Winthrop University history

1889 - The Winthrop Alumni Association was established.

1891 - The S.C. General Assembly established the South Carolina Industrial and Winthrop Normal College and considered offers from towns competing to be the college's permanent site; Winthrop started a two-year curriculum.

1892 - The first Winthrop College catalog was published.

The school's name had changed in 1893 to "Winthrop Normal and Industrial College of South Carolina", reflecting its mission to prepare some students for industrial jobs.

Construction of the Main Building of Winthrop College, also known as Tillman Hall, 1894.

Nine years later in 1895 it moved to Rock Hill.

1900 - Enrollment topped 500, and Winthrop Kindergarten (now Macfeat Early Childhood Laboratory School) opened.

1911 - The Student Government Association was formed.

1912 - First B.S. and M.A. degrees were conferred, and the Winthrop Training School building (now Withers/W.T.S. Building) was constructed.

1920 - The institution became Winthrop College, the South Carolina College for Women.

1922 - Winthrop student Lucile Godbold won two gold and four other medals in the International Women's Olympiad.

1923 — Winthrop joins the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools

1925 - Winthrop became the second largest women's college in the United States.

Tillman Hall became the focal point of a growing campus that by 1928 was one of the largest women's colleges in the country.

1936 - The Little Chapel was moved from Columbia to Rock Hill and reconstructed at its present site.

1940 - The School of Music's accreditation was Winthrop's first professional accreditation.

1942 - The United States Army Air Force (known as the Army Air Corps, 41st College Training Detachment) and Civilian Pilot Training Program was based at Winthrop in "Fort Bancroft."

In 1943 First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited the university.

Established in 1953, the Southeastern Council of Latin America Studies (SECOLAS) is a non-political and non-profit association of individuals interested in Latin America.

1954 - Winthrop trustees went on record favoring coeducation.

1955 - Uniforms were discontinued.

1957 - Construction of Winthrop Lake was completed.

1961 - Harold B. Gilbreth received the first Distinguished Professor Award.

1962 - The Research Advisory Council (later Winthrop Research Council) was established, and the first Master of Arts in Teaching degree was conferred.

1964 - Cynthia Plair Roddey, Winthrop's first African-American student, enrolled as a graduate student, and the first Master of Science degree was conferred.

1969 - Graduate student Walter Schrader became the first male to receive a Winthrop degree.

1973 - Charles B. Vail was named sixth president, and the Winthrop Foundation was established.

Evolving from a training school to a college with a four-year full curriculum, it also developed a graduate division. It became fully coeducational in 1974.

1977 - Tillman and McBryde Halls were placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

1980 - The first men's baseball game was played, and the Winthrop coat-of-arms was adopted.

1982 - Winthrop Coliseum was completed.

1986 - Martha Kime Piper became Winthrop's eighth president and the only woman to ever head the institution.

1989 - Anthony DiGiorgio became Winthrop's ninth president, establishing core institutional values of service, excellence, diversity, community and leadership.

1990 — History professor Jason Silverman was named the S.C. Governor's Professor of the Year, a first for a Winthrop faculty member.

1993 — The first $1 million endowment to the Winthrop Foundation was announced, a gift from the Pamplin family of Portland, Ore.

1998 — A local couple's $1 million contribution created Winthrop's first endowed chair: the Harry and Becca Dalton Endowed Chair in Environmental Sciences and Studies.

2003 —Winthrop's first capital campaign, "A Lasting Achievement: The Campaign for Winthrop," came to a close with more than $31 million raised.

2005 - Winthrop garnered a $3.8 million grant from the IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence program to pursue molecular biomedical research.

2007 - Construction was completed on Winthrop's first certified "green" building, the Lois Rhame West Health, Physical Education and Wellness Center, as well as on the Glenda Pittman and Charles Jerry Owens Hall.

President Barack Obama spoke at Winthrop in 2008 when he was first a presidential candidate.

2009 — Millions of dollars in federal funds were awarded to Winthrop for such projects as the Richard W. Riley College of Education's NetSCOPE initiative, the McNair Scholars program, and even a steam line for the campus.

2010 — Fire destroyed Owens Hall.

2011 - The university launched the public phase of its second capital campaign, "Distinction: The Campaign for Winthrop." Hardin Family Garden opened at the south end of Scholars Walk.

2013 - Winthrop's 10th president, Jamie Comstock Williamson, served for one year following the retirement of Anthony DiGiorgio after 24 years of service.

2017- Winthrop received the largest estate gift in the university's history— $3 million—to establish a service-focused student scholarship program, thanks to the late Elizabeth Hope Reed '41, '51.

2018 - David Bancroft Johnson was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame.

2019 - Winthrop Athletics launched the varsity eSports program.