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University of Texas at Dallas

The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD or UT Dallas) is a public research university in Richardson, Texas. 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 Carnegie Foundation classified the university as a doctoral research university with "Highest Research Activity". The university 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.

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. (TI) in 1951.

The increase in defense contracts also created a shortage in the Dallas–Fort Worth area of the qualified personnel required by TI. At the time, the region's universities did not provide enough graduates with advanced training in engineering and physical sciences. Texas Instruments was forced to recruit talent from other states during its expansion, and the founders observed in 1959 that "To grow industrially, the region must grow academically; it must provide the intellectual atmosphere, which will allow it to compete in the new industries dependent on highly trained and creative minds."

To compensate for a shortage, McDermott, Green, and Jonsson established the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest on February 14, 1961. 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. The first facility, the Laboratory of Earth and Planetary Science (later named the Founders Building), opened in 1964. The Graduate Research Center of the Southwest was renamed the Southwest Center for Advanced Studies (SCAS) in 1967.

On June 13, 1969, Gov. Preston Smith signed House Bill 303, which added the institution to the University of Texas System as the University of Texas at Dallas (effective September 1, 1969). When Texas Instruments and UTD co-founders officially bequeathed the young university to the UT System, they boldly stated that they envisioned it would one day become the “MIT of the South.” At the time, the college only accepted graduate students for Masters and PhD programs – no undergraduate Bachelor degree programs were offered. Francis S. Johnson served as initial interim president before Bryce Jordan was selected in 1971.

Expansion and growth
In July 1971, Bryce Jordan became the university's first president and served until 1981. At that time the campus consisted of only one facility (the Founders Building) and only admitted graduate students. During Jordan's 10-year tenure the university received 275 acres of land in 1972 from the Hoblitzelle Foundation. This allowed the campus to expand with the addition of a number of new facilities, including most notably the Cecil H. Green Hall, the Eugene McDermott Library, and a campus bookstore. The school received accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in 1972, and the first diplomas were awarded in 1973.

The first bachelor's degrees were awarded in spring 1976. The Callier Center for Communication Disorders became part of the UTD in 1975 and the School of Management opened in 1975. Enrollment increased from 700 in 1974, to 3,333 in 1975, and later to more than 5,300 students in 1977.

UT Dallas's first Nobel laureate, the late Polykarp Kusch, was a member of the physics faculty from 1972 to 1982.

The first art installation, the Love Jack by Jim Love, was added to UTD's campus in 1976. The Visual Arts Building opened in 1978.

Robert H. Rutford, an Antarctic explorer recognized with the naming of the Rutford Ice Stream and Mount Rutford in Antarctica, became the second president of UT Dallas in May 1982. He served in this post until 1994. 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.

The school became a four-year institution in fall 1990. The initial incoming freshman class was about 100 students. The state mandated that admission criteria for entering freshmen "to be no less stringent than the criteria of UT Austin".

Franklyn Jenifer became the third president of UT Dallas in 1994 and served until 2005. Under Jenifer, UT Dallas's enrollment increased over 61% – from less than 8,500 to nearly 14,000.

The Galerstein Women's Center opened in 1996. UT Dallas' ceremonial mace contains a university seal surrounding a wafer embedded with Texas Instruments microchips, representing TI's role in the founding of the college. A steel band in the headpiece and the metal foot of the staff fashioned from a scientific instrument designed by the UT Dallas Space Sciences Institute and were flown aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor in September 1995.

In June 2005, David E. Daniel was appointed the university's fourth president. He previously served on the faculty at UT Austin and was the Dean of Engineering at the University of Illinois from 2001 to 2005. He has continued the expansion of the campus by adding the Natural Science and Engineering Research Laboratory, the Center for BrainHealth (near the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center), and almost 600,000 square feet (56,000 m2) of new facilities added from 2007 to 2010.

The first fight song was written in September 2008; it was written to the music of Tiger Rag.

Attempted DFW area UT System mergers
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 first plan, 77(R) HB 3568 proposed by Kenn George, would have consolidated the 2 universities and 1 medical school under the name "The University of Texas at Dallas". It would have established UT Dallas (UTD) in Richardson, TX as the main flagship campus, UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas (UTSW) as its medical school, and would have designated UT Arlington (UTA) as a UT Dallas satellite campus (a situation similar to UT Rio Grande Valley). The purpose of the bill was to consolidate all DFW UT System institutions into one, creating single cohesive flagship-level university for the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. However, the bill was unpopular with supporters of UT Arlington (because they wanted to retain their identity as a separate institution from UT Dallas) and the House Bill ultimately failed to pass. Despite this, UT Dallas has continued a close relationship with UT Southwestern. UT Dallas' Center for BrainHealth and Callier Center were built right next to UTSW's main campus in downtown Dallas. Additionally, UT Southwestern later established a Clinical Center in Richardson next to UTD's main campus.

The second plan, 77(R) HB 3607 proposed by Domingo Garcia, would have transferred UT Dallas, UT Southwestern, and UT Arlington to the University of North Texas System (to create something similar to the University of Houston System). The Denton, TX campus would have remained as the flagship university while the 3 Dallas–Fort Worth UT System institutions would have been designated as separate degree-granting sister UNT System colleges. Their names would have changed to the "University of North Texas at Dallas" located in Richardson, TX (not to be confused with the present-day UNTD campus established later in 2009), the "University of North Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas" (UNTSW), and the "University of North Texas at Arlington" (UNTA). The law was left pending due to objections from both UT Arlington and UT Dallas, as both preferred to remain under the UT System.

Recent history
On July 15, 2016, Richard C. Benson was appointed the fifth president of the University of Texas at Dallas. Previously he was Dean of the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, which saw record growth from 2005 to 2016 after the number of engineering applicants nearly doubled during his tenure. He has continued the expansion of the UTD campus with the addition of The Bioengineering and Sciences Building, The Engineering & Computer Science West Building, a new Science Building, The Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center, and Northside Phase 1 & 2 (the first on-campus apartments with first floor retail space). In fall 2017, The University of Texas at Dallas adopted a secondary logo, the UTD Monogram. It is typically used to retain UT Dallas’ identity across digital platforms, as the primary logo does not adapt well to mobile devices or smaller screens.

In 2018, the University inherited the Barrett collection of Swiss art which will be housed in a new building as part of the Edith O'Donnell Institute of Art History. In January 2019, the family of Trammell and Margaret Crow donated the entire collection of the Crow Museum of Asian Art to The University of Texas at Dallas, along with $23 million in support funding to help build a structure on the university campus to show more of the artworks.

In fall 2019 UT Dallas marked its 50 years as a Texas public university (est. 1969), 44 years of undergraduate junior/senior enrollment (since 1975), 29 years of incoming freshmen enrollment (since 1990), and 58 years as a research center (founded in 1961).

On July 20, 2023, UT Dallas announced that it would leave the American Southwest Conference and transition to become a NCAA Division II school in the Lone Star Conference.

Academics
As of 2024, UTD has a student graduation rate of 70%, compared to the national median of 58% for 4-year universities. This is the third-highest student graduation rate for public universities in Texas, behind the 82% student graduation rates of UT Austin and Texas A&M.

Rankings
In 2019, U.S. News & World Report in Best Colleges ranked UTD at 115th among national universities. The 2017 Academic Ranking of World Universities placed UTD at 71st–99th in the United States. Washington Monthly's 2015 Annual College and University Rankings placed UTD at 99th in the United States. Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine's 100 Best Values in Public Colleges 2016 ranked UTD at 33rd in value for in-state residents and 38th for out-of-state students.

