Communications

UNT State of the University Transcript, Nov. 12, 2026

[Music performed by the Center Brass Quintet]

ANNOUNCER: Please join me in welcoming Faculty Senate Chair Adam Chamberlin.

ADAM CHAMBERLIN: Good afternoon and welcome. Thank you first to the Center Brass Quintet for their amazing performance. That was kind of just wonderful. I’m Adam Chamberlin, I’m chair of the Faculty Senate, and it is my pleasure to welcome our students, faculty, staff, alumni, community partners and all of you joining us online for this year’s State of the University address presented by our president, Dr. Harrison Keller.

The State of the University is an important tradition. It offers us an opportunity not only to look back, but to “Look North,” to consider where we are headed, and how we will get there together.

Over the past two years, President Keller has guided UNT through a period of considerable change and challenge. Like many, our university continues to face financial pressures, shifting public expectations, demographic changes, and a changing policy environment. Through it all, President Keller has consistently worked to create enduring value through student success and by strengthening UNT’s position as a leading public research university.

His commitment to student success is a consistent theme of his presidency, as is UNT’s responsibility as a public research university to the students, community, and region that we serve. A year ago, he unveiled a new strategic plan for UNT. This year, our colleges and divisions each set their own plans for putting it into action so that work of every unit connects to the broader vision and goals. This effort takes time and care from people across the campus and is continuing. Supporters have also shown their belief in UNT and its direction through philanthropic gifts for scholarships and student services, and for these contributions, we are truly grateful.

As faculty, we recognize that the future of this institution depends not only on sound leadership, but on strong partnerships across the university environment. Our success and any success of the university is built on the trust between students, the faculty, staff, administration, governing boards, alumni, community members, and anybody else I’ve left out. Trust grows when decisions are made transparently, when communication is clear, and when those most affected by decisions have meaningful opportunities to contribute their expertise.

Faculty and staff have long served as stewards of UNT’s mission. Through shared governance, we help ensure that decisions affecting teaching, research, academic life, and student experience benefit from the expertise of those closest to that work. Shared governance is not simply a tradition of higher education; it’s one of our institution’s greatest strengths. It allows us to draw upon the knowledge and expertise and commitment of the entire university community as we navigate those opportunities and the challenges we face.

At a time when higher education sits at the intersection of public policy, social expectations, and lots of public debate, it is worth reaffirming the enduring purpose of our university — our responsibility to pursue knowledge, educate students, serve the public, and uphold the principles of academic inquiry and intellectual independence. Universities everywhere work within the broader environment around them, and our greatest contributions come when academic expertise, evidence, and educational values remain at the center of our work.

President Keller understands both the opportunities and responsibilities of this moment. Throughout his tenure, he’s demonstrated a willingness to engage with difficult challenges while keeping the university focused on its core mission. As we continue moving forward, I know many of our university’s community members look forward to building even stronger partnerships, deeper trust, and a more collaborative process that will help us realize UNT’s full potential.

Today, President Keller will share his assessment of the university’s progress, and his vision for the years ahead. As we listen, let us remember that the future of UNT will not be shaped by any one individual, office, or constituency. It will be shaped by all of us, working together in service of our students and the public mission of this remarkable institution.

That work is already happening across our campus. Before President Keller joins us, we would like to share a short video about our Look North: UNT 2030 strategic plan that features our students, faculty, and staff who are helping to bring this plan to life. Please enjoy.

[Video plays]

PRESIDENT KELLER: Good afternoon.

I want to start with gratitude. At the University of North Texas, we find ourselves in a moment of real and rapid change. And navigating these changes with creativity, with clarity, with grace is difficult, and the progress we have made is a testament to so many of you here.

In particular, I want to recognize Chancellor Michael Williams and members of the Board of Regents who are here today: Chairman Carlos Munguia and Regents Cathy Bryce, John Scott, and Ronald Makumbi. Our Look North: UNT 2030 strategic plan is well aligned with the ambitious goals that the Chancellor laid out this year for the UNT System. And I’m grateful to the Chancellor and the Board for their commitment to UNT.

I’m also grateful to our partners, including employers, educators, and community leaders across Denton, Frisco, and throughout our region for their engagement and support. I want to thank State Senator Brent Hagenbuch, State Representative Richard Hayes, Denton Mayor Chris Watts, Frisco Mayor Mark Hill, Frisco City Council members Ann Anderson, Brittany Colberg, Burt Thakur, and representatives from the office of Congressman Ronny Jackson all for being here today. Thank you. We are so blessed to be part of this community and this dynamic region. And as your partners, we’re committed to putting UNT’s strengths to work to benefit our entire North Texas region.

