University of Dallas - History

History

The University of Dallas' charter dates from 1910 when the Western Province of the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians) renamed Holy Trinity College in Dallas, which they had founded in 1905. The provincial of the Western Province closed the University in 1928, and the charter reverted to the Diocese of Dallas. In 1955, the Western Province of the Sisters of Saint Mary of Namur obtained it to create a new higher education institution in Dallas that would subsume their junior college, Our Lady of Victory College, located in Fort Worth. The Sisters, together with Eugene Constantin, Jr. and Edward R. Maher, Sr., petitioned the Diocese of Dallas to sponsor the University, though ownership was entrusted to a self-perpetuating independent board of trustees. "Bishop Gorman, as chancellor of the new university, announced that it would be a Catholic coeducational institution welcoming students of all faiths and races and offering work on the undergraduate level, with a graduate school to be added as soon as possible. The new University of Dallas opened to ninety-six students in September 1956 on a 1,000-acre tract of rolling hills northwest of Dallas."

The Sisters of Saint Mary of Namur, monks from the Order of Cistercians (Cistercians), friars from the Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans), and several lay professors formed the University's original faculty. The Franciscans departed three years later; however, friars from the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) joined the faculty in 1958 and built St. Albert the Great Priory on campus. The Cistercians established Our Lady of Dallas Abbey in 1958 and Cistercian Preparatory School in 1962, which are both adjacent to campus. The School Sisters of Notre Dame arrived in 1962 and opened the Notre Dame Special School for children with learning difficulties in 1963 and a motherhouse for the Dallas Province in 1964, which were both on campus. The Sisters moved the school to Dallas in 1985 and closed the motherhouse in 1987. The faculty now is almost exclusively lay and includes several distinguished scholars.

A grant from the Blakley-Braniff Foundation established the Braniff Graduate School in 1966 and allowed the construction of the Braniff Graduate Center. The Constantin Foundation similarly endowed the undergraduate college, and, in 1970, the Board of Trustees named the undergraduate college the Constantin College of Liberal Arts. The Graduate School of Management, begun in 1966, offers a large MBA program. Programs in art and English also began in 1966. In 1973, the Institute of Philosophic Studies, the doctoral program of the Braniff Graduate School and an outgrowth of the Kendall Politics and Literature Program, was initiated. The School of Ministry began in 1987. The College of Business, incorporating the Graduate School of Management and undergraduate business, opened in 2003.

Since the first class in 1960, University graduates have won significant honors, including 30 Fulbright awards. Accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools came in 1963 and has been reaffirmed regularly. In 1989, it was the youngest higher education institution to be awarded a Phi Beta Kappa chapter.