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Dr. Bryce Jordan, UT Dallas’ First President, Dies at Age 91

Dr. H. Bryce Jordan, the first president of The University of Texas at Dallas, died April 12 in Austin. He was 91.

Jordan served as UT Dallas president from 1971 to 1981.

Jordan took the helm of the University just two years after the campus became part of the University of Texas System. The rapidly growing institution expanded its faculty from 50 to 215 and increased student enrollment from 40 to more than 7,000 during his tenure.

UT Dallas offered only graduate degrees until 1975, when it began accepting juniors and seniors. Jordan awarded the first bachelor’s degrees at spring commencement in 1976.

“I was not privileged to spend much time with Dr. Jordan, and mostly remember visiting him at his Austin home,” said Dr. Hobson Wildenthal, UT Dallas president ad interim. “All of the admiring tales I had heard from UT Dallas faculty colleagues about him were immediately validated during that visit. He exuded dynamism, cheerfulness and engagement, and we traded questions and answers about the many luminaries he had worked with over his long and distinguished career. He was blessed with a superabundance of those human traits that draw admiration, affection and respect.”

Read the full article on the UT Dallas News Center.