Most of all, I want to thank our faculty, our staff, student leaders, and every member of our UNT family for contributing your insights and your efforts to our vision for the future. So what began in 1890 in a rented space above the hardware store in downtown Denton is now one of the nation’s largest public research universities, recognized as a national leader for creating value and driving economic mobility for students.

Generations of people like you have made this possible. And now, we look to you to make UNT’s future possible.

As we gather today, American higher education faces hard questions about its value, purpose, and future. Students and families want to know if a college degree leads to real opportunities. Employers need people who are prepared for a changing economy. The public expects universities to show how our work serves our students and our communities.

These questions deserve clear answers. And at UNT, we’re stepping forward to provide those answers through the choices we’re making, the changes we’re leading, and the work we do every day.

Now last year, I emphasized that at UNT, we focus not only on making sure our students stay enrolled and graduate — but also on preparing them to achieve their highest potential after they leave our campus. We understand the diploma is not the destination. We’re one of the first American research universities to embrace economic opportunity for our graduates as a core accountability metric.

Those commitments shape how we plan, how we work, and how we pursue our mission. Our calling is to help our students succeed with the knowledge, skills, and experiences they need to put their educations to work and thrive. In fact, in just a few minutes, I’ll share a new commitment that puts this responsibility into even sharper focus, one that follows our students well past the day they cross the stage.

Now first let’s reflect on this last year, which tested all of us. We faced a significant budget deficit, primarily driven by federal policy changes that impacted our international student enrollments, sponsored research, and student financial aid. Those combined financial pressures required difficult decisions.

But UNT is resilient. We came together as a campus. We didn’t shy away from making hard choices to reduce our costs while still advancing our mission. We slowed new hiring, we consolidated units, and we sunset lower-demand programs. And throughout, we kept our sights on our values, our public responsibilities, and our vision for the university we’re building and the people who make it possible.

Now ultimately, through a combination of good fiscal management and some external factors in our favor, we were able to close out fiscal year 2026 with less than a $5 million deficit — about one half of one percent of our annual operating budget.

But to be clear, we’re not out of the woods yet. So in fiscal year ’27, we have a lot of hard work ahead. We’ve got to grow revenue, improve efficiency, and eliminate the deficit for this fiscal year and beyond. Now last year, we made incredible progress, and this year we’ve got to stay focused to keep moving forward. Our progress gives us new momentum, new capacity to invest in our people and our vision for UNT.

And that includes investing in our faculty and our staff. Next month, for the first time in too long, we’ll provide merit-based pay increases.

Now we know rising costs are straining household budgets. And this round of merit increases won’t erase those pressures, but they’re a step forward making UNT a university that more consistently recognizes and rewards excellent work, a place where our faculty and our staff know they can build fulfilling, lasting careers.

Now being a university where people are supported to do their best work is also about leaning into our values and the unique culture that defines us. And one way we’re investing in that is through our Customer Service initiative. Now since we announced this work last year, as a joint project with the Staff Senate, more than 100 staff stepped forward to lead this effort. So it supports and empowers our staff so when students or colleagues have a question or problem, they can own the moment and resolve the issue. Right now, our OneStop team is piloting new practices and training, and this year we’ll extend this work across the university.

Now while investing in our faculty and staff is essential, so is investing in our students. This year, our first students enrolled through the UNT Promise, which covers tuition and fees for students from families who make less than $100,000 a year. The UNT Promise removes barriers to families who may have thought UNT was out of reach, and that includes families whose work is essential to our communities. Teachers, social workers, first responders, and others can be confident that their children have a clear path to UNT.

At UNT, we’ve made a commitment to give our students more than a degree, and over the last year, our supporters have made extraordinary investments in helping us deliver on that promise.

So when I spoke to you last November, we launched our first fundraising campaign in more than a decade with an ambitious goal: to raise $100 million for student success in the next 24 months. Today, I am proud to announce we reached that goal in exactly 10 months. As of today, our Better Look North campaign has raised more than $107 million for student success at UNT — and we’re not done.

Our donors and our corporate partners, they know something transformational is happening here. They see UNT gaining national visibility for academic innovation, upward mobility and student success.

And their generosity is already making a real difference for our students: more financial aid to put a degree within reach, help meeting basic needs so our students can stay on track, more personalized support from our students’ first semester through graduation.

