The Heritage Preservation Oral History Program was designed to preserve for future generations of Aggies the history and traditions of Texas A&M as experienced by a diverse group of people.
The oral histories were largely collected by Haskell Monroe, the director of the program and the Dean of Faculties Emeritus, through an interview process. Haskell Monroe was a history professor at Texas A&M University as well as the President of the University of Texas at El Paso and the Chancellor of the University of Missouri. While at A&M he served as the secretary of the Aspirations Committee. This Committee wrote crucial reports advising changes that would help create the diversity experienced at A&M to this day including racial integration, co-education, and the elimination of the compulsory Corps of Cadets service.
The interviewees, for the Heritage Preservation Oral History Program, ranged from faculty, staff, students, and people highly involved in the university. This was intentionally done to give a diverse and well-rounded history and perception of life at Texas A&M University. These people ranged from university Presidents and their wives, yell leaders, student body presidents, and professors. In the Early Years of the program's history the focus was on A&M in the 1930s and the impact of the Corps. While in later interviews conducted professors and students were interviewed about more specific facets of A&M and individual programs and departments. While the program initially was supposed to only interview about 24 important people to the intuition it grew considerably throughout the process. The interviews were conducted from 1998 to 2002 totaling up to over 200 individual interviews and interviewees.
