UNT began by embracing diversity and stepping up to challenges other universities weren’t tackling. That start established a culture for UNT that continues to this day.
In this episode we continue our chat with President Smatresk and Dean Randall about the history, future, and overall vision for UNT.
SHOW NOTES:
[00:31] Using creative tension to push the envelope and create superior experiences[02:58] Kicking off the 1st Cohort Class and expanding the cutting edge curriculum
[06:13] Innovative partnerships with UNT
[11:50] Makeup, eSports, and the Founding Frisco Freshmen
[17:30] Disrupting higher education
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Transcript
Machine-generated.
Welcome back to UNT unplugged. In part two of our conversation with president’s Smatresk and Dean Randall, we’re going to talk about creative tension kicking off the first cohort class, innovative partnerships, makeup, e-sports, and the founding fresco freshmen, and a few other surprises along the way. Welcome back. Here’s part two.
We’ve got great creative tension, right? So we just look at, um, within the music programs, we’ve got incredibly talented artists who are purist. Um, and then we’ve got a Dean who is very entrepreneurial. It’s a perfect tension. Sure. Those conversations are not always comfortable, but in the end we get something that is, um, that’s really amazing and it’s great for our students. It gives them a tremendous potential. Imagine, for example, uh, that’s you’re Jeff Bezos working with Amazon and what is it that you’re looking for? Well, I think you’re looking for a total global market domination along with, by doing. And if you, if you don’t have a great website, if you don’t understand big data, if you don’t understand pricing strategies, if you don’t understand how to engage the consumer, you’re going to fail. What do we do at the university? We have the best calm design program, certainly in the Southwest and maybe the top one in the country communication design, formerly kind of the advertising marketing graphic design is now about user interface experience UX it’s about engaging people and bringing them in.
And that program partners with our digital merchandising program, which is over in the school of merchandising and hospitality, those kids are getting jobs at Amazon and everyone everywhere else that is trying to market a, they have a new degree now called consumer experience. I mean, if your consumer is not having a good experience, they’re not coming back and look at the choice. They have a, we blend these classes and students are doing pick and take, you know, they’ll do a little social media here, a little new media, they’re a little calm design. Uh, and then they’ll go into the digital merchandising piece to get a backbone and with a little business core behind them. And they come up super competitors because they’re thinking in ways that traditional majors don’t think. I love that. And we’re bringing more and more of this kind of new cutting edge curriculum to our students every day.
Yeah. And what that allows us to do as we start to watch our own students pick and choose, and then we interact with industry, particularly here in Frisco, that allows us to go, okay, this is now a thing, right? Like this project design and analysis. It’s really, we took, we started it with an integrative studies degree. We began this whole adventure. What last, not last may, may of 2018 gosh, it just, just way back then and now I, the first time we talked about it was may of 2018 we’ve already got the first group of students here doing it. So the current cohort group is the first to go through the program and that is a, you talk to anybody in higher ed that’s rapid because we’ve got this backbone of being able to come up with new ideas, put them together rapidly and as they work and we’ve pilot tested it, then we create a new degree around that topic.
Right. The other thing that’s, that’s excellent, particularly in the Frisco ecosystem and at UNT is if you, if you wanted to create value, you’ve got to either increase benefit or decrease cost period. That means you got to make decisions. Means you got to take risks. If people go out and take, make a smart decision and it fails, everybody is okay with it. The senior administration is okay with it. If you’re continually making smart decisions that fail, somebody’s gonna have a chat with you. But in general there is an acknowledgement that we need to innovate and there is top level support for, Hey, great idea. We supported you. This one didn’t work. What are we going to learn for from it and let’s go try the next one. That’s not common. It’s not even that things don’t always work. Um, it’s okay to have an experimental approach.
Yes. You know, in in maybe many institutions I’ve been in committees with, you know, there’d be the committee to study the committee that was going to start the committee and we go, let’s run. And we put the groups together. We try to launch a, if it’s doesn’t work, we correct on the fly. And we believe that that kind of agility is going to really be the difference maker. Uh, we, we started, uh, big data programs out here. We have data analytics, uh, two master’s degrees programs, and they’re not just for stat jocks or mathematicians or computer science geeks. These are on ramps or accessible that allow people who feel that they’re can really improve their base skills and get a job, uh, by understanding how to be users of big data and, and, and to bring that to their corporate environment. And that’s critical. I mean, we hear people all the time right now going, we need more.
