Lamar University
Lamar University is a public university in Beaumont, Texas, United States. Lamar has been a member of the Texas State University System since 1995. It was the flagship institution of the former Lamar University System. As of the fall of 2024, the university enrollment was 17,850 students. Lamar University is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and named for Mirabeau B. Lamar, the second president of the Republic of Texas.
The university campus has an urban setting and the core campus of LU is 299-plus acres. LU is organized into five undergraduate colleges, one graduate college and an honors college.
History
Louis R. Pietzsch founded a public junior college in Beaumont's South Park area at the direction of the South Park School District. Lamar University started on September 17, 1923 as South Park Junior College, operating on the unused third floor of the new South Park High School. Pietzsch acted as the first president of the college. South Park Junior College became the first college in Texas to receive Texas Department of Education approval during the first year of operation and became fully accredited in 1925.In 1932, the college administration, recognizing that the junior college was serving the region rather than just the community, renamed it Lamar College. It was named for Mirabeau B. Lamar, the second president of the Republic of Texas, who arranged to set aside land in counties for public schools. A statue of him was installed in the quadrangle of the campus near the Setzer Student Center. In 1933, the college was moving toward independence from South Park High School when construction began on new facilities. By 1942, the college was completely independent of the South Park school district, and operations moved to the current campus.
With the end of World War II, an influx of veterans boosted enrollment. The Lamar Board of Trustees asked the Texas Legislature to promote Lamar College to a four-year state college. The initial attempt in 1947 was led in the Texas House of Representatives by Jack Brooks and in the Texas Senate by W. R. Cousins Jr., failed, but the following year the two sponsors again advanced the bill through both houses. On June 14, 1949, Governor Beauford Jester signed the bill creating Lamar State College of Technology.
Enrollment continued to grow throughout the 1950s and 1960s, reaching 10,000 students. Graduate work was authorized in 1960 when master's degrees were offered in several fields. In 1969, Lamar State College opened its first branch at a center in Orange, Texas. In 1970, Lamar State College began offering its first doctoral program, the Doctor of Engineering. In 1971 the college's name was officially changed to Lamar University.
A group of African-American veterans of World War II, barred from admission on the grounds of race and calling themselves the Negro Goodwill Council, protested to Governor Beauford Jester about the exclusion of blacks from Lamar State College. They attempted to block the passage of the bill to change Lamar into a state-supported senior college, which resulted in John Gray, Lamar's president, creating a black branch of Lamar called Jefferson Junior College. It opened with evening classes at Charlton-Pollard High School. In 1952, James Briscoe, a graduate of Charlton-Pollard High School, applied to Lamar. His parents were laborers and members of the Beaumont chapter of the NAACP. The admissions office notified him that based on his transcript, he was qualified to enroll for the spring term of 1951. On January 29, when Briscoe went to register for classes, Lamar's acting president G. A. Wimberly explained that a mistake had been made and suggested he apply to TSUN, now named Texas Southern University. State law, he said, created Lamar for whites only. In the summer of 1955, Versie Jackson and Henry Cooper Jr. became the lead plaintiffs of a class action lawsuit, Jackson v. McDonald, which sought to end Lamar's policy of racial segregation. Lamar Cecil, federal judge, ruled on July 30, 1956, that Lamar's "white youth" only admissions policy was unconstitutional, and that September, a total of twenty-six black students were admitted to the college amid violent protests at the campus gates and throughout the region which continued for several weeks until Texas Rangers arrived and the rule of law was restored.
In 1975, the university merged with Port Arthur College in Port Arthur, Texas, creating Lamar University–Port Arthur. In 1983, state Senator Carl A. Parker sponsored a bill creating the Lamar University System. In 1986, Lamar University–Orange and Lamar University–Port Arthur were granted accreditation separate from the main campus. Lamar Institute of Technology was created in 1990 in Beaumont to provide technical, business, health and industrial education through programs two years or fewer in length.
In 1995, the Lamar University System was incorporated into the Texas State University System. In the fall of 1998, the Lamar University faculty numbered 423 and student enrollment was 8,241. Total enrollment reached 15,000 students in Fall 2012. In the late 1990s, Lamar began undertaking campus improvement projects.
The $19 million center, named the Sheila Umphrey Recreational Sports Center, opened in April 2007.
In August 2007, the university completed construction on Cardinal Village IV, a $16 million expansion of its residence halls. The university completed construction of Cardinal Village Phase V in August 2010 bringing on-campus housing capacity to 2,500 students.
The university, in anticipation of the return of the football program in 2010, renovated and upgraded Provost Umphrey Stadium and a new state-of-the-art Dauphin Athletic Complex. In October 2014, Lamar broke ground for an administration building to be named the Wayne A. Reaud Building. The building houses the newly established Reaud Honors College. Another recent project included renovation of the Setzer Student Center. The renovation project had a $28 million cost. The renovated building was opened on April 12, 2018.
Academics
Lamar offers 96 undergraduate, 50 master's and eight doctoral degree programs in seven academic colleges. The academic colleges are the College of Engineering, College of Education and Human Development, College of Business, College of Fine Arts and Communication, the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Graduate Studies, and the Reaud Honors College. Lamar is classified as a Doctoral Research University by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education and is one of only two universities classified as such within the Texas State University System. Lamar and Kunming University of Science and Technology in southwest China have an exchange program that allows Chinese students to attend Lamar for one year while pursuing their bachelor's degree.The university also has many academic units that fall outside of the five main colleges. The College of Graduate Studies handles graduate students. The Center for Teaching and Learning Enhancement offers training and support to faculty and runs the university's Active and Collaborative Engagement for Students Program. The ACES program is designed to provide support to high-risk students and integrate active learning methods into all core courses at LU. The university also provides secondary education through the Texas Academy for Leadership in the Humanities, stateu.com and the Texas Governor's School.
In the summer of 2009, Lamar University partnered with the University of Texas at Arlington to create an online dual credit program for high school students in Texas, stateu.com. The partnership between the two universities operates on the website stateu.com. Online dual credit courses are available for free to high school students through state funding via .
Recognition, awards and ranking
Lamar was ranked in Tier Two of "National Universities" by the U.S. News & World Report 2015 ranking. According to the site, 76.6% of students who applied to Lamar in 2013 were admitted. Lamar is ranked in several 2015 U.S. News & World Report categories. Lamar was ranked #602 in Forbes 2014 America's Top Colleges report.College of Engineering
The College of Engineering consists of five departments, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Industrial and Systems Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. Each of these departments offers a bachelors, masters and doctoral degree. The bachelor’s program in each department is accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET.College of Business
The university established the College of Business in 1972. Before this time, degrees in business and economics were granted by the Division of Business, which was established in 1951, and the School of Business, established in 1954. All undergraduate and graduate degree programs of the College of Business are accredited by AACSB International.College of Education and Human Development
The College of Education and Human Development comprises five departments: Educational Leadership, Nutrition, Hospitality & Human Services, Health & Kinesiology, Counseling and Teacher Education.Lamar is among the largest educator preparation programs for teachers in the nation due to its large Master in Education programs.