Humboldt State Normal School was established as a
teacher's college on June 16, 1913, by
California governor Hiram Johnson. It was one of about 180 institutions founded by state governments to train teachers for the rapidly growing public schools. The cities of
Arcata and
Eureka (and to a lesser extent
Fortuna) competed with one another to host the new campus. Arcata was selected after William Preston and the Union Water Company donated to serve as the site of the new school's campus. The school was put under the jurisdiction of the
California Department of Education, renamed Humboldt State Teacher's College and Junior College, and moved to its current location in 1921. In 1924, during the presidency of
Ralph Waldo Swetman, the Associated Students and the Alumni Association were organized and
The Foghorn, the first student newspaper, was published.
Bachelor's degrees began being offered in 1927. The school was renamed Humboldt State College in 1935, and the following year an official mascot was adopted: the
Lumberjack. In 1937, the students opened a cooperative bookstore and soda fountain, which would exist for the next 40 years as the center of student life. During
World War II,
Arcata's city defense council suggested camouflaging Founder's Hall, which is visible from the Pacific Ocean, so it would not be a target for
Japanese submarines. The council made its request in 1942, but Founder's Hall was not painted until the spring of 1944. The building remained camouflage green until 1948. Over the course of the war, President Arthur Gist corresponded with hundreds of the students who had left Humboldt State to serve in the war. The "Arthur Gist Letters," an archive of more than 1,000 individual letters from 365 servicemen and women who wrote to Gist while serving in the military, were donated to the school after his death and are available for viewing at Cal Poly Humboldt Library's Special Collections & Archives.
Graduate programs were first offered in 1947. Under President Cornelius H. Siemens in 1952, HSU continued expanding by accepting students from abroad, including some from
Yugoslavia,
Germany and the
Near East, as well as U.S. territories such as
American Samoa,
Guam and
Hawaii.
KHSU began broadcasting from the school as a 10-watt
carrier current radio station in 1947 (using the
call sign KHSC until 1972), and on October 17, 1960, it became the first licensed, non-commercial station operated by a state college in California. Also in 1960, the college became a part of the newly-formed
California State College system. The school's junior college program, terminated in 1962, was re-established in 1964 at
College of the Redwoods (CR), located only to the south in Eureka. The two institutions maintain a close working relationship, with many students transferring to Humboldt after graduating from CR. Student activism on campus rose through the 1960s and early 1970s, peaking in a protest of about 800 students (out of 3,600) against the
Vietnam War on October 15, 1969. This was followed by another protest with nearly 3,000 students who planned to boycott classes after the
Cambodian campaign. With similar events taking place across the state, Governor
Ronald Reagan shut down the CSC system in May 1970 for five days. The 1970s also saw the rise of
feminist,
ethnocultural, and
LGBT groups, and though the Women's Center was the only one to survive through the 1980s, most groups reappeared by the mid-1990s. Through the 1980s,
adult learners became a large part of Humboldt State's student body, and in 1986, 40% of the students were over the age of 25. That number has since decreased to . In 1987, students and activists founded the optional
Graduation Pledge of Social and Environmental Responsibility, with the stated purpose of encouraging graduating students to be mindful of the social and environmental impacts of their employment as they enter the workforce or continue their education. Today, over one hundred
post-secondary educational institutions worldwide use the pledge in some capacity. On April 22, 2024, dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters occupied Siemens Hall as part of a
wider movement of occupation protests against the
Gaza war. Protesters renamed the building to "Intifada Hall" and managed to repel an initial police incursion. At some point protesters occupied a second building, Nelson Hall. On April 30, a large law enforcement task force stormed both occupied buildings and arrested at least 35 people, bringing the occupation to an end. On February 27, 2026, a further group of around 20 pro-Palestinian protesters occupied Nelson Hall after claims that a "public forum" was reduced to a “listening session” with an Associate Vice President of the university. The protesters were removed around 1 a.m. the next morning by the
Arcata Police. The
Department of Education's
Office for Civil Rights announced on March 18, 2025 that Cal Poly Humboldt was one of 44 schools being scrutinized under
Title VI at the direction of
Secretary Linda McMahon, in relation to a partnership with The Ph.D. Project, a
nonprofit organization that helps underrepresented individuals earn
doctorates and secure
business school faculty positions. The investigation also included two other public universities in California:
Cal State San Bernardino and
UC Berkeley. In response, a spokesperson for CSU stated that the organization is reviewing the claim and intends to cooperate, but that it does not discriminate and complies with all relevant state and federal laws. On May 23, 1972, fourteen of the nineteen CSU campuses were renamed to "California State University," followed by a comma and then their geographic designation. The five campuses exempted from renaming were the five newest state colleges created during the 1960s. == Academics ==