Colleges and schools

For Fall 2021, The University of Texas at Dallas offered 146 academic programs across its seven schools including 56 baccalaureate programs, 59 master's programs and 31 doctoral programs. The school also offers 33 undergraduate and graduate certificates. The school offers a number of interdisciplinary degree programs.

In July 2022, UTDallas announced it would combine the School of Arts & Humanities with the School of Art, Technology and Emerging Communications (ATEC) to form the School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology (AHT) effective August 22, 2022.

The seven schools of UT Dallas for Fall 2022:

 * Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities and Technology
 * School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences
 * School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences
 * Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science
 * School of Interdisciplinary Studies
 * Naveen Jindal School of Management
 * School of Natural Sciences and MathematicsThe Hobson Wildenthal Honors College offers several programs and support resources for high achieving students:
 * The Eugene McDermott Scholars Program
 * The Collegium V Honors Program
 * The Davidson Management Honors Program
 * National Merit Scholars Program
 * Terry Scholars Program
 * Office of Distinguished Scholarships
 * Archer Program
 * Phi Kappa Phi
 * Texas Legislative Internship Program
 * Model United Nations

Student body
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. Undergraduate students comprise 69% of the student body, while graduate students comprise 31%. The majority of graduate students (61.57%) are international students, compared to only 4.43% of undergraduate students being international students.

In the fall 2022–23 academic year, UTD enrolled 227 National Merit Scholars in its freshmen class of 4,220, which was the highest total number in Texas and one of the highest in the nation. The fall 2017 entering freshmen class had an average SAT composite score of 1323 and an average ACT composite score of 29. These freshman SAT/ACT scores are the highest averages in UTD's history – which surpassed Texas A&M's and matched UT Austin's averages of that year. For the 2022-2023 academic year, the university granted 5,227 bachelor's degrees, 3,788 master's degrees and 250 doctoral degrees for a total of 9,265 degrees.

Scholarship programs
All freshmen admitted to the university are automatically considered for an Academic Excellence Scholarship (AES) Award. For the fall 2017 incoming freshmen class, the awards range from $3,000 per year for tuition and mandatory fees up to complete coverage of UT Dallas tuition and mandatory fees plus $3,000 per semester cash stipend to defray the costs of books, supplies and other expenses.

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.

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.

In 2006, UT Dallas became one of 13 universities in Texas affiliated with the Terry Foundation Scholarship. 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.

Research
UT Dallas is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and had research expenditures of $140 million for the 2022 fiscal year, $60 million of which came from federal fundings. Research projects include the areas of space science, bioengineering, cybersecurity, nanotechnology, and behavioral and brain sciences. The university has more than 50 research centers and institutes and the UTD Office of Technology Commercialization, a technology transfer center. The William B. Hanson Center for Space Studies (CSS), affiliated with the Department of Physics, conducts research in space plasma physics. It has its roots in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Laboratory of the university's predecessor. 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. 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. 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.

UT Dallas conducts cybersecurity research in a number of areas including cross-domain information sharing, data security and privacy, data mining for malware detection, geospatial information security, secure social networks, and secure cloud computing. The university is designated a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research for the academic years 2008–2013 by the National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security.

The Alan G. MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute was established in 2001 when Bay Baughman, a pioneering nanotechnologist, became the Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair in Chemistry and director of the university's NanoTech Institute. In 2007, it was renamed in memory of the late Alan G. MacDiarmid, who shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Alan Heeger and Hideki Shirakawa. The NanoTech Institute has produced more than 200 refereed journal articles, 13 of which have been published in Science or Nature, and given over 300 lectures in the United States and abroad. Ray Baughman was ranked number 30 on the March 2, 2011, Thomson Reuters list of the top 100 materials scientists.

The Natural Science and Engineering Research Laboratory (NSERL), a four-story, 192000 sqft research facility, was completed in December 2006 after two years of construction. 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. The Nanoelectronics Materials Laboratory, on the fourth floor, includes a system that allows researchers to deposit thin film materials one atomic layer at a time. In May 2011 a $3 million JEOL ARM200F scanning transmission electron microscope with an atomic resolution of 0.78 picometers, was added to the research laboratory, already home to two transmission electron microscopes.

The Center for BrainHealth, both its own facility and part of the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, is a research institute with clinical interventions focused on brain health. The center is located near the UT Dallas' Callier Center for Communication Disorders and adjacent to the north campus of University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in the city of Dallas. Brain research is concentrated on brain conditions, diseases, and disorders including, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, autism, dementia, stroke, traumatic brain injury, and working memory.

The Callier Center for Communication Disorders became part of the University of Texas at Dallas in 1975 as part of the School of Human Development (now the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences). Research, at the center, includes the causes, prevention, assessment and treatment of communication disorders and the facilities include laboratories for research in child language development and disorders, autism spectrum disorders, speech production, hearing disorders, neurogenic speech and language, cochlear implants and aural habilitation.

Additional ongoing research initiatives at UT Dallas include researchers overseeing the long-running British Election Study (BES). Harold Clarke, the Ashbel Smith professor of political science in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, and Marianne Stewart, professor of political science are the co-principal investigators for the study, which began in 1964 and is one of the world's oldest continuous political research projects. The other two co-investigators are David Sanders and Paul Whiteley of the University of Essex in England.

Main campus

The main campus is located in Richardson, Texas. A smaller campus is in Dallas. The main campus is next to Dallas's Telecom Corridor, 18 mi north of downtown Dallas, on the boundary of Dallas and Collin counties. UT Dallas owns land in Richardson, Texas consisting of approximately 465 acre for campus development and another 265 acre adjacent to the campus. The Princeton Review's Guide to 332 Green Colleges: 2014 Edition recognized UTD for their green campus efforts.

While the main campus' address is officially within the jurisdiction of Richardson and Collin county, approximately one-third of the college today (one-half in 1969) is physically located within the border of Dallas county (which the city of Dallas typically governs). This section contains major areas in the south end of campus, including the Visitor Center, Bookstore, the Naveen Jindal School of Management, Athletics District and facilities, half of the Founders Building, parking lots, and some on-campus student housing (Canyon Creek and University Village buildings 1, 2, and 3). 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. Dallas agreed to let Richardson officially host the university because it did not have the ability or capacity to support UTD at the time (a situation similar to SMU and University Park). Today, UT Dallas and Richardson share a close relationship and have strongly supported each other's growth for the past 50 years.

Other locations

 * Waterview Science & Technology Center and the Research and Operations Center, a leased building, is adjacent to the main campus and officially within Dallas city limits.
 * Callier Center, consisting of 8 buildings, and the Center for BrainHealth, a single building, is adjacent to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in the city of Dallas.
 * Artist residency CentralTrak was located east of downtown Dallas one block away from Fair Park. It closed in 2017 due to a lease cancellation.
 * The Crow Museum of Art, acquired by UT Dallas in January 2019, is located in the Arts District in Dallas.
 * The Venture Development Center and Center for Emergent Novel Technology at the Innovation Quarter (CENT-IQ) will be located at the headquarters of the Innovation Quarter as part of a partnership between the City of Richardson and the University of Texas at Dallas to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship. A ribbon-cutting ceremony on September 19, 2022, to officially launch CENT-IQ that will be home to five multi-disciplinary research centers.

Architecture
The first campus development plan (1971) called for brutalist-style concrete architecture, a monorail, and skywalks. While not everything was implemented, some of the original elements outlined do remain today. 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.

