Chicago State University history

The school opened in 1869 as a permanent institution in Englewood, which was a village far beyond the outskirts of Chicago at that time.

In 1897, the Chicago Board of Education assumed responsibility for what was now the Chicago Normal School.

In 1913, the school was renamed Chicago Normal College, with higher admissions standards and several new buildings gradually added to the campus.

However, when the Great Depression began in 1929, severe budget shortages forced the college to curtail its operations, and almost eventuated in its closing.

In 1932, the Board of Education budget shrank by $12 million.

In 1938, the school again changed its name, this time to Chicago Teachers College to reflect the recent adoption of a four-year curriculum.

The city was no longer able to fund the institution adequately, and in 1951 Governor Adlai Stevenson signed legislation that reimbursed the Board of Education for its operating expenses on a permanent basis.

Her Teams excelled during her first year as athletic director in 1975.

In 1990, Gwendolyn Brooks, the well-known poet, was hired as a Distinguished Professor; she taught classes at CSU up until her death.

Elnora Daniel became president in 1998, and she worked to increase federal and state funding and to create new programs.

In 2008, Daniel resigned under allegations of unjustified spending; a state audit found that Daniel spent $15,000 that was expensed as a "leadership conference" on a family cruise instead.

The program produced its first graduates in 2009.

In January 2014, the Chicago Tribune reported that the school's interim provost, Angela Henderson, was under investigation by the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) for possible plagiarism of her dissertation.

Since the Illinois Budget Impasse began in July 2015, Chicago State had zero state funding.

In September 2016, the university board voted to accept President Calhoun's resignation only nine months after he assumed office, and named Cecil Lucy, the university's vice president for administration and finance, as interim president.

On February 4, 2017, the Chicago Tribune revealed that Chicago State spent over $370,000 in tax money on planning activities for a second campus in the West Side of Chicago, including a feasibility study, purchasing property in Homan Square, and hiring an architect.

Eventually, UIC cleared Henderson of plagiarism, and Henderson reached a $700,000 settlement with UIC in 2019.