Chicago State University

Chicago State University is a public university in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Founded in 1867 as Cook County Normal School by the Cook County Board of Commissioners, it was established as the first teacher training school in Cook County. In 1949, when it was known as Chicago Teachers College, the institution was divided into two branches, with one eventually becoming Northeastern Illinois University. The state government of Illinois began funding the institution in 1951 and assumed full control in 1965. It was renamed the current name in 1971. CSU is a predominantly black university. As of 2025, CSU had an 11 percent graduation rate within a four-year period of study.

History

Early history: 19th century

Cook County Normal School was founded in 1867 as Cook County’s first teacher training school largely through the initiative of John F. Eberhart, the Commissioner of Schools for Cook County. Eberhart noted that Cook County schools lagged far behind their counterparts in the City of Chicago, especially in terms of the quality and competence of instructors. He convinced the County Commissioners to hold a teacher training institute in April 1860; its success convinced the commissioners of the need for a permanent school to educate teachers. In September 1867, the Cook County Board of Commissioners created a Normal school at Blue Island on a two-year experimental basis; Daniel Sanborn Wentworth was appointed as the first principal.
The school opened in 1869 as a permanent institution in Englewood, which at that time was a village beyond the city-limits of Chicago at that time. After Wentworth died in 1883, he was replaced by Colonel Francis Wayland Parker, a towering figure in the history of American education. Parker was an educational innovator who helped construct the philosophy of progressive education, which has decisively shaped American schooling over the past century. Dedicated to the proposition that the nature and interests of the child should determine curricular decisions, not vice versa, progressive reformers from the 1890s forward tried to banish what they saw as oppressive and authoritarian standards of instruction. Parker urged teachers to grant pupils the freedom to learn from their environment, to let curiosity rather than rewards or punishments provide their motivation, and to advance American democracy by democratizing their classrooms. John Dewey wrote in The New Republic in 1930 that Parker, "more nearly than any other one person, was the father of the progressive educational movement." Parker believed that education was the cornerstone of a democracy, and that to achieve this end rote memorization should be replaced with exploration of the environment. Parker's Talks on Pedagogics preceded Dewey's own School and Society by five years, and it is one of the foundational texts in the progressive movement.
By the 1890s, Cook County was unable to provide the requisite support for its Normal School. Since many graduates found employment in the Chicago Public Schools system, it was natural that the city would take over, though initially it was very resistant to the idea. In 1897, the Chicago Board of Education assumed responsibility for what was now the Chicago Normal School. Shortly thereafter, Francis W. Parker, the school's renowned principal, resigned after the Board failed to implement the recommendations of a school system commission headed by William Rainey Harper of the University of Chicago. Harper suggested raising the standards for admission to the Normal School, increasing the total number of teachers trained, and strengthening oversight of graduates once they were working in the public schools.
Parker was replaced by Arnold Tompkins. Tompkins was an Hegelian who introduced key reforms that helped mold the institution's philosophy. Tompkins declared his dissatisfaction with the practice school then used as a laboratory for student-teachers. He wanted instructors to gain real world experience in Chicago's public schools, and he encouraged their placement in poor, immigrant communities. From that point forward, the school would be characterized not just by its innovative pedagogical practices, but also by its commitment to expanding opportunity to underserved sectors of society.

