campus, known initially as the Dearborn Center of the University of Michigan, opened with an enrollment of 34 students on September 28, 1959. A liberal arts division and programs in electrical engineering and teacher education were added in fall 1960. The campus's first 12 graduates were honored in a commencement ceremony in Ann Arbor on January 20, 1962. In 1963, the campus was renamed the Dearborn Campus of the University of Michigan, to emphasize that it was a free-standing unit of the university. Proposal for an independent "Fairlane University" In May 1969, the Dearborn Campus Planning Study Committee released their report on the future of the institution, which recommended the addition of lower-division undergraduate courses and the expansion of non-cooperative programs. In November 1969, the regents formally approved the committee's recommendations. In February 1970, the Committee on Colleges and Universities of the Michigan House of Representatives discussed a bill that would have separated the Dearborn campus from the University of Michigan as an independent "Fairlane University", an ultimately unsuccessful proposal that was protested by both faculty and students in Dearborn. Oakland University gained institutional independence from Michigan State University in the same year, and later developed into an autonomous research university with an endowment nearly double that of UM-Dearborn. In August 1970, the Dearborn campus received its first accreditation independent from the Ann Arbor campus, from the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. In April 1971, it was officially renamed the University of Michigan–Dearborn (UM–Dearborn). In July of that year, Leonard E. Goodall, the vice-chancellor of the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, was appointed UM–Dearborn's first chancellor. In the fall of 1971, the university officially became a four-year institution as it welcomed its first freshman class. There were 313 freshmen in that first class and overall enrollment grew by 50% to 1,369. University enrollment grew rapidly during the course of the decade, exceeding 6,000 in 1979. UM–Dearborn announced both a $19 million campus development plan and the creation of its Alumni Society in November 1973. Between 1978 and 1980, three major new buildings were opened on campus: the Fieldhouse and Ice Arena, the University Library, and the University Mall. These additions caused the center of campus to shift south of UM–Dearborn's original four buildings. In July 1980, University of Colorado Denver acting chancellor William A. Jenkins was named the second chancellor of UM–Dearborn. He soon faced a major