• Approximately 250 UT Dallas students, faculty and staff formed the new UTD monogram on Chess Plaza in celebration of Founders Day.

UT Dallas students, faculty and staff united on the campus mall Oct. 27 to pay tribute to the University’s founders — Eugene McDermott, Cecil Green and Erik Jonsson — and to honor their vision and legacy.

More than 2,000 people celebrated the fourth annual Founders Day, enjoying free meals from food trucks, giveaways, carnival-themed games and a flash mob. University President Richard Benson addressed the crowd.

Approximately 250 Comets donned orange, green and white T-shirts and formed “U,” “T,” “D” across Chess Plaza, in the shape of the University’s monogram. Ricardo Castrillón, a student worker in the Office of Communications, captured the image from above with a drone.

The annual event marks the day in 1964 that the Founders Building was dedicated at what was then the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest. It was the first facility built on campus, surrounded by acres of cotton fields and undeveloped land.