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Southern Utah University (SUU) is a public university in Cedar City, Utah. Founded in 1897 as a normal school, Southern Utah University now has over 1,800 graduates each year with baccalaureate and other graduate degrees from its six colleges. SUU offers more than 140 undergraduate and 19 graduate programs. More than 10,000 students attend SUU. SUU's 17 athletic teams compete in Division I of the NCAA and are collectively known as the Thunderbirds. SUU joined the Western Athletic Conference in July 2022. History Branch Normal School In the spring of 1897, Cedar City was notified it had been chosen as the site for the Branch Normal School, the 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. From January through July they continued 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.Milton Bennion was first principal for the Branch Normal School. 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.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 University of Utah. Howard R. Driggs acted as the first English professor at BNS until 1905. During his career, Driggs was both a professor of English education and a 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 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 leading to his appointment as the fourth principal of BNS. Annie Elizabeth Spencer Milne was also on the original BNS staff. She taught physical education and started the school's first basketball team.Porter remained BNS principal until 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 became 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 Utah State University). 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 Zion National Park that are still intact, raising the quality of classes, increasing enrollment, and creating the school's first Greek societies. College of Southern Utah In 1951, Daryl Chase became president 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, who took office in 1955. 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 his direction. He oversaw the construction of the Library (now the Auditorium) in 1955, the 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 Utah Shakespeare Festival 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 was president from 1982 until 1997. During his time he oversaw the creation of the Business Building in 1982 and the Centrum in 1985. Southern Utah University Southern Utah State College was given university status in 1991 under the direction of President Sherratt. Upon 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 NCAA Division I status. Michael T. Benson became president in 2007. Benson received his master's degree from Notre Dame and his doctorate from University of Oxford. During his time as president, he championed the most ambitious fundraising campaign in SUU 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 Big Sky Conference.President Benson concluded his tenure at SUU and Scott L. Wyatt succeeded him in November 2013. Between 2013 and 2014 Wyatt finalized an unprecedented funding campaign, ending in the groundbreaking of the Beverly Taylor Sorensen Center for the Arts in March 2014. He would also go on to launch a 3-year bachelor's degree program in 2020. In March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, SUU shifted almost completely to remote learning for the remainder of the fall and summer 2020 semesters along with the other public universities in Utah. After Wyatt accepted a position in the Utah System of Higher Education Office of the Commissioner, Mindy Benson was named interim president in August 2021. Benson went on to be named the 17th president, the institution's first female president. Administration Since 1969, three administrative bodies have governed SUU: the President's Council, the Board of Trustees, and ultimately the Utah Boards of Regents. The President's Council consists of eight top SUU administrators. These groups convene regularly to discuss issues of top importance to the university and help advise the president on executive decisions. The Board of Trustees, created by the Higher Education Act of 1969, is an integral part of the Uta.... Discover the Suu Athletics popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Suu Athletics books.