Later architecture (early 21st century) exhibits late modern or postmodern features such as bronze glass, bronze aluminum frames, unadorned geometric shapes, unusual surfaces, and unorthodox layouts. This styling is seen in the Engineering and Computer Science West building, School of Management, Cecil and Ida Green Center, and Natural Science and Engineering Research Lab facility (called the Mermaid Building due to its colorful anodized shingles). 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 Student Services building, completed in 2010, is the first academic structure in Texas to be rated a LEED Platinum facility by the United States Green Building Council.

Landscape
A $30 million Campus Landscape Enhancement Project, largely funded by Margaret McDermott (wife of UTD founder Eugene McDermott), was started in October 2008 and completed in late 2010. The project encompassed all aspects of landscape architecture from campus identity to pedestrian strategies, future growth patterns, sustainability and establishing a campus core. The first enhancement included the reforestation of the main entry drive with more than 5,000 native trees. Each tree was hand-picked and individually arranged by the landscape architect after study of native stands in Texas.

The next major enhancement a 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 main Mall (or 'Allée') includes 116 hand-picked columnar 'Claudia Wannamaker' Magnolias alongside five reflecting pools and four human-scale chess boards (to represent the achievements of the school's chess team). At the northern terminus of the Mall (between the McDermott Library and the Student Union) is a pavilion-sized plaza, referred to by many students as "The Plinth". The plaza includes a granite fountain complete with mist column, an overhead trellis covered in wisteria vines, and a temperature-modifying shade structure design.

The most recent Phase of the Campus Landscape Enhancement Project was completed in time for the Fall 2021 semester. 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. Six brick signs matching that of the main entrance was also installed at major intersections and campus entrances. A bridge was also installed over Cottonwood Creek between Callier Center Richardson and the Bioengineering and Sciences Building which was finished in September 2021. A total of 1,200 trees were planted and enhancements were made to the Rock Garden behind the Founder Building.

Art museum
In November 2018, the University announced the donation of the Barrett Collection of Swiss Art, the largest collection of swiss art outside of Switzerland. Shortly after, in January 2019, the family of Trammell and Margaret Crow, local real estate Mongol, donated the entire collection of the Crow Museum of Asian Art to The University of Texas at Dallas, along with $23 million in support funding to help build a structure on the university campus to show more of the artworks. This donation was a decade in the making by the Director of the Center for Asian Studies and Dean of the then School of Arts and Humanities, Dennis M. Kratz.

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, 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

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. The project is expected to cost $58 million, with around 55% of the cost being funded through university gifts. Upon completion, the Athenaeum will be the largest major art museum north of I-635.

Activities

The University of Texas at Dallas has 300+ registered campus organizations, including fraternities and sororities. Traditional athletic sports are not a major focus of the institution.

UTD's 89000 sqft Activity Center includes a fitness center, basketball courts, a multi-purpose room, and an indoor swimming pool. Also available are sand volleyball courts, soccer fields, tennis courts, softball fields, baseball fields and a disc golf course.

Chess
The internationally ranked UT Dallas chess team was launched in 1996 under the direction of two-time president of the U.S. Chess Federation, Timothy Redman. The university recruits worldwide for its chess team and 24 Grandmasters and International Masters have played for UT Dallas from 1996 to 2018. The UTD chess team has won or tied for first place in the Pan-American Intercollegiate Chess Championship more than 10 times since 2000. As a result of the program's success, human-sized chess boards were installed in the campus' Mall. The university offers chess scholarships to qualified student players and several full four-year tuition tournament-based scholarships.

Achievements include the following:

 * UT Dallas has taken first place in eight of its 12 appearances at the Texas State College Championship and the UTD chess team has won or tied for first place in the Southwest Collegiate Championship for 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2016.
 * The UTD chess team has won the Transatlantic Cup in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2016, 2017, and 2018. They tied for first place in the 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2015 matches with the University of Belgrade. Since 2000, UTD's chess players have won or tied ten Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship titles.
 * The UT Dallas chess team has competed in each consecutive Final Four of Chess tournaments starting in 2001 though 2018, winning or tying for first place five times. Since 2019, UT Dallas has made 16 total appearances in the 19 years the Final Four tournament has existed.
 * The U.S. Chess Federation selected UT Dallas as the Chess College of the Year for 2012.

Debate
Established in the fall of 1996, UT Dallas Debate has consistently ranked in the top 25 debate programs nationally. 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. UTD's Debate program is generally run under the Honors College and offers competitive scholarships to students. Since 2019, UTD has made 16 consecutive appearances at the National Debate Tournament, which is attended by the 78 best teams in the country.

Achievements include the following:
 * Won the Cross Examination Debate Association's "Brady Lee Garrison Newcomer Sweepstakes Award" in spring 1997.
 * UTD first qualified a team for the National Debate Tournament in 2004 and has qualified each year since. In 2004 the team also hosted its first annual "Fear and Loathing" tournament, with more than 325 participants, coaches, and judges in attendance.
 * The UTD debate team placed in the top five at the American Debate Association national championships each year between 2009 and 2012.
 * UTD placed in the Top 10 of the National Debate Tournament in 2016.
 * In 2012 and 2018, the UTD debate team made it to the Sweet 16 of the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) national tournament.
 * The UTD debate team qualified and placed in the finals of the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) national tournament in 2019. In the same year, the UTD speech team qualified for and placed at the American Forensic Association national tournament and the National Forensic Association national tournament.

Pre-law
The school fields teams in the pre-law competitions: Moot Court, Mock Trial and Mediation. UTD is one of the few schools in Texas to field teams in all three major undergraduate legal advocacy competitions.

Achievements include the following:
 * In November 2009, the UT Dallas team won the National Mediation Tournament championship in the advocate/client division. The tournament was held at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago.
 * In 2010, UTD students again placed first and second in the advocate/client division to win the Dan Stamatelos National Trophy for Advocacy. The tournament was held at the Drake University Law School and UT Dallas was the only school to place two teams to the final rounds.
 * UTD received first, second and fourth place at the November 2010, South Central Regional Moot Court Championships. The University of Arkansas at Little Rock's, William H. Bowen School of Law was host to the 32 teams.
 * UT Dallas Moot Court debate team placed first overall in the regional competition at the American Collegiate Moot Court Association National Tournament, hosted January 2012 at Chapman University in Orange, California.
 * In 2013, one UT Dallas team reached the quarterfinals at the Southwest Regional Tournament, and another made it to the semifinals to earn a bid in the national tournament, hosted by the American Moot Court Association.
 * In 2016, UTD won the International Intercollegiate Mediation Tournament and qualified for the American Collegiate Moot Court Association tournament in California.
 * UTD qualified for the American Mock Trial Association’s Opening Round Championship Series in 2018.

Greek life
The University of Texas at Dallas opened the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life in 1992 with Kappa Sigma and Alpha Gamma Delta as the first fraternity and sorority on campus, respectively. Internal sources state that more than 1,000 students are involved in 26 Greek organizations as of Fall 2019.

Student media
The Mercury has been the official student newspaper of the University of Texas at Dallas since 1980. It publishes 5,000 copies every other Monday during the fall and spring semesters, and every third Monday during the summer. It is distributed free around campus and at the UTD newsroom in the Student Union. The Mercury also publishes online at utdmercury.com. In April 2011, The Mercury won 12 awards at the 101st annual Texas Intercollegiate Press Association IPA convention.

