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Green
glory
Friendly
rivalry among Texas universities thrives even overseas. Army
Capt. Paul Berg ('93, '95 M.B.A.) of the 101st Airborne
Division (Air Assault) doesn't hesitate to answer a call
to duty, whether to his country or alma mater. While stationed
in Afghanistan after Sept. 11, Berg hoisted a UNT flag onto his
tent in response to a Texas A&M Aggie Corps captain who brandished
his maroon and white.
"I just could not let it be,” says Berg, who is part of a family
of UNT alumni.
The competitiveness was not lost on the other soldiers, but many were unaware
of the origin of Berg's green-and-white flag. He quickly set them straight — no
one left his tent without a lesson on North Texas.
Berg carried the UNT flag between missions in Afghanistan and hung it on his
tent wherever he was stationed. Upon his return to the United States, he donated
the well-traveled flag to UNT.
In February, Berg received deployment orders to the Middle East again. He packed
another UNT flag, and this time, a camouflage T-shirt that brags about UNT's
back-to-back conference football championships.
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New appointments
The UNT
System Board of Regents has approved three new appointments.
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Richard
L. Escalante |
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Richard L. Escalante, former city manager of Farmers Branch, was
named the first system vice chancellor for administrative services.
Escalante started his new duties Feb. 18. He is responsible for
guiding the UNT System's facilities and campus master planning;
acquisition, sale and management of real estate and buildings;
selection of architects, engineers and contractors;
management of new construction and major renovation projects; and oversight
of system administrative policies, procedures and performance.
Escalante has served the city of Farmers Branch since 1987, overseeing a budget
of $84 million, 564 city employees and a full range of municipal services.
He coordinated the development of capital planning and the construction of numerous
high-quality municipal facilities, including a city hall, justice center/police
station/court facility and senior center.
His approach to financial planning and the municipal budget process enabled
the Farmers Branch utility fund to become debt free in 2001 and created a pathway
for the city's general fund to be debt free in 2008.
He serves on the editorial advisory board of the Economic Development Case Book
for the International City/County Management Association, is a board member of
the Community Council of Greater Dallas and is a past president of the North
Texas City Management Association.
Escalante completed Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government
Mid-Career Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government in 1997.
He earned
his bachelor of arts degree in political science in 1974 and his master of
arts degree in public affairs in 1978, both from Northern Illinois University.
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T.
Lloyd
Chesnut |
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T. Lloyd
Chesnut has been named UNT's first vice president
for research and technology transfer — a position that
serves as the university's chief research officer, promoting
UNT's
mission in research, original scholarship and artistic creativity.
Chesnut, currently the vice president for research and development
at the University of Montana-Missoula, will begin work at UNT
July 1. In addition to serving as the chief research officer,
his duties
will include providing the executive and administrative leadership
for the UNT Research Park, developing and executing the park's
strategic plan, and managing its operations and external relations.
Chesnut will also hold the rank of professor with tenure in the
Department of Biological Sciences.
Since 1997, Chesnut has held his current position at the University
of Montana-Missoula, where he coordinates the research, technology
transfer and economic development
on all four campuses of UM, and serves as the contact with the state's
congressional delegation.
Under his leadership, the external funding for educational support and scholarship
increased significantly. He developed and implemented a plan to leverage western
Montana's economy through the development of a university-related small
business incubator, a research park and technology corridor.
Prior to working for UM, Chesnut was vice president for research and graduate
studies at Ohio University and associate provost. He held administrative positions
at Louisiana State University in Shreveport and Georgia College and State University
and spent a year as a senior scientist at the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency in Washington, D.C. Chesnut received his bachelor's degree in 1965, master's
degree in 1966 and doctoral degree in 1969, all from Mississippi State University.
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Oscar
N. Garcia |
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Oscar N.
Garcia has been selected by UNT as the founding dean to launch
operations at the university's new College
of Engineering.
He is currently NCR Distinguished Professor and chair of the department of computer
science and engineering at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and will
begin work at UNT in July.
His immediate challenges will include overseeing the renovation of facilities
at the UNT Research Park (the future home of the new college) and developing
student recruitment and fund-raising campaigns. Additionally, he will begin the
critical process of recruiting faculty for the new college.
Prior to joining Wright State, Garcia was program director for Interactive Systems
in the Information, Robotics and Intelligent Systems Division of the Computer
and Information Science and Engineering Directorate at the National Science Foundation.
He also served the NSF as program director for engineering in the Directorate
for Education and Human Resources.
In addition, he served as professor of electrical engineering and computer science
at George Washington University, the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced
Computer Studies and Center for Automation and Robotics, the University of South
Florida and Old Dominion University. At USF he was founding chair of the department
of computer science and engineering.
Garcia's current research focuses on complexity, bioinformatics, human-computer
interaction, artificial intelligence, expert systems and software engineering.
He has developed artificial intelligence and expert systems courses that are
acclaimed in both the United States and Japan.
He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering
from North Carolina State University. He holds a doctorate in electrical engineering
from the University of Maryland.
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Golf
course plans
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Click here to
view full version of the golf course plan (very large and
detailed file)
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UNT
is reaching across I-35 to develop its Eagle Point Golf Course
property
as a site for new student housing and athletic facilities. Building
non-academic facilities on the 158-acre property will permit
the university to maintain its main campus for academic purposes.
Experts have determined the golf course to be "functionally
obsolete." For more information about the development and
its history, click
here.
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Recent
deaths
Bob Nunley
Bob Nunley, 76, retired associate professor of mathematics, died
Jan. 8 in Denton. He taught in the math department at North Texas
from 1964 until his retirement in 1988.
Born near Ballinger, the 12th of 12 children, Nunley enlisted in the Navy when
he was 17 and served on the U.S.S. Everett F. Larson during World War II.
He earned a bachelor's degree from Texas A&M University in 1949, a
master's from Hardin-Simmons University in 1954 and a doctorate from
the University of Texas at Austin in 1965.
He was the author of Discovery in Elementary School Mathematics and Geometry:
An Intuitive Approach and was a member of several professional organizations,
including the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the Texas Association
of College Teachers.
Richard
M. Owsley
Richard M. Owsley, 79, Professor Emeritus of philosophy, died Feb. 16 in Dallas.
He worked at UNT from 1963 until his retirement in 1996 and was a former chair
of the Department of Philosophy and Religion studies, which he helped create
in 1969.
He served in the Army Medical Corps during World War II and earned a bachelor's
degree from the University of Louisville and a master's degree and doctorate
from Indiana University. He taught at Indiana University and at Auburn University
before joining North Texas.
His specialties were existentialism and phenomenology. For more than 20 years
he organized annual conferences on the life and thought of philosopher Martin
Heidegger and the phenomenological movement. He continued to participate in UNT's
Great Books Program until two weeks before his death.
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