Special Collections Department, The University Archives

Table of Contents

Collection Overview

Administrative Information

Controlled Access Headings

Historical Sketch

Scope and Content

Series Description

Collection Inventory

Series I. Notes

Series II. Abbreviated Chronology

Series III. Detailed Chronology

Collection Overview

Repository

Special Collections Department, The University Archives

Creator - Author

Mitchell, Al, Mr., (Alfred T. Michell)

Title

UT Dallas Chronology Collection

ID

UA14-14

Date [inclusive]

1969-1991

Extent

0.8 Linear feet (Two manuscript boxes)

Language

Language of Materials

Collection is in English.

Abstract

The UT Dallas Chronology Collection is an artificial collection created from the writings of Alfred T. (Al) Mitchell, who was a long-time employee of both the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest/Southwest Center for Advanced Studies (GRCSW/SCAS) and The University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas).

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Administrative Information

Publication Information

Special Collections Department, The University Archives 2014/07/28

Access Restrictions

Materials in this collection are open for research.

Literary Rights Statement

Permission to publish material from this collection in any form, current or future, must be obtained from the Special Collections Department, Eugene McDermott Library, The University of Texas at Dallas.

Provenance Statement

The UT Dallas Chronology Collection was assembled out of archival material that was collected through the years and kept in the basement of the Eugene McDermott Library. The vast majority of the collection, if not all of it, was written by Al Mitchell as part of his work as a volunteer after retirement from UT Dallas to write the history of the university from 1978 until his death in 1991.

Note to the Researcher

All staples were removed and 126 pages of text that had tape on them were photocopied onto acid-free paper. The copies were then kept in the collection and the originals discarded.

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Controlled Access Headings

Personal Name(s)

• Mitchell, Al, Mr., (Alfred T. Michell)

Subject(s)

• University Archives

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Historical Sketch

The UT Dallas Chronology Collection is an artificial collection created from the writings of Alfred T. (Al) Mitchell, who was a long-time employee of both the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest/Southwest Center for Advanced Studies (GRCSW/SCAS) and The University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas).

Al Mitchell had a long list of job titles in his 29 years at GRCSW/SCAS and UT Dallas, including head of technical services, director of news and information, chief of purchasing, university editor, university archivist, and even assistant baseball coach. Mitchell officially retired from the university in 1977, but his retirement merely meant that he began to volunteer his time as the university archivist for UT Dallas, where his big project was to collect the material for writing the detailed chronology which makes up most of this collection. He feverishly worked on preserving the university’s history by collecting archives and writing the detailed chronology as a volunteer up until his death on August 5, 1991.

Source

 Graduate Research Center of the Southwest (GRCSW)/Southwest Center for Advanced Studies (SCAS) Collection,   GRCSW/SCAS Chronology, 1961-1963, Folder 8, Box 1, Series II, The University Archives, Special Collections Department, Eugene McDermott Library, The University of Texas at Dallas.

Source

 The U.T. Dallas News, Vol. II No. 1  "Living History: Archivist Alfred T. Mitchell Lived UTD History He Now Writes." October 1989

Source

 The U.T. Dallas News,, Vol. IV No. 1  "Archivist Alfred T. Mitchell Passes Away." Autumn 1991

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Scope and Content

This collection contains two manuscript boxes, consisting of 0.8 linear feet of a chronological history of UT Dallas written by Al Mitchell. The Archivist identified three series while processing the collection. The first series is the Notes Series, which consists of photocopied notes written by Al Mitchell about specific aspects of the history of UT Dallas, including its origins as GRCSW/SCAS, as well as other institutions that played a role in the university’s history to include the Callier Center for Communication Disorders, the Texas Research Foundation, and The Association for Higher Education and Research of North Texas (TAGER). The document of notes is titled “Al’s Short History.” The Archivist chose this to be the first series of the collection in order to give the researcher an overview and explanation of some of the university’s history at the beginning of the collection.

The second series is the Abbreviated Chronology Series, which gives a short year-by-year history of UT Dallas, as well as GRCSW/SCAS, from 1960-1989. It is unknown for certain if this chronology was written by Mitchell, but its content seems to suggest that it is an abbreviated version of the chronology that will be described in Series III that was definitely written by Mitchell. Regardless, the Archivist determined that they should both belong in the same artificial collection.

The third and final series is the Detailed Chronology Series. It begins with the inception of UT Dallas in September 1969 and goes until August 1984. It then starts again in August 1989 and concludes in July 1991. The skip from 1984 to 1989 can be explained because it was 1989 when Mitchell was writing the 1983 chronology and at that point he began to write about 1983 and 1989 concurrently. He continued to do this concurrent writing for the rest of his life, therefore at his death, the two parts of the chronology he was working on were August 1984 and July 1991. Mitchell used sources that he originally collected for the University Archives to include meeting minutes, news releases, publications, photographic images, and interviews. He listed these sources at the margin of the pages. Also, since Mitchell passed away before he could complete the chronology, the only edits to the work are crossed out words and handwritten additions that he made, but were never added to an edited copy.

A final note about Mitchell's detailed chronology is that he also wrote one for the history of the GRCSW/SCAS, which is found in Series I, Box 1, Folders 1-6 of the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest (GRCSW)/Southwest Center for Advanced Studies (SCAS) Collection.

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Series Description

The UT Dallas Chronology Collection is divided into three series:

Series I. Notes 0.1 linear feet (one folder), undated.

Arranged by topic and then chronologically.

Series II. Abbreviated Chronology 0.1 linear feet (one folder), 1960-1989.

Arranged chronologically.

Series III. Detailed Chronology 0.6 linear feet (one manuscript box and ten folders), 1969-1991.

Arranged chronologically.

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Collection Inventory