The president of the University of Texas at Dallas, Richard C. Benson, announced his resignation on Monday after leading the university for eight years.
The university he leaves behind is fundamentally different from the one he took over.
Benson, 73, came to UTD in 2016 with decades of experience in higher education administration. Previously, Benson held positions at Penn State and Virginia Tech. When he was approached for the UTD presidency, Benson said he was intrigued by the young university’s rapid growth.
Here are some of the changes the Richardson campus, which joined the UT System in 1969, has undergone under Benson’s leadership.
A focus on the arts
UTD has long had a reputation as a center for science, technology, engineering and mathematics since it was founded in 1961 by Texas Instruments founders Eugene McDermott, Cecil Green and J. Erik Jonsson as the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest to train the local workforce.
Benson wanted to broaden the university’s focus.
“We will award STEM with an A and make UT Dallas a STEAM university,” he said in his inaugural address.
Authorities are making progress in building a major cultural district that will include an Asian art museum and a performing arts center, among other projects. The grand opening of the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Athenaeum is scheduled for next month. On the same day, university leaders will break ground on the second part of the Athenaeum – a 680-seat concert hall.
During a New Dimensions fundraising campaign, scholarships for student artists are funded, among other things. One of the goals is to attract internationally recognized artists, critics and performers to North Texas.
This focus is consistent with Benson’s personal history. His father was a mechanical engineer, while his mother was an elementary school teacher and played the piano.
In his inaugural speech, he recounted how his years at Princeton were shaped by his time in the laboratory – but he also led a production of West Side Story.
“I was a teenager who was better known for carrying around a trumpet than a slide rule,” he said.
Advances in research
UTD qualified for the National Research University Fund in 2018, becoming the third school in the state to do so.
The coveted research award meant that UTD was able to access millions of dollars in funding to advance important projects.
To qualify, UTD had to double the size of its endowment from 2009 levels and increase its restricted research spending.
The school secured a $30 million investment from the Department of Defense over three years to develop new battery technologies and workforce training programs. Other projects included a wind tunnel for automotive and subsonic testing at speeds of up to 185 km/h.
Growth in athletics – but not in football
UTD officials announced last year that their athletic teams would move up to NCAA Division II as part of the Lone Star Conference.
The 15 men’s and women’s college sports teams that are moving up from Division III of the American Southwest Conference are also making the change.
“Changing the NCAA athletics classification to the more appropriate Division II makes sense because we want to give all of our students the opportunity to compete at the highest level – inside and outside the classroom,” Benson said at the time. “We are excited to see another aspect of the UTD campus experience take a big step forward.”
Although it is a Texas school, UTD does not have football.
However, their chess team remains a force.
Enrollment growth
During Benson’s tenure, enrollment increased.
In fall 2016, there were fewer than 27,000 students. In 2023, there were almost 31,000.
The university serves students from more than 100 countries. In 2022, UTD had the highest percentage of international students among the state’s public universities at 22%.
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