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Research dossier · History & Society

University of Texas at Dallas

public university in Richardson, Texas

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ1781394
Source-derived summary

The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD or UT Dallas) is a public research university in Richardson, Texas, United States. It is the northernmost institution of the University of Texas System. It was initially founded in 1961 as a private research arm of Texas Instruments.

The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". It is associated with four Nobel Prizes and has members of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering on its faculty with research projects including the areas of Space Science, Bioengineering, Cybersecurity, Nanotechnology, and Behavioral and Brain Sciences. UT Dallas offers more than 140 academic programs across its seven schools and hosts more than 50 research centers and institutes.

While the main campus is officially under the city jurisdiction of Richardson, one-third of it is within the borders of Dallas County. UTD also operates several locations in downtown Dallas – this includes the Crow Museum of Asian Art in the Arts District as well as multiple buildings in the Medical District next to UT Southwestern: the Center for BrainHealth, the Center for Vital Longevity, and the Callier Center for Communication Disorders.

History

Establishment

Before the founding of the University of Texas at Dallas, Eugene McDermott, Cecil Howard Green and J. Erik Jonsson had purchased Geophysical Service Incorporated (GSI) on December 6, 1941 – the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor. With the rapid increase in defense contracts due to declaration of war with Germany, the General Instrument Division of GSI grew substantially and was later reorganized under the name Texas Instruments, Inc.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “University of Texas at Dallas” is public university in Richardson, Texas. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through University, Texas and Dallas, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1961, 1941—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1961. For this dossier, University, Texas and Dallas is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “public university in Richardson, Texas” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1781394. VIAF identifies the subject as 125412983. The Library of Congress control number is n79141031. Authority coordinates are 32.985, -96.750. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961 and 1941.

Critical limits

Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “University of Texas at Dallas”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow University of Texas at Dallas primary sources, University of Texas at Dallas archive and University research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “University of Texas at Dallas”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from University of Texas at Dallas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.