Stephen F. Austin State University (SFASU or SFA) is a

public university A public university, state university, or public college is a university or college that is State ownership, owned by the state or receives significant funding from a government. Whether a national university is considered public varies from o ...

Nacogdoches, Texas Nacogdoches ( ) is a city in East Texas and the county seat of Nacogdoches County, Texas, United States. The 2020 U.S. census recorded the city's population at 32,147. Stephen F. Austin State University is located in Nacogdoches and special ...

, in the United States. Named after Stephen 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 Thomas Jefferson Rusk (December 5, 1803July 29, 1857) was an early political and military leader of the Republic of Texas, serving as its first secretary of war and as a general at the Battle of San Jacinto. He was later a U.S. politician and se ...

. Stephen F. Austin State University is

accredited Accreditation is the independent, third-party evaluation of a conformity assessment body (such as certification body, inspection body or laboratory) against recognised standards, conveying formal demonstration of its impartiality and competence to ...

by the

Southern Association of Colleges and Schools The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) is a regional educational accreditor recognized by the United States Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. As of 2022, the organization oversees ap ...

to award bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. While located in the rural

East Texas East Texas is a broadly defined cultural, geographic, and ecological region in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Texas that consists of approximately 38 counties. It is roughly divided into Northeast Texas, Northeast, Southeast Texas, Sout ...

college town A college town or university town is a town or city whose character is dominated by a college or university and their associated culture, often characterised by the student population making up 20 percent of the population of the community, bu ...

Nacogdoches Nacogdoches ( ) is a city in East Texas and the county seat of Nacogdoches County, Texas, United States. The 2020 U.S. census recorded the city's population at 32,147. Stephen F. Austin State University is located in Nacogdoches and specia ...

, the majority of the university’s students come from

Greater Houston Greater Houston, designated by the Office of Management and Budget, United States Office of Management and Budget as Houston–Pasadena–The Woodlands, is the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fifth-most populous metropolitan statistical ...

, the

Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex The Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, officially designated Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, is the most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Texas and the Southern United States, ...

, and other cities throughout Texas. It has also served students from 46 states outside Texas and 42 countries outside the United States. The SFA Lumberjacks are members of the

Southland Conference The Southland Conference (SLC) is a collegiate athletic conference which operates in the South Central United States (specifically Texas and Louisiana). It participates in the NCAA's Division I for all sports; for football, it participates in ...

and compete in Division I for all varsity sports. The Lumberjacks football team competes in the

NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). Sponsored by the National Collegiate ...

. The Lumberjacks basketball team has made five appearances in the NCAA Division I Tournament, with two upset first-round wins in 2014 and 2016. 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 the

University of Texas System The University of Texas System (UT System) is a public university system in the U.S. state of Texas. It includes nine universities and five independent health institutions. The UT System is headquartered in Downtown Austin. It is the large ...

Academics

Stephen F. Austin offers more than 120 areas of study, including more than 80

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

majors, nearly 60 graduate degrees, and four

doctoral A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

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-producing

region). It was responsible for mapping and recovery of debris and remains from Space Shuttle Columbia that fell on its premises in 2003. 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 the ''National Center for Pharmaceutical Crops'', which in 2011 discovered a potential cancer-fighting agent from the extract of

giant salvinia ''Salvinia molesta'', commonly known as giant salvinia, or as kariba weed after it infested a large portion of Lake Kariba between Zimbabwe and Zambia, is an aquatic fern, native to south-eastern Brazil. It is a free-floating plant that doe ...

, one of the world's most notorious

invasive species An invasive species is an introduced species that harms its new environment. Invasive species adversely affect habitats and bioregions, causing ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage. The term can also be used for native spec ...

Colleges and schools

*Nelson Rusche College of Business **Gerald W. Schlief School of Accountancy *James I. Perkins College of Education *Micky Elliott College of Fine Arts **School of Art **School of Music **School of Theatre and Dance *Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture *College of Liberal and Applied Arts **School of Social Work *College of Sciences and Mathematics **Richard and Lucille DeWitt School of Nursing *School of Honors *The Graduate School

Rankings

Campus

In addition to the main campus which encompasses 430 acres, the university maintains a 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 southwestern

Nacogdoches County Nacogdoches County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 64,653. Its county seat is Nacogdoches. The Nacogdoches, Texas micropolitan statistical area includes all of Nacogdoches County. ...

and a forestry field station on the

Sam Rayburn Reservoir Sam Rayburn Reservoir is a reservoir in the United States in Deep East Texas, north of Beaumont. The reservoir is fed by the Angelina River, the major tributary of the Neches River. The Reservoir is upstream of the Big Thicket National Preserv ...

. 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.

Athletics

In tribute to the forestry industry, which is a major component of the area's economy, the men's athletic teams are called

Lumberjacks Lumberjack is a mostly North American term for workers in the logging industry who perform the initial harvesting and transport of trees. The term usually refers to loggers in the era before 1945 in the United States, when trees were felled us ...

, 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. Most of SFA's athletic teams participate in the

Western Athletic Conference The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is an NCAA Division I conference. The WAC covers a broad expanse of the Western United States with member institutions located in Arizona, California, Texas, Utah and Washington (state), Washington. Due to ...

