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A Brief History of the University
CSU-Pueblo has served the changing needs of the citizens of Colorado for three-quarters of a century by steadily re-inventing itself to prepare its students for the future and to contribute to the welfare of its community. In 1933, the institution was incorporated as the Southern Colorado Junior College, offering classes on the top floor of the Pueblo County Courthouse. The first class of 35 students graduated in 1935. In 1936, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation, Pueblo’s major employer at the time, donated the first building on the Orman Avenue campus. A year later, local citizens organized the Pueblo County Junior College District to provide tax revenue to support the college, which was renamed Pueblo Junior College. In 1951, it became the first accredited junior college in Colorado.
Economic growth and diversification in the region and the increasing need for the four-year college degree as a qualification for employment in many fields led the Colorado General Assembly to enact legislation, effective in 1963, that transformed Pueblo Junior College into a four-year institution, Southern Colorado State College (SCSC), to be governed by the Board of Trustees of State Colleges. The college received preliminary accreditation from the North Central Association in 1963 and full accreditation in 1966.
By then, four buildings had been erected on the new campus north of Pueblo’s Belmont residential district, where most of the four-year programs were housed, while two-year vocational programs continued on the Orman Avenue campus. In 1974, the activities on the Orman campus were designated the “College for Community Services and Career Education,” and, in 1975, the Colorado General Assembly authorized SCSC to operate the two-year college as a technical community college within the state’s Community College and Vocational System. On July 1, 1975, the General Assembly redefined SCSC as the University of Southern Colorado (USC) and, in 1978, separated the four-year and two-year institutions, placing the university under the governance of the State Board of Agriculture, which also governed the land-grant CSU in Fort Collins, and subsequently designating the two-year college as Pueblo Vocational Community College, now Pueblo Community College.4
In 1986, USC, CSU, and Fort Lewis College in Durango joined to form the Colorado State University System.5 After much planning and discussion of how best to upgrade the institution in view of the demand for excellent undergraduate and selected graduate programs, the General Assembly passed legislation in 2002 renaming the university Colorado State University-Pueblo and defining its statutory mission as follows:
a regional, comprehensive university, with moderately selective admissions standards. The University shall offer a broad array of baccalaureate programs with a strong professional focus and a firm grounding in the liberal arts and sciences. The University shall also offer selected master’s level graduate programs.
(House Bill 02-1324, May, 2002)6
CSU-Pueblo is a major regional educational resource for economic growth, cultural enrichment, and social development to enhance the quality of life of Colorado’s citizens. As such, the university is committed to community and regional involvement, addressing the economic, social, cultural, and educational development concerns in southern Colorado and the state in general. Engagement in the region is a distinctive, fundamental purpose of the university and provides students with additional  opportunities for leadership development, career preparation, and public service. Designated as an Hispanic Serving Institution by the federal government for seven years, CSU-Pueblo has a particular commitment to serve as an educational resource to the Latino communities of Pueblo and southern Colorado, providing access to higher education and assistance in addressing economic and social problems.
In compliance with its current legislated role and mission, which mandate, among other things, “excellence in teaching and learning,” “professional, career-oriented, and applied programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels,” “strong programs in the liberal arts and sciences,” and collaboration with CSU and other institutions to “enhance and/or offer academic programs” and “conduct research, scholarship, and creative activity,”7 CSU-Pueblo has aggressively reviewed and terminated, realigned, or redesigned outmoded or under-enrolled programs while instituting new programs for which there is demonstrated demand. Cooperative arrangements with the CSU library provide easy access to its much larger collections for faculty and students at CSU-Pueblo, and the CSU-Pueblo library itself now provides advanced electronic resources of all kinds to support research and scholarship.
The university has recently confronted and is striving to overcome a number of significant challenges. Like all institutions of higher education in Colorado, CSU-Pueblo faced severe budgetary constraints from 1999 through 2005 due to reductions in state support resulting from the recession and, subsequently, by provisions in the state constitution that limit spending growth. These problems were exacerbated for CSU-Pueblo by declining FTE enrollments over a 10-year period before 2004-2005, resulting in the need to reduce faculty, staff, and administrative positions. Enrollments have recently increased somewhat, and the budgetary picture has improved due to moderate tuition increases and the passage of a referendum partly releasing the state from the constitutional spending limitations. As a result, the university can now fill some vacant positions and move forward with pending renovation projects that will directly address pressing needs, especially for athletic facilities and the library. The university’s response to these challenges is discussed in more detail under Criterion Two.
4Pueblo Community College, “Discover Our History,” http://www.pueblocc.edu/AboutUs/History
5Fort Lewis College separated from the CSU System in 2002.
6Colorado State University-Pueblo, “Mission Statement,” http://www.colostate-pueblo.edu/About/MissionStatement.htm (1-22-06). See also Colorado State University-Pueblo Catalog Issue 2006-2007, 12-13 (http://www.colostate-pueblo.edu/catalog/)
7See “Mission Statement.” The university’s several mission documents are discussed in detail under Criterion One.
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