SFA Story: The History of Stephen F. Austin State University

SFA Opens on Washington Square

The Sentinel Publishes a Special Edition

"To the Teachers Who Are Here and to Those Who Come After, This Issue is Lovingly Dedicated"

The Daily Sentinel, Tuesday, September 11, 1923

The College

"The Stephen F. Austin State Teachers' College is going to open on September 18, 1923. With the dash of youth it is going to set up shop and start the process of education. The Board of Regents has decreed that it shall be so. The president of the college has been on the job a year. His task has been multifarious, but he has had twenty-four hours a day in which to accomplish it. There are, it is true, many obstacles in the way, but the obstacles are now fewer than they once were. There has been assembled a faculty of men and women in the prime of life. It is a fighting faculty, and they are on the field looking for trouble. Furthermore, while the college building is being completed, temporary accommodations for classes are to be had on the high school grounds. Books and equipment are here, and still coming. Stated simply the Stephen F. Austin State Teachers' College has an organization, a president and a faculty; it has a place to operate; it has equipment; and it is going to have a student body. Nacogdoches is ready to go. In other words, the college is going to open on September 18, 1923."

"The college invites student who are high-minded ladies and gentlemen. . . .Students who enter the Stephen F. Austin Teachers' College this year have an opportunity that no other body of its students will ever have. The traditions of the college are largely in their hands. What they accomplish in the way of constructive organizations, varied student activities, will set the precedent for the years to come. This opportunity and responsibility will challenge the best thought, the firmest courage, the noblest sentiment of the student body, the faculty, and the community."


"Nacogdoches is noted for her hospitable citizenship. Nacogdoches will do what it can to provide comfortable living quarters for college students. . . . [SFA] is a full-grown organization . It will be seasoned with age and experience, but it today has a man's task and responsibility. It came into being by the same process as its sister institution in the state of Texas&endash; by legislative action. It has its destined field of service. It has its mission to fulfill. So far as it is given vision and wisdom, it will start right, for it has a long way to go. The machinery is set. A few more days, and it will be put in motion. Let every responsible person put his shoulder to the wheel."

Giles M. Haltom, Managing Editor