The 49-year-old Oscar-winning actor will teach in the university’s Department of Radio-Television-Film, having been a visiting instructor at the flagship campus in Austin since 2015.

McConaughey graduated from UT Austin in 1993 and the university said in a statement on Wednesday that the appointment recognised his “outstanding work as a teacher and mentor”.

He will continue teaching a Script to Screen film production class for which he developed the course curriculum.

The university said McConaughey was respected for his “willingness to work with students beyond the classroom”. McConaughey earned a film degree from the school in 1993.

Oscar-winning actor McConaughey will lecture on his own films, the actor himself said in a statement: “It’s the class I wish I would have had when I was in film school.

“Working in the classroom with these students gives me a chance to prepare them.”

It has been reported that the course will study two of McConaughey’s films: the upcoming Guy Ritchie project, The Gentleman and Jeff Nichols’ 2012 movie, Mud.

McConaughey has appeared in more than 50 films, including Interstellar, The Wolf of Wall Street and Dallas Buyers Club, for which he won an Oscar and a Golden Globe.