But this first campaign is just one part of a larger story about our bold vision for the future. A year ago, we introduced Look North: UNT 2030, built on a commitment to create enduring value for the public good.

See, our vision for UNT isn’t just to be a better university on the conventional metrics. As our first president, Joshua C. Chilton declared, our aim will constantly be to adjust the work of the college to the demands of the times. Look North outlines our shared vision for what it means to be a university for our times. To be the kind of public university Texas needs now and for the future.

That commitment reaches every part of our university:

To develop the potential of our students, faculty, and staff; to be an engine of discovery and creative contributions of public value; and to drive new opportunities across the most dynamic region, in the fastest growing state, in the greatest nation in the world.

Now our work together to Develop, Discover, and Drive gives our vision its structure. Today, I’d like to report on how this work has taken shape over the past year, and where it’s taking us next.

So let’s start with our first priority, to develop human talent. Developing the potential of our students is our most fundamental responsibility.

When students choose UNT, they and their families entrust us with resources and years of their lives. They place extraordinary faith in what a UNT education can make possible, and we owe them an education worthy of their trust.

That starts with meeting our students where they are, so they can find a path that resonates for them, participate in well-designed programs, thrive in their courses and activities, and prepare for success well beyond their time at UNT. This responsibility comes with a need to constantly renew and reinvent our educational mission, so we can equip our students to adapt, lead, and thrive even in times of incredible change.

Now meeting students where they are includes creating better on-ramps for students to access a UNT education. This fall, we welcomed our first students into UNT OnePath, which allows students to enroll simultaneously at Collin College and at UNT, on a coordinated path to earn both associate’s and bachelor’s degrees. With support from both institutions and coursework that counts towards their degrees, UNT OnePath gives students a clear, affordable route to a UNT degree. Stay tuned, because more OnePath partnerships are coming soon.

On campus, we have a responsibility to develop our students’ skills as adults, colleagues, and citizens who can engage in open and respectful dialogue with other people who disagree. A strong civic culture not only creates conditions for dialogue and learning; it also equips our students to collaborate with each other and to solve complex problems in their jobs, communities, and throughout their lives. So, last year we launched the Presidential Initiative on Civil Discourse. Since then, we’ve brought the initiative to life, thanks to dedicated faculty and staff from across the university working together to make civil discourse part of the everyday experience here at UNT.

We’re also taking a fresh approach to one of the most persistent challenges our students face: math and science readiness. This fall, the College of Science is launching a new division to redesign entry level math and science courses and connect what students are learning to real problems they may encounter in their majors and in their careers. This division is being designed to operate as a learning laboratory, drawing on faculty disciplinary expertise and current insights about human learning. This work will serve students across the university, and I am so grateful to the hard work of our faculty and to our LEEF team to innovate the future of math and science education and help our students succeed.

At UNT, when we talk about helping our students develop their talents, it isn’t just about what happens in our classrooms. It happens in our performance halls, in our debate stages, athletics, where our programs continue to reach new heights.

This year, our UNT jazz students won a historic 20 awards in the Downbeat Student Music Awards. Our UNT debaters continue to win accolades, including placing fifth in the nation at the International Public Debate Association Nationals.

And of course, our Mean Green football team is undefeated in conference play with just three games to go in the regular season. Last year, we had the highest combined winning percentage in football, men’s basketball, and women’s basketball in the American Conference. And notably, I have to call out that our UNT athletes also had the highest average GPA in program history. We are so proud of our athletes, our coaches, and our UNT Athletics leadership team.

Across the university, all our students should be able to develop their potential and put what they’re learning to work. Our students shouldn’t have to wait for their first job to gain experience applying their knowledge and skills to real challenges.

And that’s why, in partnership with employers and major foundations, we are rapidly expanding opportunities for our students to gain professional experience and tackle real problems as part of their UNT degree programs.

A growing number of our programs have required internships, including all majors in the G. Brint Ryan College of Business. UNT is only one of eight institutions nationwide — and the only one in Texas — who was selected to the National Work-Integrated Learning Accelerator. The Trellis Foundation recently awarded us a grant to expand work-integrated learning opportunities across the university, so all our students can develop skills and experiences that employers need.

Now that kind of recognition is essential, not only because of the financial support it brings to our programs, but more importantly, because these partnerships create opportunities for our graduates in North Texas and beyond.