(WAC), which hosts teams from the states of

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

, and

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

. SFA joined the WAC in July 2021 after 34 years in the

(SLC). Stephen F. Austin's colors are

purple Purple is a color similar in appearance to violet light. In the RYB color model historically used in the arts, purple is a secondary color created by combining red and blue pigments. In the CMYK color model used in modern printing, purple is ...

and

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

. In July 2024, SFA will re-join the

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. SFA's

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

team competes in the

(FCS) in the

United Athletic Conference The United Athletic Conference (UAC), also known as The United, is an NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) intercollegiate athletic conference. The conference is a merger of the existing football leagues of the Atlantic Sun Con ...

(UAC), formed after the 2022 season as a football-only merger of the WAC and

ASUN Conference The Atlantic Sun Conference (ASUN) is a collegiate athletic conference operating mostly in the Southeastern United States. The league participates at the NCAA Division I level, and began sponsoring football at the Division I FCS level in 2022. ...

. 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 only

bowl A bowl is a typically round dish or container generally used for preparing, serving, storing, or consuming food. The interior of a bowl is characteristically shaped like a spherical cap, with the edges and the bottom, forming a seamless curve ...

appearance was the 1973

Poultry Bowl The Poultry Bowl was an American college football bowl game played in 1973 and 1974 in Gainesville, Georgia and Greensboro, North Carolina. All teams involved were members of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) at the time ...

, in which the team defeated Gardner–Webb 31–10. The men's basketball team reached its first NCAA tournament in

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

after winning the Southland Conference regular season and tournament. They lost 59–44 to Syracuse. In their second appearance in

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

, they upset VCU in overtime, 77–75. In their third appearance in

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

, 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 in

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest division of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athlet ...

basketball in 15 years, 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 having academically 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. In July 2021, SFA joined the

. SFA houses three sports outside the WAC—football in the UAC; beach volleyball (a women-only NCAA sport) in the

Sun Belt Conference The Sun Belt Conference (SBC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference that has been affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA's NCAA Division I, Division I since 1976. Originally a non-football confe ...

; and bowling (another women-only sport) in

Conference USA Conference USA (CUSA) is a collegiate athletic conference of member institutions in the Southern and Western United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. CUSA's offices are located in Dallas, Texas. Mem ...

, which absorbed SFA's former bowling home of the

Southland Bowling League The Southland Bowling League (SBL) was a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) bowling-only conference. The SBL was founded in 2015 for schools that sponsor women's bowling teams, but did not have bowling sponsored by their primary confe ...

after the 2022–23 season. In July 2024, SFA left the WAC and joined the

along with another Texas school, the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley.

Notable alumni and faculty

Points of interest and notable campus buildings

Mast Arboretum Mast Arboretum is a arboretum and botanical garden on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, one of 4 main gardens on the campus. The arboretum is open daily without charge. The arboretum began in 1985 as a lands ...

* The Stone Fort Museum, built in 1936, is a museum and a replica of the eighteenth century house built by

Antonio Gil Y'Barbo Dón Antonio Gil Ybarbo (1729–1809), also known as ''Gil Ybarbo'' or ''Gil Ibarbo'' was a Spanish military personnel and trader of the Spanish Texas times, who played a crucial role in the development of Nacogdoches, Texas in 1779. Biography ...

, the earliest

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

settler of Nacogdoches. * The Planetarium *The Observatory * SFA Art Galleries ** The Teresa Jill Adams Art Gallery ** The Ed and Gwen Cole Art Center * Ralph W. Steen Library * The AARC, Academic Assistance and Resource Center, is located on the first floor of the Ralph W. Steen Library, and offers free tutoring to Stephen F. Austin State University students: * The ETRC, East Texas Research Center, is located for public use on the second floor of the Ralph W. Steen Library. * The

East Texas Historical Association East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that eas ...

is based on the Stephen F. Austin campus.

Gallery

File:Ruby M Mize Azalea Garden.jpg, Ruby M Mize Azalea Garden File:Stephen F. Austin State University August 2017 04 (Austin Building).jpg, Stephen F. Austin Building File:Old Stone Fort in Nacogdoches, Texas.jpg, Stone Fort Museum File:Stephen F. Austin State University August 2017 06 (Rusk Building).jpg, Thomas J. Rusk Building File:Stephen F. Austin State University August 2017 11 (Ralph W. Steen Library).jpg, Ralph W. Steen Library File:Stephen F. Austin State University August 2017 34 (Tom and Peggy Wright Music Building).jpg, Tom and Peggy Wright Music Building File:Turner Auditorium,SFA, Nacogdoches, TX IMG 3347.JPG, Ed & Gwen Cole Concert Hall File:Stephen F. Austin State University August 2017 13 (Gladys E. Steen Hall).jpg, Gladys E. Steen Hall

Notes

References

External links

*
Stephen F. Austin Athletics website
{{Authority control Universities and colleges accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Universities and colleges established in 1923 Education in Nacogdoches County, Texas Buildings and structures in Nacogdoches County, Texas Tourist attractions in Nacogdoches County, Texas Public universities and colleges in Texas 1923 establishments in Texas