The Evolution of UTA

“The Evolution of UTA” offers listeners an engaging look at one of the city’s most influential institutions and the people who shaped it. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome to the Arlington Archives, the podcast that dives deep into the stories that shape the American Dream City. As Arlington celebrates 150 years of history and progress, we're bringing you the voices and legacies that make this city a cornerstone of Texas and a proud part of America's story. I'm your host, O.K. Carter, and the esteemed scholar and historian to my left is today's co-host, Dr. Gerald Saxon. Hello, Dr. Saxon. How are you, sir?

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Oh, okay. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Saxon is a distinguished historian and an archivist who served as a director of special collections at the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries. He's a respected expert in regional history. And he also authored the main book of history about Arlington Transitions, the Centennial History of the University of Texas at Arlington, 1895 to 1995, published by UTA Press. His work has been instrumental in documenting the history of the Dallas Fort Worth region and the development of the UT Arlington campus. Are you blushing yet?

SPEAKER_00 1:10

I'm trying not to.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

There's more. Given that background, you might expect he is the world's greatest expert on the history of the University of Texas. Okay. So Arlington has been a great many things over the years. It's had a lot of brands. It's been a train stop place. It's been a farming and cotton ginning community. It's been uh really a mecca for gambling. Uh it has become sort of the place for entertainment venues like the Texas Rangers and the Cowboys. But throughout most of its history, it one thing has remained consistent, which is that Arlington has been a college town. Uh University of Texas at Arlington, which has been around what now? Your book came out uh 1995, and that was the hundred-year history of it. And I know it began as a small private school and evolved through several institutional identities. Can you kind of recap, sort of start from the beginning, how did the idea of having a college come up and how did it evolve?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Well, there's one theme that runs throughout the course of these transitions, and there are eight different transitions. We've had eight different name changes, eight different affiliation changes. So it started in 1895 when a group of Arlington citizens led by Emmett Rankin, who owned a hardware store on Main Street, not far from where we are today. He had five kids. He felt the Arlington schools that were available at the time, the public schools, and that was through the counties, uh, was inadequate, underfunded.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Yeah, keep in mind the Arlington School District wasn't actually created until 1902.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

That is correct.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

So they're all over the place back then.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

And so he was looking for educational opportunities for his children. In fact, his oldest daughter was a teacher in the Arlington School, so she knew how inadequate it actually was. So he got together with several community leaders, people that you would recognize, or at least families in streets you would recognize, Collins family, the Cooper family, the Bowen family, and others. And they got together and created a new private school. It was called Arlington College, 1895. It wasn't a college at all, okay, as you know. It was a private school that that dealt with primary and secondary education.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

I think people could opt to either go to one of the other schools or they could go there, uh pay a little tuition, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Yes, it was$1.50 a month.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Yeah, a buck fifty went a lot further back in 1880. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

If you were a high school student, it was$2.50 a month.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

So now is my as my understanding is that uh we went through several different basically identities that there was a lot of financial trouble, but that uh no matter what happened, the city was just not ready to go let go of the idea. Okay, so you kind of go through these, you you alluded to eight different identities, and several of them happen uh in between uh this small college and when the state finally takes it over as as part of AM.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Well, the first four were small private institutions. We mentioned Arlington College, it lasted until 1902, and then Carlisle, James M. Carlisle came in and started Carlisle Military Academy, also a private primary and secondary school for Arlington that lasted until 1913, and it ended up in uh embedded in court cases. It went into receivership, he couldn't pay his bills. And then from there it became Arlington Training School for three years, and they couldn't pay their bills either. And then the last year it was Arlington Military Academy, and all four of those schools were designed to help educate young boys and girls in primary and secondary grades so that they could graduate in high school at eight at uh grade ten. And so that was all private school stuff. And 1917 is when a major transition took place.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

And that's when Arlington hired Vincent Grubbs to go down to Austin and to lobby the legislature to make hopefully a junior college.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Vincent is uh, we don't think of him much today, but at the time he was a fairly well-regarded political figure in the state, was he not?

