Alumni Oral History Collection

In 2016, Coordinator for Digital and Archives Services Mark Shelstad interviewed several Colorado State University alumni who were heavily involved in student activism in the 1960s or who directed student services offices on campus that formed in the wake of the 1960s protests.

CSU saw an increase in student protests in the late 1960s. Protests covered civil liberties and civil rights, women's rights, control of student resources by students, and government war policies and actions. The Black Student Alliance (BSA) formed in the autumn of 1968 to oppose racial segregation and advance civil rights; the Mexican-American Committee for Equality (MACE) formed concurrently. (MACE later became the Union of Mexican-American Students). The BSA and MACE established joint demands and presented them to CSU administration in 1968, and their continued protests influenced CSU establishment of Project GO to provide Black and Hispanic students with financial aid and academic support at CSU. Seeing a need for further support of diverse students at CSU, several student services offices were established in the 1970s which formed the Advocacy Group in 1979 (now the Student Diversity Programs and Services). These included Black Student Services and El Centro/Chicano Student Services among others.