Celebrating SFA’s 85th Anniversary Year

1923-24 • 2008-09

A Brief Chronology of SFA History*

  

       1845-1904      The Republic of Texas charters Nacogdoches University; builds facility in 1858 on Washington Square.

 

                1906      As Nacogdoches begins a search for a new university, Mrs. Karle Wilson Baker, a local poet and a future SFA faculty member, writes: “Nobody needs to be told what a college can do for the spirit and atmosphere of a town. The spirit of Nacogdoches today is a gift from the men of the past; the spirit of the future will be the gift of the men of today. There is one form of immortality which nobody disputes; the immortality of influence and good works. And there is one form of ambition to which no man is dead; an ambition for his children.”

 

                1915      First attempt to create a “Stephen F. Austin Normal College” in East Texas.

 

                1917      State charters Stephen F. Austin Normal, selects Nacogdoches as the site, but delays funding because of World War I. Nacogdoches gives 208 acres and promises to pave eight miles of streets with red brick.

 

                1921      State approves funding for SFA.

 

                1922      Construction begins on the Austin Building on a portion of Thomas J. Rusk’s homestead.

 

                1923      September 18, Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College opens on the Nacogdoches High School campus on Washington Square in buildings including the Old University Building. Registering on the first day were 270 students paying $12 tuition for the semester. Historian Lois Foster Fitzhugh (later Blount) was the first of 24 faculty members hired. The office of Dr. A.W. Birdwell, the university’s first president, in a temporary building known as “The Shack” built by Nacogdoches citizens, also houses the administration, the library, the registrar’s office, and even the sports equipment. On the evening of SFA’s opening day, the faculty and staff celebrate Birdwell’s 50th birthday with cake.

 

                1924      On May 1, SFA moves to present campus as the Austin Building opens; Nacogdoches begins it northward growth. SFA receives its first major donation, a gymnasium from Mr. Frank Aikman.

 

           1925-26      SFA finally receives the second structure promised in 1921, the Rusk Building, a library and classrooms.

 

                1928      Ex-Students create an association and plan the first Homecoming for May 1930.

 

       1932-1933      As the Depression worsens and enrollment falls, SFA narrowly averts the threat of closing from Austin.

 

       1933-1934      More than 2,000 former students return to campus to celebrate SFA’s 10th anniversary.

 

       1935-1939      President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration funds help save the college and build Wisely and Gibbs residence halls, a Women’s Recreation Center and a science building (now Chemistry).

 

                1936      As part of the Texas Centennial celebration, the state recreates the Old Stone Fort on campus.

 

                1937      In March, the New London School explodes, killing hundreds, including 10 teachers educated at SFA.

 

                1941      December 8, the SFA students and faculty gather to hear President Roosevelt’s speech declaring war on Japan. Everything changed. SFA enrollment begins to plummet as students depart, men at first, then women; enrollment hits a low of 253 in the last spring semester of the war.

 

       1942-1945      Dr. Paul L. Boynton becomes second president and saves SFA during the troubled war years: suspends sports, recruits a Women’s Army Corps school, freezes hiring and opens garden plots on campus to supplement food. Boynton keeps the name of SFA before the public and students serving in the war effort, secures a U.S. Forestry Service farm and establishes a forestry department.

 

                1946      By importing and building temporary housing and classrooms, Boynton accommodates hundreds of returning veterans; secures Nacogdoches partnership to build Memorial Stadium and sports fields.

 

                1948      SFA celebrates its 25^th anniversary in grand style with banquets and parades.

 

       1952-1958      Boynton secures funding for Birdwell, Boynton, and Griffith Fine Arts buildings.

 

                1954      Founding President Birdwell dies.

 

                1958      Second President Boynton has a heart attack in his office and dies shortly after in Memorial Hospital.

 

       1958-1976      Dr. Ralph W. Steen, third president of SFA, oversees the expansion of SFA as “baby boomers” increase fall enrollments from 2,017 to 11,293. With 12-fold budgets increases, SFA builds a new Student Center (1964) and dormitories on Griffith Boulevard; afterwards, he begins the eastward expansion of the campus beyond Raguet Street with dormitories, classrooms and offices for Education (1974) and Business (1975), a new library (1973), a coliseum (1975), a physical education complex (1975), and a new football stadium. The first doctoral program in forestry starts in 1975. Steen navigates SFA through integration unscathed. As demographic pressures lessened and state funds dried up, later presidents would have to cope with less.

 

                1969      Steen moves SFA from State College to State University status with its own Board of Regents.

 

                1974      SFA makes national headlines as students streak naked through the streets; Steen remains unflappable.

 

       1976-1989      Dr. William R. Johnson, fourth president, works to consolidate recent growth. Limited funds confine him to expanding existing programs and buildings such as Liberal Arts North, University Center, Forestry, Rusk, Chemistry, and the Steen Library. Johnson succeeds in securing funds for a new Math and Nursing Building and, as chairman of the effort to create the Higher Education Assistance Fund, helps to regularize funds for buildings statewide.

 

                1980      Former President Steen has a heart attack on the steps of the Rusk Building and dies.

 

       1990-1991      Dr. Donald Bowen serves as the university’s fifth president.

 

       1992-1999      Dr. Dan Angel, sixth president of SFA, successfully initiates first major fund-raising initiative (leading to an expansion of academic scholarships), a new doctorate in educational leadership, new master’s degree programs, and the creation of a School of Social Work.

 

                1997      The campaign “Share the Legacy” gives the university its first permanent endowment. Approximately 3,500 alumni and private donors give more than $37 million to aid the university in serving the educational needs of East Texas.

 

       2001-2006      Under Dr. Tito Guerrero, the seventh president, enrollment pressures lessen as diversity increases and more African-American, Hispanic, and international students enter the institution than ever before. SFA Regents raise SFA's entrance standards and approve $200 million in bonds for new construction projects: residence halls, parking garages, recreational facilities, and an extensive addition to the Student Center.

 

   2007-Present      SFA Board of Regents names the first alumnus to serve as president – Dr. Baker Pattillo, a veteran SFA administrator for more than 40 years. Due to his advocacy of student needs, Regents name the newly expanded Student Center in his honor. Pattillo is currently overseeing the first major increase in enrollment since the 1980s. The new $30 million Education Research Center under construction continues a long SFA tradition of innovation in educational programs in East Texas.

 

Prepared by Dr. Jere Jackson, University Historian

 

*For a pdf copy of this chronology, see this link: Celebrating SFA's History