California State University, Stanislaus
public university in Turlock, California, United States
California State University, Stanislaus (Stanislaus State, Stan State) is a public university in Turlock, California, United States. It is part of the California State University system. It was established in 1957 and offers 45 bachelor's degree programs and 38 graduate programs, which include 22 master's degree programs, one doctoral degree (Doctor of Education), 10 certificate programs, and 5 teaching credentials. Stanislaus State is a Hispanic-serving institution.
History
In 1957, the California State Legislature established what was then called Stanislaus State College as the 15th campus of the CSU system. Because Turlock was better known at the time for its turkeys than its aspirations towards higher education, Clark Kerr highlighted this event in his memoirs as an example of how the state colleges had become vulnerable to pork barrel politics in the state legislature. This was one of several reasons behind the creation of the California Master Plan for Higher Education of 1960.
Classes began on the Stanislaus County Fairgrounds in September, 1960, and the college moved to its current location five years later. The college was first accredited in 1964. It gained university status and its current name in 1986.
“California State University, Stanislaus” enters the record as public university in Turlock, California, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what California, State and University can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“California State University, Stanislaus” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, California, State and University provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q624564. VIAF identifies the subject as 127895199. The Library of Congress control number is n84161607. Authority coordinates are 37.525, -120.856. None of the 5 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1986.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “California State University, Stanislaus”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow California State University, Stanislaus primary sources, California State University, Stanislaus archive and California research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “California State University, Stanislaus”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
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This entry incorporates text from “California State University, Stanislaus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.