California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt
California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt is a public university in Arcata, California. It is one of three polytechnic universities in the California State University system and the northernmost campus in the system.
The main campus, situated hillside at the edge of a coast redwood forest, overlooks Arcata, much of Humboldt Bay, and the Pacific Ocean. The college town setting on the California North Coast, north of Eureka, north of San Francisco, and 654 miles north of Los Angeles, is notable for its natural beauty. It is the westernmost four-year university in the contiguous United States. Humboldt is a Hispanic-serving institution.
The university is divided into three colleges: the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; the College of Natural Resources and Sciences; and the College of Professional Studies. It offers 58 bachelor's degree programs, 14 master's degree programs, 76 minors, and 4 credential programs.
History
Humboldt State Normal School was established as a teacher's college on June 16, 1913, by California governor Hiram Johnson. It was one of about 180 institutions founded by state governments to train teachers for the rapidly growing public schools. The cities of Arcata and Eureka competed with one another to host the new campus. Arcata was selected after William Preston and the Union Water Company donated to serve as the site of the new school's campus. It opened on April 6, 1914, before construction at the location was complete, in the former Arcata Grammar School building, with 78 students enrolled and 5 faculty members teaching. The first class, comprising 15 women, graduated on May 26, 1915.The school was put under the jurisdiction of the California Department of Education, renamed Humboldt State Teacher's College and Junior College, and moved to its current location in 1921. In 1924, during the presidency of Ralph Waldo Swetman, the Associated Students and the Alumni Association were organized and The Foghorn, the first student newspaper, was published. Bachelor's degrees began being offered in 1927. The school was renamed Humboldt State College in 1935, and the following year an official mascot was adopted: the Lumberjack. In 1937, the students opened a cooperative bookstore and soda fountain, which would exist for the next 40 years as the center of student life.
During World War II, Arcata's city defense council suggested camouflaging Founder's Hall, which is visible from the Pacific Ocean, so it would not be a target for Japanese submarines. The council made its request in 1942, but Founder's Hall was not painted until the spring of 1944. The building remained camouflage green until 1948. Over the course of the war, President Arthur Gist corresponded with hundreds of the students who had left Humboldt State to serve in the war. The "Arthur Gist Letters," an archive of more than 1,000 individual letters from 365 servicemen and women who wrote to Gist while serving in the military, were donated to the school after his death and are available for viewing at Cal Poly Humboldt Library's Special Collections & Archives.
Graduate programs were first offered in 1947. Under President Cornelius H. Siemens in 1952, HSU continued expanding by accepting students from abroad, including some from Yugoslavia, Germany and the Near East, as well as U.S. territories such as American Samoa, Guam and Hawaii. KHSU began broadcasting from the school as a 10-watt carrier current radio station in 1947, and on October 17, 1960, it became the first licensed, non-commercial station operated by a state college in California. Also in 1960, the college became a part of the newly-formed California State College system. The school's junior college program, terminated in 1962, was re-established in 1964 at College of the Redwoods, located only to the south in Eureka. The two institutions maintain a close working relationship, with many students transferring to Humboldt after graduating from CR.
Student activism on campus rose through the 1960s and early 1970s, peaking in a protest of about 800 students against the Vietnam War on October 15, 1969. This was followed by another protest with nearly 3,000 students who planned to boycott classes after the Cambodian campaign. With similar events taking place across the state, Governor Ronald Reagan shut down the CSC system in May 1970 for five days. The 1970s also saw the rise of feminist, ethnocultural, and LGBT groups, and though the Women's Center was the only one to survive through the 1980s, most groups reappeared by the mid-1990s.
Alumnus David Philips established the Humboldt Film Festival in 1967, now one of the oldest student-run festivals in the world.
In 1972, the college was renamed California State University, Humboldt, however it still continued to be popularly referred to as "Humboldt State." Reflecting this, its name was simplified to Humboldt State University in 1974. Enrollment first surpassed 7,500 in 1974, with a peak of 8,790 in 2015, making it one of the smallest in the CSU system throughout its existence. Through the 1980s, adult learners became a large part of Humboldt State's student body, and in 1986, 40% of the students were over the age of 25. That number has since decreased to.
In 1987, students and activists founded the optional Graduation Pledge of Social and Environmental Responsibility, with the stated purpose of encouraging graduating students to be mindful of the social and environmental impacts of their employment as they enter the workforce or continue their education. Today, over one hundred post-secondary educational institutions worldwide use the pledge in some capacity.
On April 22, 2024, dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters occupied Siemens Hall as part of a wider movement of occupation protests against the Gaza war. Protesters renamed the building to "Intifada Hall" and managed to repel an initial police incursion. At some point protesters occupied a second building, Nelson Hall. On April 30, a large law enforcement task force stormed both occupied buildings and arrested at least 35 people, bringing the occupation to an end.