In 2004, another student print named A Modest Proposal (AMP) was formed. In contrast to The Mercury, which is almost all news articles, AMP is a magazine and features mostly editorial content. AMP is published once a month, eight times a year. Any student, faculty, or staff of UTD can contribute to the paper. Copies of AMP are available for free at the first of each month around the campus, and can also be downloaded in PDF format from their website. Radio UTD is the university's student-run, online-only, radio station. The radio station was nominated for three college radio awards at the 2010 College Music Journal annual Music Marathon and Festival. The nominations were for the following categories: Best Use of the Internet, Best Use of Limited Resources and Station of the Year.

In 2009, UTD TV, an internet-based campus TV station, was founded and launched by students. It webcasts a range of student-interest programs from campus news and amusing serial stories to student affairs coverage.

Residential housing

On-campus housing for the 2015–2016 academic year consisted of the University Commons five residential halls and 1,237 apartments. The apartment buildings 1–37, which make up 696 units and buildings 38–67, which make up 541 units, are owned by the university and privately managed by American Campus Communities under the name University Village. Buildings 1–37, previously known as the Waterview Park Apartments, were owned by the Utley Foundation and purchased by UTD on July 1, 2013. Apartment floor plans vary from 1-bedroom to 4-bedroom units and amenities include swimming pools, volleyball courts, outdoor grills, and study centers. According to a UTD Mercury article on September 18, 2011, both graduate and upperclassman housing continues to be in short supply due to the increase in enrollment.

On August 12, 2009, a 148000 sqft residence hall (Residence Hall South) opened, providing housing for 384 full-time freshmen residents and 16 peer advisers. The building includes a mix of three-bedroom, single-bath suites for freshmen and one-bedroom, one-bath units for peer advisers. On each wing and each floor are several communal study areas and the ground floor features a 1800 sqft glass-enclosed rotunda with pool and ping-pong tables, large-screen televisions, couches and chairs. A second, 150000 sqft residence hall, (Residence Hall North), was officially completed June 27, 2011, and a third freshman residence hall (Residence Hall Northwest) adjacent to the two existing halls was completed in August 2012. A fourth residence hall (Residence Hall Southwest) opened in time for the fall 2013 semester. Construction for a fifth residential facility (Residence Hall West) was started in July 2013 and completed in 2014. The 339,000-square-foot (31,500 m2) 600-bed facility includes a dining hall with seating for 800 and a recreation center. Residence Hall West houses the Living Learning Communities program that groups students with similar interests and majors together.

Construction has begun on two new apartment-style housing complexes known as Phase VI and Phase VII. The two complexes will offer a total of 800 beds and are expected to open in time for the fall 2017 semester.

In 2015, co-developers Balfour Beatty Campus Solutions and Wynne/Jackson began construction of a private mixed-use development known as Northside on leased university land directly adjacent to the main campus. Opened in time for the fall 2016 semester, the development offers 600 beds through a mix of one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments and townhomes. Northside also includes 20,000 square feet of space for retail and food vendors, bringing an integrated residential and retail complex to the edge of campus for the first time.

Dining
Students have multiple dining options, including commercial restaurants primarily within the Student Union, a traditional dining hall near the residence halls, and convenience stores within buildings. Commercial restaurants include Firehouse Subs, Chick-fil-A, Smoothie King, Halal Guys, Panda Express, Starbucks, and Einstein Bros. Bagels. The Student Union dining hall opened on August 12, 2009, in conjunction with the opening of the first residence hall and was later replaced by a new dining hall within the Residence Hall West complex. 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. The Student Union building houses The Pub which features a sit-down restaurant atmosphere. Beginning in the fall 2016 semester, UT Dallas Dining began hosting local food trucks on campus. All first-year students living on campus are required to purchase a meal plan; meal plans are optional for all other students who live on campus.

Traditions
The student body is collectively known as the Comets, while the college's mascot is Temoc. The "Whoosh" salute is a way for students to show campus unity.

Resting in front of the Texas Instruments Plaza is the sculpture Jack, created in 1971 by artist Jim Love (1927–2005). Margaret McDermott, wife of UTD founder Eugene McDermott (1899–1973), presented the sculpture to the university in 1976.

Spirit Rocks
The Spirit Rocks were a set of three "free speech" rocks on campus where students could paint anything following loose rules. The rocks were painted frequently with political, event-related, and school spirit messages.

On October 16, 2023, student newspaper The Mercury reported on students spray painting Palestinian and Israeli flags and messages on the Spirit Rocks in response to the 2023 Israel–Hamas war. Students painted various messages in support of both countries, including "WE (Israel) ARE WINNING", "Free Palestine", "END OCCUPATION", "Terror ≠ 'Justice'", and "Zionism = Nazism". Dean of Students Amanda Smith said the support for both countries did not violate the rules of the Spirit Rocks. 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".

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. This sparked backlash from the student body, prompting protests attended by hundreds of students. Free speech advocacy group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression condemned the University for the Spirit Rocks' removal.

Athletics
UT Dallas is transitioning to NCAA Division II varsity athletics. It has competitive club teams and intramural sports teams. Athletic teams are known as the Comets, while the mascot is Temoc ("Temoc" is "comet" spelled backwards. )

Varsity
The University of Texas at Dallas' Varsity athletics program started when UTD provisionally joined the NCAA Division III and the American Southwest Conference (ASC) in 1998 and was granted full membership in the ASC in 2002. On July 20, 2023, the university announced it would move to NCAA Division II and join the Lone Star Conference. Varsity sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, esports, golf, soccer, softball, tennis, and volleyball. In total, there are 300 student athletes and 14 intercollegiate teams officially supported by the university.

Intramural sports
UT Dallas has several intramural sports teams. These teams compete only within UTD, as all teams are organized groups of current students. While available sports and teams can vary each year, teams offered in Spring 2019 include: Badminton, Basketball, Battleship, Cricket, Esports, Flag Football, Sand Volleyball, Soccer, Table Tennis, Tennis, Ultimate Frisbee, Wiffleball, and Xtreme Dodgeball.

Notable people

Notable UT Dallas faculty, staff, and alumni include an Antarctic explorer, an astronaut, members of the National Academies, four Nobel laureates, a writer and folklorist, a member of India's Parliament, and the founder of the world's first molecular nanotechnology company.

title: University of Texas at Dallas


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Gondi people

The Gondi (Gōṇḍī) or Gond people, who refer to themselves as "Koitur" (Kōī, Kōītōr), are an ethnolinguistic group in India. Their native language, Gondi, belongs to the Dravidian family. They are spread over the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and Odisha. They are listed as a Scheduled Tribe for the purpose of India's system of reservation.

The Gond have formed many kingdoms of historical significance. Gondwana was the ruling kingdom in the Gondwana region of India. This includes the eastern part of the Vidarbha of Maharashtra. The Garha Kingdom includes the parts of Madhya Pradesh immediately to the north of it and parts of western Chhattisgarh. The wider region extends beyond these, also including parts of northern Telangana, western Odisha, and southern Uttar Pradesh.

Gondi is claimed to be related to the Telugu language. The 2011 Census of India recorded about 2.4 million speakers of Gondi as a macrolanguage and 2.91 million speakers of languages within the Gondi subgroup, including languages such as Maria (also known as Maadiya Gond). Many Gonds also speak regionally dominant languages such as Hindi, Marathi, Odia, and Telugu.

According to the 1971 census, the Gondi population was 5.01 million. By the 1991 census, this had increased to 9.3 million and by 2001, the figure was nearly 11 million. For the past few decades, the group has been witness to the Naxalite–Maoist insurgency, in India. Gondi people, at the behest of the Chhattisgarh government, formed the Salwa Judum, an armed militant group, to fight the Naxalite insurgency. This was disbanded by order of the Supreme Court of India on 5 July 2011, however.

