Cleveland State University history

In June 1965, acting upon recommendations of the late Governor Frank G. Clement and the State Department of Education, the General Assembly authorized the establishment of three community colleges, one in each Grand Division of the state.

Doctor Harry Newburn served as acting president until the appointment of Doctor Harold Enarson as CSU's first president in February 1966.

In August of 1967, the first college catalog was published. It was in the spring of 1967 that the task to recruit the first class was begun.

C-M received state institutional status in 1969, becoming part of CSU as the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, the largest law college in Ohio.

After regaining independent status C-M initiated its first full-time legal program, graduating its first full-time class in 1970.

Three years later under President Harold Enarson the Cleveland-Marshall Law School became part of Cleveland State, remaining at its location on Ontario Street until 1972 when the building was sold to make way for the new Justice Center.

Through the years, construction and expansion of buildings rapidly progressed, culminating in completion of the Community Services Building in 1979.

Over a period of several months in 1982 three people were slain on campus by Frank Spisak Jr. who was eventually apprehended in September and sentenced to death the following summer.

CSU had more to cheer about in 1991 as the long-awaited 13,610-seat Convocation Center was finally completed.

Over the next several decades, Cleveland State University quickly grew in size, and claimed over 15,000 students in 1997.

Improvements included the conversion to the semester system in 1998 and the implementation of a modern information technology infrastructure.

A new era was ushered in at CSU in 2001, however, when Michael Schwartz became Cleveland State's fifth president.

On 26 September 2002, Doctor Michael Schwartz was installed as CSU's fifth President.

Schwartz stepped down in 2009 with Ronald Berkman picking up the torch in his place.

In 2014 Cleveland State celebrated its 50th anniversary and while the first five decades may have been trying at times, CSU has transformed itself from an inward facing commuter campus to an outwardly directed anchor of the emerging Campus District.