AUSTIN – The University of Texas System Board of Regents today (April 16) named Dr. David L. Callender as the sole finalist for the position of president of The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
The action came during a special called meeting of the UT System Board of Regents in which four candidates were interviewed, and comes less than a week after the applicants met with the UTMB community in Galveston in a series of campus visits.
Dr. Callender is currently associate vice chancellor and chief executive officer of the UCLA Hospital System in Los Angeles. He also is an adjunct professor of surgery at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and is a member of the governing board of the University Health Consortium. Dr. Callender previously held numerous positions at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, including executive vice president and chief operating officer, vice president for clinical programs and medical director of the center’s Physicians Referral Service.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from Midwestern State University, a medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine and an M.B.A. from the University of Houston.
"Dr. Callender is a distinguished leader capable of leading UTMB during this special time of transition. He has an excellent background in teaching and research and has demonstrated a keen ability to administer large, complex medical institutions,” Regents’ Chairman James R. Huffines said.
“The selection of finalists for the presidency of UTMB has been undertaken by the board with a full awareness that the appointment of a new president for any of our 15 institutions is one of the most important decisions that we will make," Huffines added.
“The Board of Regents has selected an outstanding finalist from among an extraordinary group of candidates, and on behalf of the presidential search advisory committee and the UT System I would like to thank all the candidates who have taken part in this lengthy and detailed process,” said Dr. Kenneth I. Shine, executive vice chancellor for health affairs and chair of the presidential search committee.
Regents interviewed a short list of four candidates, who were narrowed from an original pool of more than 25 nominees and applicants from across the country. The newly appointed president will succeed Dr. John D. Stobo, who announced last year that he plans to retire by Aug. 31.
The board is scheduled to finalize its selection at its next quarterly meeting on May 9-10 in Austin.
UTMB is dedicated to educating health science professionals and researchers, caring for patients and advancing human health through research. Established in 1891 as the University of Texas Medical Department, UTMB has grown from one building, 23 students and 13 faculty members to a modern health science center with more than 70 major buildings, more than 2,900 students and house staff and more than 1,000 faculty.
The 84-acre campus includes four health sciences schools, three institutes for advanced study, a major medical library, a network of hospitals and clinics that provide a full range of primary and specialized medical care, an affiliated Shriners Burn Hospital and numerous research facilities that include the only full-sized maximum containment laboratory for the safe study of infectious diseases. In addition, UTMB is home to one of only two national biocontainment laboratories – and the only national lab in Texas – currently under construction.
UTMB is one of six health and nine academic institutions that make up The University of Texas System, one of the nation’s largest higher education systems. The UT System educates and trains three-fourths of the state's health care professionals annually and confers one-third of the state's undergraduate degrees. The UT System has an annual operating budget of $10 billion and has more than 76,000 employees, making it one of the largest employers in the state.