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Absolutely. He they called him the kind of the godfather of uh mechanical and agricultural education in in Texas, and he was chiefly responsible for the College of Industrial Arts being uh created in Denton, which is now Texas Woman's University. And so he felt that modern, modern, by that point, early 20th century, was elitist. Modern upper class education was elitist, and he felt we needed more mechanical schools, we needed more vocational schools, we only had the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, which is AM today. And so he went down to the Texas legislature. The citizens of Arlington paid for his trip. They didn't pay him, they just underwrote his trip.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

He just he goes to the lobby. By the way, it's Grubbs with two B's. That is correct.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

And it became Grubbs Vocational College. He convinced the legislature. He had been in the legislature in the early 20th century. Uh so they knew him. He had actually lobbied the legislature before he lobbied for Arlington. He lobbied it for Commerce, Texas, and Campbell, Texas, and he wanted to see the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

He was very he was really good at this college lobbying because you had a fairly receptive legislature at the time.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Yes, absolutely. And so in 1917, uh the citizens of Arlington and the city of Arlington gave AM the old campus from those private schools, and they had to come up with a hundred acres of land which they purchased from the Fielder family.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Back and back, you know, when they built that first building, which I think is kind of where Hereford is now.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Which I think they're in the process of tearing part of down and redoing again.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Yes, they are. At the fourth time.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

That's where the original campus was. That is correct. That's but so he goes down there, he sells the idea, and it's a two-year school, right? Right. Now, I want to I I I'm curious about this. In today's funding model, uh, two-year colleges, community colleges, uh have a tax base. So, but did Grubbs do that, or was it being funded by a combination of tuition and uh of AM, or did or was it, did it have tax support as well?

SPEAKER_00 7:40

No, it did not have tax support, not local tax support. It had support through Texas AM and through the state of Texas because it was, I mean, we say today it was publicly assisted as opposed to publicly funded. And you mentioned it was a junior college, and it was, but it was more than a junior college because they also had the last two years of high school education in that school, and it continued in the junior college until 1935. So you had two years of high school and then you had the first two years of college.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

And the emphasis was on uh uh uh we don't think about Arlington as being uh as agricultural as it once, or this whole region as being as agricultural as it wants. But that used to be, I guess before the oil boom, that was the major industry wasn't you know, ranching, farming, uh, and you it this is a more these are more complex callings than you might think.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Absolutely. And when you think of when the first school started in 1895, there were fewer than a thousand people in Arlington at that time.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Even I think the census in 1900, you had a thousand people. Right. So the idea of of supporting a college is uh for a little town this small is uh remarkable. By the way, uh although the grubs name didn't last long, I think they were the grubworms.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

That is correct. That was the master.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

They were the grub worms. There's the name that would strike terror until your opponents were going to go play the grub worms.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

You know, another thing of interest about Grubbs is he he kind of got angry after the school was. Well, that's right. He wanted to be president of the president of the school, and he felt it should not have been a branch of the AM system. He felt it should have been its own entity. And so when it became a branch of the AM system, he was a little alienated, not a little, he was very much alienated from the school.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

That branch thing has gone on for quite a while, it has indeed. That's right, since 1917. I know. Okay, so uh we got Gribs and uh it it goes into what, 1923? That is correct. And then it's the same place, but name first major name change, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Yeah, it became North Texas Agricultural College at that point. And we became the junior Aggies.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Junior Aggies.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Junior Aggies, how about that?

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Yeah. So and they and that's when they sort of begin broadening the curriculum beyond vocational training, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yeah, they felt that Grubb the name Grubbs Vocational College was too limiting. It implied that it was a private school named after an individual, and it implied that it was only for vocational education, but really it had three tracks. It had a high school track, it had a vocational track, and it had the first two years of college as a track.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Yeah. I I think uh when did they finally I know they finally dropped that high school track business. Yeah, 35. Was it 1935? 35, yeah. I think I I was thinking 33, somewhere like that. Okay. So it doesn't have anything to do with the name, but I think it's that one of the things we might want to talk about is that we're closing out the Depression, we're getting into World War II, and how significant a role uh the University of Texas had during World War II. Can you talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Yeah, in fact, the person chiefly responsible for keeping the college alive, his name was Dr. E. E. Davis. Davis uh Street is named after him.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