The big data classes are full. The kids are getting transformed in how they’re working. They’re understanding the elements to have things like machine language and AI and other kinds of things so that they can begin to bring these skills to the marketplace. So they’re not going to be obsolete. They’re going to be the creators that are inventing the next wave of major innovations for their companies. And that’s really fun. So we don’t mind standing up a program, uh, correcting on the fly, making sure that we’re touching base with employers and we’re doing a great job. That kind of feedback is utterly critical for our success. And then making sure that our students are getting the care and feeding that they need. Yeah, that big data programs. An interesting one. My wife is currently taking that program or getting her masters in the data analytics and it’s fun to watch
her as she’s going through it and for us to just take what she’s learned in this first semester and start finding ways to apply it to lifestyle Frisco in our own business. No question. There’s a huge demand for that particular skill set out there. So I’m glad to see that something you guys are offering. So how about the relationship here you are in our, our new building inspire park and we’ve got this partnership. We’re in the the podcast room and we’re looking forward to have you kind of do this stuff with our students and be part of our curriculum. So what do you think, what do I think about the partnership? Oh, it’s been fantastic. It is. You know, interestingly, um, I don’t know if if dr [inaudible] remembers this, but when the announcement was made at city hall, when the final vote was taken that day, you were sitting right behind me in city hall and I remember you looking over my shoulder going, what is that?
Cause I was working on something for lifestyle Frisco. We had just a real brief chat as a day. It’s local media site and here we are, you know, a year and a half or so later and we’ve got this nice partnership with UNT and it is something that we’ve been very excited about because I think we understand and appreciate one what the expansion of UNT into Frisco is going to bring to the city. And it’s also a addressing a need that a lot of the companies that have been moving here have been specifically asking for. Um, we know in the past that companies that have looked at Frisco, you know, at times have either decided if they didn’t end up here to go somewhere else or we’re kind of weighing that decision based on the fact that they wanted to see Frisco have a four year university. And so that was a huge, huge win I think for the city and for us to have you guys decided to expand into Frisco
thing that we are committed to with our partners in the economic development council here and with the city is we’re committed to help, uh, Frisco maintain its edge and innovation. And one of the things that, uh, companies who are relocating here are looking for is, is there an educational partner, whether it’s for teaching their employees and having them gain access to these high tech understandings or whether it’s, you know, we don’t have an atomic whammer jammer. Can we find one? Uh, and we’ve, we’re going, yep. There’s one just, you know, 30 minutes down the road and we’ll be happy to do the surface characterization of your high K dielectric materials. Um, I didn’t actually just invent that, but, uh, that type of partnership means companies will have less trepidation about moving. They’ll have, uh, knowledge that there’s built in partners and it eases the transition path for them.
And so inspire park here, this beautiful facility. Um, I just come out here every time and think why isn’t my office out here, um, has, is a, is a magnet, uh, not only for helping to incubate businesses, but for helping to, uh, launch some of the new intellectual property and tech understandings that we have. So tech transfer is a big piece of it. And that’s another commitment if you’re going to be a bustling, you need to have innovation centers, innovation centers that supports students, that support community, that support corporations, that helps small corporations grow to big corporations and draw big corporations to the city. And we’re committed to being partners to do that. So what’s, what’s fascinating fast, fantastic about that is that, so my background’s logistics and supply chain. So when you’re in a supply chain relationship, what you really want are congruent goals.
So if you think about the city of Frisco, their goal is to bring big employers with big, beautiful buildings with wonderful high paying jobs, right? Absolutely. Perfect president’s goal. Therefore, my goal is to educate students with the right kind of degrees and the right kind of enduring, enduring skills that allow them to take jobs in big, beautiful buildings and high paying jobs that support their family. Uh, it’s fantastic, right? So from the very beginning, we’re starting on this relationship where our goals are completely congruent. What’s good for Frisco is good for you. And T, I mean, that’s, that’s fantastic. We just need to keep acting on it. And as the president says, we’ve got to keep agily responding and moving forward and moving forward and moving forward. Very good. Well, I know that, um, again, from a lifestyle Frisco’s standpoint, you guys are going to have a lot of interesting stories to tell as things continue to grow and expand.
