UTD President David Daniel has been named as a finalist for the presidency at UT Austin.
According to a report by the Austin American-Statesman on Feb. 19, Daniel is among the top three candidates to replace current UT Austin President Bill Powers when he steps down in June. They will be interviewed for the job on March 4 by the Board of Regents.
Among them are Greg Fenves, UT Austin’s executive vice president and provost, and Andrew Hamilton, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford in England. Joseph Steinmetz, executive vice president and provost at The Ohio State University, was also a candidate but dropped out of consideration according to The Dallas Morning News.
Daniel, who has had his current position since 2005, is the university’s fourth president. After receiving his bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degrees in engineering from UT Austin, he served as a faculty member there from 1980 to 1996. From there, he moved to the University of Illinois, where he was the dean of engineering from 1996 to 2005 before coming to UTD.
“I’m proud to serve The University of Texas System as the president of The University of Texas at Dallas, which is my immediate and primary focus,” Daniel said in a statement. “It is an honor to serve the system and the state of Texas in any capacity, and I welcome the opportunity to do so. Any success I have had owes to the significant energy and effort of UTD’s highly qualified faculty, our talented, smart students and our dedicated and hardworking staff. I am grateful to, and proud to be a part of this community.”
During Daniel’s time at UTD, the university has tripled its spending on research, added 50 new academic programs and has increased enrollment from 13,000 to 23,000 students. Larry Faulkner, who served as UT Austin’s president from 1998 to 2006, is leading the committee to find Powers’ replacement.
“A highly distinguished group of individuals, led by Dr. Larry Faulkner, was appointed to identify candidates to serve as the next president of UT Austin,” said Executive Vice President and Provost Hobson Wildenthal in a statement. “Given the stature of the committee, I thought it inevitable that David Daniel would be put forward for consideration by the Board of Regents. Everything in his professional history, but most especially the immense progress that The University of Texas at Dallas has enjoyed under his leadership, qualifies him for such consideration.”
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