Dr. Hobson Wildenthal
Dr. Hobson Wildenthal, executive vice president and provost of UT Dallas, has assumed the responsibilities of president ad interim of the University, succeeding Dr. David Daniel, who now serves as deputy chancellor and chief operating officer of the UT System under Chancellor Bill McRaven.
Dr. Wildenthal, who has served as the chief academic officer at UT Dallas since 1992, has stated that his overriding priority is to accomplish a seamless transition between the presidential administration of Daniel and the administration of the next president of UT Dallas. The new president will be appointed by the Board of Regents after a search process conducted by the UT System, according to its carefully structured guidelines.
“My goal is very simple. It is to do everything in my capability to assist our faculty and staff to continue our impressive progress toward educating many of the best students of Texas and the world and to making major contributions to America’s efforts to discover, invent and create new knowledge.
“During the coming months we will surpass the criteria established for full participation in the National Research Universities Fund, created by the Texas Legislature to foster the development of more nationally significant research universities in Texas. However, those criteria are only a starting point for our ambitions, not a ceiling, and our goal is continued progress toward providing Texas and Texans with one of the nation’s outstanding universities as a choice for its most promising young men and women.
“Our dynamic growth in numbers of outstanding students and faculty has been partially matched with new facilities. Last fall, we opened a major addition to the Naveen Jindal School of Management and this fall we complete 200,000 square feet of research space in the new Biosciences and Bioengineering Building.
“Major additions to the Callier Center and to the Student Services Building are underway. However, additional space is critically needed for research, teaching, student activities and student housing. While maintaining our progress in teaching and research, we must solve the challenges of providing the facilities in which these activities must take place. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the UT Dallas administration and with the new administrative leaders of the UT System in finding solutions to these problems.”
Dr. Inga Musselman, senior vice provost, is serving as acting provost during the time of Wildenthal’s service as president ad interim.
Dr. Wildenthal holds a doctorate in physics from the University of Kansas. Subsequently, he held positions at Rice University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Texas A&M University, and at Michigan State University for 13 years. During these 20 years of his pre-administrative career, he carried out experimental and theoretical research on the structure of atomic nuclei, publishing more than 200 articles, and taught principally large sections of introductory physics courses. Dr. Wildenthal entered into academic administration at Drexel University as department head of physics and atmospheric science, later moving to the University of New Mexico as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences before he joined UT Dallas.