• Norfolk State University (NSU), one of the largest historically black universities in the nation, was founded in 1935. The university began as the Norfolk State Unit, a branch of Virginia Union University in Richmond, Virginia. This college was the only predominantly black institution of higher education founded during the Great Depression. 
  • Samuel Fischer Scott, a Virginia Union University graduate, was the first director of the Unit. He was succeeded in 1938 by Dr. Lyman Beecher Brooks, another graduate of Virginia Union University.
  • In 2000, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) awarded the University a $2.9 million grant to conduct research on campus.