And that’s what we want to be here to do, is to help make sure that those stories are getting out there. People understand and know what’s happening with UNT and all of the innovative and fun things that you guys have going on. And I think, you know, just again, to go back to the cohort program, just as a start, that’s one very interesting thing that I know, I’m sure a lot of parents are gonna hear this podcast and they’re going to have an interest in their kid and their kid’s going to have an interest in taking that program. So let me thinking of that. Let me point out a couple of things on that program. So mandatory internships and so that, and those are paid. We expect industry to pay the students. And the reason we do that is the students take it more seriously and industry takes it more seriously.
We’ve already learned that. Secondly, the students have nine semesters, but we do it in three years. So we’re treating it as year-round school. So for the parents out there looking for great value, you’ve got a degree that your student will be done in three years plus a summer. They’ll have mandatory internships every summer. Um, and there’ll be ready to go into the job market at the end of three years. They’re going to be hired before they get out. Absolutely. Yeah. What a fantastic opportunity. How many students are in the program now? So we’ve got 24 in the current program we were shooting for between 20 and 30. Um, and so we’re right down where we’re at. We’re, we’re going through everything and really, um, refining it. And what’s great about it is the students know they’re part of the founding, right? They’re part of the first group.
These students will have the opportunity to be on a brand new campus, founding Frisco, freshmen. Yeah. It’s all really love. We love alliteration. So we’re going to run with that one. Yeah. And so they know they’re part of it. And so what’s interesting, it’s project design and analysis. They know there are both students, but then we expect them to step out and go, okay, what’s working well? What can we improve on? Just like the president was saying so that the next semester is even better. And next year’s cohorts or two or three cohorts or even better and even better. We’ve got some ideas too, and I don’t know how long this podcast goes on, but we’re having fun. We’ve got some really interesting ideas. So if you’ve ever heard of urban decay cosmetics? Yes. Okay. It’s the second biggest cosmetics company in the United States. It was just bought up by L’Oreal.
The founder of urban decay is a woman named Wendy Zoellner. Wendy is one of our alum. She was a journalism major who went out and took that creative thing she got with marketing and everything else and went, how do I do something radical and transformational that changes an industry. Makeup in the past was about covering up your flaws. She wanted makeup to be about an expression of individuality and a celebration of yourself. So it was different, you know, and she’s launched with products like toxic waste and acid rain. Very cool stuff. So she just came out to talk with our kids and we were talking with her and said, maybe we could set up a project based curriculum around new marketing ideas and think tanks for how people are going to change and what products are designed or is going to evolve in the future with you.
Another one, um, as a gaming company, we’re talking with them about, uh, what their needs are. They’re having trouble, they’re hiring as many people as they possibly can. It’s hard to get people in the door who have the requisite talents. So let’s forget that company and let’s just say for example, that you’re one of these giant inner net gaming companies, you know, that are, so the eSports teams, by the way, are e-sports team came in second in the country in the last a tournament. Uh, so that UNT has one of the only varsity, uh, e-sports teams. I was gonna ask about e-sports. I’m glad you guys brought that up, but we can come back to that in a, well. So imagine you’re, you know, designing these games and we work with several different gaming companies. And what they say is you don’t just, it’s not like you need a coder.
I mean, coding is an easy skill. And I know that sounds odd, but you can get people to code what is a game? A game is a story. It’s visual, it’s got a narrative, it’s got music, it’s really a major production. It takes a director and a producer. It takes money to back it. It takes the right ideas. It takes a business plan. Um, you’re not talking about one person. You’re talking about teams of people working together with different skills and how we integrate those skills to really produce something extraordinary that, I mean, the sales of the launch of these new games, their sales are in the, you know, hundreds of millions in their first week or so. You know, big money is coming out of this. Yeah. A lot of the games that are coming out, um, in many ways reflect to the film industry in terms of the, the makeup of the teams that they need and all the different disciplines that are represented from that.
