Washington State University
Washington State University is a public land-grant research university in Pullman, Washington, United States. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest land-grant universities in the American West. With an undergraduate enrollment of 24,278 and a total enrollment of 28,581, it is the second largest institution of higher education in Washington state behind the University of Washington. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".
The WSU Pullman campus stands on a hill and is characterized by open spaces and a red brick and basalt material palette—materials originally found on site. The university sits within the rolling topography of the Palouse in rural eastern Washington and remains closely connected to the town and the region. The university also operates campuses across Washington at WSU Spokane, WSU Tri-Cities, and WSU Vancouver, all founded in 1989. In 2012, WSU launched an Internet-based Global Campus, which includes its online degree program, WSU Online. In 2015, WSU expanded to a sixth campus at WSU Everett. These campuses award primarily bachelor's and master's degrees. Freshmen and sophomores were first admitted to the Vancouver campus in 2006 and to the Tri-Cities campus in 2007.
WSU's athletic teams are called the Cougars and the school colors are crimson and gray. Following the 2024 collapse of the Pac-12 Conference, most of WSU's six men's and nine women's varsity teams compete in the NCAA Division I West Coast Conference. WSU is one of two remaining members of the Pac-12, which will resume full operations in 2026 with the confirmed addition of six new members. The men's and women's indoor track teams compete in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.
History
Agricultural College, Experiment Station, and School of Science
In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act of 1862 into law, allowing for the creation of land-grant colleges “to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts...in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes." The Hatch Act of 1887 expanded on the Morrill Act, providing federal funds for the establishment of agriculture experiment stations at land-grant colleges. Shortly after attaining statehood on November 11, 1889, the Washington State Legislature began taking steps to claim a land-grant college, and fewer than five months later on March 28, 1890, passed House Bill 90 for the creation of the Agricultural College, Experiment Station and School of Science of the State of Washington. Governor Elisha P. Ferry signed the bill into law a few days later. Soon after, a second act of legislature expanded the school's educational mission to include general arts and sciences. The university and the experiment station would aid enterprise by improving farm management, conducting research, and teaching the skills needed to be better farmers. WSU's role as a statewide institution became clear in 1894 with the launch of its first agricultural experiment station west of the Cascade Mountains near Puyallup.According to the legislation, the site of the land-grant college was to be determined by a three-member committee appointed by the governor, but it stipulated that the site must be located in the southeast corner of the state. After an exhaustive examination of bidding towns such as Yakima and other towns in the Palouse region, the state's new land-grant college opened to 59 students in Pullman on January 13, 1892, offering three major courses of study: agriculture, engineering, and domestic science. Pullman was possibly selected because of a generous land gift by the city and its railroad connections to Spokane and Portland, Oregon. A five-member Board of Regents was appointed with George W. Lilley acting as the school's first President.
The school started out with a faculty of five, with a student-body largely consisting of children from the surrounding community, who, if they were residents of Washington would have attended tuition-free. The year 1897 saw the first graduating class of seven men and women.
The Bryan years
, appointed July 22, 1893, and serving for 22 years, was the first influential president of WSU and considered by many as the true founder of the university. Bryan previously served as the president of Vincennes University in Indiana and was an alumnus of Indiana University and held a graduate degree from Harvard. When Bryan learned he was nominated for the presidency by a friend in Oregon, he had never even heard of the college. Before Bryan's arrival, the fledgling university suffered through significant organizational instability. Under Bryan's term as president, the curriculum included both a practical and liberal arts component, where chemistry, mathematics as well as history, English literature and two foreign languages were core courses, required for graduation regardless of major. Under Bryan, music and art held importance too, in 1905 he gained the approval of the Board of Regents for a School of Music. During this time, a committee approved the decision to change the school colors of blue and pink to the crimson and gray we see today. Bryan guided the college toward respectability and is arguably the most influential figure in the university's history. The landmark clock tower in the center of campus is his namesake. As the college approached the end of its first decade of existence, Bryan and others tried to garner the necessary support to change the name of the school, which resulted in the introduction of a bill to change the school name to “Washington State College” in 1899. This and similar efforts in 1901 and 1903 were defeated with strong opposition for attempting to create another state university which would undermine the clout of the University of Washington in Seattle. However, in 1905 the school was finally able to officially change its name to the “State College of Washington” or more informally as Washington State College.Washington State College
succeeded Enoch Bryan as President of the Washington State College in 1915. That same year, a close friend of his whom he shared a room with while studying at Columbia University, Henry Suzzallo, became the President of the University of Washington. Holland's early years as president and friendship with Suzzallo were challenged during his tenure as president. In 1909, the institutional rivalry between WSC and UW worsened when state legislators, the majority of which held seats in western Washington, were dismayed to find a foreign language department, an English Department headed by a Harvard-educated PhD, a school of architecture, and many departments with graduate students, which they felt expanded beyond the college's scope. The legislative committee promptly advised demoting the college to “trade school” status, an idea which Suzzallo supported. Suzzallo penned a letter to Holland promising to make WSC “the greatest school of agriculture in the world” only if Holland agreed to abandon all other disciplines to UW; Suzzallo's proposal specifically sought to shut down WSC's schools of architecture and pharmacy. After years of wrangling, the Washington legislature decided against limiting the academic mission and scope of WSC. The two presidents and their respective institutions continued to have a row over curriculum and state appropriations until Suzzallo was relieved of his position in 1926 due to the influence of Washington governor, Roland H. Hartley. In trying to outdo his former peer at UW, Holland wanted to build a library that rivaled the grandness of the newly built library at UW that bears Suzzallo's name. Funding for the Holland Library was delayed by the state however until 1950.Budgetary woes hit WSC in the Great Depression years starting in the 1930s. The budget, faculty, salaries, and enrollment slumped dramatically. Enrollment didn't reach pre-Depression levels until 1936 and salaries until 1937 in nominal terms. With the start of World War II, the Washington State College was contracted by the War Department to house and train the Army Signal Corps where they were given pre-flight school training and lessons in Japanese language. The college hosted as many as 1,900 military personnel in the vacated dormitories and fraternities. It was during this time in 1944 however, when WSC saw the exciting introduction of the Cougar Gold brand of sharp white cheddar cheese from the campus creamery. The cheese was developed and gets its namesake from dairy bacteriologist Dr. N.S. Golding who was studying molds for cheese production. After the war ended and the passing of the G.I. Bill, the college went from having virtually no men on campus to being inundated with them. The school had to scramble to accommodate the former servicemen by buying migrant housing and using temporary housing units provided by the federal government. The campus became so crowded, that President Wilson Compton mulled over moving the college to Spokane, but, in 1947, he ultimately determined that it would be impractical.
Washington State University
On September 1, 1959, the state legislature passed a bill unopposed that officially changed the name to Washington State University. The maturing university partly owed the success of this to the establishment of the WSU Honors College, which is one of the oldest in the nation and a highly respected university program for gifted students. The university joined the Athletic Association of Western Universities in 1962, which included the University of Washington, and four other universities in California at the time. In an effort to improve the graduate program and research credentials of WSU, a low-grade nuclear reactor was constructed, funded by Atomic Energy Commission grants, and new doctoral programs were introduced.By the 1970s, WSU's enrollment quadrupled from its level in the 1940s to 14,000 students with an influx from the Baby Boom Generation. President Glenn Terrell took steps to increase funding for undergraduate and graduate education amid the nationwide recession of the mid-1970s. Terrell didn't make any major cuts to the athletics department however, which didn't go unnoticed and was a cause for anger about his leadership among some of the faculty.