Southern Utah University

History

In the spring of 1897, Cedar City was notified it had been chosen as the site for the Branch Normal School, the region's first teaching training school in southern Utah. For the next three months, citizens labored to complete Ward Hall on Main Street for the first school year. In September, the school opened its doors.

School had been in session for two months when officials informed the school administrators that Ward Hall did not comply with state law and that a new building needed to be built on land deeded solely to the state by the next September or the school would be lost.

Cedar City residents came together and in January 5, 1898, a group of residents trudged into the Cedar Mountain through shoulder deep snow. It took them four days to reach the sawmills, located near present-day Brian Head Ski Resort. Upon arrival, they realized the wagons they brought with them could not carry logs through the heavy snow. Sleighs were needed.

The way back was just as hard as the trip up. The snow continued to fall destroying the trail they originally took. It was this phase of their march that an old sorrel horse proved valuable. Placed at the front of the party, the horse would walk into the drifts, pushing against the snow until it gave way. Then he would pause for a rest and then get up and start over again. "Old Sorrel" was credited with being the savior of the expedition.

From January through July they kept up their labors and when September 1898 arrived, Old Main was almost completed. It had a large chapel for religious assemblies, a library and reading room, a natural history museum, biological and physical laboratories, classrooms and offices.

University's first president

was first principal for the Branch Normal School (BNS). Courageous and young, Bennion brought a code of integrity to the students of BNS. He established a self-governing student body. Bennion directed 161 students during his time as principal.

Branch Normal School

The BNS started classes with four teachers, now known as the Founding Four. Bennion, who acted as principal, taught history, geography and physiology classes during his three-year tenure before he left in 1900 to teach at the . acted as the first English professor at BNS until 1905. During his career, Dr. Driggs was both a professor of English education and historian of the American West. SUU still honors his name with the Howard R. Driggs Collection located in the Gerald R. Sherratt Library and plays host to a semi-annual lectures by national scholars. The third, George W. Decker was a southern Utah native and was adamant about teaching from the student's point of view rather from a book. Students loved him so much that a request by the student body to proper authorities was the turning point to his appointment as the fourth principal of BNS. Annie Elizabeth Spencer Milne was also on the original BNS staff and she taught physical education and started the school's first basketball team.

Under the leadership of Nathan T. Porter the Science Building was constructed in 1901—now known as the Braithwaite Building — which doubled as classroom space. Interested in the arts, Porter enhanced student theatrical production and started the school's ballroom dance program.

Porter remained BNS principal till 1904 when George W. Decker took the position. Decker was among the first four faculty members at BNS and also the first southern Utah native to take the position. He served the school for 16 years, seven on the faculty and nine as principal before he was elected to the office of state representative.

Branch Agriculture College

Roy F. Homer took Decker's seat as principal in 1913 and ushered BNS into the next stage as the Branch Agricultural College (BAC). BAC was a branch school of the Utah State Agriculture College (now ). BAC received its third building in 1927 as the Women's Gymnasium—now known as the Hunter Conference Center. It was then that ties were created between the school and that are still intact, raising quality of classes, increasing enrollment and created the school's first Greek societies.

The school continued to expand under the leadership of Henry Oberhansley and . Driggs oversaw the building of the Football Field Stadium in 1947 and the reconstruction of Old Main after it caught fire. Driggs also established a campus program for returning soldiers and expanded studies to a four-year program.

College of Southern Utah

In 1951 Daryl Chase took the president's seat and was responsible for the schools heightened vision and name change to the College of Southern Utah (CSU). The next college president was Royden C. Braithwaite in 1955 and during his tenure CSU campus almost doubled in acreage, of the 28 structures on campus at the time of his death in 1991, very few had not been built or renovated under Braithwaite's direction. He oversaw the construction of the Library (now the Auditorium) in 1955, Science Building (now the General Classroom Building) in 1961, the Music Center in 1967 and an additional Library (now the Electronic Learning Center) in 1969.

A monumental addition to the College of Southern Utah was the birth of the in 1961 by Fred C. Adams. In its first season it attracted 3,276 visitors and in 2012 it reached 130,000.

Southern Utah State College

In 1969 Braithwaite oversaw the school's name change to Southern Utah State College. He also coined the school's motto "Learning Lives Forever" and student enrollment grew from 360 to 2000. Orville D. Carnahan took over in 1978; during his three-year tenure he led the institution in an expansion of academic offerings.

The largest expansion of growth happened under the direction of Gerald R. Sherratt who took the presidential seat in 1982 till 1997. During his time as the SUSC president he oversaw the creation of the Business Building in 1982 and the Centrum in 1985.

Southern Utah University The second oldest buildings on campus, the Braithwaite Liberal Arts Center (left), built in 1899, and the oldest building on campus, Old Main (right), built in 1898. Part of the R. Haze Hunter Conference Center, dedicated in the 1920s, can be seen on the far right

Southern Utah State College was given university status in 1991 under the direction of President Sherratt. Once reaching university status, Sherratt was able to receive funding to construct 14 other buildings during his tenure. Sherratt also helped with the launching of the Utah Summer Games and the athletic program achieving status.

, grandson of Milton Bennion, ushered in SUU's next 100 years starting in 1997. He led movements to restore Old Main and built a teacher-education facility, and added two new colleges and several new baccalaureate and graduate programs.

took over the presidential seat in 2007. Benson received his master's degree from and his doctorate from . During his time as president he championed the most ambitious fundraising campaign in University history, raising more than $90 million of the $100 million goal, including the three largest donations in SUU history. He also oversaw the construction of the new Science Center, Cedar Hall and the Carter Carillon. President Benson heightened academic standards and increased resources for instruction, significantly raised retention rates, and realigned SUU Athletics in the .

President Benson concluded his tenure at SUU and took the presidential seat in November 2013. Since then, Wyatt finalized an unprecedented funding campaign, ending in the groundbreaking of the Beverly Taylor Sorensen Center for the Arts in March 2014