Alabama State University

Alabama State University founded in 1867 as the Lincoln Normal School of Marion in Marion. In December 1873, the State Board accepted the transfer of title to the school after a legislative act was passed authorizing the state to fund a Normal School, and George N. Card was named President. Thus, in 1874, this predecessor of Alabama State University became America's first state-supported educational institution for blacks. This began ASU’s history as a “Teacher’s College.”

In 1878, the second president, William Paterson, was appointed. He is honored as a founder of Alabama State University and was the president for 37 of the first 48 years of its existence. Paterson was instrumental in the move from Marion to Montgomery in 1887. In 1887, the university opened in its new location in Montgomery, but an Alabama State Supreme Court ruling forced the school to change its name; thus, the school was renamed the Normal School for Colored Students.

In the decades that followed Lincoln Normal School became a junior college and in 1928 became a full four-year institution. In 1929 it became State Teachers College, Alabama State College for Negroes in 1948 and Alabama State College in 1954. In 1969, the State Board of Education, then the governing body of the university, approved a name change; the institution became Alabama State University. The 1995 Knight vs. Alabama remedial decree transformed ASU into a comprehensive regional institution paving the way for two new undergraduate programs, four new graduate programs, diversity scholarship funding and endowment, funding to build a state-of-the art health sciences facility and a facility renewal allocation to refurbish three existing buildings.

WVAS-FM was launched on June 15, 1984, beaming 25,000 watts of power from the fifth floor of the Levi Watkins Learning Center for two years before moving to its current location at Thomas Kilby Hall. Today, WVAS has grown to 80,000 watts and enjoys a listenership that spans 18 counties, reaching a total population of more than 651,000. In recent years, the station has also begun streaming its broadcast via the Web, connecting a global audience to the university.

The early 1990s witnessed the beginning of WAPR-FM (Alabama Public Radio), which Alabama State University and Troy University, both of which already held station licenses of their own, cooperated with the University of Alabama in building and operating. WAPR-FM 88.3—Selma – The signal reaches the region known colloquially as the Black Belt, about 13 counties in the west central and central parts of Alabama, including the city of Montgomery.

The university experienced some tension with the state government in 2013 and 2014. In December 2012, university president Joseph Silver resigned after only six months in the job. In October 2013, the state governor asked the university to halt its ongoing presidential search to address an audit that alleged that "ASU attempted to thwart and hamper the audit," several trustees received improper benefits, and significant financial mismanagement. The audit was ordered to investigate Silver's claims that he was forced to resign because he questioned "suspicious contracts" at the university. Nine months later, the governor requested the chairman and vice chairman of the university's board of trustees resign for alleged conflict-of-interest violations; the chairman resigned and the governor removed the vice chairman.

Academics

Alabama State University has more than 5,000 students from more than 42 states and over twenty countries.

Alabama State University has eight degree-granting colleges, schools, or divisions.

• College of Business Administration
• College of Education
• College of Health Sciences
• College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences
• College of Science, Mathematics & Technology
• College of Visual & Performing Arts
• Division of Aerospace Studies
• Continuing Education

Alabama State offers 47 degree programs including 31 bachelors’, 11 masters’, two Education Specialist and three doctoral programs, Doctorate in Educational Leadership, Policy, and Law, Clinical Doctorate in Physical Therapy,and a Doctorate in Microbiology. In addition, the university offers the W.E.B. DuBois Honors Program for undergraduate students who meet the high performance criteria.

Alabama State is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, the National Association of Schools of Music, the National Association of Directors of Teacher Education and Certification, the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy, the Commission of Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs, Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education (CAHIIM, the National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST) and the Council of Social Work Education.

Campus

ASU's urban, 172-acre (0.70 km2) campus has Georgian-style red-brick classroom buildings and architecturally contemporary structures. ASU is home to the state-of-the-art 7,400-seat academic and sports facility the ASU Acadome; the Levi Watkins Learning Center; a five-story brick structure with more than 267,000 volumes, the state-of-the-art John L. Buskey Health Sciences Center; which is 80,000 square feet (7,400 m2) facility which houses classrooms, offices, an interdisciplinary clinic, three therapeutic rehabilitation labs, state-of-the-art Gross Anatomy Lab, Laboratory for the Analysis of Human Motion (LAHM), a Women’s Health/Cardiopulmonary lab, and a health sciences computer lab, and WVAS-FM 90.7; the 80,000-watt, university operated public radio station.