Spring '26: From history student to archivist
It’s been five years since Aaron Michael arrived at The University of Texas at Arlington. Having received dual degrees as an undergraduate, he will earn his third degree UTA—a master’s in history with a certificate in archival administration from the College of Liberal Arts’ Department of History and Geography.
After graduation, Michael won’t be leaving UTA just yet. He’ll continue working in the UTA Libraries Course Reserves as lead library specialist.
“The master’s program definitely helped me understand a lot more of what happens at UTA Libraries and work better to help our patrons,” Michael said. “I started as a student worker during my undergraduate degree and worked my way up. I want to continue doing that and engage more with other departments, like Special Collections, during my time here.”
Jenny Sweeny, an adjunct instructor in the department, said she had no doubt Michael will be a longtime successful contributor to the archival profession.
“I monitored his required internship at the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, and he gained a lot of valuable skills which will benefit him as a future archivist including new digitization techniques, creating metadata, conducting research, and curating an exhibit,” Sweeny said. “I have been truly impressed with Aaron over the past several years. He takes his studies very seriously, all while juggling being a full-time employee at UTA’s Libraries.”
Michael shared more about his experience in the graduate program at UTA and how he’s worked toward his goal of becoming an archivist.
How did you discover the archivist career path and decide to pursue it?
Michael: In my archives classes, I found that being able to open boxes and go through all the items they contained—reading, analyzing and processing everything—was like touching history. I had an internship at the Botanical Research Institute of Texas at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens, where I was part of the archival team. Part of the work I did there was help put up an art exhibit on how plants inspire and influence arts and music. Going through archives, my favorite part is finding the story. All these boxes that seemingly have random stuff thrown in them mean so much more once you start reading and understanding how everything is connected.
Why is the work of an archivist—preserving history—so important to you?
Michael: When we receive donated boxes of people’s belongings, a lot of the time it will be years before anyone can start processing all the items. During my master’s degree, I had a chance to process archives here in the Special Collections at UTA Libraries. It was interesting because there were rows and rows of boxes, and who knew what was in them? For me, it was important to find out what’s in these archives and what it all meant to the person who donated them. Everybody has a story, and it’s tragic when those stories are lost. It’s beautiful to be the one who preserves these items.
You said one of the biggest projects you worked on at UTA was the website for the Top O’Hill Terrace Collaborative Historical Preservation Project. How did that shape your skills as an archivist?
Michael: The Top O’Hill project was such an eye-opening experience for me, seeing it all come together. It was a project I started in one of the first classes of my graduate career. We learned to build websites, believe it or not—usually in history classes you’re not talking about building websites, you’re talking about events and conflicts that happened in the past. For me, being able to engage with something from the past and modernize it to make it more accessible was really cool. Because it was a bunch of history students making a website, all the information and research we put on there looked more like an essay on a webpage. A few of us got together after the class was over and volunteered to continue working on it and made it more engaging for visitors. In this class we learned modern-day business practices and developed a skillset that will make us more marketable and help us adapt more in our industry.
How did the program emphasize real-world experience?
Michael: All of our professors took the time to have us engage with the material in so many ways. The head of the archival program, Jennifer Sweeney, constantly took us off campus to visit different archives around Fort Worth so we could see what organizations were doing and see for ourselves what a career in the archives looked like. It also helped us build our own connections and form relationships with professionals in the field, which is really important. During the graduate program, I’ve built websites, put together videos, practiced using AI and tried many other approaches to engage with history—that was the exciting part of my studies.
About The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA)
The University of Texas at Arlington is a growing public research university in the heart of Dallas-Fort Worth. With a student body of over 42,700, UTA is the second-largest institution in the University of Texas System, offering more than 180 undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Recognized as a Carnegie R-1 university, UTA stands among the nation’s top 5% of institutions for research activity. UTA and its 300,000 alumni generate an annual economic impact of $28.8 billion for the state. The University has received the Innovation and Economic Prosperity designation from the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities and has earned recognition for its focus on student access and success, considered key drivers to economic growth and social progress for North Texas and beyond.