Faulkner State

        Faulkner State Community College, a public two-year institution located in Baldwin County in southwest Alabama, has three campuses located in Bay Minette, Gulf Shores, and Fairhope.  The Bay Minette campus is the administrative campus.  The college, which was one of the thirteen original two-year colleges created by an act of the Alabama Legislature in 1963, is under the authority of the State Board of Education.  Faulkner State is a member of the Alabama College System, which is composed of thirty-one public two year colleges and one upper division college.
        Faulkner State has undergone several transitions and name changes in its lifetime.  For the first few months of operation, it was called Bay Minette State Junior College.  In early 1966, the State Board of Education named the college William Lowndes Yancey State Junior College, in honor of pre-Civil War statesman and educator William Lowndes Yancey.  In 1970, the name changed to James H. Faulkner State Junior College to honor James H. Faulkner, a prominent citizen of Baldwin County.  The college name was changed again by the State Board of Education in August 1992 to Faulkner State Community College to more accurately reflect its mission and purpose. 
        Faulkner State has grown from an initial enrollment of 401 students and one campus in 1965 to a current combined enrollment of 4,000 students on all three campuses.  Faulkner State began offering courses at Fairhope in 1970 and in 1975 added a permanent staff, student services, and expanded the offering of programs and services to the community.  The Fairhope campus has been housed both at the Fairhope High School and at the old Fairhope library building.  In 1987, the present Fairhope site was acquired.  The current site, originally the home of the Marietta Johnson School of Organic Education, was entered in the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior on July 1, 1988.  In 1985, the college opened a site in Foley and moved to the present Gulf Shores campus in the fall of 1993. 
        Faulkner State Community College was accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) in 1970, and was reaccredited in 1975 and 1985.