Etymology
The origin of the name Gond, used by outsiders, is still uncertain. Some believe the word to derive from the Dravidian kond, meaning hill, similar to the Khonds of Odisha.

Another theory, according to Vol. 3 of the Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life, is that the name was given to them by the Mughal dynasty of the 16th–18th centuries. It was the Mughals who first used the term "Gond", meaning "hill people", to refer to the group.

The Gonds call themselves Koitur (Kōītōr) or Koi (Kōī), which also has no definitive origin.

History

The origins of the Gonds is unclear. Some researchers have claimed that the Gonds were a collection of disparate tribes that adopted a proto-Gondi language as a mother tongue from a class of rulers, originally speaking various pre-Dravidian languages. While there is an affinity between Gonds and Munda peoples, researchers point to a more complex event involving language shift through a Dravidian linguistic expansion, rather than a recent event of Gondi replacing a North Munda language, hence supporting distinct origins for these two groups.

R. V. Russell believed the Gonds came into Gondwana from the south: up the Godavari into Vidarbha, from there up the Indravati into Bastar, and up the Wardha and Wainganga into the Satpura Range.

The first historical reference to the Gonds appears in Muslim writings from the 14th century. Scholars believe the Gonds ruled Gondwana, a region extending from present-day eastern Madhya Pradesh to western Odisha, and from northern Andhra Pradesh to the southeastern corner of Uttar Pradesh, between the 13th and 19th centuries CE.

The first kingdom of the Gonds was that of Chanda, founded in 1200, although some genealogies trace its founders to the 9th century CE. The Gonds of Chanda originated from Sirpur in what is now northern Telangana and were said to have overthrown the previous rulers of the country, called the Mana dynasty. Another theory states that after the downfall of the Kakatiyas in 1318, the Gonds of Sirpur had the opportunity to throw off outside domination and built their own kingdom. The kingdom of Chanda developed extensive irrigation and the first defined revenue system of the Gond kingdoms. It also began to build forts, which later became highly sophisticated. Khandakhya Ballal Shah founded the town of Chandrapur and shifted the capital there from Sirpur. The Ain-i-Akbari records the kingdom as being fully independent, and it even conquered some territory from nearby sultanates. However, during Akbar's rule, Babji Shah began paying tribute after the Mughals incorporated territory to their south into the Berar Subah.

The kingdom of Garha was founded in the 14th century by Jadurai, who deposed the previous Kalachuri rulers. Garha-Mandla is known for queen Rani Durgavati, who fought against Mughal emperor Akbar (d. 1564). Mandla was then ruled by her son Bir Narayan, who similarly fought until he died. Afterward, his kingdom was offered to Chanda Shah by the victorious Mughals. During Shah Jahan's reign, his successor Hirde Shah was attacked by the Bundelas and shifted the capital to Mandla. His successors fought against themselves and invited the aid of Aurangzeb and the Marathas to their cause.

Deogarh was founded in the early 13th century. It is said that its founder, Jatba, slew the previous Gauli rulers during a temple festival. In the Ain-i-Akbari, Deogarh was said to have 2,000 cavalry, 50,000 footmen, and 100 elephants and was ruled by a monarch named Jatba. Jatba built outposts in the Berar plains, including a fort near modern Nagpur. It was his grandson Bakr Shah who, in order to enlist Aurangzeb's help, converted to Islam and became Bakht Buland Shah. Shah founded the city of Nagpur and brought a revival of the fortunes of the Deogarh kingdom. During his reign, the kingdom covered the southeastern Satpura range from Betul to Rajnandgaon in the east, and parts of the northern Berar plains. Under his son Chand Sultan, Nagpur gained even more importance.

These kingdoms were briefly conquered by the Mughals, but eventually, the Gond rajas were restored and were simply under Mughal suzerainty. In the 1740s, the Marathas began to attack the Gond rajas, causing both rajas and subjects to flee from the plains to the forests and hills. Raghoji Bhonsle forced the Gond rajas of Garha-Mandla to pay tribute to him. Marathi caste groups quickly replaced the displaced original population. Maratha occupation of the Gond rajas' territory continued until the Third Anglo-Maratha War, when the British took control over the remaining Gond zamindaris and took over revenue collection. The British, who regarded the Gonds as "plunderers" and "thieves" before their takeover, began to view the Gonds as "timid" and "meek" by the mid-19th century. The remaining Gond zamindaris were absorbed into the Indian union upon independence.

During colonial rule, the Gonds were marginalised by colonial forest management practices. The Bastar rebellion of 1910, better known in the tribal belt as the bhumkal, was a partly successful armed struggle against colonial forest policy that denied the Madia and Muria Gonds of Bastar, along with other tribes in the region, access to the forest for their livelihoods. In the early 1920s, Komaram Bheem, a Gond leader from Adilabad in Hyderabad state, rebelled against the Nizam and sought a separate Gond raj. It was he who coined the well-known slogan jal, jangal, jameen ("water, forest, land") that has symbolised Adivasi movements since independence.

In 1916, Gondi intellectuals from various parts of Gondwana formed the Gond Mahasabha to protect Gondi culture from increasing outside influence. The organisation held meetings in 1931 and 1934 to discuss ways to preserve Gond culture from manipulation by outsiders, social norms the Gonds should have, and solidarity between the Gonds of different parts of Gondwana. Starting in the 1940s, various Gond leaders agitated for a separate state that would encompass the erstwhile territory of Gondwana, especially tribal areas of eastern Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Vidharbha, and Adilabad. The demand reached its peak in the early 1950s, when Heera Singh founded the Bharatiya Gondwana Sangh to agitate for statehood. Singh held many meetings throughout Gondwana and could mobilise 100,000 people between 1962 and 1963, but his movement had died down by the late 1960s and was never taken seriously by the Indian authorities. Other methods of agitation, including petitions and demands by various Gond organisations, were ignored by the state. In the 1990s, Heera Singh Markam and Kausalya Porte founded the Gondwana Ganatantra Party to fight for statehood.

The Gond rajas used Singh or Shah as titles, influenced by the Rajputs and Mughals. The Gond are also known as the Raj Gond. The term was widely used in the 1950s but has now become almost obsolete, probably because of the political eclipse of the Gond rajas.

Society

Gond society is divided into several exogamous patrilineal units known as sagas. The number depends on the region, with Gonds in the hills of Madhya Pradesh and the northern Nagpur plain having only two and those in the southern Nagpur plain and Adilabad having four. In Adilabad, these Sagas are called Yerwen, Sarwen, Siwen, and Nalwen, and their names refer to the number of ancestors for that saga. In Adilabad, there is a fifth saga, Sarpe saga, which for marriage purposes is linked with Sarwen, although their origin myths are different. According to Gond mythology, all sagas once lived in a single village but soon moved out and established individual villages. The names of these ancestral villages are preserved in culture and sometimes identified with present-day locations. The number of ancestors for each saga is its symbol, and on many ceremonial and ritual occasions, the number of involved animals, people, actions, or objects corresponds to that saga 's number.

The saga exists mostly in the sphere of ritual and has no real political or organizational significance. The most visible sign of saga consciousness is in the worship of Persa Pen, although this occurs mainly at the clan level. All worshippers of the same Persa pen see themselves as agnatically related, and so any intermarriage or sexual relations between them is forbidden. Gonds use the term soira to refer to sagas whose members they can marry.

