Lamar University

Lamar University, often referred to as Lamar or LU, is a comprehensive coeducational public research university located in Beaumont, Texas, United States. Lamar confers bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees and is classified as a Doctoral Research University by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. Lamar has been a member of the Texas State University System since 1995. It was previously the flagship institution of the now defunct Lamar University System. As of Fall 2014, the university enrollment was 14,889 students. Lamar University announced conclusion of its first-ever comprehensive campaign on January 22, 2014. The increased campaign goal of $125M was exceeded with a final campaign tally of $132M. Lamar University is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. It is characterized as a National University in the 2011 edition of U.S. News & World Report. Lamar is a member of the stateu online academic partnership, which offers high school students the opportunity to earn college credits before college. Lamar was one of 10 colleges nationwide named to the Great Colleges to Work For Honor Roll by the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2009. In July 2010 Lamar was chosen to join the Gulf Project, a coalition of scientists, policy experts and researchers working to protect Texas' economy and environment in the event of a disaster, such as the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. In August, 2014, Lamar joined the Gulf Coast Cooperative Ecosystems Study Unit, a partnership of universities, governmental agencies, and non-governmental organizations. One of the functions of the GC-CESU is to enhance research. The studies unit numbers over 100 federal government agencies and around 38 universities. Louis R. Pietzsch founded a public junior college in Beaumont's South Park. He had become intensely interested in the junior college movement while enrolled in summer school at the University of Chicago in 1918, and by 1921, was convinced that South Park should have a junior college. Lamar University started on September 17, 1923 as South Park Junior College, operating on the unused third floor of the new South Park High School, Pietzsch acted as the first president of the college. South Park Junior College became the first college in Texas to receive Texas Department of Education approval during the first year of operation, and became fully accredited in 1925. In 1932, the college administration, recognizing that the junior college was serving the region rather than just the community, renamed it as Lamar College. It was named for Mirabeau B. Lamar, the second president of the Republic of Texas. Because he arranged to set aside land in counties for public schools, he is regarded as the "Father of Texas Education." A statue of him was installed in the quadrangle of the campus near the Setzer Student Center. The inscription is: "The cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy and, while guided and controlled by virtue, the noblest attribute of man. It is the only dictator that freemen acknowledge and the only security that freemen desire." In 1933, the college was moving toward independence from South Park High School when construction began on new facilities. By 1942, the college was completely independent of the South Park school district, and operations moved to the current campus. With the end of World War II, an influx of veterans boosted enrollment. The Lamar board of trustees asked the Texas Legislature to promote Lamar College to a four-year state college. The initial attempt in 1947, led in the Texas House of Representatives by Jack Brooks and in the Texas Senate by W. R. Cousins, Jr., failed, but the following year the two sponsors again advanced the bill through both houses. On June 14, 1949, Governor Beauford Jester signed the bill creating Lamar State College of Technology; it was to focus on engineering and science, an emphasis that continues today. African American veterans of World War II who returned to Southeast Texas found they had no opportunities for postsecondary education or vocational training and chafed over Lamar becoming state supported while it still barred their admission solely on the grounds of race. A group of black leaders calling themselves the Negro Goodwill Council protested to Governor Beauford Jester about the dismal educational inequality in the city and the exclusion of blacks from Lamar State College. They attempted to block passage of the bill to change Lamar into a state-supported senior college, which resulted in John Gray, Lamar's president, creating a black branch of Lamar called Jefferson Junior College. It opened with evening classes at Charlton-Pollard High School. In 1952, James Briscoe, a native Beaumonter and graduate of Charlton-Pollard High School, applied to Lamar. Briscoe's parents were laborers and members of the Beaumont chapter of the NAACP. They courageously supported their son's effort to prove that qualified blacks desired more than junior college offerings and wanted to study in Lamar's new four-year degree programs and avoid the inconvenience of going long distances away from home for a BA degree. Briscoe, a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta since 1950, at the urging of his parents and the Beaumont NAACP, applied to Lamar and was accepted. The admissions office notified him that on the basis of his transcript, he was qualified to enroll for the spring term of 1951. On January 29, when Briscoe went to Lamar with his acceptance letter in hand to register for classes, Lamar's acting president G. A. Wimberly met with Briscoe and explained that a mistake had been made and suggested he apply to TSUN, now named Texas Southern University. State law, he said, created Lamar for whites only. In the summer of 1955, Versie Jackson and Henry Cooper, Jr., became the lead plaintiffs of a class action lawsuit, Jackson v. McDonald, which sought to end Lamar's policy of racial segregation. Lamar Cecil, the federal judge the case came before, ruled on 30 July 1956, that Lamar's "white youth" only admissions policy was unconstitutionality and that September a total of twenty-six blacks were admitted to the college amid violent protests at the campus gates and throughout the region for a number of weeks until Texas Rangers arrived and the rule of law restored. In 1975, the university merged with Port Arthur College in Port Arthur, Texas, creating Lamar University-Port Arthur. In 1983, state Senator Carl A. Parker sponsored a bill creating the Lamar University System. In 1986, Lamar University-Orange and Lamar University-Port Arthur were granted accreditation separate from the main campus. Lamar Institute of Technology was created in 1990 in Beaumont to provide technical, business, health, and industrial education through programs two years or fewer in length. In 1995, the Lamar University System was incorporated into the Texas State University System, with the Lamar State College - Orange, Lamar State College - Port Arthur and Lamar Institute of Technology campuses becoming separate entities within the system. In the fall of 1998 the Lamar University faculty numbered 423 and student enrollment was 8,241. Since the reorganization, Lamar University's enrollment has continually increased. Total enrollment reached 15,000 students in Fall 2012. Recently numerous construction projects have revitalized or replaced old buildings. In addition football was revived as a varsity sport. The campus was moved to the current site in 1942 because the school had outgrown its current location and taken on a more regional role. In the late 1990s, Lamar began undertaking campus improvement projects. Most buildings on the campus dated to the late 1960s and 70s. Many older buildings in the northern part of the campus were gutted and refinished one-by-one. In 2001, the University began replacing its 1960s-vintage residence halls with new apartment-style housing facilities, dubbed "Cardinal Village." Older campus housing facilities have been demolished as the Cardinal Village complex has expanded to meet demand. Demand for on-campus housing has risen, coinciding with the opening of the new residence halls. Cardinal Village II, III & IV were built specifically to meet these demands. As of January 2006, a new gourmet food-court style dining hall was opened to provide students with a wider selection of dining opportunities.