Now integrating work experience into our programs is one of the most powerful ways we can accelerate our students’ and families’ trajectories to realize a positive economic return on their investments in their UNT educations.

I want to tell a balanced and transparent story, and as impressive as our progress is across so many fronts, we still face persistent challenges to achieving some of our most important metrics. We’re still early in our journey to help our first-year students build momentum and stay on track into their second year. This year, just over three out of four first-year students returned for their second year. We’ve got to do better to reach our Look North goal of at least 90 percent. So this year we’ll double down on strategies that have been most effective here and at other institutions, especially better advising and more personalized support, to keep a tough semester from becoming a reason to leave.

From students’ first day on campus, throughout their time here, into their first jobs and beyond, every aspect of our work should aim towards the same objective: making a UNT degree an engine of opportunity. When we help a student develop their full potential, we’re not just changing one life; we’re changing what’s possible for their families, for their communities, and for the future of North Texas.

Now building the future of North Texas takes new insights, and that’s the heart of our second priority: to Discover. As a leading research university, UNT is working every day on the frontiers of human knowledge, creativity, and understanding.

And one way we embrace this work is by breaking down barriers between academic disciplines. The most important problems of our time don’t fit neatly into one department or discipline, but over the last century universities have evolved to become deeply siloed. As a public research university, we have a responsibility to respond with agility and purpose to the opportunities and challenges of our rapidly changing world.

So in that spirit, one of our most important efforts this year is our college realignment initiative. Through this work, we’re moving away from traditional, smaller academic departments into interdisciplinary schools and divisions. The goal is to provide our faculty with better platforms to bring their scholarship, creativity, and expertise together and better equip our students to solve complex challenges.

That vision also guides the formation of our Anuradha and Vikas Sinha College of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Analytics. The Sinhas’ $20 million gift supports scholarships and research while bringing together and bolstering our expertise in the development, application, and responsible use of artificial intelligence, intelligent systems, and data analytics. In every sector, employers tell me they’re grappling with the technical and human implications of advances in AI. At UNT, we are organizing to partner with industry and work across disciplines to help navigate these challenges.

North Texas is an ideal setting for this kind of research that makes a real difference. Even in times of uncertain federal investments, our UNT research enterprise is expanding, thanks to Level One support through the Texas University Fund and our private partners.

Now to support and accelerate our research mission, we’re continuing the incentive program we launched last year to help us recruit and retain world-class researchers in areas that are critically important for the future of our region, our state, and our nation.

We’re also building new capabilities to support innovation and technology transfer. Ideas born at UNT shouldn’t just stay at UNT. We’re making rapid progress in this area of our work. So, for example, we recently signed agreements with Titomic and Vibrant Capital to launch projects in next-generation manufacturing technologies and applied AI. And that work not only translates UNT insights into impact, but it also gives our students unique opportunities to tackle real challenges employers face right now.

None of that happens without the creative energy and the hard work of our faculty. And I spend a lot of time in formal and informal discussions with faculty innovators, and I am consistently inspired by their dedication to our students and our university. Our faculty serve UNT in so many ways beyond traditional teaching and research: mentoring students, developing new programs, and extending our impact in the community.

This year, we must make sure that the work that advances UNT’s mission also advances their careers. So we’re working together with the deans, the Faculty Senate, and faculty colleagues across the university to develop and refine new guidelines for promotion, tenure, and faculty workload. When faculty redesign courses to help more students succeed, they make discoveries that cross disciplinary lines, or they use their expertise to solve local challenges, all those contributions to our mission should count.

Now UNT’s future is bound to the future of North Texas. Within the next decade, DFW is expected to surpass Chicago and become the third largest metro area in the United States.

And that growth sets the context for our third priority, our responsibility to drive new opportunities across North Texas and beyond. Over the past year, that commitment is visible in new partnerships, new ideas at work, and real results for our region.

Now preparing students for North Texas means understanding how North Texas is changing. In its first year, the Texas Talent Accelerator, which was founded at UNT with support from the Texas Legislature, has brought together employers, colleges, chambers of commerce, and economic development leaders to help analyze and understand workforce needs.

Now, the Talent Accelerator is mapping career paths in health care, semiconductors, energy and other sectors, and examining the potential impact of AI on jobs across our region. Our work through the Talent Accelerator has also continued to earn financial support, and that includes a grant from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation. Across our region, we have more than 800,000 people who started college but didn’t earn a certificate or degree. This grant will support our outreach to help us re-engage and re-enroll these former students who had their educational journeys disrupted.

