In 1933, Grady Gammage, then president of Arizona State Teachers College at Flagstaff, became president of Arizona State Teachers College at Tempe, a tenure that lasted nearly 28 years. The Graduate division was created and the first master's program was established 1937. On March 8, 1945, the three state institutions of higher learning came under the authority of one Arizona Board of Regents, which still oversees the universities today. Substantial growth of the college began after the end of World War II. President Gammage anticipated that the G.I.
In his three years as president, Ralph W. Swetman saw the student population double, from 532 to at least 1,000. He challenged both students and faculty to set high academic standards for themselves, believing that "good thinking today is best preparation for tomorrow."
President Matthews brought 30 years of progress to the Tempe Normal School/Arizona State Teachers College at Tempe. Prior to Arizona statehood, the Normal School of Arizona enrolled high school students when no other secondary educational facilities in the state existed. It was Principal Matthews who was instrumental in changing the school to an all-college student status. He initiated a building schedule that included the state's first dormitories. Of the 18 buildings constructed under his tenure, six are still in use.
Joseph Warren Smith, an educator and superintendent of schools from Michigan, was the principal of Tempe Normal School for one year. Under his leadership music was introduced into the curriculum and academic standards were raised.
Football was emerging as a popular sport and exercise was the campus rage when Principal McNaughton came to head the Normal School of Arizona. Of the 158 students enrolled in 1896, 61, or 40%, were men, none of whom had played football. That didn't stop them from learning the game and participating in the sport. Physical education for women was soon added to the curriculum under Principal McNaughton, which brought the Normal School into the limelight.
Edgar L. Storment graduated from Southern Illinois State Normal at Carbondale in 1886, completing the equivalent of four years of secondary education and two years of collegiate studies. After teaching in an Illinois elementary school he came to Arizona to invest in a farm colony on the Gila River that failed shortly thereafter. Storment then taught school in Agua Caliente in 1887.
The keystone of Arizona's educational system and its main source of teachers was the Arizona Territorial Normal School in Tempe. Classes had already started in 1886, held in a four-room building with 33 students in attendance. When the Reed-Storment era began, it was clear to them that better facilities had to be developed in order to provide a good teaching environment for students. Reed and Storment are credited with establishing funds for and beginning construction of the historic building and intellectual symbol of the university today, Old Main.
Principal Long was appointed by the Trustees of the Territorial Normal School of Arizona to fill the position vacated by Hiram Bradford Farmer. A long-time advocate of public schools, Principal Long worked to provide quality education for Normal School students.
The first class of 33 students at the Territorial Normal School in 1886 was greeted by its first teacher and principal, Hiram Bradford Farmer. This initial student body included 16-year-old students with no high school education, since there were no high schools in the Arizona Territory. Farmer's early efforts were spent establishing the school's core curriculum.