Strategic Themes

In October of 1998, President Larry Faulkner established six strategic themes for The University of Texas at Austin:

"To calibrate against the best, program by program" has become the standard for setting goals in both academic and non-academic endeavors at The University of Texas at Austin. The University measures its success against the best programs in the United States.

For example, President Faulkner challenged administrators and staff to make greater use of technology by automating processes, facilitating "anytime, any place learning," and adopting many of the mass customization techniques that have succeeded in the private sector. UT's information technology staff responded by developing UT Direct, a personalized web portal for each student, prospective student, and other members of the University community. UT Direct gives its users access to information regarding admissions, enrollment, fees, financial aid, library loans, and many other services that previously required students to wait in long lines.

Numerous UT offices have improved the quality of their services as well. New leadership in the area of employee management, for example, resulted in the Office of Human Resource Services winning the National Recognition for Excellence in Human Resource Practice Award in 2002, the highest accolade for Human Resources in higher education.

President Faulkner created a Task Force on Efficiency to identify, assess, and oversee the implementation of cost reductions, improved services, and operational efficiency. The Task Force consists of five members from the faculty and two members from the administration. back to top

President Faulkner stresses that UT Austin belongs to the people of Texas and that they should feel a sense of ownership of their university. "That means welcoming Texans to this campus to visit, to use our resources, to feel the spirit of knowledge and possibility that makes this place special," he says. "That also means that our student body must reflect the diverse cultures of our state."

Every year, the University presents a one-day open house called Explore UT that welcomes thousands of visitors to campus to participate in a variety of hands-on learning adventures and to meet some of the world's leading scholars in a relaxed setting.

A new Web site called UTOPIA will enable Texans and people around the world to access the vast resources of the University by using the power of the Internet. UT's libraries, museums, and collections are filled with public treasures, and UTOPIA will expand the University's capacity to share this storehouse of knowledge on the World Wide Web. UTOPIA will also make available the discoveries and new information generated by the University's academic and research communities.

To broaden educational opportunities for every population in Texas, the Longhorn Opportunity Scholarship program was created to provide financial aid to outstanding graduates of high schools that have been historically underserved by UT Austin. The program has assisted many students who could not otherwise afford to attend the University.

To engage Texas citizens in planning the future of UT Austin, President Faulkner created the Commission of 125, which will give citizens the opportunity to express a vision of how the University can best serve Texas and the larger society during the next 25 years. The Commission of 125 is engaged in a two-year process of examining the current state of the University, setting goals and priorities, and determining a course of action.

In an effort to explore ways that institutions of higher education can better prepare their students for life in a diverse society, The University of Texas at Austin hosted Educating for a Diverse America: A Summit and Symposium in January 2004. Delegations from seven universities and key leaders from the private sector, the military, and government offered viewpoints at the symposium, held in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the landmark school desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education. back to top

The quality of the undergraduate experience is of paramount importance at The University of Texas at Austin. The Freshman Seminars and Freshman Interest Groups continue to enrich the first year of study. Freshman Seminars offer freshmen the opportunity to interact closely with faculty in a 15-student seminar that emphasizes writing instruction.

In addition, the Forum Seminars program introduces freshmen and sophomores to a range of contemporary social and intellectual issues. The seminars feature weekly discussions with faculty from a variety of departments and encourage students to explore potential majors and learn about interesting classes. Forum Seminars also provide an introduction to the many interdisciplinary programs at UT Austin.

Many of these programs operate under the auspices of Connexus: Connections in Undergraduate Studies. Connexus is designed to enhance the undergraduate experience at UT Austin by providing opportunities for students to make connections among disciplines, teachers, and other students. The program helps students to examine how their education can influence life directions and future careers.

UT's freshman retention rate is 92 percent, a strong indicator of student satisfaction with their first-year experience. back to top

For more than a century, thousands of teachers, researchers, administrators, and students at The University of Texas at Austin have dedicated their academic careers to improving K-12 education in Texas and throughout the nation. Today, every UT school and college sponsors programs and projects that benefit public schools. The Texas Center for Reading & Language Arts has trained more than 58,000 reading teachers statewide, and the Texas Regional Collaboratives for Excellence in Science Teaching provides outstanding professional development for 7,000 K-12 science teachers in Texas.

The UTeach program introduces undergraduate math and science majors to teaching careers in secondary education. The program is helping to recruit, prepare, and support the next generation of math and science teachers for the State of Texas.

UT's Charles A. Dana Center provides Texas education leaders and policymakers with new knowledge about teaching and learning, and facilitates public discussions about important education issues. The center also supports K-12 teachers and state leaders who are working to implement high academic standards. Their programs reach 4 million Texas public school students.

UT Austin, Just for the Kids, Inc., and the Education Commission of the States has formed a partnership to create the National Center for Educational Accountability, which is based at UT Austin. This partnership will help educators, policymakers, and the public to identify and expand the use of effective educational practices to improve schools. A superb national board was recruited and convened, and the list of engaged states has now grown to include California, Michigan, and Massachusetts. The center is ideally positioned to play a large, constructive role in the efforts to improve educational performance nationwide.

