Michigan State University

Michigan State University is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. The university was founded as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan in 1855. It is one of the largest universities in the United States and has approximately 634,300 living alumni worldwide. Michigan State Spartans compete in the NCAA Division I Big Ten Conference.

About Michigan State University in brief

Summary Michigan State UniversityMichigan State University is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. The university was founded as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan in 1855. It is one of the largest universities in the United States and has approximately 634,300 living alumni worldwide. U. S. News & World Report ranks its graduate programs the best in the U.S. The Michigan State Spartans compete in the NCAA Division I Big Ten Conference. Michigan State is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among \”R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity\”. The university’s campus houses the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, the W. J. Beal Botanical Garden, the Abrams Planetarium, the Wharton Center for Performing Arts, the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, and the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams. The school’s football team won the Rose Bowl Game in 1954, 1956, 1988 and 2014, and a total of six national championships. The men’s basketball team has attained the Final Four eight times since the 1998–1999 season. The women’s cross country team was named Big Ten champions in 2019. In the fall of 2019, MSU student-athletes posted all-time highs for graduation success rates and federal graduation rates, according to NCAA statistics. It was not until 1899 that the State Agricultural College admitted its first African American student, William O. Thompson, who taught at what is now Tuskegee University. After graduation, Booker T. Washington invited its president to be the commencement speaker at the Class of 1900.

The first alumni enlisted to the Union Army. The few faculty members who made the arduous trek from Lansing boarded with the few faculty families or made their own way to the college. The college first admitted women in 1870, although at that time there were no female residence halls. From the early days, female students took the same rigorous agriculture courses as male students. In 1896, the faculty created a faculty course that melded home economics and liberal arts with liberal arts and sciences. The College turned the male dormitory into a women’s dormitory in 1899. The state designated the college its land- grant institution making Michigan State University one of nation’s first land-Grant colleges. In 1860, the Reorganization Act of 1861 gave the college the power to grant master’s degrees. The following year, Abraham Lincoln signed the First Morrill Act of 1862 to support similar colleges, making the Michigan school a national model. It changed its name to State Agricultural college, and its first class graduated in the same year. In 1855, Michigan Governor Kinsley S. Bingham signed a bill establishing the US’ first agricultural college, the Agriculturalcollege. The curriculum excluded Latin and Greek studies since most applicants did not study any classical languages in their rural high schools. It did require three hours of daily manual labor, which kept costs down for both the students and the College.