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Former name | Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College (1923–1949) Stephen F. Austin State College (1949–1969)[1] |
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| Motto | "Striving For Personal Excellence In Everything That We Do" |
| Type | Public university |
| Established | April 4, 1917; 108 years ago (April 4, 1917) (chartered) September 18, 1923; 102 years ago (September 18, 1923) (opened)[2][3] |
Parent institution | University of Texas System |
| Accreditation | SACS |
| Endowment | $133.0 million (FY2024) (SFA only)[4] $47.47 billion (FY2024) (system-wide)[5] |
| Budget | $234.0 million (FY2025)[4] |
| President | Neal Weaver[6] |
| Provost | Jordan M. Barkley[1] |
Academic staff | 769 (fall 2023)[4] |
Administrative staff | 69 (fall 2024)[4] |
Total staff | 2,386 (fall 2024)[4] |
| Students | 10,472 (fall 2024)[4] |
| Undergraduates | 9,048 (fall 2024)[4] |
| Postgraduates | 1,424 (fall 2024)[4] |
| Location | , United States 31°37′09″N94°38′54″W / 31.61917°N 94.64833°W /31.61917; -94.64833 |
| Campus | Small Town, 406 acres (1.64 km2) |
| Newspaper | The Pine Log |
| Colors | Purple and white[7] |
| Nickname | Lumberjacks and Ladyjacks |
Sporting affiliations | |
| Mascot | Lumberjack |
| Website | sfasu |
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Stephen F. Austin State University[a] (SFASU orSFA) is apublic university inNacogdoches, Texas, in the United States. Named afterStephen F. Austin, one of the founders of Texas, SFA was founded as a teachers college in 1923 and built on part of the homestead established by prominent Texan,Thomas Jefferson Rusk.[8]
Stephen F. Austin State University isaccredited by theSouthern Association of Colleges and Schools to award bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees.[9] While located in the ruralEast Texascollege town ofNacogdoches, the majority of the university’s students come fromGreater Houston, theDallas–Fort Worth metroplex, and other cities throughout Texas. It has also served students from 46 states outside Texas and 42 countries outside the United States.[10]
TheSFA Lumberjacks are members of theSouthland Conference[11] and compete inDivision I for all varsity sports. TheLumberjacks football team competes in theNCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision. TheLumberjacks basketball team has made five appearances in theNCAA Division I Tournament, with two upset first-round wins in 2014 and 2016.[12]
On May 11, 2023, SFA, then one of two public universities in Texas operating independent of one of the state’s seven university systems, joined theUniversity of Texas System.[13]
| Race and ethnicity | Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| White | 57% | ||
| Hispanic | 23% | ||
| Black | 12% | ||
| Two or more races | 4% | ||
| Unknown | 2% | ||
| Asian | 1% | ||
| International student | 1% | ||
| Economic diversity | |||
| Low-income[b] | 41% | ||
| Affluent[c] | 59% | ||
Stephen F. Austin offers more than 120 areas of study, including more than 80undergraduate majors, nearly 60graduate degrees, and fourdoctoral programs. Stephen F. Austin offers classes through six colleges and one independent school.
The Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture is nationally recognized, and houses one of only two schools of forestry in the State of Texas (and the only forestry college in the timber-producingEast Texas region). It was responsible for mapping and recovery of debris and remains from Space Shuttle Columbia that fell on its premises in 2003.[15][16]
During the 2021-2022 academic year, there were 2,792 degrees awarded. Of those degrees, 2,230 (79%) were undergraduate, 552 were post-graduate (20%), and 10 (1%) were doctoral.
