The School on the Bluff: A History of the University of Albuquerque

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The University of Albuquerque began in 1921 as a small Catholic teachers’ college occupying part of an orphanage. It grew in both size and scope, first moving to a former Catholic boys’ school, and then to its final location on Albuquerque’s then-barren West Mesa. Over the years it rode an ideological and financial roller coaster until its demise in 1986. This book traces the history of the school, from its foundational background in territorial New Mexico, through its halcyon years in the 1950s and 1960s, to its struggles with finances and its change of direction from its original purpose as a teachers’ college for Franciscan nuns into an institution with a significant curriculum devoted to associate-degree occupational training. The school had twenty-one presidents-both religious and lay, with nine in its final nineteen years alone. The book examines each of these administrations, the challenges they faced, and the disparate solutions that were applied.