We’re also driving new opportunities through our Dual Credit Network, where we’re partnering with community colleges and school districts to prepare and support teachers across our region and beyond. Earning college credit in high school is one of the strongest predictors of our students’ enrollment and success in college. The greatest barrier is a lack of qualified teachers. So now, with a grant from the Moody Foundation, UNT is expanding access to high-quality dual credit courses in rural communities across the state of Texas. And I have to tell you, personally, as someone who comes from and loves rural Texas, I’m so inspired by the idea that we are not allowing the shortage of qualified teachers in those regions to prevent students from accessing the kind of opportunities that are available in larger metro areas like ours.

And at UNT at Frisco, we’re building entirely new models for a UNT education, designed for more flexibility, rapid experimentation, and industry partnerships that we can scale across the university. One of the most exciting programs we’re building right now is an accelerated pathway with UNT Health into medical school, so students can earn affordable, high-quality UNT bachelor’s degrees and UNT Health medical degrees in a total of six years.

At UNT, we’re reimagining and we’re innovating the future of the public research university, adapting to meet the demands of our time. Through the creativity and dedication of our UNT community and the breadth of our partnerships, we’re driving opportunity at tremendous scale.

This year, we’re reaching out to even more people who can benefit from what UNT offers, and that includes transfer partnerships with community colleges. expanded programs for graduate students and working professionals. In all this work, our aim isn’t just to enroll more students or award more diplomas, but to offer clear lines of sight to opportunities available right here in our North Texas region.

We’re leaning into our responsibility to make sure that all UNT students are ready for what comes next. And today, I’m announcing a major step forward in this work, which we call the UNT Advantage.

The UNT Advantage is a university-wide commitment to connect a UNT education with opportunities for career success and continued professional growth. It brings together and amplifies everything we do well, from courses and programs that develop the skills and insights employers need, industry-recognized credentials, and specialized AI training to internships, career coaching, and employer connections, all organized together into one coordinated experience for our UNT students and alumni. And that’s the UNT Advantage.

Our students are incredibly talented, and they’re pragmatic. And when I talk with our students, they tell me they’re worried about how the job markets are changing and how they’re going to navigate those changes once they graduate.

Now most universities just measure success in terms of whether students stay enrolled and graduate. At UNT, we’re raising the bar on student success, because we’re accountable for what happens next. Already, we know a typical UNT graduate earns back their investment in their degree in seven years or less. Through the UNT Advantage, we aim to accelerate that Time to Value across every program we offer.

And that commitment doesn’t end at commencement. From our current students to recent graduates to established UNT alumni, we’ll remain a partner to help them pursue what comes next. So, for example, think of a graduate just six months out, working a first job that may not be quite the right fit, or an alumnus who’s five or 10 years into their career, who’s ready to take on the next challenge. With the UNT Advantage, our students and graduates can access career coaching, earn a new industry credential at no cost, and connect with employers looking for someone who has their skills.

A UNT degree should be more than a credential you earn. It should be a milestone in a lifelong relationship with a university that continues to support your success, wherever your career takes you.

Now when I first got to Denton just a little over two years ago, I was struck by the impact that UNT has had on so many lives and so many communities. But still, one of the most common things I heard was UNT is the best kept secret. Well, no one’s saying that now.

Across the state and across the nation, people are noticing. We’re making strides in national rankings. We’re on stages, in conversations, in rooms UNT has never been. We’re building philanthropic support and partnerships at an unprecedented scale. And all this helps accelerate our progress and expand our impact.

So as other universities rely on traditional, exclusive models of higher education, at UNT we’re building new models that enable us to serve every qualified student.

As the pace of change in technology and the economy continues to accelerate, at UNT we’re developing our students to adapt, lead, and thrive.

As new college graduates enter a highly competitive and challenging job market, at UNT we’re standing together with our graduates to help them pursue their goals, because here, the diploma isn’t the destination.

For the students and families who entrust us with their futures, these commitments aren’t abstract. They provide opportunities that otherwise might have remained out of reach. That’s what creating enduring value looks like, and that is the promise of a UNT education:

To Develop, Discover, and Drive opportunities at scale.

To guide grit to greatness.

To be accountable for what comes next.

And to show the state, the nation, and the world why they Better Look North.

Thank you.

ANNOUNCER: Thank you again for celebrating this historic day with us. We invite you to join us for a reception in the lobby. Go Mean Green!