19 Facts About Fisk University

Fisk University is a private historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee.

In 1930, Fisk University was the first African-American institution to gain accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Fisk University was one of several schools and colleges that the association helped found across the South to educate freed slaves following the Civil War.

Fisk University secured a site to house the school in a former military barracks near Union Station and provided $30,000 for its endowment.

In 1875, the two Burruses and Walker graduated from Fisk University and became the first African-American students to graduate from a liberal arts college south of the Mason–Dixon line.

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Fisk University oversaw an active construction program and expansion of the school's curriculum offerings to include liberal arts, theology, and teacher training.

Fisk University sought to diversify the university's faculty and further build the school's reputation.

In 1930, Fisk University became the first historically black college to gain accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

In 1949, Fisk University received the Stieglitz Collection of modern art from photographer and arts patron Alfred Stieglitz.

In 1952, Fisk University was the first predominantly black college to earn a Phi Beta Kappa charter.

In 1960, Fisk University students joined other black leaders in the Nashville sit-ins, nonviolent protests against segregation at lunch counters in the city during the civil rights movement.

In 1978 Fisk University's campus was recognized as a National Historic Landmark.

From 2004 to 2013, Fisk University was directed by its 14th president, Hazel O'Leary, former Secretary of Energy under President Bill Clinton.

Fisk University was the second woman to serve as president of the university.

Fisk University announced a fundraising record and increased enrollment the following year.

In 2020, Fisk University was taken off probation and maintained its accreditation.

Fisk University is the home of a music literature collection founded by the noted Harlem Renaissance figure Carl Van Vechten, for whom the campus museum is named.

Fisk University has a strong record of academic excellence: it has graduated more African Americans who go on to earn PhDs in the natural sciences than any other institution.

Fisk University is the first HBCU to add a competitive women's gymnastics team.