By Ilan Goddard, KERA News
Dallas, TX – The first freshman to attend the University of North Texas at Dallas began classes Thursday. School officials say many of the students come from the surrounding South Dallas area.
Cassandra Foreman chose UNT Dallas because of it's location.
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Foreman: I really didn't want to live away from home quite yet. And they were talking about this new school opening and I had seen advertisements on billboards and stuff. So I looked onto it and I like to be original, and I thought this was very original since we'll be the first people to graduate in 2014.
Lindsay Knight oversees first year students. She says this freshman class of about 100 can help shape the university's future.
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Knight: For our students we say this is our pioneer class and 40 or 50 years from now they'll come back & this will be a bustling institution and so much will be going on and they'll get to say I was here from the beginning.
For the past decade UNT Dallas has been a satellite of the UNT system in Denton. Now the campus in South Dallas is the city's first fully accredited four-year public university.
Overall enrollment this year is about 2,200. UNT Dallas also cut a ribbon on its second building, which is energy efficient and built with recycled materials.