SUNY Fredonia History

SUNY Fredonia, part of New York's vast state university system, is located near the shores of Lake Erie in the northwestern city of Fredonia. The university offers programs of study for both undergraduate and graduate degrees. Roughly 5,000 students are enrolled in its undergraduate programs, while 400 to 500 students are pursuing graduate degrees. The school's history spans the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

Early Years

Originally called the Fredonia Academy, the school first opened for classes on October 4, 1826. Within a year of its opening, the academy boasted an enrollment of 136 students, 81 boys and 55 girls. A sliding scale of tuition dictated the scope of a student's curricula: $2 a quarter for classes in reading and writing; $3 for arithmetic, chronology, geography, grammar, history and rhetoric; and $4 for cartography, chemistry, French, Greek, Latin, mathematics and philosophy. Financial problems arose in the early 1860s and gradually worsened until the academy was forced to close its doors in 1865.

Normal School

With the end of the Civil War, the demand for education seemed to be growing across the newly reunited nation. To provide qualified teachers to meet this demand, New York set up a network of so-called normal schools, the primary task of which was the education of prospective teachers. Fredonia successfully petitioned to host one of these new schools. Late in 1867, the school opened for classes.

Teachers College

The normal school continued in operation until 1948, although in 1942 its name was changed to Fredonia Teachers College. However, throughout its 81 years of existence, the school faced a continuing wave of financial difficulties, making it difficult for the relatively small school to survive.

SUNY

Big changes came in the post-World War II era when New York decided to provide higher education outside the limited scope of agriculture, teaching and technical pursuits. To facilitate this change, the State University of New York (SUNY) was created, incorporating into its network a number of schools that previously had been state-run normal, agricultural and technical institutions. Fredonia became part of the SUNY system in 1948.

New Horizons

Visitors to the campus of SUNY Fredonia would be hard put to imagine its humble beginnings as Fredonia Academy in the early 19th century. The school's campus covers 256 acres with more than 2 million square feet of building space. The school offers more than 110 degree programs, including about 80 for undergraduates and 30 for graduate students.

References

• History of SUNY Fredonia
• SUNY Fredonia
• CollegeBoard: State University of New York College at Fredonia

Resources

• U.S. News & World Report: Best Colleges: SUNY Fredonia
• NextStep: State University of New York College at Fredonia