PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY The story of Portland State University is a story of challenges successfully met, and of fortitude repeatedly shown in the face of daunting obstacles. Established as the Vanport Extension Center in 1946 to meet the educational needs ofGIs coming home from the battlefields of the Second World War, the school found its first home in a former federal housing project in North Portland, and its first director in Stephen E. Epler. But even as those first veterans finished their programs, the need for public higher education in Pordand continued to grow; years of patient effort by legislators Richard Neuberger and Robert Holmes culminated in 1955 with the establishment ofPortland State College—a four-year, degree-granting institution. Its entire campus was the building then called Old Main (now Lincoln Hall); fewer than 3,000 students were enrolled. Today,Portland State'scontinuing growth reflects the University's role as a center for teaching, research, and public service. Its major academic units are the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the College ofUrban and Public Affairs;the Schools of Business Administration, and Fine and Performing Arts; the Graduate Schools of Education and Social Work; and Extended Studies and the Library,with holdings ofmore than one million volumes and 10,000 serial publications. The mission of Portland State University is toenhance the intellectual, social,cultural, and economic qualities of urban life by providing access throughout the life spanto a quality liberal education for undergraduates and an appropriate array of professional and graduate programs especially relevant tometropolitan areas.The University conducts research and community service that support a high-quality educational environment and reflect issues important to threegion. It actively promotes the development aofnetwork of educational institutions to serve the community. In the years since 1946, enrollment has climbed from 220 to more than 23,000, and from a graduating class of 72 students in 1956 to approximately 3,500 students this year.Those students come from the University's29 certificate programs, 55 bachelor's programs, and 49 master's programs in the humanities, the sciences, the social sciences, and the professions; they come as well from doctoral programs in 12 areas: applied psychology,civil engineering, computer science, education, electrical and computer engineering, mathematics education, mathematical sciences, social work and social research, and four interdisciplinarydegrees in which approximately a dozen departments participate,. The University campus has grown to cover 49 acres in Portland's South Park Blocks,where PSU students work with more than 500 full-time faculty In addition, some 25,000 students are served annually through theUniversity'sExtended Studies. This dynamic community seeks constantly to dedicate itself to the fulfillment of our motto, Doctrina Urbi Serviat, LetKnowledge Servethe City. 14
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