I think he planted those trees there at the corner of Park Row and Davis.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

But Dr. Davis was quite a character. He was uh president, you uh he wasn't president. President was wasn't a title until the late 1940s. He was a dean. Uh the people who were in charge of North Texas Agricultural College until the late 1940s and um Grubbs were called deans because we were a branch of AM and they were considered to be just another college, just like the College of Business or the College of Whatever at AM. But Davis was an interesting guy.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Um of those pine trees, it's not just there, I mean all over town.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Oh, I think that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

I don't know why. You you're why'd he love those pine trees so much?

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Well, he I don't know why he specifically loved the pine trees, but he was an agricultural agent at some points, too. So he had kind of a deep interest in the environment and agriculture and trees and pecan trees, too, but that's another matter. But Davis was the uh dean during the depression, and you mentioned World War II. So he really had two huge issues he had to deal with. The Depression, you saw a dramatic drop in student enrollment. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

They just didn't have the money. Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

You know, and during World War II, you saw a dramatic drop in male enrollment. Yeah. So he had to fight those issues.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

And there was a lot of military training. Absolutely. I mean, I think were they even pilot training?

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Uh yes, pilot training, uh aviation.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

I mean, virtually all the resources there were dedicated to the war effort, it sounds like and the art department had classes in camouflage, how to create camouflage.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Uh we you and I before we started talked about Howard Joyner, who was on the art faculty, and he taught classes in camouflage and how to create caliphage.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

I didn't realize Howard was that old. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

And aerial photography was was being taught out there. Uh it was a significant uh ROTC school. And so, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Yeah, there's all kinds of officers. Even today, uh, I think the military component of UTA is fairly significant. I think uh we've had a lot of generals that have that have come through. Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

The first ROTC program was in 1921. So from 1921 till today, we've had ROTC.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Yeah. Okay, so we go through the Depression, and then we get through the war years, and all of a sudden, you go from this astonishing need for military training to not needing uh that that thing. And also, uh finally we get to another name change, correct?

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Yeah, that's in 1949. We became Arlington State College. Uh still basically the same kind of school. It was a junior college. Um vocational training was much less significant.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Far less training on uh agriculture, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

We became the largest junior college in the Southwest. And at one point I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah. Largest junior college in the Southwest, uh, sometimes numbering over 8,000 to 9,000 students, which was a significant number. This was before we had a Tarrant County junior college system in a Dallas County junior college.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

I think one of the reasons that Tarrant County, the tradition of having U UTA here was so strong that it took a long time for Tarrant County College and for the voters to decide, well, maybe we do need a community college here. That role for UTA is gone. Even when I was a high school core uh kid looking at where I'm going to go, I could see all kinds of uh vocational uh sort of things that Arlington State College was doing.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Well, keep in mind, too, that uh both as a junior college and later as a four-year college, we were the first and only state supported four-year or two-year college in Dallas County and in Terrane County.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

I did not know that. So that would be the T would be the closest one.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

UNT would have been the other closest. And that's in uh Denton County as we know.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

So by 1950, uh you have Arnecan really starting to grow. Right. General Motors shows up. Um you have uh Interstate 30, the turnpike comes in. Um so you really have sort of a uh an explosion, do you not?

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Oh, absolutely. It's in the 1950s that there was more community pressure on the state legislature to turn a junior college into a four-year school. And that actually started in the early 1950s, but it didn't succeed until 1959 when Arlington State College became, again, the first, this time, four-year college in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. And all of that population you're just talking about just was attracted to ASC at that time. And in fact, in the early 1960s, ASC became larger than Texas AM. And so its parent was smaller than Arlington State College.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

I know at one point the uh the people of the regents at AM were actually thinking about relocating College Station is so rural that uh I you may verify this or not, uh, that that some of the regents at AM were actually thinking about moving Texas AM itself to this to Arlington, which would have been a kind of an interesting thing, wouldn't it? Would it not that that would have been a whole new ball game?

