A is for Africana Studies.

In keeping with the concerns of the modern day civil rights and Black Power movements that were taking place across the nation during the 1960s, a group of faculty members—predominantly white, since the institution had as yet hired very few black faculty members—began to discuss developing an interdisciplinary department centered on the study of African American history, culture, and role in society—a focus that had not traditionally been part of State’s curricula.  The following year, an interdisciplinary major was established that brought together relevant courses from a variety of departments.  At the same time, the Black Student Council was formed, which supported the program. Differences of opinion between the administration and some African Americans regarding the program’s purpose marked its early years.  Administrators were calling for a more strictly academic focus, while some black community members wanted the program to have a greater concentration on the movement. 

Additional issues regarding lack of personnel and resource allocation also arose and continued through the 1970s.  In 1972, the department of Afro-American Studies (now known as Africana Studies) was established and recently celebrated its 30^th anniversary.

Four of the founding faculty members of the SDSU Africana Studies department

A is for Associated Students.

The Associated Students (AS), an independent, self-directed organization, represents the students of San Diego State University. AS was not San Diego State’s first student representative organization, however. Earlier groups formed at the State Normal School (the university’s original name) but did not thrive, until the establishment of the Associated Student Body in 1913. The Associated Students, as it is known today, dates back to 1922 when the governing bodies of the state Normal School and the junior college combined.

Responsibilities of the group included then, as now, budget management and student-activity planning. Until 1956, students paid a voluntary fee that they themselves established. For a number of years, beginning in the 1920s, two offshoots of AS existed, Associated Women Students and Associated Men Students (often called Stags early on).

Brochure produced by SDSU Associated
Students, c. 1990s.

B is for Samuel T. Black.

A native of England, Samuel T. Black has the distinction of being this institution’s first president. San Diego State was founded as the State Normal School of San Diego in 1897.

Its Board of Trustees selected Black, an experienced teacher and administrator, as well as the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, to begin effective 1 October 1898. He led the school through its first twelve years.

Samuel T. Black, president of the State Normal School of San Diego, 1898-1910

They then settled on purple and gold, but the athletes found that the gold did not look attractive when sweating occurred. Left to a student vote, crimson and black were chosen in 1928 and have been a part of school tradition ever since.

White & Gold (yearbook) by the State Normal School of San Diego Senior Class, 1902.

D is for Daily Aztec.

In 1913, students voted to establish a student newspaper, The Normal News Weekly.The Paper Lantern became the paper’s new name in 1921. When the term “Aztec” gained popularity on campus to refer to the sports teams during the mid-1920s, the newspaper took on the name The Aztec; the first issue appeared in September 1925. Although no further name changes to the paper occurred when the San Diego State campus moved to Montezuma Mesa in 1931, its staff had to share headquarters in a shack with the other campus publications. A decade later, additional challenges arose during World War II when the ration system called for The Aztec to decrease in size and be printed on lower-quality paper.

Staffing proved tricky also, since editors and other staff members found themselves involved in the war. The newspaper forged on, however, and became a daily in 1960. At that time, it was renamed The Daily Aztec (with some variations during the early years), a name it continues to carry today.

The first staff of The Aztec, pictured in the Del Sudoeste, 1926.

E is for Expositions.

San Diego State played a major role in each of the world’s fairs that took place in Balboa Park. During the 1915-1916 Panama-California Exposition, State Normal School students participated in programs and designed exhibitions. Faculty planned field trips to the exposition, and the 1915 commencement ceremony occurred in the park. That year’s summer session, traditionally a major aspect of the Normal School’s offerings, was even more significant because it was held in conjunction with the exposition activities. The courses were sponsored by the Normal School, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the School of American Archaeology, and the Montessori Institute. Educator Maria Montessori, who created the method for teaching young children that bears her name, taught one class and visited the Normal School campus. The State students were part of two theatrical events: a performance by the senior class of English professor Irving Outcalt’s play Admetus and the Shakespeare Festival of 1916. The 1935-1936 California-Pacific Exposition served as a good promotional tool for the college and provided students with jobs during the Depression Era. They held several types of positions, including working on the public relations committee and driving carts. Students and faculty displayed their art and other projects.

The Palace of Education featured a continuously running lantern-slide presentation of the campus and its activities. Two State College Days were designated—9 November 1935 and 24 May 1936—and featured performances by performing and visual arts students, as well as sports events.

Example of Training School (part of the State Normal School) projects exhibited during the exposition, 1916.

F is for Faculty.

President Samuel T. Black, San Diego State’s first president, established a strong founding faculty for the State Normal School, drawing graduates from such institutions as Stanford University, Pomona College, the University of California, and the University of Chicago. Faculty members at that time focused on the following areas: biological sciences, drawing, education, English, history and geography, household arts, manual training, mathematics, physical training, physiology, and sociology.

