This year, we celebrate 125 years of impact and excellence at NAU. 
This year, we celebrate 125 years of impact and excellence at NAU. Our legacy was born out of the hearts and minds of the leaders of Flagstaff, who understood in 1899 the critical role that education would play in a thriving community and economy for our region.
Given this momentous anniversary, I’ve been spending some time looking back into NAU’s history and have found many poignant anecdotes in the work of Platt Cline from his book Mountain Campus: The Story of Northern Arizona University. With our vision today to broaden access, propel success and deepen our impact to individuals and communities throughout Arizona, there are many memorable parallels in our past.
Cline provides some insight into the earliest ways NAU sought to broaden access through the work of our very first president, A.N. Taylor:
. . . Taylor “arrange[d] to have the old scout and pioneer, Al Doyle, who knew everybody and was a strong supporter of the school, guide him about and introduce him to prospective students and parents. Board members Dutton, Pollock, and McClintock also traveled around talking to youngsters and parents and handing out copies of…leaflets. Tuition was $20 per year, payable $5 per quarter. The fee would be waived, except for $5 per year which all must pay, for those signing a declaration that they would teach in Arizona upon finishing the Normal program.”
The leaflet Taylor and others – including Taylor’s own family – were distributing by mail and hand in Northern Arizona communities is what Cline suggests could be considered “the school’s first catalog although it listed no courses, dwelt strongly on the area’s natural beauty, salubrious climate, community facilities including ‘electric lights, elaborate stores, enterprising businessmen, numerous churches and scholarly pastors, dignified professional men [and] unexcelled public school system…’”
After all that exceptional work, NAU’s inaugural class came in at 23 students – 125 years ago!
What Taylor did for access during his tenure from 1899 to 1909, J. Lawrence Walkup did for success from the first days of his presidency in 1957 through the end of his tenure in 1979.
According to Cline, from the beginning, President Walkup expressed that our institution’s “aim was to serve the individual needs of the students, prepare them for well-paying jobs, and encourage them to develop and broaden their values and interests, all within a friendly, learning environment.”
This vision was fleshed out and memorialized in 1961 – cast in bronze and mounted in the front of the administration building – after President Walkup charged our faculty with developing a credo for the institution. The vision reads:
To be educated is to become more human. Recognizing this principle, we… dedicate ourselves to maintain the highest standards of professional proficiency in an… atmosphere of scholarship and friendliness… We feel that within and without the classroom, the line of communication between student and faculty must be kept open and that the individuality of the student must be preserved.
And it was upon acting on this vision that our university nurtured the reputation that it holds to this day, as a university “known for its emphasis on undergraduate instruction and the welfare of the student.”
It is gratifying to know that today when we talk about expanding access, propelling success and preparing our students for careers of consequence and lives of purpose, we are boldly and valiantly honoring our university’s legacy of leadership in student-centered education for all who seek to meet their full potential.
As we embark on the next chapter of our university’s history, I look forward to how we will deepen our impact – on individuals throughout Arizona and especially here at home in Flagstaff. We are educating the healthcare workforce of the future committed to staying in the state and serving our communities. I cannot wait for the next important steps in our design of the NAU College of Medicine. For 125 years we have been known for exceptional teacher education and we continue to prepare future teachers who will serve in our state’s K-12 classrooms. Our scholarly endeavors have tremendous impact, including in the study of wildfire management and sustainability, which are so important to our region. And the economic impact of our work is only growing – in Flagstaff and throughout Arizona.
I am confident that 125 years from now, history will point to the transformative initiatives and this moment in time as defining the new NAU – the nation’s preeminent engine of opportunity, vehicle of economic mobility and driver of social impact in Arizona and beyond.
I look forward to the important work ahead and am grateful for the partnership and collaboration of our Flagstaff community in advancing the mission of Northern Arizona University.
Go Jacks! FBN
José Luis Cruz Rivera is the president of NAU.
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