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The Office of Equal Opportunity Programs Collections at Florida Atlantic University consists of documentation produced and received by the office spanning an approximate date range of thirty years. Starting in 1965, under the legal expectations of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, this collection centers on the overall desegregation plans of and for Florida Atlantic University. Most of the documentation predominantly focuses on the office's work during Dr. Gwendolyn G. High's tenure, aspects include FAU's ongoing participation in the State University System's Florida's Plan for Equal Access and Equal Opportunity in Public Higher Education, annual Salary Surveys, and the creation of Minority Student Services. Items include memoranda, reports, letters, handbills, news clippings, posters, newsletters and an audio recording pertaining to minority issues at Florida Atlantic University.

This collection consists of photographs documenting Dr. Creech's presidency (1973-1983) of Florida Atlantic University.  There are 361 photographs, negatives and contact sheets in this collection. To provide a sample of the collection, 24 photographs were digitized and described. If you would like to see more photographs, please contact lysca@fau.edu and make an appointment.

In 1973, Dr. Glenwood L. Creech became Florida Atlantic University's second president.  The new president hailed from the University of Kentucky, where he had been vice president of university relations. Dr. Creech was ideally suited to tackle the urgent challenge of increasing financial support for FAU. To encourage substantial private donations, the state had introduced a program that would match every gift of $600,000 made to endow an Eminent Scholar Chair with $400,000 in state funds, boosting the value of the donation to $1 million. Dr. Creech used this leveraging tool with great success, and FAU soon became the state leader in the procurement of these endowed chairs.

Dr. Helen Popovich, our third university president, the first woman to be FAU president, and the first woman to head a public university in Florida. Dr. Popovich graduated from the University of Texas-El Paso and received her doctorate in English from the University of Kansas. During her tenure, the population of Southeast Florida flourished, and the opportunity for FAU to expand and include first- and second-year students was well-timed. By late Fall of 1983, the Board of Regents approved the measure, and by the following year, the first class of freshmen started at FAU. Dr. Popovich worked to increase the enrollment of African American and Hispanic students. Serving the FAU community, she oversaw the Reuben O' D. Askew University Tower opening in downtown Fort Lauderdale, where students and faculty worked alongside business and industry executives. Dr. Popovich diversified the faculty and staff by supporting the appointment of women to professoriate and administrative roles. By 1986, the Women's Studies Certificate Program was created. In 1989, her last year in office, FAU reached the critical milestone of $10 million in sponsored research. Dr. Popovich's records reflect her internal and external University responsibilities as chief administrative officer of the University. The records include correspondence, memoranda, reports, minutes, agendas, clippings, photographs, publications, and other materials created and compiled by the Office of the President.