Fullerton College - History 1913 To 1972

History 1913 To 1972

In April, 1913, the governing board of Fullerton Union High School approved a motion to establish a two-year postgraduate course of study, at the high school. At this time, Fullerton was primarily an agricultural community, which specialized in the production of citrus produce. That enabled Delbert Brunton, who was the Fullerton High principal, to begin the new Fullerton Junior College, as the means of providing that postgraduate study. Twenty-six freshman students enrolled in that first year, with a curriculum of 10 courses. "In 1922 the college was reorganized as an independent junior college district. After holding classes on the Fullerton Union High School campus for its first 23 years, the college began moving to its own fourteen acre campus next door in 1936.

The college's first newspaper, The Weekly Torch, was introduced in 1923, in addition to its annual Torch Magazine. The Torch newspaper was later renamed The Weekly Hornet, and has been in continuous publication since then. The first club at Fullerton Junior College, the Literary Club, was formed in its second year, followed by the Collegians and the College Woman’s Club the following year.

In 1934, Superintendent of Fullerton Union High School and Fullerton Junior College Louis Plummer compiled an outline for Fullerton Junior College that would soon lead to the development of the campus as it is known today. Plummer outlined a need for 36 classrooms to accommodate an anticipated enrollment figure of more than 1,600 students by the year 1950. At the time, Fullerton Junior College was utilizing about 60% of the high school’s resources, which by 1950, would need to be dedicated solely to the high school. Later that year, the school's board of directors purchased a 14-acre (57,000 m2) parcel of land located adjacent to the high school.

The first building to be completed on campus was the commerce building, now known as the Business and Computer Information Building in 1936. All plans included in the original 1935 master plan were finally realized in 1956 with the completion of the William T. Boyce Library. Additional land was later purchased incrementally until Fullerton Junior College reached its present size of 83 acres (340,000 m2).

In 1965, the North Orange County Community College District (NOCCCD) was formed to oversee both Fullerton Junior College and Cypress College. Up until this point, Fullerton Junior College was still owned by Fullerton Union High School, and there was a large support for Fullerton Junior College to break away from the high school and adopt its own ownership. Later that same year, the college began acquiring the land that it occupied by buying it back from the high school. By 1972, Fullerton Junior College simply became known as Fullerton College..