Indiana University South Bend

1916 – present

The extension years: Indiana University began teaching in South Bend in the spring of 1916, when it offered its first extension class in the city — a six-dollar class, in the university's bicentennial telling. The program settled into evening courses at Central High School downtown — the university's bicentennial account dates its first classes at Central to 1922, while its archives date the first extension class itself to 1916; both are carried. The courses were taught chiefly by local high-school teachers who held advanced degrees, all at the freshman and sophomore level, on the assumption that students would finish at Bloomington; enrollment reached about 500 before the Second World War. In the Depression the city's school superintendent asked for more classes, for those who could not afford Bloomington. The first full-time faculty member, Dr. Ernest Gerkin, arrived in 1941, and returning veterans on the G.I. Bill pushed credit enrollment to 1,100 by 1950.

The campus: In 1959 IU President Herman B Wells presided at the groundbreaking for Northside Hall, the first building on a new riverside site on the north bank of the St. Joseph River, and in 1961 the South Bend–Mishawaka Center opened there with some 1,500 students — still a two-year transfer program. Lester M. Wolfson was appointed the campus's director and assistant dean in 1965 (the campus history carries his leadership from 1964) and was named its first chancellor in 1969. Four-year degree programs were authorized in 1965, and the campus awarded its first degrees in 1967, to thirty-one graduates. In 1968 it took the name it carries, Indiana University South Bend. Enrollment passed 5,000 by 1971, and the addition to Northside Hall opened in 1972.

The chancellors: Wolfson led the campus until his retirement in 1987. H. Daniel Cohen followed — the campus library opened in 1989, in his tenure — and then Kenneth Perrin, who held the post until 2002. Una Mae Reck, the campus's first woman chancellor, served from 2002 to 2013. Terry L. Allison, the fifth chancellor, took office in 2013. Susan Elrod was installed as the sixth chancellor on 10 September 2019 and held the office until her retirement in December 2024; Brian Pappas became the seventh chancellor on 1 July 2025.

Present scale: IU South Bend is the largest regional campus of Indiana University, an eighty-acre campus on the river, facing Adams High School across it. Its enrollment arc bends with the region's: 8,073 students in the fall of 2013 (7,512 undergraduates and 561 graduate students), 5,385 in 2018–19, 5,096 in 2019–20, 4,942 in 2020–21, and 4,326 in the fall of 2022 — and the arc has since turned: 4,716 in the fall of 2025 and 4,852 in the fall of 2026 — offering nearly one hundred degree programs.

Sources:

1. Indiana University South Bend Archives, "A Very Brief History of Indiana University South Bend" (Patrick J. Furlong) — the first extension class of spring 1916, the Central High School evening program and its 500 enrollment, the G.I. Bill's 1,100 by 1950, the center of 1961 with some 1,500 students, the 1968 renaming, and Wolfson's leadership from 1964.
2. Indiana University Bicentennial, "A Brief History of IU South Bend" (Kevin Schascheck, 2016) — the 1915–16 first class at six dollars, the first classes at Central in 1922, Dr. Gerkin in 1941, the Northside Hall groundbreaking of 1959, and the chancellor succession Cohen, Perrin, Reck and Allison.
3. The university's standard reference record — Northside Hall and the 1961 opening, the South Bend–Mishawaka name of 1962, Wolfson's appointment of 1965 and chancellorship from 1969, the degrees of 1967, enrollment above 5,000 in 1971, the 1972 addition, the fall 2013 enrollment of 8,073, and the fall 2022 enrollment of 4,326.
4. Indiana University South Bend annual reports, 2018–19 through 2020–21 — enrollments of 5,385, 5,096 and 4,942, and Chancellor Elrod's installation on 10 September 2019 as the sixth chancellor.