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Former names | Cleveland YMCA School of Technology (1921–1929) Fenn College (1929–1964) Cleveland Law School (1897–1946) Marshall School of Law (1916–1946) Cleveland-Marshall School of Law (1946–1967) |
|---|---|
| Type | Publicresearch university |
| Established | December 18, 1964; 60 years ago (1964-12-18)[1] |
Parent institution | University System of Ohio |
| Accreditation | HLC |
Academic affiliations | |
| Endowment | $89.88 million (2018)[2] |
| President | Laura J. Bloomberg[3] |
| Provost | Nigamanth Sridhar |
Academic staff | 511 |
Administrative staff | 1,000 (2009)[4] |
| Students | 14,160 (fall 2023)[5] |
| Undergraduates | 9,505 (fall 2023)[5] |
| Postgraduates | 4,655 (fall 2023)[5] |
| Location | , Ohio ,United States |
| Campus | Large city, 85 acres (34 ha)[6] |
| Newspaper | The Cauldron |
| Colors | University green, fresh green[7] |
| Nickname | Vikings |
Sporting affiliations | |
| Mascot | Magnus |
| Website | www |
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Cleveland State University (CSU) is apublicresearch university inCleveland, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1964 and opened for classes in 1965 after acquiring the entirety of Fenn College, a private school that had been in operation since 1923. CSU absorbed theCleveland-Marshall School of Law in 1969.[1] Today it is part of theUniversity System of Ohio, has more than 120,000 alumni, and offers over 200 academic programs amongst eight colleges.[4] It isclassified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".[8]
Public education in Cleveland was first started in 1870, whenCleveland YMCA began to offer free classes. By 1921, the program had grown enough to become separate fromYMCA, being renamed Cleveland YMCA School of Technology. Two years later, the school offered courses towards a bachelor's degree for the first time. This is now regarded as Fenn College's founding date, although the college would not be formally renamed until 1929.[9][1] Fenn College took over several buildings in the area includingFenn Tower, Stilwell Hall, and Foster Hall.[1]
In 1964, the State of Ohio purchased the entirety of Fenn College's campus in downtown Cleveland and established a commuter college that targeted area residents. This new institution became known as Cleveland State University.[1][10] The university consisted of the Fenn College of Engineering (now the Washkewicz College of Engineering),[11] the colleges of business administration, arts and sciences, and education.[12] IndustrialistJames J. Nance served as Chair of the first Board of Trustees.
Over the next several decades, Cleveland State University quickly grew in size and claimed over 15,000 students in 1997. However, only six hundred students resided in university housing.[13] In the mid-2000s, President Michael Schwartz endedopen admissions and implemented a vision to move from aU.S. News & World Report fourth-tier university to a second-tier university. The university entered into a partnership withNortheast Ohio Medical University in 2008.[14]
In 2012, CSU opened the Galleries At CSU on Euclid Avenue. Also in 2012, Cleveland State University partnered with theSouth China University of Technology allowing students to complete their education and receive joint degrees.[15] In 2018, CSU established the CSU School of Film and Media Arts, having used a $7.5 million appropriation from the State of Ohio to renovate an entire floor of the IdeaStream Center at Playhouse Square. It is the first standalone film school in Ohio.[16]
On March 11, 2020, an email was sent to Cleveland State students regarding the changes made due to the coronavirus pandemic. Classes were all switched to remote learning.[17]
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CSU's main campus indowntown Cleveland is bounded on the east and west byInterstate 90 and East 17th Street, respectively; and by Payne Avenue to the north and Carnegie Avenue on the south. It also has a satellite campus inWestlake, Ohio, included in theGreater Cleveland area.
In 2006, Cleveland State University completed its student Recreation Center and a renovation of Parker Hannifin Hall for the College of Graduate Studies. To make the campus more amenable to residence and increase the number of students living on campus thousands of housing units were built, anchored by a new dormitory,Fenn Tower, a reuse of the school's most historic building. Fenn Tower housed what was the world's longestFoucault pendulum, but the pendulum was removed during the residence hall renovation in 2006 and is now in the Cleveland State University archives.[citation needed]
The university worked with private developers and the City of Cleveland to develop housing, retail, and "collegetown" amenities around Fenn Tower, particularly along the main thoroughfare ofEuclid Avenue. In 2010, Euclid Avenue was upgraded as part of theEuclid Corridor Project which broughtbus rapid transit to the university and connectedPublic Square in downtown Cleveland toUniversity Circle, approximately four miles to the east.[18] Cleveland State University's $65 million construction project, intended to transform the campus from a mostly commuter school into a residential campus,[19] included the new Student Center and Julka Hull, which houses the College of Education and School of Nursing. Both projects were finished in 2010.[citation needed] In 2011, the new Euclid Commons dorms complex, which features apartment-style living for CSU students, opened. That same year, the university's Dramatic Arts Program moved into the renovated Middough Building andAllen Theatre atPlayhouse Square Center in collaboration with theCleveland Play House.[20]
During the fall semester of 2012, the first phase of the private Langston apartment and retail complex opened along Chester Avenue across from Rhodes Tower. In the spring semester of 2013, the former Viking Hall dormitory was torn down to make way for the university's new Center for Health Professions. This was opened in the fall of 2015.
The Cleveland State University Board consists of nine trustees, a Secretary to the Board, two faculty representatives, and two student representatives.[21]
The current president isLaura J. Bloomberg; she took office in 2022.
