Texas A&M University - Kingsville

Texas A&M University–Kingsville was originally projected in 1913 as a state teacher training school to be located in South Texas. A law passed in 1917 to authorize a normal school was suspended because of World War I. In 1923 the Texas legislature changed all normal schools to state teachers' colleges and authorized a new school to be located west of the 101st meridian and south of the twenty-ninth parallel. The locating board chose Kingsville for the site of South Texas State Teachers College, which opened in June 1925; Robert B. Cousins was president. In 1929 the school was changed from a teachers' college to a technical school, and the name was changed to Texas College of Arts and Industries. Originally four divisions of instruction were authorized: liberal arts, industrial arts and commerce, education, and military science. By 1946 teacher training in agriculture and kindergarten had been added, and laboratory facilities in gas engineering were provided. In 1949 the buildings and dormitories were valued at $5 million. The former Naval Auxiliary Air Station east of Kingsville had been adapted to house returning World War II veterans, both students and faculty, and also to provide facilities for model farming and a stock farm. The faculty had 150 members in 1949, and 60 percent of the 2,000 students were male.

In 1967 the name of the institution was changed to Texas A&I University, and the university was organized into six schools: engineering, teacher education, agriculture, arts and sciences, business administration, and graduate studies. In 1989 the school offered majors in more than fifty fields of study, seventeen bachelor's degrees, nine master's, and one doctorate in bilingual education. In spring 1989 the enrollment was 5,783, and the faculty numbered 300 on a campus with thirty-five buildings and 1,000 acres. Texas A&I was accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. In 1977 Texas A&I, the upper-level Corpus Christi State University, and Laredo State University were consolidated into the University System of South Texas, governed by a chancellor and board. On September 1, 1989, the University System of South Texas was dissolved, and the three universities became members of the Texas A&M University System. In 1993 Texas A&I's name was changed to Texas A&M University–Kingsville, and the institution was one of a number of South Texas state universities that would receive additional funding under the South Texas Initiative passed by the Texas legislature.