Syracuse University history

In January of 1871, Reverend Jesse Peck, the first chairman of the Board of Trustees, described what was, in effect, the University's first master plan: a scheme for the construction of seven new buildings on Comstock's hillside, each to be dedicated to a different academic discipline.

By 1872, Comstock had deeded Walnut Park, the centerpiece of his new "Highlands" subdivision, to the City, and successfully parceled out residential lots to the local elite.

The Panic of 1873 interrupted the institution's further development, and the Hall of Languages housed the entire University for fourteen years.

In 1876, the school offered its first post-graduate courses in the College of Arts and Sciences.

The History Department is one of the oldest departments in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, having granted its first Ph.D. in 1883.

From left to right: Holden Observatory, von Ranke Library (incomplete) and the Hall of Languages, circa 1887.

From left to right: The Hall of Languages, von Ranke Library (now Tolley Administration Building), and Crouse College, circa 1889.

The first exception to the linear development pattern was the placement of the Gymnasium (1891) in the hayfield behind the Hall of Languages.

Von Ranke Library in the foreground, with the Hall of Languages and the Gymnasium behind, circa 1895.

Seven years later, the construction of Steele Hall (1898), the University's first science building, gave definition to another new open space, located to the west of the Gymnasium and to the south of Crouse College.

Its reign as a desirable residential district was short lived; after 1900, fraternities and sororities relocating from Irving Avenue gradually supplanted the original householders.

Campus as viewed from the northeast, from left to right along the Lawn; Smith Hall, the Hall of Languages, the Gymnasium, von Ranke Library and Crouse College, circa 1903.

Aerial perspective of the Revels and Hallenbeck 1906 campus plan.

On September 11, 1907, the transfer of the Von Ranke collection from the old library building marking the opening of the new Carnegie library with a collection of over 71,000 volumes.

From left to right, the Women's Gymnasium, Bowne Hall, Carnegie Library, Steele Hall, Holden Observatory, circa 1910.

Montgomery Schuyler, writing for The Architectural Record, made the following observations about Syracuse's campus in 1911:

In 1915, University benefactor John Archbold purchased the William Nottingham estate, on the hillside above Walnut Park, for use as the Chancellor's residence.

Construction stopped, with no additional development occurring until Slocum Hall was built for the College of Agriculture in 1918.

The 1928 Pope-Baum plan was the most detailed and comprehensive campus plan ever attempted by the University.

SU's school of journalism, now the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, was established at Syracuse in 1934.

In 1948, Landscape Architecture Professor Noreda Rotunno created the first of several plans intended to accommodate the University's exponential population growth.

In 1954, Arthur Phillips was recruited from MIT and started the first pathogen-free animal research laboratory.

The School of Social Work, which eventually merged into the College of Human Ecology, was founded in 1956.

The staggering scope of the 1966 University Hill Plan and its predecessors, together with the con­struction and clearance facilitated by these plans, was driven by a mistaken belief that the enrollment growth of the postwar years would proceed indefinitely.

Bird library, built in 1972, blocked Walnut Park's green axis into campus.

By encouraging the University to plan its campus as a series of districts, rather than as a collection of individual projects, the PID regulations facilitated planners' efforts to build a coherent campus. Therefore, during the 1980's the PID regulations would feature prominently in the University's efforts to develop a new comprehensive land use plan, one that could build sensitively upon the legacies of past campus plans and building campaigns.

These attitudes were evident in the development of the Center for Science and Technology (Sci-Tech) in 1988.

In 2018, the university's Theta Tau fraternity was expelled after a video showing a mock initiation ritual featuring racist, anti-Semitic, ableist, and homophobic language.

In 2019, over ten instances of racist graffiti, swastikas, and other bigoted language were found around campus.