University of Texas at Dallas President Richard Benson is stepping down after eight years leading the university.
In a statement released Monday, the university's fifth president announced he will remain in the role until the UT System Board of Regents selects his successor. The search for a new UTD president could last most of the 2025 academic year, Benson said.
"Although my time as president draws to a close, I will continue to be a proud member of the UT Dallas faculty, and I hope that there may yet be other ways for me to contribute to the life of this university," Benson said.
Chancellor of the UT System James B. Milliken said in a statement Benson has elevated UTD in every way and solidified it as a destination for the best students and faculty.
"We have been so fortunate to have had someone with Dick Benson’s intelligence, experience, integrity, and passion as president of UTD,” Milliken wrote.
Benson's announcement comes just a week into the start of the fall semester. Some anticipated Benson might retire within the coming years, but the president seemed excited for the upcoming school year and the timing of the decision came as a surprise, according to Michael Kesden, physics professor and faculty speaker of the UTD Academic Senate.
Kesden said Benson, who has a lengthy background in studying and teaching mechanical engineering, understood the philosophy of the “keep UTD nerdy” slogan used by students.
“He appreciates that it’s a very unique place,” Kesden said. “He’s trying to make it better, but he’s not trying to change the culture, which really defines who we are here.”
Like schools across the country, Benson saw the university through its move to a mix of online, hybrid and in-person classes during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. When Texas enacted a ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs at colleges and universities, Benson initially assured the public no one at UTD would lose their job.
But earlier this year, he announced about 20 jobs would be eliminated with the closing of UTD’s Office of Campus Resources and Support.
Benson’s stepping down also comes three months after several students and professors were arrested during a pro-Palestinian encampment on UTD's campus while protesting Israel’s war in Gaza. Benson defended the university and law enforcement’s response to the situation in an op-ed in The Dallas Morning News.
Kesden declined to comment in detail about how Benson handled those situations, but he said UTD lands somewhere in the middle on the spectrum of university responses to anti-war encampments and protests nationwide.
“A lot of these things are certainly challenging situations,” Kesden said. “I can certainly say that if I had been in President Benson’s shoes, I would have struggled to handle them any differently than he did.”
Others were more critical of Benson’s tenure. Former faculty speaker Ravi Prakash, who held the role from 2018 until May, said his working relationship with Benson was generally good until the May 1 encampment at UTD’s Chess Plaza.
Prakash said Academic Senate members, Benson and other university leaders gathered for a meeting the afternoon of May 1, but he said he and other faculty were not warned that UTD police and other law enforcement officers armed with face shields and batons would eventually respond to the encampment scene.
“The university has not been very forthcoming in sharing information with faculty as to what they’re doing, how they’re doing and so forth,” Prakash said.
In a statement at the time, UTD administration said they had given demonstrators written notice that the encampment must be taken down. The university said it asked outside law enforcement for help "in an effort to ensure the safety of our students, faculty and staff."
UTD isn’t the only North Texas university seeing leadership changes. Southern Methodist University President R. Gerald Turner announced last week he will step down after three decades with the school. University of North Texas named a new president earlier this summer.
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