About us

Louisiana Tech University (Louisiana Tech, La. Tech, or simply Tech) is a public research university in Ruston, Louisiana. It is part of the University of Louisiana System and classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".

Louisiana Tech opened as the Industrial Institute and College of Louisiana in 1894 during the Second Industrial Revolution. The original mission of the college was for the education of students in the arts and sciences for the purpose of developing an industrial economy in post-Reconstruction Louisiana. Four years later in 1898, the state constitution changed the school's name to Louisiana Industrial Institute. In 1921, the college changed its name to Louisiana Polytechnic Institute to reflect its development as a larger institute of technology. Louisiana Polytechnic Institute became desegregated in the 1960s. It officially changed its name to Louisiana Tech University in 1970 as it satisfied criteria of a research university.

Louisiana Tech enrolled 12,463 students in five academic colleges during the Fall 2018 academic quarter including 1,282 students in the graduate school. In addition to the main campus in Ruston, Louisiana Tech holds classes at the Louisiana Tech University Shreveport Center, Academic Success Center in Bossier City, Barksdale Air Force Base Instructional Site, and on the CenturyLink campus in Monroe.

Louisiana Tech fields 16 varsity NCAA Division I sports teams (7 men's, 9 women's teams) and is a member of Conference USA of the Football Bowl Subdivision. The university is known for its Bulldogs football team and Lady Techsters women's basketball program which won three national championship titles (1981, 1982, 1988) and made 13 Final Four appearances in the program's history.

Ruston College, a forerunner to Louisiana Tech, was established in the middle 1880s by W. C. Friley, a Southern Baptist pastor. This institution lasted for seven years and had annual enrollments of about 250 students. Friley subsequently from 1892 to 1894 served as the first president of Hardin–Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, and from 1909 to 1910, as the second president of Louisiana College in Pineville.

On May 14, 1894, the Lincoln Parish Police Jury held a special session to outline plans to secure a regional industrial school. The police jury (a body similar to a county court or county commission in other states) called upon State Representative George M. Lomax to introduce the proposed legislation during the upcoming session. Representative Lomax, Jackson Parish Representative J. T. M. Hancock, and journalist, lawyer, and future judge John B. Holstead fought for the passage of the bill. On July 6, 1894, the proposed bill was approved as Act No. 68 of the General Assembly of Louisiana. The act established "The Industrial Institute and College of Louisiana", an industrial institute created for the education of white children in the arts and sciences.

In 1894, Colonel Arthur T. Prescott was elected as the first president of the college. He moved to Ruston and began overseeing the construction of a two-story main building. The brick building housed eight large classrooms, an auditorium, a chemical laboratory, and two offices. A frame building was also built nearby and was used for the instruction of mechanics. The main building was located on a plot of 20 acres (81,000 m2) that was donated to the school by Francis P. Stubbs. On September 23, 1895, the school started its first session with six faculty members and 202 students.

In May 1897, Harry Howard became the first graduate. Colonel Prescott awarded him with a Bachelor of Industry degree, but there was no formal commencement. The first formal commencement was held in the Ruston Opera House the following May with ten graduates receiving their diplomas.

Article 256 of the 1898 state constitution changed the school's name to Louisiana Industrial Institute. Two years later, the course of study was reorganized into two years of preparatory work and three years of college level courses. Students who were high school graduates were admitted to the seventh quarter (college level) of study without examination. As years went by, courses changed and admissions requirements tightened. From 1917 to 1925, several curricula were organized according to the junior college standards and were offered leading to the Bachelor of Industry degree. In 1919, the Board of Trustees enlarged the curricula and started granting a standard baccalaureate degree. The first of these was granted on June 15, 1921, a Bachelor of Science in Engineering.

The Constitution adopted June 18, 1921, changed the name of the school in Article XII, Section 9, from Louisiana Industrial Institute to Louisiana Polytechnic Institute, or "Louisiana Tech" for short.