During these early years, campus social activities sometimes included students and faculty members alike. Both groups would attend parties and some professors may well have had Sunday afternoon teas at their homes for students.

Faculty of the State Normal School of San Diego, c. 1899-1900.

F is for Founder’s Day.

Founder’s Day was once one of the most significant events on the San Diego State campus, which linked the college to the local community. The event began as Dedication Day, observed on May 1 every year to commemorate the anniversary of the dedication of the Normal School’s original building in 1899. It began with a morning program that featured speeches, music, and poetry. During the afternoon, Normal School and Training School students would dance around an English-style Maypole, a common activity for college students across the country at that time.

The Dedication Day tradition carried over to the Montezuma Mesa campus site as well, with the laying of the cornerstone being one activity that occurred during the 1931 event. Dedication Day was renamed Founder’s Day in the mid-1930s during the presidency of Walter Hepner. It continued to be celebrated annually on May 1 and featured open houses, exhibitions, and programs.

The Founder’s Day Committee, 1959.

G is for Gateway Center.

SDSU began to expand several of its outreach initiatives during the 1980s, including its Asian Pacific studies programs and those in the College of Extended Studies.

August 1994 marked the opening of the Gateway Center, a structure that houses these programs, as well as KPBS radio and television studios, San Diego’s public broadcasting stations. The building was financed by private funds, some of which came from Japanese donors.

H is for Handbooks.

Sometimes called the “Freshman Bible” or the “Aztec Bible,” pocket-sized handbooks published by the Associated Students were first distributed to students in fall 1922 as a welcome to San Diego State.

(San Diego) State College Handbook,1940-1941
Cartoon excerpts from the 1950-51 student handbook

I is for Imperial Valley Campus.

An act of the California state legislature established San Diego State’s Imperial Valley campus in 1959. Located in the city of Calexico in the Imperial Valley on the Mexican border, this campus serves the desert area of southeastern California. The earliest course offerings centered on teacher training, a trend which lasted into the 1970s.

This division now offers the last two years of undergraduate education, as well as graduate programs and teaching-credential programs. It operates under the same academic calendar as the San Diego campus.

The Imperial Valley Campus of SDSU, 1992.

J is for Japan Studies Institute.

During the 1980s, SDSU expanded its Pacific Rim studies programs. In 1984, it established the Japan Studies Institute to develop research, curricula, and programs that relate to Japan.

When it was founded, the institute was the only program of its type in the region. Part of the department of Asian Studies, the institute continues to serve the San Diego State campus, the local community, and Japanese universities.

K is for KPBS.

The year 1960 heralded the creation of KPBS-FM, an educational radio station that was the first for a California state college.

KPBS-FM and KPBS-TV serve as San Diego’s public broadcasting stations and as a training lab for students. Since 1995, the stations have been housed in the Copley Telecommunications Center, part of the Gateway Center building.

KPBS wing (Copley Telecommunications Center) of the Gateway Center, 1987.

L is for Library.

It may be difficult to believe that the San Diego State library once housed only 9,500 volumes. Of course, this was the case circa 1912, during some of the earliest years of the university’s history. President Edward L. Hardy added 1,500 volumes to the library’s collection after he assumed office in 1910, which led to the increased total. Yet the library has not always grown at the same pace as the rest of the campus. In 1930, when librarian John Paul Stone began work, improvements started to take place. The library added its 100,000th volume in 1944 with The Lady’s Home Magazine (1858). By the late 1940s, the library consisted of the stacks, two reading rooms (one for elementary school students and one for college students), a reference room, a periodical room, and a reserve book room. In 1959, a 40,000-square-foot addition opened, part of a period of campus expansion, but it was still too small to accommodate the library’s size. Nearly a decade later, construction began on what would become the Malcolm A. Love Library. Situated in the center of campus, the Love Library opened in 1971. The approximately 309,000- square-foot structure cost nearly $6.5 million.

In 1996, the Infodome library addition opened, which added 201,000 square feet to the library. Its cost came to $20.6 million. The number of volumes has topped one million…quite a change from the early 20th century.

Interior shot of the State Normal School Library, 1914.

L is for Lipinsky Institute.

In 1985, the College of Arts and Letters established the Lipinsky Institute for Judaic Studies at San Diego State.

Funded by an endowment largely contributed by philanthropists Bernard and Dorris Lipinsky and sustained by other members of the Jewish community, the institute offers undergraduate courses, lectures, and presentations. It coordinates the university’s Jewish Studies program, among its other services.