1970-1979

The 1970s were not all growth. In 1973 the men's basketball program was barred from NCAA competition for the 1973-74 and 1974-75 seasons. The same year, the Center for Louisiana Studies was established, and in 1974 the College of Sciences was formally created. The president named in 1974, Ray Paul Authement, held the office until 2008, thirty-four years. The main campus by then covered about 125 acres, and athletic facilities had been moving from it to University Commons since the 1950s.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vermilionville — 1.4 mi
  A living-history village of about 23 acres on Bayou Vermilion in Lafayette, opened in 1990 to interpret the Native peoples, Acadians, Creoles and people of African descent of the Attakapas region.
• Cypress Island Preserve at Lake Martin — 7.2 mi
  Nearly 10,000 acres of bottomland hardwood and cypress-tupelo swamp at the south end of Lake Martin, owned by The Nature Conservancy, with a boardwalk and a rookery of egrets, spoonbills and alligators.
• Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site — 13 mi
  A bayou-side state site on former Attakapas hunting ground, with a raised Creole cottage of about 1815, a reproduction 1800 farmstead and its slave quarters, and the story behind Longfellow's Evangeline.
• St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church — 13 mi
  The Mother Church of the Acadians, founded in 1765 on St. Martin Square in St. Martinville, with a late 1870s Lourdes grotto and, a block away, the Evangeline Oak on Bayou Teche.

More markers nearby

• 1980-1989 — steps away
• 1960-1969 — steps away
• 1950-1959 — steps away
• Pillars of Progress (Desegregation of SLI) — steps away