SVSU history - 1980 to 1989

	Video Clip:
Basil Clark compares high student enrollments with earlier populations (56K-compatible)
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The 1980's were a decade of great growth for the college. In November of 1987, Saginaw Valley State College was reclassified as Saginaw Valley State University with a student enrollment of nearly 6,000.

With a strong foundation and deep-rooted identity, SVSU began building for the future of what is now one of Michigan's most respected universities.

SVSC began the decade by crossing international borders and hosting the university's first international students. In 1981, SVSC received enough votes from the Academic Affairs President's Council to begin its engineering program.

Half way through the decade, SVSC was faced with the tragic fire of the Wickes Annex. It not only recovered from that fire, but flourished in the last part of the 1980's with the reclassification of the school as a university; by breaking ground for Instructional Facility #2 , the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Gallery, and the Ryder Center ; by dedicating the Arbury Fine Arts Center, and by naming Eric R. Gilbertson the university's third President in 1989 to lead it into the last decade of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century.
Ryder Center Construction

This picture captures the early construction stages of the student activity center proudly named after and dedicated to Jack Ryder.