Chartered in 1840 as Livingston Collegiate Institute after plans for a Female Presbyterian Academy in 1835, the school received Alabama’s first legislative grant of funds to a girls school in 1883 through the work of Julia Tutwiler. It became a State Normal school in 1907, became Livingston State Teachers College in 1929 with authority to grant degrees, and in 1957 took its present name to reflect broader purposes.