The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights announced on March 18, 2025 that Cal Poly Humboldt was one of 44 schools being scrutinized under Title VI at the direction of Secretary Linda McMahon, in relation to a partnership with The Ph.D. Project, a nonprofit organization that helps underrepresented individuals earn doctorates and secure business school faculty positions. The investigation also included two other public universities in California: Cal State San Bernardino and UC Berkeley. In response, a spokesperson for CSU stated that the organization is reviewing the claim and intends to cooperate, but that it does not discriminate and complies with all relevant state and federal laws.
Name
The university, founded as Humboldt State Normal College in 1913, took the name of the county and nearby bay, which was originally named after the famous German scientist Alexander von Humboldt.On May 23, 1972, fourteen of the nineteen CSU campuses were renamed to "California State University," followed by a comma and then their geographic designation. The five campuses exempted from renaming were the five newest state colleges created during the 1960s. The new names were very unpopular at certain campuses. Over the objections of CSU Chancellor Glenn Dumke, state Assemblyman Al Alquist proposed a bill that would rename the San Jose campus back to San Jose State. A few years later, some other CSU campuses, the Humboldt campus among them, also secured passage of similar legislation, and California State University, Humboldt was renamed Humboldt State University from 1974 until 2022.
On January 26, 2022, the university was officially renamed to California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, becoming the third polytechnic university in the state. The change is backed by a $458 million investment from the state of California.
Academics
The university is divided into three colleges: the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; the College of Natural Resources and Sciences; and the College of Professional Studies. There are 48 undergraduate majors and 69 minors. The two largest majors are biology and art, both with over 20 faculty members and extensive facilities on- and off-campus. This CSU campus offers a wildlife undergraduate degree. There are several credential programs and fourteen master's programs, of which natural resources and social work are the largest. The new Energy, Environment, and Society graduate program is unique to the CSU, and provides graduates with interdisciplinary training in engineering, economics, and climate policy.The University Library supports students and faculty from all three academic colleges. Humboldt State University Press was launched in 1991 to showcase research and scholarship across the campus. The Forestry department building's walls are completely paneled with different species of wood. The building was rebuilt in October 1980 after the original building was burned down. The original building stood for 17 years before an arsonist, whose identity is still unknown today, set the building on fire in 1979.
Cal Poly Humboldt is one of only two universities in California to offer a major in botany; the other is California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Its botany program is the nation's largest undergraduate program. Cal Poly Humboldt is the only university in California to offer a degree in rangeland resources and wildland soil science. The Native American Studies major and the Oceanography major are also unique to the California State University system. The university offers unique minors including multicultural queer studies, scientific diving, and appropriate technology.
The university's location on the North Coast provides access to the Pacific Ocean, lagoons, marshes, estuaries, and the Fred Telonicher Marine Laboratory, which provides opportunities for "hands-on" experiences and research for the sciences. The Marine Lab was opened in 1966, the lab is open during the academic school year.
Cal Poly Humboldt's fire science program teaches modern techniques for managing wildfire, and an advanced training program is offered for Forest Service employees and similar professionals.
The college of eLearning & Extended Ed is a self-supporting outreach department of Cal Poly Humboldt that provides a variety of academic, professional development and personal enrichment opportunities. While the CEEE programs are open to almost everyone, there is an emphasis on providing access to those community members who are not matriculated students at the university. Non-matriculated students may take some regular university courses through the CEEE Open University program. High school students may take regular university courses through the CEEE High School Concurrent Enrollment Program. Also, those aged 60 and over may take regular classes through the Over 60 Program. There are also a variety of online degree programs offered through the college. The CEEE also offers a wide range of diverse and eclectic programs. Examples include music and art programs for children, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute for those aged 50 and over, foreign language classes, travel-study programs, continuing education for teachers, MFT/LCSW, nurses, and law enforcement. In 1998 Humboldt State University opened the HSU First Street Gallery in Old Town Eureka, expanding community access to the university's cultural and fine arts programs. In 2007, the university further expanded its presence in Eureka with the opening of the HSU Humboldt Bay Aquatic Center, a $4.5 million aquatic facility on the bay in Old Town Eureka. Future plans include a new HSU Bay and Estuarine Studies Center. This new facility will be closer to the Coral Sea, the only vessel in a U.S. educational institution solely dedicated to undergraduate research. The new facility would be considerably larger than the other existing facility, the Fred Telonicher Marine Laboratory in Trinidad, north.
Cal Poly Humboldt Professor Steve Sillett has conducted groundbreaking research on redwood forest canopies and was featured in a 2009 cover story in National Geographic. He holds the Kenneth L. Fisher Chair in Redwood Forest Ecology, the only endowed chair in the world dedicated to a single tree species.