "Ragtime Cowboy Joe," which was adopted in 1961 as the university's fight song. After serving as Head of the Physical Education Department at Southern Arkansas University from 1950 to 1959, Stroup became Professor of Physical Education at Northern Illinois University. While there, Stroup rewrote the lyrics to the chorus of Alonzo Neil Annas' (1882-1966) NIU "Loyalty Song" (©1942), which was informally adopted in 1961 and officially 1963 as the "Huskie Fight Song." Stroup also composed songs for Drake University and the University of Chicago. A collegiate academician who played piano mostly by ear and neither majored nor worked in music, Stroup lived to be 101, a number exceeding the songs he composed by one digit. Stroup was inducted in the Halls of Fame of Northern Illinois University and the University of North Texas (1987).
In 1919, Julia Smith (1905-1989), while a music student, and Charles Kirby Langford (1903-1931), then a third-year letterman on the football team and an outstanding overall athlete, composed "Glory to the Green and White" which was adopted as the school's alma mater in 1922. Smith wrote the music and Langford wrote the lyrics.
The Spirit Bell--a 2,000 lb (910 kg) bell brought from Michigan in 1891--was a curfew bell from 1892 to 1928. The Talons, a spirit and service organization formed in 1960, acquired it in the 1964, mounted it on a wagon, and began the tradition of running it around the football field to rally fans. It was retired to the University Union in 1982 after it developed a crack. A similar 1,600 lb (730 kg) Spirit Bell is currently in use at games. A different organization by the name "Talons" was founded in 1926 as the first social fraternity at North Texas.
On Homecoming Fridays, the Talons light a bonfire built from wooden pallets, typically in a 40-by-40-by-25-foot-height structure. The tradition has endured since the 1930s.
"Boomer" is a cannon fired by the Talons at football games since the 1970s. It is a 7/8th scale M1841 6 pound, smooth bore muzzleloader, resting on hand-crafted solid oak from the campus. Talon alumni have restored it three times, the most recent being in the Fall of 2007, adding a custom limber for transport and equipment.
The Mean Green Machine, a green and black 1931 Ford Model A Tudor Sedan, is driven by the Talons Motorpool Committee at football games and special events. It was donated by alumnus Rex Cauble in 1974. In 2012, a team of engineering students installed a NetGain WarP 9 electric engine. As of 2016, the Mean Green Machine has been re-equipped with a modified Model A engine after complications with the electric engine.
McConnell Tower, the clock tower atop the Hurley Administration Building at the center of campus, is bathed in green light for victories. The clock is depicted on the official class ring with two different times on its faces: 1:00 (for the One O'Clock Lab Band) and 7:00--the curfew initiated in 1892.
The eagle talon hand signal is formed by curling the thumb and index and middle fingers forward--the ring and pinkie fingers stay closed against the palm.
"In High Places," is a 22 ft (6.7 m) tall bronze statue of a flying eagle created by Gerald Balciar and dedicated during the university's centennial in 1990.
Broadcast, print, and digital media
KNTU (88.1 FM), licensed and owned by the university and operated by students, has, for forty-seven years, broadcast to the North Texas region. Jazz has always been a feature of the station; but in 1981, it became the predominant format. KNTU began broadcasting in stereo in 1986 and, on March 22, 1988, increased its broadcasting power from 6,700 watts to 100,000, extending its reach to about a 60-mile radius from its tower located on the Denton campus. KNTU is part of the Mean Green Radio Network, which reaches 10 million listeners. Under the guidance of now-retired faculty member Bill Mercer, several sports broadcasters and radio personalities have emerged from North Texas, including Dave Barnett formerly of ESPN, George Dunham, and Craig Miller.
NTTV, UNT's 24-hour cable television station, features student-produced and student-centric programming.
North Texas Review is an annual publication of the English Department. It is produced by UNT students and exclusively features works--art, poetry, fiction, non-fiction--by UNT students.
Student yearbooks through the years have included Cotton-tail (1906), Yucca (1907-1974), Wings (1977-1980), and Aerie (1982-2007). Aerie ceased publication after the 2007 edition, following a trend of the digital age cited by The Economist in 2008.
North Texas is the home of American Political Science Review as of July 2012. The journal moves among national universities every four to six years. UNT will be the first university in the South or Southwest to house the publication. ISSN 1537-5943
The North Texas Daily is the official university daily newspaper, staffed by students. Print issues are published Tuesday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters, and weekly during the summer. The paper was founded in 1916 as The Campus Chat and adopted its current name in 1971.
The North Texas Pigeon is the University of North Texas' unofficial news source inspired by The Onion. It was started in 2014 to inform and entertain students. The website and all articles on it are the products of UNT students.
Intercollegiate athletics
As of 2012, North Texas sponsored fifteen athletic teams that compete at the intercollegiate level of NCAA Division I--for men: football; for men and women: basketball, track & field, cross country, and golf; for women only: Diving, Soccer, Softball, Swimming, Tennis, and Volleyball. UNT has been a member of Conference USA since 2013.
