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Bill J. Priest Center for Community College Education

The Center was named in honor of Dr. Bill J. Priest, the founding Chancellor of the Dallas County Community College District and the inspiration for the Bill J. Priest Center at UNT. Dr. Priest served as Chancellor from 1965 to 1981. He is credited with building the community college system in Dallas. Today, the DCCCD is comprised of seven different colleges located throughout Dallas County, the R. Jan LeCroy Center for Educational Telecommunications, and various centers across Dallas County.

In addition to being the founding chancellor of DCCCD, Dr. Priest held leadership positions in a number of national community college initiatives including:

  • Serving as a founder of the League for Innovation in the Community College
  • President of the American Association of Community Colleges
  • Chairman of the American Council on Education

Although the community college was a major part of Dr. Priest's life, he also had a lifelong love of baseball. He played professional baseball (a pitcher) and was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame at the University of California at Berkeley. Additionally, he served his country as an intelligence officer for the United States Navy in the Philippines and postwar Japan.

He was a man loved and respected by people nationally who have benefited from his commitment to the community college movement and to the students the community college serves. Dr. Priest was born September 23, 1917 and died December 31, 2014.

To watch a tribute to Bill J. Priest by the Dallas County Community College District, visit: https://www.dcccd.edu/AU/WhoWeAre/History/Pages/Bill-Priest-Tribute.aspx

Council for the Study of Community Colleges

The Council for the Study of Community Colleges (CSCC) is an affiliate of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) and a project of the Center for the Study of Community Colleges (www.centerforcommunitycolleges.org). Council members include university-based researchers and community college practitioners who further scholarship on the community college enterprise. The purposes of the Council are to:

  • Contribute to the development of pre-service and in-service education for community college professionals;
  • Conduct and disseminate research pertaining to community colleges;
  • Serve as a forum for dialogue between university professors, graduate students, and
  • community college practitioners who study community colleges;
  • Disseminate information about related conferences and events;
  • Provide research and other services to the American Association of Community Colleges and its affiliate councils;
  • Recognize outstanding service to, research in, and publication about community college education; and
  • Provide a unified and formal base of participation for CSCC members in AACC affairs.

The headquarters of the CSCC is housed in the UNT Higher Education Program in the Bill J. Priest

Center for Community College Education.

The CSCC holds an annual spring research conference where it awards the Barbara K. Townsend Emerging Scholar Award, Senior Scholar Award, Distinguished Service Award, etc. Particularly of interest to graduate students is the Dissertation of the Year Award for a student completing a dissertation relating to community college issues.

Higher Education Development Initiative

In the spring of 2013, the UNT Center for Higher Education became the UNT Higher Education Development Initiative (HEDI). The primary reasons for the name change were (a) for the name of the entity to come into better compliance with institutional rules on the criteria that distinguish organized efforts to advance research, teaching, and service, and (b) to better reflect the entity's contemporary mission.

The primary activities of HEDI currently are two, both of which reflect the meanings of "development" in several senses:

  1. HEDI organizes and supports the annual UNT Texas Higher Education Law Conference. Founded by former UNT Vice President and General Counsel Richard Rafes, an attorney and a doctoral graduate of the UNT Higher Education Program, the Law Conference remains true to its objectives: to improve professional service in higher education in the state by expert presentation on legal and law-related issues, particularly those particular to Texas; and to create funding, via revenues above expenses, for graduate student scholarship support and academic initiatives in the Higher Education Program. In recent years, the conference, held in the early Spring, is attended by 250-300 people and creates $25,000 or more in scholarship funds annually.
  2. HEDI supports the UNT Higher Education Program initiatives to support the expansion of higher education access and the enhancement of its quality, particularly among historically underserved and international populations. These initiatives are undergirded by a commitment to the philosophy that state, national, and world development on many fronts will be grounded in more and better higher education. A particular emphasis has been the development of partnerships, institutional development, and research in sub-Saharan Africa. The former HEDI Director, Dr. Marc Cutright, was a Fulbright Scholar to Uganda and East Africa during the 2013-14 academic year in support of these objectives. Several doctoral students completed dissertations on international education, particularly with an African focus. Support of initiatives under this large umbrella also supported faculty and staff research and service for minority students in the U.S.

The HEDI operates without any ongoing budget allocation, release time for faculty, or special office space. Thus HEDI represents an exceptional fiscal value for the University of North Texas and the taxpayers of the state.

History of the Higher Education Development Initiative

Since 1972, the Higher Education Development Initiative has been in near-continuous operation under the name of the Center for Higher Education.

The first Director of the UNT Center for Higher Education was the late Dr. Dwane Kingery, former Dean of the College of Education, Professor of Secondary Education, and Professor of Higher Education. He directed the Center from 1972 until 1992. He was particularly active in the solicitation of donations to support student scholarships and conference travel.

The late Dr. Barry Lumsden, Professor of Higher Education, assumed the position of Director in 1994 and served in this capacity until 1996. He enabled the Center to co-sponsor the Journal of Community College Research and Practice, of which he was the founding editor. Dr. Paul Dixon, former Dean of the College of Education, directed the Center from 1996 through the Fall, 1998. During his tenure, the Center began co-sponsoring the annual UNT Texas Higher Education Law Conference.

After another brief interruption in service, the late Dr. Jack Baier, Professor of Higher Education, began his term as Director of the Center, with a special emphasis on publication in the field of Student Affairs.

Dr. Marc Cutright became Director of the Center upon his appointment to the Higher Education faculty in 2007. He co-directed the Law Conference with Dr. Richard Fossey, an attorney and Professor of Educational Administration, from that time through the 2011 conference. The conference enjoyed enrollment increases of 40% and 30% in two consecutive years. Dr. Cutright assumed the role of sole director of the Law Conference in 2012.

During the 2012-13 academic year, the University of North Texas conducted an extensive review of all centers and institutes to determine alignment of their structures with current definitions of such entities. Dr. Cutright served on the Executive Council of Directors that conducted this review. When it became clear that the Center for Higher Education operated differently than most Centers on campus, he requested that the name be changed to the Higher Education Development Initiative. This request was approved by the Provost, the Dean of the College of Education, and the Council. The change in title did not substantively affect the operations or purposes of HEDI.

Dr. Cliff Harbour assumed the Director position after Dr. Cutright retired in August 2017. In March 2018, the Higher Education Development Initiative conducted its 22nd Annual Texas Higher Education Law Conference and planning is now underway for the 23rd Annual Conference to be held in March 2019.