The University of Texas Elementary School is a University-sponsored charter school that is expanding educational opportunities for economically disadvantaged students in East Austin. The school uses the most current educational research in science and math and University-based initiatives in reading to shape curriculum, instruction, assessment, administration, and staffing. back to top

For the past two decades, The University of Texas at Austin has been a prominent leader in education and research in the technology and knowledge-based industries. In science and engineering doctoral degrees conferred, UT ranks seventh in the nation and first in Texas. The University has focused on innovative educational programs in technology, research partnerships with the private sector, and productive basic and applied research to support knowledge-based industries in Texas. The Texas Evening MBA program and new technology-oriented engineering degree programs were added in 1999. A Business and Enterprise web site provides information about UT's entrepreneur culture.

In 2000, UT established the Center for Nano and Molecular Science and Technology to foster education, science, and engineering in nanoscience and nanotechnology. A year later, the University announced a partnership with Rice University, The University of Texas at Dallas, and The University of Texas at Arlington to seek federal and state funding in this field. The group is called the Strategic Partnership for Research in Nanotechnology and will work together to promote Texas as a center for nanotechnology and to collaborate on research projects.

In 2001, UT established a Department of Biomedical Engineering, offering degrees at both the graduate and undergraduate level. The department's mission is to educate students in the fundamentals of engineering and science as they relate to medicine, and to perform multi-disciplinary, disease-oriented research at the molecular and cellular levels. UT Austin researchers are collaborating with a number of academic units within the University and also with the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and the UT Health Science Center in Houston.

The Texas Alliance for Technology Commercialization was established to serve as a focal point of technology innovation, creativity, and leadership for all Texas universities. The alliance is organizing a series of forums to explore partnerships between UT, business, and government. In May 2002, for example, the alliance sponsored its first forum, which discussed the remarkable new fields of nanotechnology and biomedical engineering.

The Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES) was established in 2003 to produce world-class interdisciplinary research in the fields of computational sciences and engineering, mathematical modeling, applied mathematics, software engineering, and computational visualization. ICES currently supports five research centers and numerous research groups, and new research units are planned in the areas of distributed and grid computing, computational biology, biomedical science and engineering, computational materials research, and others. ICES also supports a graduate degree program leading to the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computational and Applied Mathematics. Several corporate partners are supporting ICES, including Dell, IBM, Microsoft, and Nortel. back to top

Texas has a cross-cultural Anglo-Mexican history, a growing Hispanic population, and a strategic location at the frontier between the U.S. and Latin America. The next half century will see a rapid development of Latin America and complex interrelationships evolving between the countries of this hemisphere. Because The University of Texas at Austin has risen to preeminence in Latin American Studies and has long supported a vibrant Hispanic student population from many countries, the University is in a unique position to exert a leadership role in Latin American programs. President Faulkner supports these initiatives and calls for an even stronger educational investment in Latin American areas of study.

There is a web site for UT's Latin American initiative.

The Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies is widely regarded as the premier Latin American institute in the U.S., with 120 affiliated faculty members who work primarily in the area of Latin America.

In academic subjects related to Latin America, UT Austin graduates more students at the bachelor's, master's, and doctoral levels than any other U.S. university.

UT's Benson Latin American Collection contains more than 800,000 volumes, exceeded in the U.S. only by the Library of Congress.

The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center has acquired a major collection of papers by renowned Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges. The collection contains more than 400 rare items, including several unpublished manuscripts and personal notebooks.

UT's Latin American art collection includes works by more than 500 Latin American artists. A large portion of the new Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art will be dedicated to Latin American art.

The University of Texas Press is the leading publisher of Latin American subjects in the U.S., with more than one-third of its book list pertaining to Latin America.

UT-LANIC, the Latin American Network Information Center, is the world's premier electronic gateway to Latin American subjects on the World Wide Web. LANIC is administered by the Long Institute and receives more than 2 million hits a month and maintains links to more than 12,000 Web sites.

Additional developments in UT’s Latin American initiative:

In 1999, UT created a new Argentine Studies Center, joining the other centers within the Long Institute: the Brazil Center, the Mexican Center, the Center for Environmental Studies in Latin America, the Center for Indigenous Languages of Latin America, and the Center for Latin American Social Policy.

In 2000, the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies received a gift of $10 million to fund travel scholarships, graduate fellowships, teaching fellowships, endowed professorships, undergraduate scholarships, academic conferences, and visiting professorships to enhance the work of the center.

In 2000, UT concluded an agreement with the Brazilian Ministry of Education to establish undergraduate, graduate, and faculty exchange programs with select universities there. UT will gain a chair in Brazil Studies and form research teams with Brazilian institutions in earth science, technology, social sciences, and environmental science. This agreement recognizes the breadth of UT teaching and research activities related to Brazil and will expand the University's programs in Latin American Studies.

The Knight Center for Journalism was created in 2002 as a professional training and outreach program for journalists in the Americas. Founded by UT Professor Rosental Alves with a $2 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the center is working with Latin American colleagues to create training programs for reporters, editors, and photojournalists. The Knight Center supports the development of a free press in Latin America.

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Last Updated October 27, 2004 4:15 PM