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CSU offers many disciplines and research facilities, with 70academic majors, 27master's degree programs, two post-master's degrees, sixdoctoral degrees, and twolaw degrees. It also has research cooperation agreements with the nearbyNASAGlenn Research Center.[22]
In 2022, the university reorganized around eight colleges as part of its CSU 2.0 initiative:[23]
The Division of University Studies focuses on academic support services, and the Division of Continuing Education extends academic services beyond the campus.
The College of Law traces its origins to the founding of Cleveland Law School in 1897. One of the most famous alumni of the College of Law wasTim Russert, host oftelevision programMeet the Press, who graduated in 1976. It was formerly known as the Cleveland–Marshall College of Law, until the school dropped Marshall's name from the school in 2022.[24]
The university is partnered withNortheast Ohio Medical University to train future healthcare professionals in urban settings. Undergraduate students at CSU can obtain early admission to medical school and obtain a certificate in urban health.[25]
| Academic rankings | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Forbes[26] | 196 |
| U.S. News & World Report[27] | 342 (tie) |
| Washington Monthly[28] | 217 |
| Global | |
| QS[29] | 1201-1400 |
| U.S. News & World Report[30] | 1845 (tie) |
In its 2025 rankings,U.S. News & World Report ranked the university's undergraduate program 342nd (tied) among 436 national universities, and 183rd among public national universities.[31] The Levin College of Public Affairs and Education was placed fourth in urban policy and 13th in the local government management in the 2019U.S. News & World Report ranking of graduate public affairs programs.
Cleveland State maintains a variety of research links within Ohio. These research collaborations includeCase Western Reserve University,Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute, ClevelandMetroHealth Medical Center,Council for International Exchange of Scholars,NASA Glenn Research Center,Great Lakes Science Center,Cleveland Museum of Natural History,International Space University,Internet2,Ohio College of Podiatric Medicine,Ohio Department of Education, and theOhio Supercomputer Center.[32]
In 2022,The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on a researcher at Cleveland State University whose "home institution was essentially providing a soapbox for racist pseudoscience.[...] Despite nearly a dozen publications over more than a decade arguing for the intellectual inferiority of Black people," the professor was judged to have meritorious research and was promoted and given tenure. In 2022 he was fired following an investigation by theNational Institutes of Health that found that he had violated regulations concerning the handling of medical data.[33]
Cleveland State University is served in print by The Cauldron, an independent student newspaper,[34] The Cleveland Stater,[35] a laboratory newspaper in the School of Communication, The Vindicator,[36] Cleveland State University's art and culture magazine, and The Gavel which won the 2005 American Bar Association's -Student Division's first prize for the best law school newspaper in the country. There is nostudent television station at this time, though the university offers a film production and video production major with courses through its Digital Video Communication Center and a variety of related majors through the School of Film and Media Arts.
The university is also the license holder toWCSB (89.3 FM), which has a transmitter located on the roof of theRhodes Tower. Originally featuring acampus radio format with a mixture of students and volunteers on their staff, WCSB has been operated byIdeastream Public Media, the region's public media broadcaster, since October 3, 2025.[37][38]
CSU is a member of the OneCommunity (formerly OneCleveland)computer network, an initiative ofCase Western Reserve University that connects nonprofit institutions throughout Northeast Ohio, allowing large scale collaborations over a high-speed fiber optic network.
Cleveland State University is home to 4 NIC fraternities,Delta Sigma Phi,Sigma Phi Epsilon,Sigma Tau Gamma, andTau Kappa Epsilon. There are 3 NPC sororities,Delta Zeta,Phi Mu, andTheta Phi Alpha and all 9 NPHC organizations have a chapter affiliated with the campus.
When the school was still known as Fenn College, thesports teams'nickname was theFoxes. When the university was renamed Cleveland State, the nickname changed as well, and CSU's sports teams became the "Vikings". That nickname stands to this day. Theschool colors are university green and fresh green. For many years the school mascot was thecomic strip characterHägar the Horrible along with his wife Helga, and the couple appeared at sporting events as well as on University literature. A new mascot, "Vike" was introduced in 1997 and Hagar was phased out by 1998. Another new mascot named "Magnus" was introduced in August 2007.
Cleveland State fieldsvarsity teams in 17 sports, with most teams competing in theHorizon League. Themen's basketball team was noteworthy in1986 when seeded 14th in the East Region of theNCAAtournament, it upset heavily favored 3-seedIndiana andSaint Joseph's before a one-point loss to aNavy team led by futureHall of FamerDavid Robinson, an unprecedented achievement for such a low seed. The Vikes made yet another NCAA tournamentappearance in2009, upsetting the highly favored 4 seedWake Forest before falling toArizona in the second round.[39] The school fields two teams that compete outside the Horizon League; wrestling competes in theMid-American Conference and men's lacrosse in theASUN Conference.
On October 14, 2008, CSU President Michael Schwartz stated "he wants a blue ribbon panel to give him a recommendation on thefootball team before July 1, 2009, when he was scheduled to retire. He also said the program will have to be structured to pay for itself."[40] The establishment of a football team became an official item on the student government election ballot. Although over two-thirds of the voters favored establishment of a football team over half of them were not willing to pay a fee for Division I non-scholarship football in addition to any potential future tuition increases that may be instituted by the university.[41]
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41°30′06″N81°40′30″W / 41.5017°N 81.6751°W /41.5017; -81.6751
