Northern State University

by creating Normal departments in four-year high schools. This new policy proved to be troublesome for NNIS, because it was no longer necessary to attend the school in order to teach in South Dakota. In response to the decline in enrollment, President Harold Foght pushed to professionalize the teaching occupation, making it necessary to be certified to teach. The headline of the April 1920 issue of the Exponent read, "NNIS To Become Teacher's College", making Foght's effort successful. The school was then reorganized into three divisions: pre-normal, junior-normal, and senior-normal; each division would have its own dean. NNIS could now award baccalaureate degrees, but not until 1939 did the state legislature change the school's name from Northern Normal and Industrial School to Northern State Teachers College.
The Great Depression had left the school in debt, enrollment numbers were dropping and the world was entering into yet another war. Noah E. Steele was the president from 1939 until 1951; he increased enrollment …