The University of Central Arkansas (UCA) began its life as the Arkansas State
Normal School in 1907. Originally intended to bolster Arkansas’s teaching
pool by training professional educators, the school hosted 9 academic
departments, 1 building, 107 students, and 7 faculty members. The school
renamed itself the Arkansas State Teachers College in 1925 and became
the University of Central Arkansas in 1975. UCA now has around 12,000
students, 400 full-time faculty, 150 total degrees and certificates, and more
than 120 buildings on over 350 acres. UCA was one of the first schools in
the nation to create an honors program, the Norbert O. Schedler Honors
College, which still thrives today. The University of Central Arkansas
has positioned itself as a beacon of academic progress in Arkansas and
continues to grow with Conway’s booming population sector.
Vaughn Scribner and Marcus Witcher are faculty members in the history
department at the University of Central Arkansas. They organized a group
of six student members of Phi Alpha Theta—the undergraduate history
honors society—to write this volume, which covers UCA’s history through
five main themes: campus construction, student life, sports, Greek life,
and outreach. Dr. Houston Davis has been UCA’s president since 2017.