And then to your point, the launch events that, you know, these guys come out of the gate with just hundreds of millions in sales right out of the gate. It is big time stuff. So just think about it. Marketing, production, all of those things. Is that how we teach at a university? No. We give you some core courses and we stick you in a major. Maybe you come out and stick your head above water and go, Hmm, what else could I take? What instead? What if instead we took a creative team to start and built them into a cohort project and had a company say, I’m going to have you guys design a game and work with some of the best mentors in the business so that you can really learn how to be a creative team together. Who gets that kind of education? Our kids get 10 pounds of education.
Yeah. And what we’ve heard, the feedback from industry and in what the president said is right. Um, coding is becoming a commodity. So it it, we need coders, but there are coders. So the feedback we’ve had from industry is they want students who know how to code. So let’s say they’ve, 75% of their classes have been technical. They know how to code, they understand our digital architecture, then they want the other 25 to expose them to creative and working on creative teams. Conversely, they want the students that are creative to be exposed to 25% of digital architecture and coding and they want it done by these creative teams that the president is talking about. So it’s no longer a engineer’s over here. Creatives over there, maybe they happen to sit near each other to football game. They expect us to bring those students together to learn how to work with each other, to learn how to work with each other’s idiosyncrasies and then to, to begin to realize, man, I can understand this coding stuff.
Or man, I can understand this creative stuff. Right? Yeah. And I think you guys are spot on with what you’re doing there. As someone that’s owned a software company for a very long time, we, uh, and we’ve stayed very small, very boutique. But the best projects we’ve done is where each, each side of that equation, both the, the analytical coding side and the creative side had an understanding of what the other was doing and they weren’t siloed off just in their own little world. So that’s super important for, for students to learn that. And it isn’t, it isn’t really the traditional path, but I think, uh, I think we’re in an age of disruption and higher ed is ripe for destruction. Absolutely. And if we’re not being disruptors ourselves, and if we’re not thinking into the future, we could become obsolete. So, uh, I feel a particular urgency and you know, the Academy doesn’t always move.
Uh, but I think most people are beginning to see that if we don’t change that we could be out of business. And I think that’s true. If you look nationwide right now, there’s universities, uh, small universities are going out of business in record numbers, big universities that are experiencing enrollment declines because of demographics. So, you know, we live in a competitive industry too, in a competitive environment. It’s up to us out compete. And I think we’re really, we’re doing that right now. And I’m proud of how the universities responded in how our teams are working. And it’s an, and what’s fantastic is we’ve got a board who wants it. We’ve got administration who wants it, and we’ve got a partner in Frisco. So if you think about what goes on here in Frisco, it’s, it is the center of this thing called North Texas, right?
If you go global, people know DFW, but they’re also learning North Texas, right? They’re hearing that. They know, that means innovation. They knew that means new. They know it means diverse, right? Look at the population here. Look at our population. So there’s a certain, um, beauty to the fact that Frisco embodies that North Texas spirit and, and we are North Texas, right? I mean, but let’s look at the President of North Texas. His mean green country. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s kind of, it’s, it’s, um, it’s a certain certain deputy all the way back to the hardware store in 1890 to starting in an office park near the star. Right. They’d all kind of, it’s a beautiful story that seems like it’s meant to be. Um, and it, and from our perspective, things just keep conspiring to make us when we’re working real hard and we’re, we’re having good conflict to make us go, wow. It almost feels like somebody wants this to happen. Right.
Well, I can tell you Frisco wants it to happen and as you guys know, it’s not enough to have opportunity presented to you. You’ve gotta be open enough to grab that opportunity and do something with it. So thank you guys for doing exactly that and keep up that nice long tradition of being forward thinking and innovating. It sounds like that’s a part of the North, the UNT culture. And uh, please keep it going. No, you’re right. It’s part of the North Texas culture, North Texas culture, best business climate in the world. Um, thank you very much for inviting us. And the next time we come by, I think I need to get you a little bit more moving gear here. Yeah, I know. I was actually looking for some green in my closet and what little I have was in the laundry. So forgive the blue, but uh, yeah, we’ll, uh, we’ll definitely garner some gear for the next round. Awesome. Thanks guys. Thank you very much. Have a great day and thanks to all of you for tuning in. We’ll talk to you next time.
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