“Designing Our Tomorrow Today, Building on Our Legacy”
The PVAMU School of Architecture is proud to host this year’s Founders’ Day and Honors Convocation for which the university celebrates student achievements that exemplify academic excellence, and reflects on our past and the leadership that has ever moved the university forward in a nurturing environment of African American culture, pride, and enlightenment, all to the good of its intellectual mission to cultivate the leaders of tomorrow. We congratulate each of this year’s honorees.
For this presentation, the Texas Institute for the Preservation of History and Culture (housed in the School of Architecture) profiles all eight principals and each of the eight presidents, including our current president, Ruth Simmons, and then displays the School of Architecture — the nation’s No. 1 producer of African-American Architecture Graduate and Undergraduate students.
The History of Prairie View A&M University
Establishment — 1876
Prairie View A&M University, the first state-supported college in Texas for African Americans, was established during the Reconstruction period after the Civil War. This was the historical period when political and economic special interest groups were able to aggressively use the federal government to enact public policy designated to “alter or reshape the cultural milieu of the vanquished Southern state.” The University had its beginning in the Texas Constitution of 1876 which, in separate articles, established an “Agricultural and Mechanical College” and pledged that “Separate schools shall be provided for the white and colored children, and impartial provisions shall be made for both.” As a consequence of these constitutional provisions, the Fifteenth Legislature established “Alta Vista Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas for Colored Youth” on August 14, 1876.
Enrollment of first students — 1878
The Board of Directors purchased the Alta Vista Plantation (1,338 acres) from Mrs. Helen Marr Kirby, the widow of the late Col. Jared Ellison Kirby. The College was named “Alta Vista Agricultural and Mechanical College for Colored Youth.” The Board, authorized to appoint a principal to administer the College, selected L.W. Minor of Mississippi. Eight young African American men, the first to enroll in a state-supported college in Texas, began their studies on March 11, 1878.
Evolution of the university’s names — 1878-1998
- The Fifteenth Legislature (August 14, 1867) established “Alta Vista Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas for Colored Youth.”
- The Sixteenth Legislature (April 19, 1879) established “Prairie View State Normal School” in Waller County for the training of colored teachers.
- The Twentieth Legislature (1887) attached the words “Agriculture and Mechanical Department” to the official name of Prairie View State Normal School.
- The Twenty-sixth Legislature (1889) changed the name to “Prairie View State Normal & Industrial College.”
- The Forty-ninth Legislature ( 1945) changed the name to “Prairie View University.”
- The Fiftieth Legislature (1947) changed the name of Prairie View University to “Prairie View Agriculture and Mechanical College of Texas.”
- The Sixty-third Legislature (1973) changed the name to “Prairie View A&M University.”