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Yeah, that would have been very interesting and ironic.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

So we're a two-year school, but somewhere along the line it was like 58, 59, uh that uh that Arlington State College begins doing what precipitated that decision, and how is it accomplished to uh become a a four-year college?

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Well, several things precipitated it, and and you've kind of implied some of them. One is the rapid growth in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Uh, the leadership in Dallas-Fort Worth, not just in Arlington, but Dallas County, Tarrant County, got together, started lobbying the legislature. They needed, they wanted, it was absolutely essential to have a four-year school in the largest metropolitan region in Texas. It didn't make sense.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

I went to TCU but uh and was fortunate to be able to afford it, but there were a lot of kids. They can't afford TCU. They can't afford SMU. You know, they can't afford Baylor as swell as those places are. They've got to have an affordable uh college.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

And I think that was the biggest draw is you needed an affordable college in the largest metropolitan area in Texas, and there wasn't one. UNT was the closest, and of course it was North Texas teachers' college at that particular time.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Yeah, that was their emphasis.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

And that's the same impetus that's going to help create graduate programs as well. There needs to be not just a four-year school, but a school that offers graduate programs too. And that was another fight that had to be fought on campus.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

I know. It's uh it's interesting. First, you affiliate with some of these larger universities, AM and then Texas, and then uh as you try to grow, sometimes they help you, but sometimes sometimes they uh they stand in your way. I I'm gonna back up. Okay, we were the only the Grubworms for a while. When was that rebels theme adopted?

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Uh 1951.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

1951. And what were they in between?

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Uh the Blue Riders.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

The Blue Riders.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Well, you know, if you look at our mascots, we started as the Trolleys, which is a great name for Arlington College. We were the trolleys because we were on the trolley line.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

And then from there we became the grubworms, and then from there we became the Hornets, and then from there we became the Blue Riders, and from the Blue Riders we became the Rebels.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

So we've had almost as many mascots as uh names as we have college identities.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Absolutely. In fact, E. H. Hereford, who was the first quote, president of the college in 1949, felt that Blue Riders wasn't making it with the students. And he gave them an opportunity to change the name in 1951. They could either be, I think, the cadets or the rebels, and they voted, and they voted to be the rebels. And of course, that created its whole can of worms about Confederate symbols.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Yeah, we have Confederate. Yeah, and I think even if you went up into the Hereford Center, there would be rooms that would have rebel themes, you know, and and Confederate themes and and Confederate flags, and all this has happened at the same time that uh we're having more and more pressure. And keep in mind that uh uh Arlington State is not integrated. No. So uh and then but when it does uh go integrated, this rebel confederate theme gets to be a real problem, does it not?

SPEAKER_00 19:56

That is true. Uh Arlington State College integrated in 1962, and in 1962, three African American students uh applied for admission and they were denied, and their admissions were sent to Prairie View AM, which was the African American School in Texas at that particular time, uh, and affiliated with AM. And they got an attorney, an NAACP attorney from Dallas, and threatened the school with a lawsuit. And Jack Wolfe was present at that particular time. He's an engineer and really kind of a low-key calm kind of guy. And he advised the AM board that they can't win a lawsuit. If they're going to try and resist integration when the Supreme Court and in Sweat versus Painter in 1950 was a very famous Supreme Court case. Uh and Brown versus the Board of Education Topeka in 1954, everybody was losing in trying to uh fight integration. And he suggested that they desegregate. And the board, surprising to everybody, said yes, we will. And we became the first AM school to desegregate.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

I didn't know the first one. The first one. Yeah. All right, so I'm I'm gonna relate to you a story. Years ago, I was asking uh now deceased mayor Tom Vandegriff how we came to be in the UT system. And he had a fairly lengthy story about uh a war hero president of Texas AM who was persuaded that that uh UT uh that Arlington uh college was a mistake and that he was adamantly opposed to uh uh growing it or to adding graduate programs. So um you you may want to address that uh a little bit. What's the remote?

