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From the Dallas South News Wire

DALLAS—An 11-member search committee at the University of North Texas at Dallas narrowed its nationwide search to three finalists for the school’s first provost and vice president for academic excellence and student success position.

The candidates are John Beehler, associate provost for economic initiatives and dean of the Haile/US Bank College of Business at Northern Kentucky University; Brian Canfield, vice president for Academic Affairs at Southern Arkansas University and past president of the American Counseling Association; and V.K. Unni, vice president for academic affairs at Bryant University in Rhode Island.

The City of Dallas’ first public university continues to fill positions on its leadership team in preparation for its official opening next fall as the University of North Texas at Dallas. The school has been operating since January 2000 as a branch campus of UNT Denton and will apply for separate accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) in 2011.

UNT Dallas will accept freshmen and sophomore students for the first time in its 10-year history starting next August. Currently, only junior-, senior- and master’s-level classes are offered at the campus in southern Dallas near the intersection of I-20 and I-35E.

Sandra Terrell, search committee chair and vice provost for academic outreach at UNT Denton, said the candidates were called and “expressed enthusiasm for advancing as finalists.”

“We are very pleased with the robust pool of qualified applicants and these outstanding finalists. The finalists expressed enthusiasm at the opportunity to contribute to a university from its beginning. They are all successful where they are, but they want to take this opportunity because it’s such a unique one.

“It was an honor to chair this committee at this significant time in the history of UNT Dallas, and I want to thank UNT Dallas and the search committee for a job that was incredibly well done,” Terrell added.