Since 2007, Stephen F. Austin has served as the headquarters of the Association for Business Communication. It is also the home of theNational Center for Pharmaceutical Crops, which in 2011 discovered a potential cancer-fighting agent from the extract ofgiant salvinia, one of the world's most notoriousinvasive species.[17]
| Academic rankings | |
|---|---|
| Regional | |
| U.S. News & World Report[18] | 35(tie) |
In addition to the main campus which encompasses 430 acres, the university maintains a 642-acre (2.60 km2) agricultural research center for beef, poultry, and swine production and an equine center; an observatory for astronomy research, a 2,650-acre experimental forest in southwesternNacogdoches County and a 25.3-acre (102,000 m2) forestry field station on theSam Rayburn Reservoir. SFA has purple lights visible on top of the tallest buildings on campus, Steen Hall. A purple light also is illuminated in the Student Center clock tower.[19]
The dominant tree species on campus isloblolly pine with more than 1,500 specimens counted. Other species had at most 180 individuals withwater oak,crapemyrtle,American sweetgum, andshortleaf pine the most common.[20]
Campus soils, where not altered to anthropogenic status, are brown or reddish brown fine sandy loamAlfisols except in the Lanana Creek floodplain where reddish brown loamyInceptisols dominate.[21]
In tribute to the forestry industry, which is a major component of the area's economy, the men's athletic teams are calledLumberjacks, and women's teams are known as Ladyjacks.Lumberjacks name was chosen in 1923, when T. E. Ferguson, a professor of English at SFA, submitted name to the students and faculty assembly. The choice was made given the university's location in the Piney Woods, where forestry and timber products are a major part of the area's economy.[19] Most of SFA's athletic teams participate in theWestern Athletic Conference (WAC), which hosts teams from the states ofTexas,Arizona,California,New Mexico,Utah, andWashington. SFA joined the WAC in July 2021 after 34 years in theSouthland Conference (SLC). Stephen F. Austin's colors arepurple andwhite. In July 2024, SFA will re-join theSouthland Conference[22]
Men's NCAA sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, indoor & outdoor track and field. Women's NCAA sports include basketball, beach volleyball, bowling, cross country, golf, indoor & outdoor track and field, soccer, softball, tennis, and (indoor) volleyball.
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SFA'sfootball team competes in theNCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) in theUnited Athletic Conference (UAC), formed after the 2022 season as a football-only merger of the WAC andASUN Conference. SFA's football team earned a berth into the FCS playoffs in 2009, which was the first for the university since 1995. The team also earned a playoff berth in 2010, marking the first time in the program's history that the team had reached the playoffs in consecutive seasons. The 2010 season also marked the first time that the school had won an outright conference championship since 1989. Stephen F. Austin's onlybowl appearance was the 1973Poultry Bowl, in which the team defeated Gardner–Webb 31–10.
The men's basketball team reached its first NCAA tournament in2009 after winning the Southland Conference regular season and tournament.[23] They lost 59–44 to Syracuse. In their second appearance in2014, they upset VCU in overtime, 77–75. In their third appearance in2016, they upset 3rd seeded West Virginia 70–56. In the second round against 6th seeded Notre Dame they lost 77–76 on a buzzer beater by Notre Dame's Rex Pflueger. On November 26, 2019, in arguably the biggest upset inNCAA Division I basketball in 15 years,[24] SFA upset #1-ranked Duke in overtime by a score of 85–83. This was the first home game against a nonconference opponent that Duke had lost in the Blue Devils' past 150 home games.
In 2020, the athletic department of Stephen F. Austin was found by the NCAA to have had several administrative errors in reporting the grades of the student athletes from 2013 to 2019, which resulted in the university havingacademically ineligible players to be on rosters. As a result, the SFA's football, men and women's basketball teams victories from this time span (including the 2016 men's basketball team win over WVU and the Southland Conference titles from 2014 to 2018) had to be vacated.[25]
In July 2021, SFA joined theWestern Athletic Conference. SFA houses three sports outside the WAC—football in the UAC; beach volleyball (a women-only NCAA sport) in theSun Belt Conference; and bowling (another women-only sport) inConference USA, which absorbed SFA's former bowling home of theSouthland Bowling League after the 2022–23 season.
In July 2024, SFA left the WAC and joined theSouthland Conference along with another Texas school, the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley.
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