Framingham State University is a public, state-supported institution of higher learning in Framingham, Massachusetts. The American educational reformer Horace Mann founded it in Lexington in 1839 as the State Normal School, the first state-supported teacher-training school in the United States. The school moved to Framingham in 1853. It was renamed Framingham State Teachers College in 1935 and then State College at Framingham in 1960. The institution was for women only until 1964, when it began to admit men. It became Framingham State College in 1968 and Framingham State University in 2010. The university’s athletic teams are called the Rams.
A famous graduate of Framingham when it was a state college was Christa McAuliffe, the first schoolteacher chosen to travel in space. She was killed in the 1986 explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. The university’s website at https://www.framingham.edu/ offers additional information about the school.