Each saga is regarded as performing actions essential to society as a whole. During ceremonies and ritual events, the saga becomes important for determining roles in the proceedings. For instance, in the worship of a clan's Persa pen, the clan priest is involved in sacrifice while two members of a soira saga to the celebrating clan dress the idol and cook the sacrificial food. During certain parts of Gond festivals, participants divide into saga or soira. For serving the sacrificial meal at Persa Pen, members of each saga sit separately and are served in order of which their ancestors emerged from the cave in their origin story. However, all sagas have equal status in Gond society. Members of each saga work cooperatively on issues affecting their relationship with other sagas, such as negotiations about bride price in marriage. In addition, for ritual purposes, any person can be replaced by someone of the same age, generation, and saga. As an example, in a marriage where, for instance, the bride's parents are not present, a couple from the same saga as the bride can stand in for the bride's parents in the ritual. This applies also to the relations between Gonds and Pardhans: if a Pardhan of the same clan is not found, then a Pardhan belonging to a different clan in the same saga can be brought in as a suitable replacement.

Subdivided within the saga is the pari, or clan, the main unit of organisation of Gond society. In each saga, the number of clans is determined by the number of ancestors of that saga. The clans of a saga are arranged by precedence based on when they emerged from the cave in the Gond creation story. This precedence regulates behaviour during some rituals. For instance, during the First Fruit festival, all members of a saga eat with the seniormost member of the seniormost pari of the saga represented in the village. Group relations between senior and junior pari are based on relations between older and younger brothers. For instance, members of a senior pari cannot marry a widow from a junior pari, since it is seen as analogous to the marriage between an elder brother and a younger brother's wife. Clans generally have names relating to specific plants. Some common pari include Tekam, Uikey, Markam, Dhurwe, and Atram.

Each clan is divided into several parallel lineages, called kita. Each of these kita has a specific ritual function within Gond society: for instance, the katora kita is the only kita that presides over the worship of Persa Pen. Kita in some clans use Maratha titles like Deshmukh, bestowed on certain Gond chiefs. The kita functions only in the ritual sphere. Sometimes, the clans are also divided into khandan, or subclans, which are generally organic in nature. Each khandan is like a mini-clan, in that it has its own set of ritual objects for worship of Persa Pen and is formed when a group in a pari including a katora decide to set up a new centre for worship of Persa Pen. Eventually, this group becomes solidified into a khandan.

Culture
Many astronomical ideas were known to ancient Gonds, who had their own local terms for the Sun, Moon, Milky Way, and constellations. Most of these ideas served as the basis for their timekeeping and calendrical activities.

The Gondi language is spoken by almost 3 million people, mainly in the southern area of the Gond range. This area encompasses the southeastern districts of Madhya Pradesh, eastern Maharashtra, northern Telganana, and southern Chhattisgarh (mainly in the Bastar division). The language is related to Telugu. In the early 20th century, it was spoken by 1.5 million people, nearly all of whom were bilingual. At present, the language is only spoken by one fifth of Gonds and is dying out, even in its traditional linguistic range.

In Chhattisgarh, women perform the sua dance, which was named after the word for "parrot". It is performed after Diwali to honour Shiva and Parvati, representing the belief that the parrot will bring their sadness to their lovers.

The Gondi people have their own version of the Ramayana, known as the Gond Ramayani, derived from oral folk legends. It consists of seven stories with Lakshmana as the protagonist, set after the main events of the Ramayana, where he finds a bride.

Religion
According to the 2011 census, there were 1,026,344 followers of the "Gondi" religion in India, with the majority residing in Madhya Pradesh (584,884), followed by Chhattisgarh (368,438), Maharashtra (66,857), Uttar Pradesh (3,419), and Jharkhand (2,419). The majority of Gond people still follow their own traditions of nature worship, but like many other tribes in India, their religion has been influenced by Brahminical Hinduism.

Many Gond people practice their own indigenous religion, Koyapunem, while some follow Sarnaism. Pola, Phag, and Dassera are some of their major festivals. A small number of Gonds are Christian or Muslim.

Hinduism
In medieval times, the Gondi kingdoms worshipped Vishnu as their patron deity.

The Gonds worship ancestral deities known as Angadevs, which Brahminical Hindus claim are a representation of the goddess Mahakali. There were seven groups of Angadevs, rescued by Pari Kupar Lingo from the Kachchargardh caves. In one version, there were twenty-eight Angadevs, and in another version, there were thirty-three.

In the second version, the Angadevs, or Saga Deva, were the children of the goddess Mata Kali Kankali after she ate a flower given to her by a sage. They were raised in Raitad Jungo's ashram, and while they were playing, they met the gods Shambu and Gaura. Gaura offered them food, but because they were annoyed by the children's mischief, Shambu and Gaura imprisoned them in the Kachchargardh caves. For twelve years, the children relied on a pond and a mythical bird who provided them food to survive. Kali Kankali pleaded to Shambu to release her children, but he rejected her pleas. Raitad Jungo then asked Pari Kupar Lingo to help him free the children, and Pari Kupar Lingo approached the bard Hirasuka Patalir. Patalir played music on his kingri, and the children were filled with strength to push the boulder blocking the caves from the outside world. Patalir was then crushed by the boulder. Ever since, the Kachchargardh caves became a site of pilgrimage, and Kali Kankali became one of the dharmagurus of the Gondi people.

A typical Gond reaction to death has been described as one of anger, because they believe death is caused by demons. Gonds usually bury their dead, together with their worldly possessions, but due to partial Hinduization, their kings were occasionally cremated, as per Vedic practices. Hinduization has led to cremation becoming more common.

Koyapunem
The native Gond religion, Koyapunem (meaning "the way of nature"), was founded by Pari Kupar Lingo. It is also known as Gondi Punem, or "the way of the Gondi people".

In Gond folk tradition, adherents worship a high god known as Baradeo, whose alternate names are Bhagavan, Kupar Lingo, Badadeo, and Persa Pen. Baradeo oversees activities of lesser gods such as clan and village deities as well as ancestors. Baradeo is respected but he does not receive fervent devotion, which is shown only to clan and village deities, ancestors, and totems. These village deities include Aki Pen, the village guardian and the, the village mother goddess, a similar paradigm to folk traditions of other Dravidian peoples. Before any festival occurs, these two deities are worshipped. Each clan has their own, meaning "great god". This god is benign at heart but can display violent tendencies. However, these tendencies are reduced when a, a bard, plays a fiddle.

Three people are important in Gond religious ceremonies: the baiga (village priest), the bhumka (clan priest), and the kaser-gaita (leader of the village).

As Kupar Lingo, the high god of the Gonds is depicted as a clean-shaven young prince wearing a trident-shaped crown, the munshul, which represents the head, heart, and body. There are many shrines to Kupar Lingo in Gondwana, and he is revered as an ancestral hero.

Per Gond religious beliefs, their ancestor Rupolang Pahandi Pari Kupar Lingo was born as the son of the chief Pulsheev, during the reign of Sambhu-Gaura, several thousand years ago. Kupar Lingo became the ruler of the Koya race and established the Gondi Punem, a code of conduct and philosophy that the Gondi practice. He gathered thirty-three disciples to teach the Gondi Punem to the distant lands of the koyamooree.

A principle in the Gond religion is munjok, which is non-violence, cooperation, and self-defense. Another part of Gond belief is salla and gangra, which represent action and reaction, superficially similar to the concept of karma in Hinduism. To prevent people from destroying themselves in conflict and discord, they are supposed to live under Phratrial society. Among the beliefs related to Phratrial society are the need to defend the community from enemies, working together and being in harmony with nature, and being allowed to eat animals (but not those representing a totem).

