Warren von Eschenbach, president of the University of North Texas at Dallas, gives his remarks at his investiture on May 1, 2026 in Dallas.
The University of North Texas at Dallas
As universities face eroding public trust, Warren von Eschenbach, the University of North Texas at Dallas’ new president, wants to change higher education’s narrative. To do so, he’s returning to the young school’s founding mission: to be a “beacon of hope and promise” for southern Dallas.
“The founders of UNT Dallas understood that in addition to degree programs, curricula and credentials, universities are about people and community,” von Eschenbach said at his investiture Friday. “They knew that universities are instrumental in fostering regional pride, forging community identity and increasing positive social, cultural and economic activity.”
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Von Eschenbach is taking the helm of UNT Dallas at a challenging time for universities. Under increased scrutiny from state and federal leaders, universities face rising political and financial pressures. Americans’ perceptions of the importance of higher education continue to fall, according to a recent Gallup poll.
But von Eschenbach sees an opportunity to prove UNT Dallas’ value by focusing on the public and social goods universities offer, and by positioning the school as a “transformative power” for students, their families and the region.
“We have to be about socioeconomic mobility and the workforce. But that’s not all who we are,” he said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News this week. “And so the narrative that we’re just focusing on ROI or degree programs or that universities are instruments solely for economic activity — that needs to shift, because we’re much more than that.”
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On Friday, in front of faculty members, students, elected officials and other North Texas university leaders, von Eschenbach presented his vision for the 15-year-old university to be the “leading public regional university” in southern Dallas and Ellis County.
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He highlighted three main commitments: to create an “educational ecosystem” that supports students in both personal and academic growth, to “future proof” students against evolving technology by instilling “human skills” such as resilience and empathy, and to restructure the university so that academic programs keep up with rapidly changing workforce needs.
UNT Dallas free tuition program
During his speech, von Eschenbach announced the creation of a free tuition program for Texas students whose families make $100,000 or less. The program will help more Texans, many of whom hadn’t previously thought about college as a possibility, get a degree without going into debt, he said. That education will, in turn, benefit students’ families and communities.
Around 70% of UNT Dallas’ 3,500 students are the first in their family to go to college.
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Related: UNT Dallas announces free tuition for Texas students. See if your family qualifies
“They know that being a trailblazer means not only being the first for yourself, but more importantly, creating a path for others to follow,” he said. “This is the transformative power of higher education: to transform students by empowering them through education to strengthen their communities.”
Von Eschenbach, who previously served as vice chancellor for academic affairs for the UNT System, became UNT Dallas’ fourth president in August. A philosopher and longtime university administrator, von Eschenbach has said he aims to provide UNT Dallas students with a “holistic education” that prepares them for lifelong careers.
The university boasts one of the most diverse student bodies in Texas — most come from middle- to low-income households and most are from the Dallas-Fort Worth region. It’s also quickly expanding, adding academic programs and buildings.
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Related: UNT Dallas works to bring more health care workers to southern Dallas
Local leaders have hailed UNT Dallas as a catalyst for economic growth in the historically underserved region. Multiple developers have planned large-scale projects near the campus that will bring single-family homes, apartments and retail in the next few years.
Related: Don’t leave southern Dallas behind amid North Texas boom, business leaders say
Keeping up with unpredictable job market
On Friday, von Eschenbach pledged to maintain UNT Dallas’ role as an anchor institution in southern Dallas while revamping teaching and learning to help students withstand an unpredictable labor market.
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University officials are redesigning the first-year experience so students can acquire the “enduring human skills employers seek,” such as empathy, self-awareness and resilience. Success coaches will mentor students across campus. Students will also be required to have five experiential learning activities before graduation, with at least one being an internship or employer-based group project.
Von Eschenbach also announced a plan to redesign UNT Dallas’ degree programs and academic departments to make them more interdisciplinary and nimble as the workforce changes.
“Today’s significant challenges are large scale and complex,” he said. “We should therefore train our students how to integrate multiple perspectives and multiple disciplines in understanding the world and its challenges.”
In response to industry feedback, a new Bachelor of Arts in cybersecurity, for example, will combine technical IT courses with courses in communication and applied English so that “graduates can communicate the technical aspects of cybersecurity effectively,” von Eschenbach said.
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UNT Dallas’ four current schools will transition to three colleges, and the university will create academic departments for the first time, which will be “clustered by fields of study, interdisciplinary programs and meta majors” instead of traditional disciplines. This will allow the university to more quickly build interdisciplinary degree programs that appeal to students and employers, von Eschenbach said.
A new pharmacy department, for example, could bring together pharmacology, food science, nutrition and public health. That could open multiple career pathways for students, such as in nutritional pharmacology or as food scientists.
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“Not only do students need to be resilient and adaptable in the face of a very complex and fast changing world, but universities do too,” von Eschenbach said in an interview. “So we need to reexamine who we are and what we do.”
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The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, Judy and Jim Gibbs, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Ron and Phyllis Steinhart, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks, and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.