Southern Illinois University history

Carbondale held the ceremony of cornerstone laying, May 17, 1870.

3, 1937, Centralia, Ill., United States), American Democratic politician who was the first African American elected to statewide office in Illinois.

SINU was the second teacher’s college in Illinois, and gradually changed its mission to offer its first graduate coursework in 1943.

It was renamed Southern Illinois University in 1947.

The university continued primarily as a teacher's college until Delyte W. Morris took office as president of the university in 1948.

In 1955, the group began an advocacy campaign to establish a public university.

By 1956, they had formed the Southwestern Illinois Council for Higher Education.

In 1957, the See-Myers report was released and indicated that in Madison-St Clair Counties, with 600,000 residents, the largest population concentration in the state outside of metropolitan Chicago, only three percent of the adult population had completed four years of college.

In 1958, the Council began a highly-successful private fundraising campaign to purchase land for a new campus.

The first doctorate was awarded in 1959.

When Illinois legislators authorized a bond issue to fund public university facility improvements in 1960, area residents expressed their overwhelming approval at the ballot box.

Groundbreaking for SIU Edwardsville was held in 1963.

In 1965, SIUE opened the Peck Classroom Building and Lovejoy Library in the midst of 2,660 acres of rolling land and woods.

While there, he made his first foray into politics, with a failed bid for the Illinois House of Representatives in 1968.

In 1970, Southern Illinois University’s campus, known as Southern Illinois University Carbondale, was separated from its satellite campus in Edwardsville.

Having risen to the rank of vice president, Burris left the bank in 1973 to join the cabinet of Illinois Gov.

The Environmental Resources Training Center was founded at Edwardsville in 1977.

SIU offered the first program to provide support to students with specific learning disabilities at a college level. "Project Achieve" was founded at SIU by Barbara Cordoni Kupiec in 1978.

Rehn Hall, dedicated in 1983, is home to the College of Business and Analytics and it’s the place where you'll see we're continuing Rehn's vision of a school offering an extraordinary learning experience.

While in office (1991–95), Burris established himself as a quietly effective administrator.

SIUE celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 2007.

The election of Barack Obama as president in November 2008 left open one of Illinois’s seats in the United States Senate, and the power to appoint Obama’s successor fell to Illinois Gov.

In November 2009 he was admonished by the Senate ethics committee for “providing incorrect, inconsistent, misleading, or incomplete information” concerning his appointment.

29, 2010, when Republican Mark Kirk was sworn into office.

The winner would hold the seat until the new Congress convened in January 2011.

That designation reflects our longstanding commitment to service and outreach; in 2013 alone, 237,000 residents of central and southern Illinois benefited from 578 initiatives with more than 3,000 community partners.

That designation reflects our longstanding commitment to service and outreach; in 2013 alone, 237,000 residents of central and southern Illinois benefited from 578 initiatives with more than 3,000 community partners. It is a strong, diverse, student-centered research-intensive and comprehensive university that recently earned the prestigious 2015 community engagement classification from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Congratulations to Doctor Pamela Smoot, winner of the 2019 Faculty Appreciation/Recognition Award from the SIU Carbondale chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Privacy Policy | EOE © 2021 SIU Board of Trustees All Rights Reserved.