History of Texas Tech University

[3] However, the bill was repealed two years later during the next session after it was discovered that Governor James E. Ferguson had falsely reported the site committee's choice of location.

After new legislation passed in the state house and senate in 1921, Governor Pat Neff vetoed it, citing hard financial times in West Texas.

[5] On February 10, 1923, Neff signed the legislation creating Texas Technological College, and in July of that year a committee began searching for a site.

[4] When the members of the committee visited Lubbock, they were overwhelmed to find residents lining the streets to show support for the idea of hosting the institution.

Governor Pat Neff, Amon G. Carter, Reverend E. E. Robinson, Colonel Ernest O. Thompson, and Representative R. M. Chitwood spoke at the event.

[17] The Faculty Advisory Committee suggested changing the name to "Texas State University", feeling the phrase "Technological College" was insufficient to define the scope of the institution.

It finally received the legislature's approval on June 6 and the name Texas Tech University went into effect that September.

[23] After its initial rejection of the students' enrollment and the threat of a subsequent lawsuit, the university enacted a policy to admit "all qualified applicants regardless of color".

[24] The university offered its first athletic scholarship to a black student in 1967, when Danny Hardaway was recruited to play for the Red Raiders football team.

[23] In the 1960s and 1970s, the university invested US$150 million in the campus to construct buildings for the library, foreign languages, social sciences, communications, philosophy, electrical and petroleum engineering, art, and architecture.

[30] Regents Chair Edward Whitacre, Jr., stated that the move was made due to the size and complexity of the institution.

[31] Kent Hance, a former United States Congressman and Texas Tech University graduate, assumed the duties of chancellor on December 1, 2006.