State of the University Address<\/a> after his investiture as the University\u2019s 31st president, Davis declared UT is strong and ready to thrive as never before. Building on a foundation of teaching and research excellence, immense talent and tremendous public and private support, he presented a five-part charge to recommit to the University\u2019s mission, emphasizing trust as the highest priority.<\/p>\nDavis first charged the campus to be a model of public trust. He recalled the words of UT\u2019s 10th president, Harry Benedict, the only other full-time president who earned his bachelor\u2019s degree from UT Austin: \u201cPublic confidence is the only real endowment of a state university.\u201d Davis agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe recommit to our long-held and enduring values that we teach with intellectual honesty,\u201d Davis said. \u201cWe honor the traditions of both academic freedom \u2014 and academic responsibility. And we will hold ourselves accountable to these standards.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second charge, preparing the next generation to thrive in a complex future, reaffirms teaching students to understand wisdom from the liberal arts in an era of technological advances.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a world of growing artificial intelligence, there has never been a more important time to develop human intelligence,\u201d Davis said. \u201cOur students are entering a critical and divisive world. We must prepare them to understand truth, beauty and goodness \u2014 foundational principles that are the promise of the arts and humanities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davis noted that preparing students properly requires greater balance in the University\u2019s curriculum. To achieve it, he called for a common foundational learning experience in a new core curriculum, to expand narrowly defined degree programs in which students encounter only one perspective, and to add important new areas of learning.<\/p>\n
The third charge, investing in research and teaching at the frontiers of science, will combine UT\u2019s global leadership across multiple fields to discover new vistas of knowledge and solutions to the world\u2019s greatest challenges. As an example, Davis cited creation of a new shared focus on materials science to recruit world-class talent and accelerate success.<\/p>\n
The fourth charge, building the UT Medical Center and expanding the University\u2019s reach in academic medicine, will herald the hospital of the future. Beyond a place for treatment, Davis calls it \u201ca living laboratory where every patient interaction drives discovery and where every breakthrough transforms medical practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Medical Center will unite UT\u2019s Dell Medical School and MD Anderson Cancer Center\u2019s world-class care with UT\u2019s top-ranked strengths in engineering, natural sciences, nursing, pharmacy, and social work to produce new breakthroughs. It is scheduled to open in 2030.<\/p>\n
Davis\u2019 fifth charge, restoring the UT Tower for the first time since its opening in 1937, is scheduled for completion in 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Tower is the great symbol of The University of Texas at Austin,\u201d Davis said. \u201cAs much as the Tower has done for Longhorns, it\u2019s our turn to take care of it. Just as we restore public trust, revitalize our academic mission, and reimagine our research and medicine missions, we will do the same for that great symbol of our University. We will restore, revitalize and reimagine the Tower.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 President Jim Davis delivered a bold and hopeful vision for The University of Texas at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,1086,13177,13178,1910,858,13179,1049,13180],"class_list":["post-16608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-campus","tag-dell-medical-school","tag-faculty","tag-leadership","tag-research","tag-staff","tag-students","tag-tower"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}