Lyman Beecher Brooks

Dr. Lyman Beecher Brooks

Dr. Lyman Beecher Brooks was the first president of what is now Norfolk State University. Serving for 37 years, Dr. Brooks grew the junior college with an enrollment of 115 students learning on the upper floors of the Hunton YMCA into a four-year degree-granting institution with approximately 7,500 students, 18 buildings and its own 100-acre campus. Dr. Brooks began his tenure at the Norfolk Unit of Virginia Union University in 1938 as its second director, succeeding Samuel Fischer Scott. He steadily grew the college. In 1942, it severed ties with Virginia Union and became the independent Norfolk Polytechnic College. With assistance from Governor Colgate W. Darden, in 1944, the college became part of the state system of higher education as the Norfolk Division of Virginia State College with Brooks serving as its provost. In 1956, another Act of the Legislature enabled the college to offer its first baccalaureate degree. Brooks pursued greater autonomy. The college separated from Virginia State and became the fully independent Norfolk State College in 1969, with Brooks as its first president. When Brooks retired in 1975, Norfolk State was the third-largest historically Black institution in the nation.