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Well the person he referred to the person he's referring to is Earl Rudder.

SPEAKER_01 21:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

War hero. Yes, he was a World War II war war hero. And uh he was not totally resistant to graduate education in Arlington, but what they wanted to do was they wanted to control exactly what was being offered in Arlington. And once you graduated, they wanted the degree to say Texas AM and have nothing to do with Arlington. And so the people were a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Actually, I was considered that a big civic pride issue.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

It was a big civic pride issue. And interestingly, about the same time, they were wanting to do a reorganization, and they wanted to name rename all of their schools, and we would become Texas AM at Arlington, and people in Arlington went crazy. They didn't want that day. Yeah. You know, they didn't want to be Texas AM at Arlington. They wanted to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

It has really grown maybe tenfold since 1950 and 1960 alone. So it's becoming a fairly substantial place.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Well, Jenkins Garrett referred told me his story about Earl Rudder. And he said they were in Governor John Conley's office, and they were making the pitch to change the system from AM to a UT system. And he said Conley wouldn't believe them that you really the people at AM are willing to allow you to change? And he said, get Earl Rudder on the phone. And while everybody was in there, including Tom Vandergroof, he called Earl Rudder. And they only heard Conley's side. Yes, he did answer that call, and they only heard Conley's side. And he said, Damn man, are you sure? And he said, when he hung up the phone, he said, I can't believe they're willing to let Arlington State College move systems because you are in the largest metropolitan area. It's short-sighted. But he said, if Earl Rutter is saying he's not willing to fight for you, I will allow it and I will work for you in the legislature, which is what happened. In 1965, we changed systems. We jumped from Texas AM to the University of Texas system, and that University of Arlington, that University of Texas at Arlington that became our name in 1967, no one had a peep about that, though they were resistant to Texas AM at Arlington. So it's kind of an interesting that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

And true uh true to its word, uh UT, this UT system did start to allow a lot of graduate programs. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

In 1966, we started offering graduate programs, master's programs, and by the early 1970s we were a doctoral granting institution.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

I know. And then uh I guess uh a lot of your tenure was under Wendell Netterman, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Yes, that's correct.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Can you talk about that that era? Because to me, to me, uh you know, I'm a former student at there myself. To me, that was sort of the major jumping point of of uh of Arnikon's progress as a as both a a graduate uh school institution and as a research institution. And I know that we're only beginning to do it then, but but to me, uh Netterman, but you may have a different uh take on it.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

No, Netterman uh he was president from 72 to 92, yeah. 72 to 92, but he was hired, he had been with the school since 1959. They hired him as the first dean of the School of Engineering. Because keep in mind, 1959 was when they started a four-year college, and they needed a college of engineering and a college of liberal arts. And so Netterman was brought in in 1959. Uh yeah, he always called UTA a positive slope institution.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Positive slope?

SPEAKER_00 25:57

It was always on the trajectory up. And he valued his his kind of career at UTA as being a student-centered president. And you know, he had his own bumps and bruises. Uh, I mean, it was Netterman who ended the football program in 1985. And he said, he told me, Gerald, that was the hardest decision I've ever made was ending that program. But it had been bleeding red ink for years.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

At that point at the time, he said it was a million-dollar a year loss. And uh by the way, I had my wife and I had tickets on the 50-yard line with our own little um metallic thing on the seats because they just had built that. So anyway, he was telling me he's standing, he's standing there, he's looking across at the student section, and the band has some kids there, but the rest of them didn't. Uh and that's kind of been a constant theme. I mean, a lot of people here really wanted to have uh powerhouse athletic programs, right? Football, basketball, track, baseball. It's very difficult when you're uh in Southwest Conference and you're and you're dealing with people who are already um athletic powerhouses, Texas and TCU, even SMU now, uh playing even UNT is getting into big time football now. So Netterman uh decided, I guess, put an end to it.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

