Harrison Keller, Ph.D.

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Personal Information

The University of North Texas System Board of Regents officially appointed Dr. Harrison Keller to lead the University of North Texas – the system’s flagship campus and the third-largest university in Texas. Today’s unanimous vote comes after Texas’ mandatory 21-day waiting period for a presidential appointment.

Dr. Keller, who served as the commissioner and chief executive officer of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, will become the 17th president in UNT’s history, effective Aug. 1. He will succeed Dr. Neal Smatresk who became president of UNT in 2014.

Dr. Keller came to the coordinating board from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was deputy to the president for strategy and policy and a professor of practice. At UT Austin, Dr. Keller also served as vice provost for higher education policy and research and executive director of the Center for Teaching and Learning. Earlier in his career, Dr. Keller was a legislative aide in the Texas Senate and Texas House of Representatives, director of research for the Texas House, and senior education advisor for the Speaker of the Texas House.

Dr. Keller has taught at Georgetown University, St. Edward’s University, and the University of Texas at Austin. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame and a master’s and Ph.D. in philosophy from Georgetown University. From 2005 to 2015, he served as an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve.