News Service collection on Jerome H. Supple

Jerome H. Supple was born April 27, 1936, in Winthrop, Massachusetts. Supple came to Texas State from the State University of New York System, where he had progressed through the academic ranks from chemistry faculty member to acting president, serving at campuses in Plattsburgh, Fredonia and Potsdam. He held degrees from Boston College and the University of New Hampshire and served a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. He became the eighth president of Texas State in April 1989.

During his presidency, Supple raised admission standards several times, improved student retention from 57 percent to 75 percent, established several new enrollment records, began offering Texas State's first doctoral degree programs in geography and education, and laid the groundwork for doctoral proposals in other academic fields, successfully completed the university’s first major gifts capital campaign, raising more than $74 million in the process, increased private gifts to the university from a half million dollars a year to more than $8 million, and the endowment from $15 million to $53 million, increased the amount of research funding from $5 million annually to $32 million, and acquired the former Aquarena Springs theme park and began its conversion to a research and public education center focused on water resources and environmental issues.