UT Arlington has a new acting president, and for the first time in the school's 130-year history, that leader is Black. Dr. Archie Holmes formally took over acting presidential duties on Tuesday, stepping in for Jennifer Cowley, who announced in late August that she was stepping down after four years leading the university.
A Historic First For UTA's Top Office
UTA spokesperson Jeff Caplan confirmed to KERA News that Holmes is the first Black person to serve as the university's top executive leader. Cowley, for her part, was UTA's first female president, a distinction confirmed by NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, which reported that she delivered her final State of the University address last week, per UTA officials. Cowley told university officials she plans to return to teaching and research as a faculty member in UTA's College of Architecture, Planning, and Public Affairs, according to FOX 4 News Dallas-Fort Worth.
Former UTA President Jennifer Cowley will serve as a special advisor to Holmes during the transition, KERA News reports. That arrangement gives the incoming acting president a direct line to institutional memory as he settles into the job. Holmes will keep his current post as the UT System's Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, a role he has held since October 2020, according to background compiled by the The Daily Texan.
Holmes Brings Engineering Background, System-Wide Reach
Per NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, Holmes previously served as vice provost for academic affairs at the University of Virginia and held faculty appointments there and at UT Austin, where he also earned his bachelor's degree and won the Texas Excellence Teaching Award in engineering. He earned his doctorate at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his research has focused on the development of novel optoelectronic devices; he has co-authored more than 110 peer-reviewed technical publications, the outlet reports. UTA officials say Holmes provided strategic leadership, oversight, and guidance to UT System academic institutions and worked extensively with Cowley over the years, offering support to UTA along the way.
An Inherited List Of Big Wins And Big Bills
Holmes is taking the reins of a campus that grew fast under Cowley. UTA logged an overall enrollment of 42,710 students for Fall 2025, driven by a record freshman class of more than 5,100 students — a 7.6% annual jump in incoming first-time college students, according to UT Arlington. That makes it the second-largest institution in the UT System. UTA also opened Maverick Hall in Fall 2025, a $116.2 million, 205,638-square-foot residence hall with 654 beds, per the university.
The university's research profile has also grown under Cowley. In April, the U.S. Navy awarded UTA's Pulsed Power and Energy Laboratory a defense contract worth up to $86.4 million to evaluate advanced shipboard power and propulsion systems, a major research contract for the university. And in February, the UT System Board of Regents approved funding for the initial $94 million academic building at UTA West, a 51-acre satellite campus in Parker County's Walsh Ranch development along Fort Worth's western edge, set to open in Fall 2028 and eventually serve up to 10,000 students.
Budget Pressures Complicate The Handoff
Not everything Holmes inherits is expansion. UTA launched an Academic Program Futures review in February to evaluate undergraduate and master's degree programs for potential phase-outs or reorganization amid staff hiring freezes and internal budget pressures — a review that coincided with voluntary employee buyouts and phased retirement options across campus. How the acting president balances that fiscal tightening against the university's growth ambitions will likely shape his tenure, however long it lasts.
That tenure is, by design, temporary. Under UT System Board of Regents Rule 20201, when a university presidency becomes vacant, a Presidential Search Advisory Committee is required — including regents, presidents, campus faculty, deans, students, and alumni — to evaluate candidates and recommend a permanent successor. The University of Texas System Board of Regents and Chancellor John Zerwas will begin that process of identifying the university's next president, per NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, and system-wide advisory searches of this kind typically take about nine months to complete.
