The 36th president of the United States came to Boca Raton one sunny Sunday in October 1964 to formally open the first public university to serve southeastern Florida.
Lyndon Baines Johnson took the stage 60 years ago before roughly 15,000 people, who had come to watch him dedicate Florida Atlantic University. The school had opened its doors in September to about 1,000 students.
The Great Society — education for ‘all who can qualify’
The vision for FAU was meant to fulfill a tenet of Johnson’s Great Society — making post-secondary education affordable.
He said in his speech that the country had entered an era in which “education is no longer for the sons of the rich but all who can qualify.”
Indeed, Johnson, a former teacher and graduate of a teacher’s college in Texas, was conferred a doctorate that day.
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