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Southern Illinois University (SIU or SIUC) is a public research university in Carbondale, Illinois. Chartered in 1869, SIU is the oldest and flagship campus of the Southern Illinois University system. Originally founded as a normal college, the university today provides programs in a variety of disciplines, combining a strong liberal arts tradition with a focus on research. SIU was granted limited university status in 1943 and began offering graduate degrees in 1950. A separate campus was established in Edwardsville, Illinois in 1957, eventually becoming Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

SIU enrolls students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries. The university is known for its research partnerships, including those with the Argonne and Oak Ridge National Laboratories, the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NASA. The university is also home to hundreds of student organizations, twenty-seven fraternity and sorority chapters, and a nationally-recognized competitive flight team. SIU's intercollegiate athletic teams are collectively known as the Southern Illinois Salukis.

History
An act of the Twenty-Sixth Illinois General Assembly on March 9, 1869 approved the creation of Southern Illinois Normal College, the second state-supported normal school in Illinois. Carbondale was selected to host the university, and a cornerstone laying ceremony was held on May 17, 1870. Various alternate sites for the university included Centralia and DuQuoin, among others. The accidental death of a site contractor and other delays prevented the university's opening until 1874. The first session of the university was a summer institute with an initial faculty of eight members and an enrollment of 53 students.

In 1876 SIU admitted its first African-American student, Alexander Lane. In 1878 SIU established a program for the Douglas Corps Cadets, beginning a relationship with ROTC programs which lasts into the present day. The original "Old Main" building was destroyed by fire in 1883, and a new one built in the same spot. The university's first student newspaper, The Normal Gazette, was published in 1888 and its first yearbook, The Sphinx, in 1899. SIU's first sports teams, known as "the Maroons", formed in the 1913-1914 school year.

The landmark Shryock Auditorium was completed in 1918 and dedicated by former U.S. President Taft with a speech in support of the on-going war effort. Post-war prosperity aided the university's growth, and by 1922 it enrolled over 1,000 students. Stagnation occurred with the onset of the Great Depression and the sudden deaths of university presidents Henry Shryock and Roscoe Pulliam. In 1944, SIU was granted limited university status to offer graduate degrees, and in 1947 the Illinois General Assembly officially adopted the name Southern Illinois University. Budget concerns and leadership challenges dogged the presidency of Chester F. Lay, Pulliam's successor, until his resignation in 1948. In that same year, the first formal research conducted at SIU began with Lay’s appointment of geneticist Carl C. Lindegren.

Delyte W. Morris was inaugurated as SIU's president in 1949. Morris was SIU's longest-serving president, his 22-year tenure seeing the expansion and transformation of the university. New educational programs, administrative positions, and physical facilities were added, financed by a growth in student population and state-supported bonds. Housing and other amenities for students received particular focus. In 1957 a second campus of SIU was established at Edwardsville, near St. Louis. This school would develop into Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, now a public university within the SIU system.

President Morris left office in 1970. Formal explanations focused on Morris' declining health, but campus unrest due to the Vietnam War, the burning of the Old Main Building in 1969, financial scandals, and distrust amongst SIU’s Board of Trustees are speculated to have played a role. The university continued to grow with the creation of law, medical, and dental schools in the early 1970s. Other achievements included the opening of the long-awaited recreation center in 1977, the foundation of Project Achieve by Barbara Kupiec in 1978, and the Saluki men's football team NCAA I-AA national football championship title win in 1983.

SIU's enrollment reached a record of 24,869 students in 1991, a time when SIU has become notorious for its "party school" reputation. Tensions with the surrounding community resulted in a ban on Halloween celebrations in the mid-1990s as students living in university dormitories were sent home for the holiday. Funding issues stemming from Illinois' state budget crises, including the 2015-2017 budget impasse, and declining student enrollment exacerbated a situation made worse by the unexpected deaths of university presidents Paul Sarvela and Carlo Montemagno. In recent years, a focus on research, building renovations and expansions, and stabilizing enrollment numbers have improved the university's position. Student celebrations like the ones seen in Saturday Night Live's Roadshow have now largely been replaced with the traditions of "Unofficial Halloween", "Solar Bear", and "Polar Bear". Despite this, SIU was still named ninth in a list of "The Top 10 Schools that Party All Day, Everyday" by College Magazine in 2015.