Bangladesh Agricultural University

Pakistan period

The Pakistani government set up the Commission on National Education at the end of 1958 to propose how to reorganise the country's education system. One recommendation in the commission's 1959 report was to set up an agricultural university in East Pakistan. There was already the East Pakistan College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry in Mymensingh. The government chose to upgrade the college to East Pakistan Agricultural University. On 18 August 1961, the government did so by promulgating the East Pakistan Agricultural University Ordinance, 1961. Soil scientist M Osman Ghani was appointed the university's first vice-chancellor on 2 September 1961.

The university started with 30 teachers and 444 students. There were 23 departments under 2 faculties, the Faculty of Agriculture and the Faculty of Veterinary Science. The Faculty of Animal Husbandry was added in 1962.

In February 1963, Ghani left to become vice-chancellor of the University of Dacca. S.D. Chaudhuri took over from him at the agricultural university. The Faculty of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology was added in 1963. It was followed by the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering and Technology in 1964. A sixth faculty was started in 1967, the Faculty of Fisheries.

American Architect Paul Rudolph was commissioned in 1965 to design a master plan that would remake the former college campus for the university. Construction of the major buildings that were part of this project would continue for a decade.

Students at the university were politically active in the 1969 East Pakistan mass uprising. They boycotted classes on 23 January in response to police firing on students in Dacca. In Mymensingh, on 24 January, two people were killed by police firing and 20 were wounded on the picket lines. Police and troops from the East Pakistan Rifles entered the campus on 29 January, searching the residential quarters for "miscreants". On 10 February, students marched in protest. In the face of unrelenting countrywide disturbances, on 21 February, President Ayub Khan announced that he would not seek reelection. The next day, the government dropped all charges against opposition leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the others accused in the Agartala Conspiracy Case.

Biochemist Kamaluddin Ahmad became the vice-chancellor in 1969. Also that year, the central library, designed by Richard J. Neutra, opened.

Faculty, staff, and students of the university fought for independence during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. One teacher, six employees, and eleven students died in the war.

After independence

In 1972, the university was renamed Bangladesh Agricultural University. When Bangladesh won its independence, there were only six universities in the country. BAU was the third-oldest and the only agricultural one.