Binghamton University

The State University of New York at Binghamton (also known as Binghamton University or SUNY Binghamton) is a public research university in Greater Binghamton, New York, United States. It is one of the four university centers in the State University of New York (SUNY) system.

Since its establishment in 1946, the school has evolved from a small liberal arts college to a large research university. It is classified among R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity. Binghamton's athletic teams are the Bearcats and they compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The Bearcats are members of the America East Conference.

Binghamton University was established in 1946 in Endicott, New York, as Triple Cities College to serve the needs of local veterans returning from World War II. Thomas J. Watson, a founding member of IBM in Broome County, viewed the Triple Cities region of the state's Southern Tier as an area of great potential. In the early 1940s he collaborated with local leaders to begin establishing Triple Cities College as a two-year junior college operating as a satellite of private Syracuse University. Watson also donated land that would become the school's early home.

Originally, Triple Cities College students going on to a bachelor's degree finished their program at Syracuse. By the 1948–1949 academic year, the degrees could be completed entirely in Binghamton. In 1950, it split from Syracuse and became incorporated into the public State University of New York (SUNY) system as Harpur College, named in honor of Robert Harpur, a colonial teacher and pioneer who settled in the Binghamton area. At that time, Harpur and Champlain College in Plattsburgh were the only two liberal arts schools in the New York state system. When Champlain closed in 1952 to make way for the Plattsburgh Air Force Base, the records and some students and faculty were transferred to Harpur College in Binghamton. Harpur also received 16,000 non-duplicate volumes and the complete contents of the Champlain College library.

In 1955, Harpur began to plan its current location in Vestal, a town next to Binghamton. A site large enough to anticipate future growth was purchased, with the school's move to its new 387-acre (1.57 km²) campus being completed by 1961. Colonial Hall, Triple Cities College's original building in Endicott, stands today as the village's Visitor Center.

In 1965, Harpur College was selected to join New York state schools Stony Brook University, Albany, and Buffalo as one of the four new SUNY university centers. Redesignated the State University of New York at Binghamton, the school's new name reflected its status as an advanced degree granting institution. In a nod to tradition, its undergraduate college of arts and sciences remained "Harpur College". With more than 60% of undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in Harpur's degree programs, it is the largest of Binghamton's constituent schools. In 1967, the School of Advanced Technology was established, the precursor to the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science, which was founded in 1983. In 2020, the school became the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science.

Since 1992, the school has made an effort to distinguish itself from the SUNY system, rebranding itself as "Binghamton University," or "Binghamton University, State University of New York". Both names are accepted as first reference in news stories. While the school's legal and official name, the State University of New York at Binghamton, still appears on official documents such as diplomas, the administration discourages using the full name unless absolutely necessary. It also discourages references to the school as "SUNY—Binghamton," "SUNY—B," or "Harpur College".

The first president of Harpur College, who began as dean of Triple Cities College, was Glenn Bartle. The second president, George Bruce Dearing, served several years before leaving to become vice chancellor for academic affairs at the SUNY Central Administration in Albany. Next was C. Peter Magrath, former interim president of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, who served from 1972 to 1974 then left to become president at the University of Minnesota.