In its 103-year history of intercollegiate athletics, the North Texas football team has won 24 conference championships, with the last four occurring from 2001 to 2004 in the Sun Belt Conference. As of 2014, the team has appeared in eight bowl games, winning three--including the 2002 New Orleans Bowl and the 2014 Heart of Dallas Bowl. Seth Littrell was hired in December 2015, and is in his first year as head coach. From 1952 to 2010, home football games were played at Fouts Field. In 2011, UNT began playing in newly constructed Apogee Stadium.
The North Texas men's basketball team won the 2006-2007 Sun Belt Conference championship and advanced to the NCAA Tournament. The season marked the beginning of a four consecutive seasons of 20-plus wins. North Texas won the Sun Belt Conference championship again during the 2009-2010 season, and again advanced to the NCAA Tournament. The 2016-2017 season marks the forty-fourth season that the UNT Coliseum has served as the home for Men's basketball.
The head coach of the North Texas mean green Women's basketball team is Jalie Mitchell.
Arts in the community
UNT on the Square, which opened October 21, 2009, is an off-campus portal to fine arts at the University of North Texas in downtown Denton at 109 North Elm Street on the west side of the historic Denton County Courthouse, a few doors south of where North Texas was founded in temporary quarters one hundred and twenty-six years ago (see History). The facility -- 2,400 feet (730 m) -- is the home of the UNT Institute for the Advancement of the Arts, also founded in the fall of 2009. Herbert Holl, PhD, is its inaugural director. Concerts are held weekly and art exhibitions are in constant rotation.
Notable people
As of 2005, the University of North Texas had approximately 326,000 living alumni, of which, over 208,000 reside in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.
A significant number of notable alumni have flourished in the field of music, including Roy Orbison, Tom "Bones" Malone and "Blue Lou" Marini (the latter two were members of The Blues Brothers Band and the Saturday Night Live Band), Lecrae Moore ('02), co-founder of Reach Records, Grammy Award-winners Don Henley, Norah Jones, Pat Boone and Duain Wolfe, conductor of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. Rock n Roll Jazz fusion legend and fine artist Robert C. Havens. Jazz saxophonist Billy Harper received his bachelor's degree in music in 1965. KDGE disc-jockey Josh Venable attended the university as well as Keith Carlock who has toured with Toto and Steely Dan. Eugene Corporon, conductor of the College of Music's Wind Symphony, is a prolific recording artist and conductor. Steve Turre, a jazz trombonist and member of the Juilliard faculty, is among the most prolific living studio musicians in the world and is in his thirty-third year as trombonist with the Saturday Night Live Band. The rock musician Meat Loaf (Michael Lee Aday), famous for his appearance in Rocky Horror Picture Show, produced an album trilogy, Bat Out of Hell, the first of which has sold more than 43 million copies worldwide. After thirty-nine years, it still sells an estimated 200,000 copies annually and has stayed on the charts for over nine years, making it one of the best selling albums of all time. Kristopher Carter Composer; Emmy Award winner for the Batman Beyond cartoon series. Roy Orbison, Grammy Award-winning singer and guitarist; songs included "Oh, Pretty Woman," considered one of the 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and "Crying" Dave Pietro, Grammy Award-winning saxophonist and member of the Maria Schneider Orchestra and Snarky Puppy they are the Two-time Grammy Award-winning band, known for its combination of jazz, funk and world music 1986 alumnus Sara Hickman has had a noteworthy career as a singer-songwriter, producing over twenty albums, making two appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, getting a national hit, "I Couldn't Help Myself," which reached #3 on the Billboard Magazine Adult Contemporary chart in 1993, and being named Official Texas State Musician for 2010.
WWF wrestlers David and Kevin Von Erich, and Stone Cold Steve Austin were student athletes at North Texas. David, recruited in 1976 by Hayden Fry to play football, flourished as a 6-6, 220-pound forward on the basketball team under Bill Blakely. Kevin was a running back under Hayden Fry in 1976 until a knee injury. Austin, who drew inspiration to become a wrestler from the Von Erichs, played football for North Texas in the mid-1980s.
Alumni in public service include Michael C. Burgess, congressman for the 26th Texas district; Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs since 29 April 2015, he was former Saudi ambassador to the United States and former adviser to the Royal Court of Saudi Arabia; Ray Roberts, former U.S. Congressman and namesake of Lake Ray Roberts; Jim Hightower, Texas Agricultural Commissioner who, while in office, was a pioneering supporter of organic farmers and ranchers; and Robert L. Bobbitt, who served as Texas Speaker of the House, Texas Attorney General, and Chairman of the Texas Highway Department. Chester A. Newland, PhD (born 1930), who earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with high honors from UNT in 1954 and also became head of the UNT Political Science Department in 1963, was appointed by Lyndon Johnson to become the inaugural Director of the LBJ Library in 1968. He also served as Director of the Federal Executive Institute from 1973 to 1976, and again from 1980 to 1981. In 1954, Newland was the founding president of North Texas chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, a national political science honorary organization. Jim Hightower was a student in Political Science at North Texas while Newland served as director.