You should read some of the letters in Netterman's personal papers at Special Collections on the sixth floor of the UTA library. There's some really vile letters coming to him today as a result of that.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Even today, I'll have people say, what do you think we can what do you think about the possibility of starting football at UTA? And I'm it is a non-starter. Because that million dollar a year lost now is a pits, we we're talking tens of millions, plus uh athletics at all levels has become uh virtually semi-pro. Uh we now have college kids that that are being paid to go to college, so it's an entirely different ballgame.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Well, one of the um So to speak. Yeah. One of the issues that Ryan Omeker, who was after President Netterman, Netterman retired in 1992, and Dr. Omeker was brought in in 92. Uh, and one of the things he wanted to do was he wanted to revitalize the football program and revitalize a sport program to to kind of raise the visibility of UTA. And of course, that got him sideways with the faculty because most faculty wanted to see resources put in teaching and research and not in students.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

You also end up paying for a lot of those with student fees. Absolutely. So and and the students, they're trying to go to a quality place with it's affordable. Right. And you if you keep jacking up the prices, then it discourages them too.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

It became a main bone one of the bones of contention with Dr. Omeker and the faculty and other people as well. And he ended up having to uh step down after being president for only three years.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

Netterman, I think when he took over, the enrollment was around 14,000. And by the time he left, it was 25,000. So uh so Omaker actually inherited a pretty uh uh pretty vigorous program.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

That is correct. Um but timing is everything. And and as soon as he was uh became president, enrollment dropped eight to ten percent. And what are the why did that why did that happen? Well, you know, we're never sure why enrollment drops. There are a lot of theories about when when times are good, enrollment drops, but other people say really it's when times are good, uh it just the opposite happens.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

I've got my own theory, which is that the legislature became has become more reluctant to uh fund higher education, and so uh your hourly cost for students continues to really go up, even for public universities uh like UNT or or UTA.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Well, we we're not state supported anymore, at least the administrators would tell you that less than 20 percent of UTA's budget comes from the state of Texas. And yet they control a lot of what goes on on that campus, which really for another competition.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

But uh that was his years were uh very successful in terms of expansion of the student growth, but also in the number of new buildings and the sprawl of the campus, the footprint of the of the university.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

His management team was there for 20 years. Yeah, and you just don't see that on college campuses. So, I mean, you talk about solidarity and unity and all of those things. Um I think towards the end of Dr. Netterman's um tenure as president, some of the faculty felt like there needed to be some change, that he was a little too complacent, a little too uh willing to let UT, the UT system get its way and not standing up for Arlington. But, you know, I didn't see it that way.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

I mean, I know sometimes as they tell you no. Uh, you know, for uh as much growth as UT Arnicus had um over the years, you we probably could have had um um medical school. Uh at one point I think the TCOM people were really anxious to join UTA and uh and different factions, part partly UT regents, partly MD professions, uh Scotch that. And um at some point we probably could have taken over the law school uh from Texas Westland. Right. And so now UNT has the medical school and uh and um and AM has the law school and the down and the down because these things happen anyway.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Yeah. And yet we're we're building a campus in Parker County. Sure. So expansion is the name of the game.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

I think that's uh it's it's uh probably overdue, don't you think? Yeah that they expand out, right? I think even Charlton has a has a campus site there now. Okay, so let's talk about uh to me, uh other the fact that enrollment's now, what, around 50,000?

SPEAKER_00 32:27

You think uh about 42,000.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

42,000 and and maybe more. So uh let's talk a little bit about graduate programs and research. Uh I know you've been gone a while, but uh you've been keeping up with the I they I understand that they they continue to elevate themselves in terms of tiers of the city.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

Well, keep in mind UT UTA is an R1 research-intensive university, which is the highest level designation from the Carnegie Foundation for any university in this country. That means that you have to spend at least$50 million a year on research, and you have to graduate 70 PhD candidates a year. UTA in 2024-2025 spent$150 million on research. And when I say spin it, that means they attract foundation grants, they attract government grants, they do all of that stuff, and they have to graduate 70 uh PhDs a year. And so we're one of seven. I think they surpassed the library pretty easily. We're one of 17 uh R1 research universities in the state of Texas. Texas has more than any state in the Union. Uh and that was Netterman's goal. That was the people after his goal, and that happened finally in 2016, where we were designated that R1 status. So it's the highest status you can have.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

