Louisiana Tech University
Louisiana Tech University is a public research university in Ruston, Louisiana, United States. It is part of the University of Louisiana System and classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".
Louisiana Tech opened as the Industrial Institute and College of Louisiana in 1894 during the Second Industrial Revolution. The original mission of the college was for the education of students in the arts and sciences for the purpose of developing an industrial economy in post-Reconstruction Louisiana. Four years later in 1898, the state constitution changed the school's name to Louisiana Industrial Institute. In 1921, the college changed its name to Louisiana Polytechnic Institute to reflect its development as a larger institute of technology. Louisiana Polytechnic Institute became desegregated in the 1960s. It officially changed its name to Louisiana Tech University in 1970 as it satisfied criteria of a research university.
Louisiana Tech enrolled 12,463 students in five academic colleges during the Fall 2018 academic quarter including 1,282 students in the graduate school. In addition to the main campus in Ruston, Louisiana Tech holds classes at the Louisiana Tech University Shreveport Center, Academic Success Center in Bossier City, Barksdale Air Force Base Instructional Site, and on the CenturyLink campus in Monroe.
Louisiana Tech fields 16 varsity NCAA Division I sports teams and is a member of Conference USA of the Football Bowl Subdivision. The university is known for its Bulldogs football team and Lady Techsters women's basketball program which won three national championship titles and made 13 Final Four appearances in the program's history.
History
Early years
Ruston College, a forerunner to Louisiana Tech, was established in the middle 1880s by W. C. Friley, a Southern Baptist pastor. This institution lasted for seven years and had annual enrollments of about 250 students. Friley subsequently from 1892 to 1894 served as the first president of Hardin–Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, and from 1909 to 1910, as the second president of Louisiana College in Pineville.On May 14, 1894, the Lincoln Parish Police Jury held a special session to outline plans to secure a regional industrial school. The police jury called upon State Representative George M. Lomax to introduce the proposed legislation during the upcoming session. Representative Lomax, Jackson Parish Representative J. T. M. Hancock, and journalist, lawyer, and future judge John B. Holstead fought for the passage of the bill. On July 6, 1894, the proposed bill was approved as Act No. 68 of the General Assembly of Louisiana. The act established "The Industrial Institute and College of Louisiana", an industrial institute created for the education of white children in the arts and sciences.
In 1894, Colonel Arthur T. Prescott was elected as the first president of the college. He moved to Ruston and began overseeing the construction of a two-story main building. The brick building housed eight large classrooms, an auditorium, a chemical laboratory, and two offices. A frame building was also built nearby and was used for the instruction of mechanics. The main building was located on a plot of that was donated to the school by Francis P. Stubbs. On September 23, 1895, the school started its first session with six faculty members and 202 students.
In May 1897, Harry Howard became the first graduate. Colonel Prescott awarded him with a Bachelor of Industry degree, but there was no formal commencement. The first formal commencement was held in the Ruston Opera House the following May with ten graduates receiving their diplomas.
Article 256 of the 1898 state constitution changed the school's name to Louisiana Industrial Institute. Two years later, the course of study was reorganized into two years of preparatory work and three years of college level courses. Students who were high school graduates were admitted to the seventh quarter of study without examination. As years went by, courses changed and admissions requirements tightened. From 1917 to 1925, several curricula were organized according to the junior college standards and were offered leading to the Bachelor of Industry degree. In 1919, the Board of Trustees enlarged the curricula and started granting a standard baccalaureate degree. The first of these was granted on June 15, 1921, a Bachelor of Science in Engineering.
The Constitution adopted June 18, 1921, changed the name of the school in Article XII, Section 9, from Louisiana Industrial Institute to Louisiana Polytechnic Institute, or "Louisiana Tech" for short.
Expansion
The Main Building, also known as Old Main, burned to the ground in December 1936, but the columns that marked the entrance remain in place behind Prescott Memorial Library. By June 1936, construction on a new administration building had begun. On completion in January 1937, it was named Leche Hall in honor of then Governor Richard W. Leche of New Orleans. The building was renamed after the death of former university president, J. E. Keeny, and remains the remodeled Keeny Hall.Louisiana Polytechnic Institute experienced an infrastructure growth spurt in 1939 and 1940. Seven buildings were designed by architect Edward F. Neild and completed at a cost of $2,054,270. These were Aswell Hall, Robinson Hall, Tolliver Hall, Bogard Hall, the S.J. Wages Power Plant, Reese Agricultural Hall, and the Howard Auditorium & Fine Arts Building.
