they feared getting their funding cut by the state. John B. Pickhart, an alumnus of the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, wrote that therefore AM&N being in Pine Bluff "might actually have slowed development of an integration movement" for that community.
In 1972, Arkansas AM&N re-joined what is now the University of Arkansas System. As a full-fledged campus with graduate study departments, it gained its current name and university status in the process.
Since 1988, the university has gained recognition as a leading research institution in aquaculture studies, offering the state's only comprehensive program in this field. It supports a growing regional industry throughout the Mid-South (according to the school, aquaculture is a $167 million industry in Arkansas alone and worth approximately $1.2 billion in the Mississippi Delta region). In 2012, the program was enhanced by the addition of an Aquaculture/Fisheries PhD program.
The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff is the oldest and largest HBCU in Arkansas.
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