I uh I meant to read how many master's and doctorate programs there are now, but uh the it's a substantial.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

There are 188. I can't tell you exactly, there are 188 degree programs at UTA, both undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Uh and about 25 percent of our student body are graduate students. Um I've been one of them. Yes. Where did you where did you I went to UNT, but I actually took some classes at UTA in the graduate school as well, many years ago. Um and you say I I've been gone a while, but I really haven't been gone that much. I retired a year and a half ago. So I just hadn't the book was published in 1995, but I continued to work until uh until I was 72 years old, until 2024.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

That's the way to do it. Why not? Yeah, right. Are you uh involved in any research projects now for yourself?

SPEAKER_00 34:43

As a matter of fact, I am. What are you working on? I'm working on a uh joint oral biography with Sarah Rose, who's in the history department, and it's about two disability rights advocates, and that's another story that we should mention while we talk about UTA. Because UTA is well known nationally for its focus on disability rights and on making the campus long before there was an ADA, the Americans with Disability Acts, you mentioned Dr. Netterman, Jim Hayes, who is uh a farmer's one of my heroes. Yes, one of your heroes, and had had an accident and became a quadriplegic. Um he challenged President Netterman in 1974 to get in a wheelchair and see how you can negotiate this campus. And Netterman did. And he found out that you can't do it.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

I think we have a women's team as well now. Yeah. So uh all that's uh and it's a hand fully handicapped accessible campus. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

And it was a handicapped accessible campus before the ADA mandated that it had to be. I know. And UTA was the first school that actually awarded uh uh scholarships to disabled people to play in sports that are uh focusing on those who are disabled. So UTA was the first in the country to do that. So I mean, it's advances in disability rights. And I'm like you asked me, what am I doing now? Well, I'm focusing on with Sarah, we're focusing on a biography between two people. They were husband and wife, and they've pushed for disability rights in the United States, but they live in Texas. So we've interviewed them, we're working on an oral biography. Uh Stephanie Thomas and Bob Kafka. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

Um so are you gonna is there a book involved in this? And when is that when is that you think that'll be published?

SPEAKER_00 36:45

Well, that's a good question, okay. I I wish I could tell you. Uh we're working on it making it.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

These books go on and on. You keep thinking, well, I need to do a little bit more research, a little bit more research. Next thing you know, you've got five years in it, uh, in it, and you still we're putting chapters together now, as a matter of fact.

SPEAKER_00 37:00

And we're hoping the University of North Carolina will publish it. We'll see.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Okay. Well, all right. Um you want to put in a plug, by the way, for special uh special collections?

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Well, I think if anybody is interested in the history of UTA, the one place they need to go is definitely the Special Collections Division, uh, which is on the sixth floor of the Central Library, because that's where you're gonna find uh the UTA archives. In fact, uh one of the reasons I got interested in the history of UTA is when I came to the campus in 1986 to head up Special Collections, the archivist for UTA said, Gerald, did you know that UTA is gonna be a hundred years old in 1995? And I was flabbergasted. This was 1980s, I had no clue about the history of UTA. And so uh that prompted me to dig into the archives, and and there are everything that you can imagine there. There are papers of the presidents and provosts and the short horn, which started in 1919, uh school annuals, uh budgets, photographs, all of those things, uh oral history interviews that we've done. It's a good book.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

I when I was uh working on this particular podcast, I went to look for my book, my my copy of your book, and I found I had not one but two. Yes. So uh uh I think you can still buy it. Yeah, buy a copy of it. So if you're like my books, we sell I've I've I've been read by tens and tens of people.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

I was gonna say you're probably the second person to read the book all the way through.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

That is the leading reference book for you too you're uh too modest. Okay, I appreciate you. Listen, thanks for listening to Arlington Archives, and thank you, Professor Saxon. Uh until next time, let's keep on in our past and pave the way for what's next. The story of Arlington is still being written, and you are part of it. So long.