Arizona State University history

8, 1886 — almost 30 years before Arizona was granted statehood — the Territorial Normal School, Arizona’s first higher education institution, opened its doors to 33 students in a four-classroom building in Tempe.

The Tempe campus is the original campus, and Old Main, the first building constructed on campus in 1898, still stands today.

The Department of Commerce first appears in the 1916 course catalog.

In 1925 the college was renamed the Tempe State Teachers College and started offering its first four-year bachelor's degree.

An important arts centre for Phoenix and its suburbs, Arizona State is home to the Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and completed in 1964, and the Sundome Center for the Performing Arts, the largest single-level theatre in the United States.

In October 2021, the Lucy Mission to the Trojan asteroids lifts off. It is named for the fossil discovered in 1974 by Donald Johanson, founding director of the Institute of Human Origins.

Sun Devils 22, Michigan 15 The 7th-ranked football Sun Devils beat the Michigan Wolverines in the 1987 Rose Bowl, the first of two ASU appearances in “The Granddaddy of Them All.” Today, Sun Devil Athletics boasts 26 NCAA varsity sports, third-most in the Pac-12 Conference.

Michael M. Crow becomes the university’s 16th president and unveils his vision for a “New American University.” Since 2002, ASU has established more than a dozen new transdisciplinary schools and launched large-scale research initiatives and innovative programs in the humanities and social sciences.

ASU hosts ‘Super Bowl of Politics’ Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium is the site of the final presidential debate before the 2004 election, featuring nominees John Kerry and George W. Bush.

University Honors College at ASU is the first of its kind in the United States In 2005, Reader’s Digest ranks Barrett, The Honors College as No.

Opened for classes in 2006, today the campus offers degree programs across seven colleges and schools and is home to the Beus Center for Law and Society.

CubeSat will be designed, built and operated at ASU, and the project is the third major space mission involvement for which NASA selected ASU in 2015.

ASU earns top-10 recognition as a leading United States university for graduate employability, according to Global University Employability Survey 2016.

The 2017 invention lays the foundation for Zero Mass Water, an ASU startup that provides clean drinking water in communities, refugee camps, government offices, hotels, hospitals, schools, restaurants and homes around the world.

The university wins the 2018 Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion in International Education Award for its unique program that helps first-generation college students overcome obstacles to studying abroad.

ASU Fulton Schools of Engineering professor Cody Friesen wins the 2019 $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for invention by developing solar-powered technology that can generate drinking water from sunlight and air.

Campaign ASU 2020 To accelerate the ASU mission and raise support for the university’s educational priorities, Campaign ASU 2020 is a comprehensive universitywide effort designed to fuel the innovation and solutions that will shape our future.

In October 2021, the Lucy Mission to the Trojan asteroids lifts off.