in a school dance. At the end of the 1970s, enrollment numbered 9,400 undergraduate and graduate students.
=== Early years (1980s to 1999) ===
The Paisano, was established in 1981 as the first independent student publication in the state. During the fall of that year, the university began playing collegiate athletics. It was immediately elected to Division I status in the NCAA. The Student Representative Assembly headed the burial of a time capsule in 1983, the university's 10th anniversary, instructing it to be opened on June 5, 2023.
In 1986, UTSA acquired the Institute of Texan Cultures, a center for multicultural education in the state, as a campus. During this year, both the University Center and Chisholm Hall, the university's first on-campus housing complex, opened.
In 1994 the U.S. Department of Education designated UTSA as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI).
On the first day of fall classes in 1996, a campus shooter stormed into the John Peace Library. The perpetrator, Gregory Tidwell, murdered …
