California State University, Fresno
public university in Fresno, California, United States
California State University, Fresno (branded as Fresno State) is a public university in Fresno, California, United States. It is part of the California State University system. The university had a fall 2020 enrollment of 25,341 students. It offers 60 bachelor's degree program, 45 master's degree programs, 3 doctoral degree programs, 12 certificates of advanced study, and 4 different teaching credentials. The university is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity". Fresno is a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and is eligible to be designated as an Asian American Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI).
The university's facilities include an on-campus planetarium, on-campus raisin and wine grape vineyards, and a commercial winery where student-made wines have won over 300 awards since 1997. Members of Fresno State's nationally ranked equestrian team have the option of housing their horses on campus, next to indoor and outdoor arenas. Fresno State has a 50,000-square-foot (4,600 m2) Student Recreation Center and the third-largest library (by square footage) in the California State University system.
History
California State University, Fresno was founded as the Fresno State Normal School in 1911 with Charles Lourie McLane as its first president.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “California State University, Fresno” is public university in Fresno, California, United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through California, State and University, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “public university in Fresno, California, United States” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
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 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1026919. VIAF identifies the subject as 143553672. The Library of Congress control number is n79047554. Authority coordinates are 36.813, -119.750. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1997 and 1911.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. 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
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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, Fresno”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow California State University, Fresno primary sources, California State University, Fresno 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, Fresno”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “California State University, Fresno” 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.