University Of Texas At Dallas: New Dimensions For Next Era: UT Dallas Launches $750 Million Fundraising Campaign

Press release from University of Texas at Dallas:

Daniel Steele

May 26, 2021

The University of Texas at Dallas launched the public phase of New Dimensions: The Campaign for UT Dallas. The effort — the second major fundraising campaign in University history — aims to raise $750 million for transformative priorities across campus to help meet the needs of students, expand the impact of research and create a new destination for cultural dialogue in North Texas.

“This is a campaign primarily about people,” said Dr. Richard C. Benson, UT Dallas president and the Eugene McDermott Distinguished University Chair of Leadership, during the virtual launch on May 25. “It’s about students whose lives will be changed by the opportunity a scholarship provides. It’s about the inventors who make their dreams a reality on our campus and then go out and change the world. It’s about patients who receive unparalleled care from our clinicians backed by cutting-edge research and technology.”

For the University’s first 50 years, fundraising efforts focused on realizing the founders’ vision for an institution that could support the growth of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex through research and technical training. Having emerged in recent years as a Tier One research institution and destination for best-value academic programs, the University seeks to redefine its impact on students, faculty and the prosperity of the North Texas region, country and world with the New Dimensions campaign.

To do this, the campaign will center around three main priorities:

In order to recruit top students and ensure comprehensive affordability across all its schools, UT Dallas seeks to bolster endowments significantly for scholarships and fellowships. These resources expand educational opportunities for students of all backgrounds, enable social mobility and allow the University to compete for students whose talents will serve the region long after graduation.

“People in Dallas know that UT Dallas delivers the educated graduates, innovative technology and entrepreneurial ideas that can power the future growth of North Texas,” said John Olajide BS’04, founder and CEO of Axxess. He is co-chair of the New Dimensions campaign, along with Ron Nash MS’79, a veteran business executive in the technology industry and senior advisor to the U.S. Department of Defense.

“We bring in talented students from around the world,” Olajide continued. “Once they get here and live in the vibrant community this campaign will help shape, they’ll stay and power Dallas’ future growth.”

“This is a campaign primarily about people. It’s about students whose lives will be changed by the opportunity a scholarship provides. It’s about the inventors who make their dreams a reality on our campus and then go out and change the world. It’s about patients who receive unparalleled care from our clinicians backed by cutting-edge research and technology.”

Dr. Richard C. Benson, UT Dallas president and the Eugene McDermott Distinguished University Chair of Leadership

Campaign efforts will also focus on enhancing the University’s research capacity while generating new avenues of interdisciplinary inquiry that expand collaboration between faculty and local institutions. Establishing endowed professorships to attract and retain leading researchers and funding the construction of a joint translational biomedical engineering and sciences building with UT Southwestern Medical Center are among the most important goals.

“In a university, the point is not just to have ideas from the sciences and engineering, but to integrate them with the social sciences, arts and humanities to look at new ways we can change the shape of our future,” said Dr. Shalini Prasad, professor and head of bioengineering and the Cecil H. and Ida Green Professor in Systems Biology Science in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science.

Since its founding, UT Dallas has traditionally excelled in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, as well as in management education. Over the last decade, the University has expanded its breadth of expertise to include unique approaches to artistic study and creation. With the founding of the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History in 2014 and the creation of the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication in 2015, UT Dallas has built a dynamic campus environment that combines traditional approaches to the arts with new technology and data science.

On the strength of two monumental gifts of art — the Barrett Collection of Swiss art and the entire collection of the Trammell and Margaret Crow Museum of Asian Art — UT Dallas now envisions the construction of the first major art museum north of Interstate 635: the UT Dallas Athenaeum. Housing a performance hall and gallery space for internationally renowned art collections, the Athenaeum will create a new arts destination unlike anything currently available in North Texas. The complex will attract families, schoolchildren and scholars to UT Dallas’ campus to inspire imaginations and engage in intercultural dialogue.

“The Athenaeum will be a cultural destination point, bringing visitors here for experiences that can’t be found anywhere else in Dallas, while attracting renowned scholars and multitalented students to our city from around the world,” UT System Regent Christina Melton Crain said.

The New Dimensions campaign has already raised over $311 million during the quiet phase, which began in late 2017.

“UT Dallas is committed to serving our communities, and this campaign will define what that impact looks like for the next 50 years and beyond,” said Kyle Edgington PhD’13, vice president for development and alumni relations. “I invite all of our alumni, corporate partners, neighbors and friends to join us in shaping this new era.”

This press release was produced by University of Texas at Dallas. The views expressed here are the author’s own.