During World War II, Louisiana Polytechnic Institute was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
After World War II, old army barracks were used to construct the student union and bookstore. It was known as the "Tonk" because it resembled a honky tonk. The building was replaced 15 years later but its nickname remained.
In 1959, four students were awarded the first master's degrees by the institution.
University era
In 1962, Foster Jay Taylor became the 12th President of the Louisiana Polytechnic Institute, having succeeded Ralph L. Ropp. During his twenty-five years at president, Dr. Taylor oversaw the transformation of the former Louisiana Polytechnic Institute into Louisiana Tech University. The university's enrollment grew from about 3,000 students in 1962 to roughly 12,000 students in 1987. The first African-American students at Louisiana Tech, James Earl Potts and Bertha Bradford-Robinson, were admitted in the spring of 1965.Most of the modern buildings on the Main Campus were either built or renovated during Taylor's tenure as university president. The main athletic facilities were constructed during the Taylor Era including Joe Aillet Stadium, the Thomas Assembly Center, J.C. Love Field, and the Lady Techster Softball Complex. In addition to the athletic facilities, the 16-story Wyly Tower, Student Bookstore, Nethken Hall, the University President's House, and the current College of Business Building were built on the Main Campus. In order to house the increasing student body of Louisiana Tech, Dr. Taylor led the construction of Graham, Harper, Kidd, Caruthers, and Neilson residence halls.
Taylor's time as Louisiana Tech president also marked the beginning of Lady Techster athletics. In 1974, Taylor established the Lady Techsters women's basketball program with a $5,000 appropriation. He hired Sonja Hogg, a 28-year-old PE instructor at Ruston High School, as the Lady Techsters' first head coach. Under Coach Hogg and her successor Leon Barmore, the Lady Techsters won three National Championships during the 1980s. In 1980, Dr. Taylor founded the Lady Techster Softball team with Barry Canterbury serving as the team's first head coach. The team made seven straight teams to the NCAA softball tournament and three trips to the Women's College World Series during the 1980s.
The first doctorate was awarded in 1971, a PhD in chemical engineering.
In 1992, Louisiana Tech became a "selective admissions" university. This university has increased their admissions criteria four times since 2000 by raising the minimum overall grade point average, composite ACT score, and class ranking.
Louisiana Tech has earned recognition from the Louisiana Board of Regents for its graduation rate and retention rate. According to a report of the Louisiana Board of Regents published in December 2011, Louisiana Tech has the second-highest graduation rate among the fourteen public universities in the state of Louisiana. The 53.3% 6-year graduation rate is the highest in the University of Louisiana System. Louisiana Tech has a 78.64% retention rate among incoming freshmen who stay with the same school after the first year, the top rate in the University of Louisiana System. The average time-to-degree ratio for Tech's graduates is 4.7 years, the fastest in the UL System.
Louisiana Tech became the first in the world to confer a Bachelor of Science degree in nanosystems engineering when Josh Brown earned his degree in May 2007. Continuing its mission as an engineering pioneer, Louisiana Tech also launched the nation's first cyber engineering BS degree in 2012.
, Louisiana Tech has awarded more than 100,900 degrees.
Campus
The campus of Louisiana Tech University is located in Ruston, Louisiana. The major roads that border or intersect the Tech campus are Tech Drive, California Avenue, Alabama Avenue, and Railroad Avenue. Interstate 20 and U.S. Highways 80 and 167 are located within one mile of the Main Campus. In addition, a set of railroad tracks operated by Kansas City Southern Railway bisects the campus near Railroad Avenue.The portion of the Main Campus located west of Tech Drive and north of the railroad include all of the university's major athletic facilities except for J.C. Love Field. The land east of Tech Drive and north of the railroad include the Lambright Intramural Center, J.C. Love Field, and the University Park Apartments. Most of the older residence halls are located near California Avenue and along Tech Drive south of the railroad tracks. The older part of the Main Campus is located south of Railroad Avenue. The Enterprise Campus is located on a plot of land east of Homer Street and bordering the oldest part of the Main Campus.
In addition to the Main Campus, Louisiana Tech also has of land located on the South Campus, of farm land west of the Main Campus, of forest land in Winn, Natchitoches, and Union Parishes, of land in Shreveport, a golf course in Lincoln Parish, of land for an arboretum west of the Main Campus, and a Flight Operations Center at Ruston Regional Airport.