Early 20th century

Tompkins was succeeded as president by Ella Flagg Young, a pioneering educator in her own right. Young received a PhD under John Dewey at the University of Chicago, and after leaving Chicago Normal School served as Superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools system. She attempted to expand the curriculum to three years, but was stymied by the Board of Education. After Young left to become Superintendent in 1909, William Bishop Owen became Principal of CNS.
In 1913, the school was renamed Chicago Normal College, with higher admissions standards and several new buildings gradually added to the campus. In 1926, the college moved to a three-year curriculum, with heavier emphasis placed on traditional academic subjects as opposed to pedagogy. The school was an increasingly attractive educational avenue for Chicago's immigrant communities, who could get inexpensive preliminary schooling before transferring to a university. However, when the Great Depression began in 1929, severe budget shortages forced the college to curtail its operations, and almost eventuated in its closing. In 1932, the Board of Education budget shrank by $12 million. To many, an obvious strategy for economizing was to close the Normal College, since there were no positions in the school system for trained teachers anyway.
The faculty and students campaigned vigorously to keep the college open. Pep rallies, publications, and the efforts of immigrant communities were all part of the mobilization in favor of continued operations. As the economy stabilized, the threat to dissolve the college receded, though it did not disappear. Meanwhile, interest in the school rose, as financial destitution forced many Chicago-area students to forgo residential institutions elsewhere for a commuter campus closer to home.
In 1938, the school again changed its name, this time to Chicago Teachers College to reflect the recent adoption of a four-year curriculum. President John A. Bartky had ambitious plans for invigorating instruction through a new commitment to the liberal arts and a doubling of the time devoted to practice teaching. In addition, a Master of Education degree was offered for the first time. However, Bartky's reforms were interrupted by the outbreak of World War II, which depleted the faculty and student body alike. Bartky himself enlisted in the Navy in 1942, and never returned to the college. In his absence, the Chicago Board of Education reversed most of his curricular innovations.
After the war ended, Raymond Mack Cook was hired as Dean. Cook's primary achievement was to convince the state of Illinois to take over funding of the college. The city was no longer able to fund the institution adequately, and in 1951 Governor Adlai Stevenson signed legislation that reimbursed the Board of Education for its operating expenses on a permanent basis. In 1965, Cook succeeded in convincing the state take responsibility for the college entirely.

1950–1979: Name changes, new location

As the demographic composition of the south side of Chicago changed, increasing numbers of African-American students began to attend the college. By the 1950s, nearly 30% of the student body was black. At the same time, three branches of Chicago Teachers College opened elsewhere in the city; these eventually became Northeastern Illinois University. During these years Chicago Teachers College and its branches educated a preponderance of the students who became Chicago Public School system teachers.
Once the state of Illinois took over control of the institution, the student body and programs offered rapidly expanded. The college experienced two more name changes, becoming Chicago State College in 1967 and Chicago State University in 1971, a year before moving to a new campus. By the mid-1960s the college's infrastructure was deteriorating and tensions between the majority white student body and the mostly black surrounding neighborhood were on the rise. Like many campuses, Chicago State College experienced a burst of student activism in 1968 and 1969 as black students and faculty demanded greater attention to their needs and interests and closer relations with the neighborhood. The administration responded by creating an African-American Studies program and cultural center.
In 1972, the university moved to its new location at 9501 S. King Dr., between Burnside and Roseland. The state purchased the site of the Burnside Shops from the Illinois Central Railroad. Classes were suspended for 2 weeks in November to complete the move.
In January 1975, 5,000 students signed a petition on a scroll requesting that President Gerald Ford give the commencement address at graduation that summer. On July 12, 1975, President Ford gave the commencement address at the ceremony held in the Arie Crown Theatre at McCormick Place and received an honorary doctor of laws degree.

Late 20th century

Shortly thereafter, President Milton Byrd announced his resignation. His replacement, Benjamin Alexander, was the institution's first African-American leader. Under Alexander's command the school received full 10-year accreditation for the first time in its history. Alexander pushed hard to foster multiculturalism, as the African-American portion of the student body swelled from 60% at the outset of the 1970s to over 80% by 1980. These shifting demographics encouraged a debate over whether CSU should be considered a predominantly African-American institution, akin to the HBCUs or whether it should retain a multicultural and multiracial identity. That debate has continued in some form ever since.
President Benjamin Alexander hired Dorothy L. Richey, a Tuskegee University graduate to become the first woman appointed head of athletics at a co-educational college or university in the United States. Her teams excelled during her first year as athletic director in 1975.
The school struggled in the 1980s with enrollments, budgets, and graduation rates. President Dolores Cross helped introduce a sharp increase in enrollment and retention in the 1990s. Enrollment rose 40%, nearing 10,000. The Chicago Tribune dubbed Chicago State "Success U."
In 1990, Gwendolyn Brooks, the well-known poet, was hired as a Distinguished Professor; she taught classes at CSU up until her death. Brooks protégé and English professor Haki R. Madhubuti established a writing center, now called the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing, which hosts a yearly conference and offers the only MFA degree in the country to focus on African American literature.