Like village deity worship in South India, Gonds believe their clan and village deities have the capability of possession. A person possessed by the spirit ceases to have any responsibility for their actions. Gonds also believe disease is caused by spirit possession.

Many Gonds worship Ravana, whom they consider to be the tenth of their people, the ancestor-king of one of their four lineages and the eightieth lingo (great teacher). On Dussehra, Gondi inhabitants of Paraswadi in Gadchiroli district carry an image of Ravana riding an elephant in a procession to worship him and "protest" the burning of his effigies.

Gonds venerate plants and animals, especially the saja tree. In some places, death is associated with a (Terminalia elliptica) tree. Stones representing souls of the dead, or, are kept in a at the foot of a saja tree. When there is no specific shrine for the village mother goddess, the saja tree is her abode. In addition, the Penkara, or holy circle of the clan, is under this tree. Gonds in Seoni believe Baradeo lives in a saja tree. The Mahua plant, whose flowers produce a liquor considered purifying, is also revered. In many Gond weddings, the bride and groom circle a post made out of a Mahua tree during the ceremony, and the Gonds of Adilabad perform the first ceremonies of the year when Mahua flowers bloom.

Gonds also believe in rain gods. One early British anthropologist noted how during the pre-monsoon hunting ceremony, the amount of blood spilled by the animals was indicative of the amount of rain to follow.

The gods are known as pen in the singular and pennoo in the plural. Other gods worshipped by the Gonds include:
 * Mata Kali Kankali, the ancestral mother of the Gondi forefathers. She is associated with Mahakali.
 * Dulha-Pen, the bridegroom god. He is represented by a stone, a man riding a horse, or a battle-axe.
 * Gansam, the protector of villages from tigers. He is represented by a stone on the village boundary or a platform and a pole. Animals were sacrificed to him.
 * Hardul, the god of weddings
 * Bhimsen or Bhimal, the god of strength and the earth. He is associated with rocks, mountains, and rivers, and certain hills and rocks are considered holy sites of Bhimsen.
 * Nat Awal or Dharti Mata, the goddess of fertility
 * Bhumi, the earth and mother of humanity
 * Nat Auwal, the mother goddess of the village. She is invoked when the village partakes in a ceremony, from seasonal rites to prayers against disasters.
 * Thakur Dev, the male guardian of the village
 * Hulera-Pen, the protector of cattle
 * Maitya-Pen, the demon of whirlwinds
 * Narayan-Pen, the sun god
 * Kodapen, the horse god
 * Maswasi Pen, the hunting god
 * Kanya, water spirits

Classification
Gondi people are designated as a Scheduled Tribe in Andhra Pradesh, parts of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Odisha, and West Bengal.

The Government of Uttar Pradesh had classified them as a Scheduled Caste, but by 2007, they were one of several groups that was redesignated as Scheduled Tribes. As of 2017, that tribal designation applies only to certain districts, not the entire state. The 2011 Census of India for Uttar Pradesh showed the Gond population at 21,992.

In popular culture
Gondi people have been portrayed in the 2017 Amit V. Masurkar film Newton and in S.S. Rajamouli's 2022 blockbuster RRR, in which N. T. Rama Rao Jr. plays a fictionalised version of the Gond tribal leader Komaram Bheem.

Some people have speculated that the plot of the 2021 film Skater Girl is based on the life of Gond skateboarder Asha Gond. The film's writer and director, Manjari Makijany, has denied this, however.

Notable people

 * Komaram Bheem, freedom fighter
 * Gunda Dhur, tribal leader
 * Ramji Gond, tribal chief
 * Asha Gond, skateboarder
 * Hridayshah, king of Garha
 * Ajanbahu Jatbasha, founder of the Gonds of Deogarh dynasty
 * Motiravan Kangali, linguist and author
 * Kanaka Raju, gusadi dancer
 * Bakht Buland Shah, Rajgond ruler
 * Dalpat Shah, 49th ruler of the Garha Kingdom.
 * Raghunath Shah, freedom fighter
 * Sangram Shah, king of Garha
 * Shankar Shah, freedom fighter
 * Baburao Shedmake, tribal freedom fighter
 * Bhajju Shyam, painter
 * Jangarh Singh Shyam, painter
 * Venkat Shyam, artist
 * Chakradhar Singh, raja of Raigarh State
 * Karunkar Singh, freedom fighter
 * Nareshchandra Singh, politician
 * Veer Narayan Singh, activist
 * Durga Bai Vyom, artist

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Gondi people


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Gondwana Ganatantra Party

Gondwana Gantantra Party or GGP is a political party in India, founded by Hira Singh Markam. It primarily works for the tribal community and its politics.

History
GGP was formed in 1991 to plead for the rights of the Gondi people, and to establish a separate Indian state of Gondwana in central India. After the demise of Hira Singh Markam, Tuleshwar Singh Markam took over as the new president of the party.

In Elections
In the 2002 Vidhan Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, GGP had eight candidates, who together mustered 11 262 votes.

In 2003 Vidhan Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh, GGP had launched 61 candidates, who together mustered 512 102 votes. Three were elected.

In the 2003 Vidhan Sabha elections in Chhattisgarh, GGP had 41 candidates, but no-one was elected. In total, the party received 156,916 votes.

In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, the party presented candidates from Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Recent Developments
The Gondwana Ganatantra Party had formed a pre-poll alliance with the Samajwadi Party for the 2018 Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly election. But now GGP has formed the pre-poll alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party.

Party formed a pre-poll alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party for the 2023 Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly election and won 1 seat.

title: Gondwana Ganatantra Party


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Jack Hylton

Jack Hylton (born John Greenhalgh Hilton; 2 July 1892 – 29 January 1965) was an English pianist, composer, band leader and impresario.

Hylton rose to prominence during the British dance band era, being referred as the "British King of Jazz" and "The Ambassador of British Dance Music" by the musical press, not only because of his popularity which extended throughout the world, but also for his use of unusually large ensembles for the time and his polished arrangements. He mostly retired from the music industry after 1940, becoming a successful theatrical businessman until his death.

Early life and career
He was born John Greenhalgh Hilton in Great Lever near Bolton, Lancashire, the son of George Hilton, a cotton yarn twister. His father was an amateur singer at the local Labour Club and Hylton learned piano to accompany him on the stage. Hylton later sang to the customers when his father bought a pub (The Round Croft) in nearby Little Lever, becoming known as the "Singing Mill-Boy". He also performed as a relief pianist for various bands. In 1905 he joined a pierrot troupe in Rhyl and he went on to conduct the orchestra of a touring pantomime.

In 1913 he moved to London where he initially worked as an organist at a cinema in Stoke Newington. A year later he was working as a pianist in the 400 Club and playing with the Stroud Haxton Band. During the First World War he moved to be a musical director of the band of the 20th Hussars, and later in the Army Entertainment Division (N.A.C.B.).

After the First World War, Hylton formed a double act with Tommy Handley to little success, also collaborating in a number of short-lived stage shows. In 1919 he moved to Blackpool, where he composed and sold songs to tourists. He returned to London, playing with the "Queens" Dance Orchestra, wrote arrangements of popular songs and recorded them for His Master's Voice and Zonophone under the label "Directed by Jack Hylton" (being credited in lieu of a pay rise), his records carrying the new style of jazz-derived American dance music.

