Coppin State University was founded in 1900 at what was then called Colored High School (later named Douglass High School) on Pennsylvania Avenue by the Baltimore City School Board. It first had a one-year training course for the preparation of
African-American elementary school teachers. By 1902, the training program was expanded to a two-year Normal Department within the high school. Seven years later it was separated from the high school and given its own principal. In 1926, this facility for teacher training was named
Fanny Jackson Coppin Normal School in honor of an African-American woman who was a pioneer in teacher education,
Fanny Jackson Coppin. By 1938 the curriculum of the normal school was lengthened to four years, authority was given for the granting of the Bachelor of Science degree, and the name of the Normal School was changed to
Coppin Teachers College. In 1950, Coppin became part of the higher education system of Maryland under the State Department of Education, and renamed
Coppin State Teachers College. Two years later, Coppin moved to its present site on West North Avenue. In acknowledgment of the goals and objectives of the college, the Board of Trustees ruled in 1963 that the institution's degree-granting authority would no longer be restricted to teacher education. Following this ruling, Coppin was officially renamed
Coppin State College, and in 1967 the first Bachelor of Arts degree was conferred. In 1988, the College became part of the newly organized University of Maryland System (now the University System of Maryland.) The school was officially renamed
Coppin State University on April 13, 2004. Coppin's first president (1930–1956) was
Miles Connor. He was succeeded by Parlett Moore in 1956, who served until
Calvin W. Burnett took over as Coppin's third president in 1970. Burnett served the institution for 33 years, until Coppin's fourth president,
Stanley F. Battle, was appointed on March 3, 2003. After Battle departed for
North Carolina A&T State University in 2007, Coppin's fifth president,
Reginald Avery, was hired. He announced his resignation effective January 22, 2013. Mortimer H. Neufville became the university's sixth president on January 23, after Avery stepped down. Maria Thompson became the university's seventh and first woman president on July 1, 2015. Following her retirement in June 2019, Mickey L. Burnim was appointed interim president until May 2020. Anthony L. Jenkins was appointed Coppin State University's eighth president on May 26, 2020. In 2022, after Andrew Jackson School in Philadelphia changed its name to
Fanny Jackson Coppin School, Coppin State University offered free tuition to Coppin School graduates. ==Academics==