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.

While the institute initially was housed in the Fondren Science Library at Southern Methodist University, a nearby empty cotton field was later acquired by Jonsson, McDermott, and Green in Richardson, Texas in 1962.

During his tenure as president, the university secured approval for a school of engineering, added freshmen and sophomores to its student body, and built the first on-campus housing.

[13] In July 2001, the 77th Texas legislature failed to pass two proposed bills which had very different plans for the future of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex UT System intuitions.

The UT System Board of Regents will conduct a national search for his replacement over the course of the 2024–25 academic year and he will remain in his role until a successor begins their term.

[50] In September 2024, the student newspaper The Mercury website was shut down by the administration and the editor removed,[51] allegedly in retaliation for criticism of UTD actions against the pro-Palestinian protesters earlier in the year.

The seven schools of UT Dallas for fall 2024: The Hobson Wildenthal Honors College offers several programs and support resources for high achieving students:[71][72]The top majors among undergraduates are computer science; arts, technology, and emerging communication; computer information systems and technology; biology; finance; psychology; business administration; neuroscience; mechanical engineering; and healthcare studies.

[78] The McDermott Scholars Program, established at UT Dallas in 2000, provides full scholarships and unique cultural and civic opportunities to academically talented high school students.

[79] The National Merit Scholars Program, established at UT Dallas in 2011, provides admission to the Collegium V Honors college, full tuition and mandatory fees, and an additional stipend.

The Terry Scholars Program is a cohort experience that offers academic, cultural, service, mentoring, and other unique opportunities to traditional and transfer students awarded the prestigious scholarship.

The center conducts a NASA-sponsored mission, Coupled Ion-Neutral Dynamics Investigation (CINDI), which was launched in April 2008 in cooperation with the United States Air Force.

[87] CINDI, which is part of the payload for the Communication and Navigation Outage Forecast System program, seeks to uncover information about the equatorial plasma bubbles that interrupt radio signals.

[88][89] Under the leadership of John H. Hoffman, the center designed the mass spectrometer for the Phoenix Mars Lander as part of the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) experiment in cooperation with the University of Arizona.

Including ISO 7 cleanroom facilities, the $85 million building provides open floor plans that allows chemists, biologists, nanotechnologists, materials scientists and other specialists to conduct multidisciplinary research.

The laboratory provides extensive wet lab, fabrication, instrumentation, and high performance computing facilities to foster biomedical engineering and nano-technology research.

[105][106] When UT Dallas started growing in the 1960s, the university needed to coordinate with one of the cities for water, electricity, sewer, police, and fire services.

The overall modern look and feel of the campus was inspired by the founders' vision of a "college of the future" – intentionally straying far from the traditional "red-brick" styles of older universities.

To provide protection from inclement weather and extreme temperatures, many of the buildings on campus are connected by a series of elevated indoor walking paths also referred to as skybridges.

The next major enhancement included the commitment to a riparian corridor, consisting of a densely planted natural creek bed along the central entry median to the campus Allée.

The plaza includes a granite fountain complete with mist column, an overhead trellis covered in wisteria vines, and a temperature-modifying shade structure design.

This phase included converting a section of Rutford Ave from North Loop Road to Franklyn Jenifer Drive into a 24-foot wide pedestrian-only promenade.

[124] With the need to build an art museum to hold these vast collections, Richard Brettell, founding director of the Edith O'Donnell Institute of Art History and major orchestrator of the two acquisitions, was heavily involved in the design process,[125] which was designed by the Los Angeles-based architecture firm Morphosis, which is also designed the renowned Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Downtown Dallas[126] Located south of the Naveen Jindal School of Management and close to the main entrance of the university, groundbreaking for the two story 68, 459 sq ft Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Athenaeum began on May 11, 2022, and is expected to be completed by 2024.

Students engaged in college debate devote hundreds of hours per season researching and defending a specific policy resolution, in the process gaining a graduate-level understanding of complex social and political issues.

[165][166] Apartment floor plans vary from 1-bedroom to 4-bedroom units and amenities include swimming pools, volleyball courts, outdoor grills, and study centers.

Commercial restaurants include Firehouse Subs, Chick-fil-A, Smoothie King, Halal Guys, Panda Express, Starbucks, and Einstein Bros.

[178][179] The former Student Union dining hall was later replaced by an extended food court area featuring an expanded Chick-fil-A and a Panda Express, among other options.

Students painted various messages in support of both countries, including "WE (Israel) ARE WINNING", "Free Palestine", "END OCCUPATION", "Terror ≠ 'Justice'", and "Zionism = Nazism".

[186] CBS Texas reported on the issue, calling the Spirit Rocks "a tense platform for politics with competing views about the violence in the Middle East".

[187] On November 20, the Spirit Rocks were removed by Student Affairs executives for platforming "extended political discourse" without consulting the committee responsible for university policies.

Gene Fitch, the university’s vice president of student affairs stated that UTD plans to open "the premier collegiate gaming center in the country" by spring of 2025.