The UNT System Board of Regents on Thursday officially appointed Dr. Kirk Calhoun as president of UNT Health Fort Worth and named Warren von Eschenbach as UNT Dallas president.
The appointments came after the 10-member board voted unanimously to approve both.
The board had identified both candidates as sole finalists for each position in June.
“On behalf of the Board of Regents, I am honored to welcome Dr. Calhoun and Dr. von Eschenbach as the next presidents of UNT Health and UNT Dallas,” said Board of Regents chair Laura Wright in a news release. “Their steadfast dedication to student achievement and community impact assures us of a strong and promising future for both institutions.”
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Calhoun retired as president of the University of Texas Tyler and board chair of UT Health East Texas Health System in May 2024. He becomes the eighth UNT Health Fort Worth president after serving as interim president since February.
Calhoun will succeed Sylvia Trent-Adams, who had held the post for the past three years.
According to his online bio, Calhoun earned his medical degree from The University of Kansas School of Medicine. He worked in private practice and held positions at the University of Missouri Kansas City before spending 10 years at the UT Medical Center in Galveston, his bio says.
Calhoun also worked as a senior vice president at Parkland Hospital and an associate dean for clinical affairs at UT Southwestern Medical School.
Eschenbach has served as the interim president for UNT Dallas since April 2024.
Prior to that he served as vice chancellor for academic affairs at the UNT System. He becomes the fourth UNT Dallas president, succeeding Bob Mong, the former editor at The Dallas Morning News, who retired from the university system in July 2024 after serving as its president for nine years.
During his time as interim president, Eschenbach established the university’s inaugural Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning. He holds a PhD in philosophy from The University of Texas at Austin, specializing in ethics and 19th- and 20th-century European philosophy.