Phil McGraw, who earned a PhD in clinical psychology from North Texas in 1979, is in his fifteenth year as host of Dr. Phil, an internationally syndicated CBS TV show. Bill Moyers studied journalism at North Texas in the 1950s. George Dunham, co-host of the "Dunham & Miller" radio show on KTCK, graduated in 1988.
Elise F. Harmon (1909-1985) earned a B.S. and went on to become a major contributor to the development of printed circuity and the miniaturization of computers.
James Pawelczyk (UNT PhD--Biology '89) was a payload specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1998. The crew served as subjects and operators for experiments focusing on the effects of microgravity on the brain and nervous system. His research interests include neural control of the circulation, particularly skeletal muscle blood flow, as it is affected by exercise or spaceflight. Pawelczyk is currently a physiologist at the Noll Physiological Research Center at Pennsylvania State University.
Mark Mattson (UNT MS-Biology '82) is a well-known neuroscientist who has made major contributions to understanding how the brain responds to challenges, and to knowledge of why nerve cells become dysfunctional and degenerate in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.
Ela Hockaday (1875-1956) founded the Hockaday School in Dallas in 1913. She earned her B.A. from North Texas in 1897.
Lorene Lane Rogers, who earned a bachelor's degree in English from North Texas, served as president of the University of Texas at Austin from 1974 to 1979, the first female in the country to head a major university and the only female in that role in UT's one hundred and thirty-three-year history. As UT's fifteenth president, she broke a seventy-nine-year jinx by becoming the first not to be fired. She met her husband, Burl Gordon Rogers (UNT BS--chemistry '35) while attending North Texas and married him in 1935. Burl went on to earn a PhD in chemistry from UT in 1940, and thereafter, in 1941, moved to Westfield, New Jersey, for his new job at General Aniline Works in Linden. But on June 19 of that year, Burl died from burns after a mixture of chemicals flared in a laboratory at work a week earlier. In honor of Burl, Lorene gave money to UT for a scholarship in 1996, and in turn, the UT Board of Regents established the Burl Gordon Rogers Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Chemistry.
William Marvin Whyburn (1901-1972), from the North Texas class of 1919, became the fourth president of Texas Tech University in 1944, and served in that capacity for four years. He went on to become an international acclaimed mathematics professor at UCLA, and was particularly known for his work on ordinary differential equations. His brother, Gordon Thomas Whyburn, was also a notable mathematician.
Bill Allen Nugent (UNT PhD--Musicology '70), in 1982, became the first chancellor of the University of Arkansas in its 110-year history. Robert Blocker, DMA (UNT MM--piano '70, DMA--piano '72), who has served as dean of several renowned institutions--including the UNT College of Music--has, for the last twenty-two years, been the Dean at the Yale School of Music. Bill Thomson, PhD (UNT BM--composition '48, MM--composition '49), served as Dean of the Thornton School of Music, University of Southern California, from 1980 to 1992. Bill Lee, PhD (UNT BM '49, MM '50), as Dean from 1964 to 1982, built the University of Miami School of Music into an international powerhouse across several music genres, including jazz.
O'Neil Ford, renowned architect, enrolled in 1924 and studied machine drafting and architectural drawing for two years.
Leontine T. Kelly (1920-2012)--who completed graduate work at UNT in economics, history, and humanities in the 1960s--in 1984, became Bishop of the United Methodist Church, making her the second woman and first African American woman to become a bishop of any major Christian denomination in the world. In 2000, Kelly was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
Selected initial sustainability initiatives
Further reading
- The Portal to Texas History is an undertaking of the North Texas Libraries Digital Projects Unit. OCLC 63174714
- Texas State Historical Association, housed on the Denton campus as of 2008, administers its website and distributes its Handbook of Texas Online. The association had previously been at the University of Texas at Austin since its founding in 1897. ISSN 1558-9560
- UNT Research Magazine is an annual digital magazine. It was founded as ReSource (with various subtitles) in 1992 and adopted its current name in 2006. OCLC 14185262, 22547873
- American Literary Review is a national magazine of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction by writers at all stages in their careers. It was founded in 1990. The Review is largely student run, with faculty editorial oversight. In the fall of 2013, the Review become exclusively an online digital publication. ISSN 1051-5062
- Environmental Ethics is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering the study of philosophical aspects of environmental problems. It was established in 1979.
- Möbius is a Journal of the UNT Initiative for Advanced Research in Technology and the Arts.
- University of North Texas Press, founded in 1987, is a relatively young albeit prolific book publisher with more than 300 titles in print (as of 2012).
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