History
Established on March 13, 1897, San Diego State University first began as the San Diego Normal School, meant to educate local future female elementary school teachers. In 1923, the San Diego Normal School became San Diego State Teachers College, "a four-year public institution controlled by the state Board of Education." In 1935, the school became San Diego State College. In 1960, San Diego State College became a part of the California College System, now known as the California State University system. Finally in 1970 San Diego State College became San Diego State University (SDSU).
Sixty percent of SDSU graduates remain in San Diego, making SDSU a primary educator of the region's work force. Committed to serving the diverse San Diego region, SDSU ranks among the top ten universities nationwide in terms of ethnic and racial diversity among its student body, as well as the number of bachelor's degrees conferred upon minority students.
San Diego State University has been designated a "Research University" by the Carnegie Foundation. University faculty consistently attract hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars annually in grants and contracts for research and program administration, and SDSU's research and graduate degree programs lead all other campuses of the California State University system. In the 2009-10 academic year, the university obtained $150 million for research, including $26 million from the National Institutes of Health.
For the beginning of the 2006-2007 academic year, SDSU expanded its classrooms and support space by more than 200,000 square feet (19,000 m2) with the opening of three new buildings, the College of Arts and Letters, the Calpulli Center and Donald P. Shiley BioScience Center. The buildings, respectively, feature high-technology classrooms, upgraded health and wellness facilities, and scientific research laboratories.
SDSU's Astronomy Department owns the Mount Laguna Observatory located in the Cleveland National Forest. It operates the observatory concurrently with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
John F. Kennedy, then the President of the United States of America, gave the graduation commencement address at San Diego State University on June 6, 1963.
| “ | As a nation, we have no deeper concern, no older commitment and no higher interest than a strong, sound and free system of education for all. In fulfilling this obligation to ourselves and our children, we provide for the future of our nation-and for the future of freedom. (Historical Video) |
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—John F. Kennedy, President of the United States of America, Graduation commencement address to San Diego State College (San Diego, California), June 6, 1963 |
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Kennedy was given an honorary doctorate degree in law at the ceremony, making SDSU the first California State College to award an honorary doctorate degree. In 1964, this event was registered as California Historical Landmark #798.
In April 2012, his Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama spoke at SDSU's Viejas Arena as part of his "Compassion Without Borders" tour.
Read more about this topic: San Diego State University
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)
“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)