Future focus of UNT budget

Regents increase funding to $858.3 million to help boost research status

07:20 AM CDT on Friday, May 14, 2010

By Candace Carlisle / Staff Writer

University of North Texas regents unanimously approved an $858.3 million operating and capital expense budget that was presented at the quarterly board meeting Thursday.

The budget will help support UNT’s plan to become a nationally recognized research institution, officials said.

Interim President Phil Diebel told regents that his focus during his brief tenure was to ensure the university developed an operating budget and strategic plan that furthered its goal of reaching national research status.

The strategic plan was sent to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board for approval on April 1.

With those goals met, Diebel said, there are great opportunities in store for the university.

“UNT, over the next five to 10 years, will have truly grown,” Diebel said. “We have a wonderful opportunity to do wonderful things.”

Diebel and 10 other UNT leaders, including Provost Wendy Wilkins, signed a document promising to ensure the success of UNT’s path to national research recognition, even if it means reallocating funds from existing budget lines.

“The whole university has to participate in making sure we have the funding lined up for new faculty hires to meet the research initiatives,” Diebel said.

The signed document lays out a five-year plan accounting for indirect costs that UNT could incur as it becomes a national research institution and demonstrates the commitment of the university, he said.

“The key here is to lay a solid foundation for a lot of heavy lifting to start, such as hiring the faculty and making sure we have the space available to them, and we do what we say we’re going to do,” Diebel said.

The UNT campus doesn’t have space to house the additional research faculty members or their research initiatives, he said.

But the university already has identified $59.1 million for facilities related to the strategic research plan from faculty salary savings, internal reallocations and state funds.

The space for research activities likely will be found in the new Life Sciences Complex or the planned Business Leadership Building, among other possibilities, Diebel said.

Diebel’s term as interim president ends today as Lane Rawlins begin his one-year tenure as president.

Diebel took over March 1 after former President Gretchen Bataille abruptly resigned in February.

Regents also approved 2010-11 budgets of nearly $15 million for the UNT system, $214.3 million for the UNT Health Science Center in Fort Worth, and $26 million for the UNT Dallas campus, which is scheduled to officially open this fall as its own university.

The coordinating board must still define what criteria UNT and six other emerging institutions in the state must meet before becoming national research institutions. The criteria could be defined this summer, Wilkins told regents.

The work done by Wilkins and Vish Prasad, vice president of research and economic development, among others, will have a lasting effect on UNT and the campus community, Diebel said.

“This will truly drive what we do in future years,” he said.