San Antonio College

San Antonio College, San Antonio, was formally opened on September 21, 1925, as University Junior College with an enrollment of 200 students. It is one of the oldest public two-year colleges in Texas. Classes were first conducted in the old Main High School building after dismissal of high school classes for the day. Under the administration of the University of Texas and in the absence of an appropriation to support the junior college, fees were charged on a quarterly basis. The purpose of the college was to provide services and facilities in addition to those offered by the church-related colleges in San Antonio. The state attorney general ruled in December 1925 that operation of a junior college by the University of Texas violated the state constitution; thus, supervision of the college, known as San Antonio Junior College, passed to the San Antonio board of education for the second year of operation. Although tuition covered the cost of instruction, the city chapter of the American Association of University Women underwrote other financial needs for the 1926–27 academic year. In 1926 the college was assigned part of the building on Alamo Street formerly occupied by the German-English School and later by Thomas Nelson Page Junior High School. The college then offered a full-time and evening curriculum. In 1930 the indefinite status of the college was ended when it was made part of the San Antonio School System for a five-year probationary period. Public support for the college insured its continued existence.

James Otis Loftin became president in 1941 and until his death in 1955 was largely responsible for the college's growth. St. Philip's Junior College, an African-American institution, was transferred from the operation of the Episcopal diocese to the San Antonio Independent School District in 1942 as a branch of San Antonio Junior College. In 1945 a proposal for a San Antonio Union Junior College District for metropolitan San Antonio was approved by a substantial voting majority. In August 1946 San Antonio Junior College and St. Philip's Junior College passed from control of the board of trustees. San Antonio College was adopted as the official name in 1948. In 1950 enrollment was 500. All buildings on the thirty-seven-acre San Pedro Avenue campus were constructed after 1950 and include library, administration, classroom, and science buildings (1950), a health building (1951), a student center, a maintenance building, and an annex containing classrooms and a computer center (1954), a fine arts center (1956), the president's home (1958), a chemistry-geology building (1961), Dewey Annex containing departmental offices (1963), Nail Technical Center (1966), Moody Learning Center (1968), Fletcher Administration Center (1972), Nursing Education Building (1972), Koehler Cultural Center (1973), Campus Police Building (1973), Bennett Estate (1974), Child Development Center (1974), Day Care Center (1974), Motor Pool Building (1978), and Maintenance Building (1979). The Baptist, Church of Christ, and Methodist student centers were also constructed during these years.