1920s and 1930s
After being dismissed by his own bandmates from the Queen's Hall in 1922, Hylton not only set up his own band, but also set up a number of other orchestras under the Jack Hylton Organisation. Even though he was not professionally trained for business, he brought his band to success even at a time when the Great Depression hit hard during the 1930s. His good reputation allowed him to make contacts with famous jazz artists of the time, and he was credited for bringing Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and others to Britain and Europe in the 1930s.

An ensemble consisting at times of more than 20 musicians, the Hylton orchestra quickly stood out from the rest. Unlike many other bandleaders who took up residences at nightclubs and ballrooms, Hylton often embarked on lengthy tours of England, which ultimately moulded the concept most Britons had of jazz.

By the mid-1920s, he was usually referred as the "British King of Jazz", a notion Hylton initially dismissed. As late as 1926, he thought of jazz as "a bunch of noises" popular at the end of the First World War, "when everything was topsy-turvy". Hylton first appeared on radio through station 2LO in 1924, and on 24 June 1925, he cut HMV's first electric record, "Feelin' Kind O' Blue", at Hayes in Middlesex.

The second half of the 1920s marked Hylton's highest point of prominence. After recovering from a near-fatal car accident – which took place on 20 January 1927, on the way to the HMV studios at Hayes, Middlesex – he made the first in a string of "continental tours" that lasted until 1930. The orchestra's line-up also included some of the most skilled musicians of the time. "Regular" players included saxophonists Billy Ternent (who was also the band's main arranger and co-leader), Edward Owen (E.O.) "Poggy" Pogson and Noel "Chappie" d'Amato, trumpeter/cornetist Jack Jackson, trombonist Lew Davis, violinists Hugo Rignold and Harry Berly, pianist/arranger Peter Yorke, and (from 1928) singer Sam Browne. The orchestra was often augmented with members of other Hylton-controlled bands, especially for 12-inch "concert arrangements". According to the Daily Herald of 7 June 1930, between four and five million records sold in 1929 (out of 50 million sold overall) were made by Hylton, although three million has been suggested as likely a more accurate figure.

By the time the Depression started biting in 1930, Hylton downsized his band and began performing in Europe less frequently; that same year, however, Maurice Chevalier recorded with Hylton, who also made the first recording of "Body and Soul", and Pat O'Malley replaced Browne as vocalist. In 1930, they recorded "Amy, Wonderful Amy", a song about Amy Johnson. Hylton also became a director and major shareholder of the new Decca record label, switching from HMV in late 1931. The following year, he was decorated by the French government, recorded with Paul Robeson, and made the first transatlantic entertainment broadcast with Paul Whiteman and his orchestra.

In late 1933, Hylton left Decca after refusing to take a pay cut, not making records until 1935 when he rejoined HMV. He spent 1934 touring Europe again, and adopted "The Soldiers in the Park" (more commonly known as "Oh Listen to the Band") as his signature tune. In 1935, he appeared in his first feature film, the musical comedy She Shall Have Music, which starred June Clyde and Claude Dampier.

That same year, Hylton finally was able to perform in the United States; he had repeatedly attempted this for almost a decade, but had been opposed by the musicians' unions (a 1929 tour was cancelled at the last minute). Standard Oil signed Hylton for a radio show on CBS, not only paying him and his star players, but also paying all expenses for those band members unable to play in the US. Whilst in Chicago, Hylton made a number of records with his radio band for Victor. Union pressure led him to return to the UK in 1936, although Pat O'Malley and Alec Templeton stayed in America, making a name for themselves.

Upon returning to Britain, he was criticised for adopting the then-popular swing rhythm, so he kept playing in his well-established style, including a series of new "concert recordings". After a new tour of Europe in 1937, which included a month-long run of performances at Berlin's Scala Theatre in Nazi Germany, Hylton began appearing on radio more frequently, starring in Radio Luxembourg's Rinso Radio Revue until 1939, when he appeared in the BBC's Band Waggon, as well as its 1940 film adaptation. Hylton and his band also made a number of appearances on BBC television in the 1930s, on one of which Ernie Wise made his television debut.

1940s and 1950s
The Jack Hylton orchestra disbanded in 1940 as many of its members were called up for service, although Jack continued to conduct orchestras for radio in the years to come, leading the Glenn Miller Orchestra when it visited England in 1943. During the war, he took the London Philharmonic Orchestra around Britain, giving promenade concerts. This helped to keep the orchestra going when its normal programme had ceased and it was on the edge of bankruptcy.

At this point in his career he became an impresario, discovering new stars and managing radio, film and theatre productions, from ballets to circuses. His productions dominated the London theatres with such productions as The Merry Widow, Kiss Me, Kate, and Kismet.

In 1950 he reunited with a number of his former employees, many of whom had become successful in their own right, for that year's Royal Command Performance, billed as "The Band that Jack Built". Despite their success, Hylton resisted calls for his return to band-leading. There were rumours in 1954 that he would stand for Parliament from Bolton, where he was a prominent member of the local Labour Party branch.

In November 1955, he was contracted as Advisor of Light Entertainment to Associated-Rediffusion (A-R), winner of the London weekday franchise in the recently established ITV network. He founded Jack Hylton Television Productions, Ltd. in that same month to produce a range of light entertainment programming exclusively for A-R. In spite of their popularity, however, the company's productions were of low quality, with performers even apologising in front of millions of viewers at times. This in turn helped establish ITV's reputation for coarseness, a stigma it would only shake off by the 1970s. Hylton refused to renew his ITV contract in 1959; the last shows made by the company were broadcast in 1960.

1960s
In his final years Hylton was still producing stage shows, as well as taking a leading role in organising various Royal Command Performances, until his final stage production, Camelot, in 1965.

In 1965 a televised tribute to Hylton, The Stars Shine for Jack, was held in London on Sunday 30 May at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane with many artists including Arthur Askey, the Crazy Gang, Marlene Dietrich, Dickie Henderson and Shirley Bassey.

Personal life
Hylton was married twice; firstly in 1913 in St Asaph, Flintshire, Wales, to bandleader Ennis Parkes (born Florence Parkinson), whom he had met during his pierrot work. They separated in 1929, but remained relatively close until Parkes's death in 1957, despite the formation of a short-lived "Mrs. Jack Hylton Band" in the mid-1930s. During the 1930s he had a long affair with model Frederika Kogler ("Fifi"), with whom he had two daughters: Jackie (b. 1932) and Georgina (b. 1938). He also had a son, Jack (b. 1947) by a later affair with the singer and actress Pat Taylor and a daughter, Angela (b. 1965) by an affair with Rosalina Neri.

He secondly married in Geneva in 1963, to Australian model and beauty queen Beverley Prowse (1932–2000).

Hylton was decorated by the French government on two occasions for his contribution to the entertainment industry.

Death
On 26 January 1965, complaining of chest and stomach pains, Hylton was admitted to the London Clinic. He died there three days later, from a heart attack, aged 72. Hylton's spending habits and generosity left his estate with £242,288. Hylton said to his son during his latter years, "I won't leave you much, but we'll have a good laugh spending it while I'm here!" However, this equates to £4.6 million in 2018, when adjusted for inflation.

He is buried in the churchyard of St Catherine at Gosfield, Essex. His wife Beverley is buried beside him.

Legacy
Specialist dance band radio stations, such as Radio Dismuke and Swing Street Radio, continue to play his records. Hylton also features regularly on the Manx Radio programme Sweet & Swing, presented by Howard Caine.

His 1930 recording of "Happy Days Are Here Again" was used during the closing credits of episode four of Ken Burns's documentary series "The Roosevelts".

Hylton is portrayed by Ted Robbins in the 2011 television film Eric and Ernie.

title: Jack Hylton