President’s Letter
Dear Friends,
This Easter, our Rome Program students stood among tens of thousands in St. Peter’s Square to receive what would be Pope Francis’ final papal blessing. Then, less than two weeks later, some witnessed a moment of profound historical and spiritual significance: the election of the first American pope. And not from a distance — they were close enough to see his expression, to hear the crowd’s prayerful hush give way to thunderous joy.
It was, for many of them, the moment they understood what it means to be formed not just by a university, but by a Catholic university — a place where faith and reason, wonder and truth, friendship and formation come together in daily life and in moments that shape one’s entire future. At the University of Dallas, our vision remains fixed on our North Star: academic excellence, forming character, serving Church and country, and more fully realizing our calling as the nation’s best Catholic liberal arts institution. We are pursuing that vision with energy — and, as you’ll read in this report, with remarkable fruit.
As I reflect on this year, I am filled with gratitude — for our students, who rise to the call of excellence; for our faculty, who live the vocation of teacher-scholar; and for you, whose generosity and prayers sustain our mission. At a time when many universities are losing public trust, UDallas remains unapologetically focused on the pursuit of truth through an education committed to the recovery and renewal of Western civilization and the Christian intellectual tradition — one that, as Pope St. John Paul II stated, challenges students “to think rigorously, so as to act rightly and to serve humanity.” This is what a university should be. And by God’s grace, this is what the University of Dallas will continue to be for generations to come.
Faithfully,
Jonathan J. Sanford, Ph.D.
President, University of Dallas
AI for Good: PediMinds Wins Big
Maria Gutierrez, MS ’25, is using artificial intelligence to serve one of the most sensitive areas of human need: children’s mental health. Her AI agent, PediMinds, guides caregivers through widely used screenings like the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), offering personalized resources and actionable insights to support a child’s emotional well-being.
Knowledge or Gossip?
Dr. Brett Bourbon, professor of English, and Dr.Renita Murimi, associate professor of cybersecurity,co-authored Organized Skepticism in the Age of Misinformation:Surviving the Kingdom of Gossip, a rareinterdisciplinary work exploring how we define, modeland misunderstand information.
Cultivating Leaders Through a Distinctive, Real-World Curriculum
The Satish and Yasmin Gupta College of Business is boldly reinventing graduate business education. In August, under the leadership of Dean J. Lee Whittington, PhD, the college launched a revamped curriculum aimed at enriching instruction by explicitly aligning its courses with the university’s Catholic intellectual tradition.
AI for Good: PediMinds Wins Big
Maria Gutierrez, MS ’25, is using artificial intelligence to serve one of the most sensitive areas of human need: children’s mental health. Her AI agent, PediMinds, guides caregivers through widely used screenings like the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), offering personalized resources and actionable insights to support a child’s emotional well-being.
Knowledge or Gossip?
Dr. Brett Bourbon, professor of English, and Dr.Renita Murimi, associate professor of cybersecurity,co-authored Organized Skepticism in the Age of Misinformation:Surviving the Kingdom of Gossip, a rareinterdisciplinary work exploring how we define, modeland misunderstand information.
Cultivating Leaders Through a Distinctive, Real-World Curriculum
The Satish and Yasmin Gupta College of Business is boldly reinventing graduate business education. In August, under the leadership of Dean J. Lee Whittington, PhD, the college launched a revamped curriculum aimed at enriching instruction by explicitly aligning its courses with the university’s Catholic intellectual tradition.
AI for Good: PediMinds Wins Big
Maria Gutierrez, MS ’25, is using artificial intelligence to serve one of the most sensitive areas of human need: children’s mental health. Her AI agent, PediMinds, guides caregivers through widely used screenings like the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), offering personalized resources and actionable insights to support a child’s emotional well-being.
Knowledge or Gossip?
Dr. Brett Bourbon, professor of English, and Dr.Renita Murimi, associate professor of cybersecurity,co-authored Organized Skepticism in the Age of Misinformation:Surviving the Kingdom of Gossip, a rareinterdisciplinary work exploring how we define, modeland misunderstand information.
Cultivating Leaders Through a Distinctive, Real-World Curriculum
The Satish and Yasmin Gupta College of Business is boldly reinventing graduate business education. In August, under the leadership of Dean J. Lee Whittington, PhD, the college launched a revamped curriculum aimed at enriching instruction by explicitly aligning its courses with the university’s Catholic intellectual tradition.