Borough of State College history

1910 The Household Arts Department opens with 75 applicants.

1917 The first summer session and Saturday extension classes begin for practicing teachers.

Penn State began offering systematic advanced-degree work in 1922 with the formation of the Graduate School.

1928 The name of the institution is now the State Teachers College at Buffalo, and it is accredited by the American Association of Teachers Colleges.

1930 The Art Education Department, the only one in the United States maintained under state auspices, is established.

1944 The Exceptional Education Department is founded, focusing primarily on physically challenged children.

The peak Cold War years, 1945–60The Truman Doctrine and containmentPostwar domestic reorganizationThe Red ScareThe Korean WarPeace, growth, and prosperityEisenhower’s second termDomestic issuesWorld affairsAn assessment of the postwar era

1947 The Art Education Department, under the chairmanship of Doctor Stanley Czurles, is the largest in the United States.

A $1 million gift from 1950 alumna Eleanore Woods Beals and her husband, Vaughn Beals, creates the Woods-Beals Chair in Urban and Rural Education, the college's first endowed chair.

1952 The college acquires 435 acres of wooded land near Franklinville (later expanded to 617 acres) for the Whispering Pines College Camp.

1961 Now known as the State University College of Education at Buffalo, the college becomes the first SUNY institution with a study-abroad program, Semester in Siena.

1969 New degree programs include the bachelor of science in industrial technology, developed by Doctor Myron E. Lewis; the bachelor of science in home economics; the bachelor of arts in psychology and political science; and the master of arts in chemistry, biology, and philosophy.

1971 Muhammad Ali is a featured speaker at the third annual Black Arts Festival, sponsored by the Black Liberation Front Board, and actress Mildred Dunnock appears in two performances of A Place without Doors in Upton Hall Auditorium.

1983 The graduate Art Conservation Department, one of only three in the United States, moves to Buffalo State from the State University College at Oneonta.

1989 Doctor F. C. Richardson becomes president, succeeding Doctor D. Bruce Johnstone, who becomes chancellor of the SUNY system.

1992 Ground is broken for an expanded and renovated Great Lakes field station at the Porter Avenue site.

1996 The college celebrates its quasquicentennial.

1998 The Frank C. Moore Student Apartment Complex opens in a fully renovated former dormitory.

Aaron Podolefsky becomes the eighth president of Buffalo State on July 1, 2010.

Howard Cohen, chancellor emeritus of Purdue University Calumet is appointed interim president beginning August 1, 2013.

College ranks 26th nationally in Washington Monthly magazine’s 2016 master’s universities rankings.

2019 Homecoming and Family Weekend celebrates Bengal Fever theme.

Bengals Dare to Care 2020, a reformatted version of the annual Bengals Dare to Care Day, provides a month-long opportunity for students, faculty, and staff members to listen, learn, and participate in a number of social justice initiatives.