Indiana University of Pennsylvania - History

History

IUP was conceived as Indiana Normal School, first chartered in 1871 by Indiana County investors. The school was created under the Normal School Act, which passed the Pennsylvania General Assembly on May 20, 1857. Normal schools established under the act were to be private corporations in no way dependent upon the state treasury. They were to be "state" normal schools only in the sense of being officially recognized by the commonwealth.

The school opened its doors in 1875 following the mold of the French Ecole Normale. It enrolled just 225 students. All normal school events were held within a single building which also contained a laboratory school for model teaching. Control and ownership of the institution passed to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1920. In 1927, by authority of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, it became State Teachers College at Indiana, with the right to grant degrees. As its mission expanded, the name was changed again in 1959 to Indiana State College. In 1965, the institution achieved university status and became Indiana University of Pennsylvania, or IUP.

IUP maintains a total enrollment of over 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students making it the largest school in the system and the only one elevated to doctoral granting status in PaSSHE's enabling legislation Pennsylvania Act 188 of 1982. Today IUP is classified as a Carnegie Doctoral/Research-Intensive university and is accredited by Middle States Association of Colleges and Universities, NCATE, and AACSB.