Southern Illinois University-Carbondale is located in Carbondale, Illinois.

It was founded as Illinois Normal University in 1869 with twelve academic departments. It had 143 students in its first class. Southern Illinois University Carbondale now ranks among Illinois’ most comprehensive public universities.

Each year, some 21,500 students enroll in the 175 academic programs seeking associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral and professional degrees in law and medicine.

Academic programs include agriculture, art, aviation, automotive technology, anthropology, business, cinema-photography, computer science, education, engineering, foreign language study, forestry, history, journalism, music, political science, radio-television, social work, recreation, rehabilitation.

SIUC was the first major university in the United States to be handicap accessible in the early 1960s. It also has the premier CESL (Center for English as a Second Language) program in the nation.