Michigan State University

odesseyUID: 2187862

Michigan State University, at East Lansing; land-grant and state supported; coeducational; chartered 1855. It opened in 1857 as Michigan Agricultural College, the first state agricultural college. From 1925 to 1959 it was known as Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science, and in 1964 its present name was adopted. The state agricultural experiment station and an agricultural technology institute are there. The university operates a statewide extension service. Its library contains an outstanding collection of books relating to veterinary medicine.

Michigan State University (MSU) is a public university in East Lansing, Michigan. As the first agricultural college in the United States, it served as a model for future Land Grant colleges under the 1862 Morrill Act. Well known for its academic programs in education and agriculture, MSU pioneered the studies of packaging and music therapy. MSU has the premier hospitality school in the United States, and the study abroad program is the largest of any single-campus university in the nation, offering more than 200 programs in more than 60 countries on all continents including Antarctica.

Following the introduction of the Morrill Act, the college became co-educational and expanded its curriculum beyond agriculture. After World War II, the number of students tripled as the institution became a major university. Today, MSU is among the nation's sixth-largest university by enrollment. As a research university, MSU is one of 60 members of the Association of American Universities.

MSU's Division I sports teams are nicknamed the Spartans. They compete in the Big Ten Conference in all sports except ice hockey, which is part of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association.


Agriculture school
The Michigan Constitution of 1850 called for the creation of an "agricultural school",[2] though it was not until February 12, 1855, that Michigan Governor Kinsley S. Bingham signed a bill establishing the nation's first agriculture college, the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan.[3] Classes began in May 1857 with three buildings, five faculty members, and 63 male students. The first president, Joseph R. Williams, designed a curriculum that required more scientific study than practically any undergraduate institution of the era. It balanced science, liberal arts, and practical training. The curriculum excluded Latin and Greek studies, since most applicants did not study any classical languages in their rural high schools. However, it did require three hours of daily manual labor, which kept costs down for both the students and the College.[4] Despite Williams' innovations and his defense of education for the masses, the State Board of Education saw Williams' curriculum as elitist. They forced him to resign in 1859 and reduced the curriculum to a two-year vocational program.


Land Grant pioneer
In 1860, Joseph Williams became acting lieutenant governor[5] and helped pass the Reorganization Act of 1861. This gave the College a four-year curriculum and the power to grant master's degrees. Under the act, a newly-created body, known as the State Board of Agriculture, took over from the State Board of Education in running the institution.[6] The College changed its name to State Agricultural College, and its first class graduated in the same year. However, there was no time for an elaborate graduation ceremony: the American Civil War had just begun, and the first alumni were drafted into the war effort. The following year, Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act to support similar colleges, making the Michigan school a national model. Williams never witnessed the cause to which he had dedicated so much of his life, having taken ill and died the previous year.

Big Ten university
During the early 20th century, M.A.C. expanded its curriculum well beyond agriculture. By 1925, it had expanded enough that it changed its name to Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science (M.S.C.). In 1941, the Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, John A. Hannah, became president of the College. He began the largest expansion in the institution's history, with the help of the 1945 G.I. Bill, which helped World War II veterans to receive an education. One of Hannah's strategies was to build a new dormitory building, enroll enough students to fill it, and use the income to start construction on a new dormitory. Under his plan, enrollment increased from 15,000 in 1950 to 38,000 in 1965.[8] Hannah also got the chance to improve the athletic reputation of M.S.C. when the University of Chicago resigned from the Big Ten Conference in 1946. Hannah lobbied hard to take its place, gaining admission in 1950. Five years later, in its Centennial year of 1955, the State of Michigan renamed the College as Michigan State University of Agriculture and Applied Science.[9] Nine years after that, the University governing body changed its name from the State Board of Agriculture to the MSU Board of Trustees. The State of Michigan finally allowed the University to drop the words "Agriculture and Applied Science" from its name. Since 1964, the institution has gone by the name of Michigan State University.

Main article: Campus of Michigan State University
MSU's sprawling campus is located in East Lansing on the banks of the Red Cedar River. The campus started in 1857 with three buildings: a multipurpose building called College Hall, a dormitory later called "Saints' Rest", and a barn. Today, MSU's contiguous campus consists of 5,200 acres (2104 ha), 2,000 acres (809.4 h²) of which are developed. There are currently 676 buildings: 203 for academics, 154 for agriculture, 245 for housing and food service, as well as 74 other buildings. Overall, the University has 21,931,085 square feet (2,037,464.5 m²) of total indoor space.[15] MSU also owns 44 non-campus properties, totaling 22,000 acres (8903 ha) in 28 different counties


MSU has the sixth largest student body in the U.S. There are 45,166 total students, with 35,678 undergraduates and 9,488 graduate and professional students. The student body is 54% female and 46% male. While 89% of students come from all 83 counties in the State of Michigan,[19] also represented are all 50 states in the U.S. and about 125 other countries.[20] MSU has about 4,500 faculty and 6,000 staff members, and a student/faculty ratio of 19:1.[21] Like other large American universities, MSU has a large number of teaching assistants teaching upper-level courses. This led The Princeton Review in 2005 to rank MSU eleventh worst in the category of "teaching assistants teach too many upper-level courses".[22]

Rankings
Michigan State ranks 77th in the world, according to a Shanghai Jiao Tong University study,[23] with U.S. News & World Report's ranking MSU 74th in the U.S.[24] With over 200 academic programs,[25] MSU has several highly-ranked programs. U.S. News has ranked MSU's graduate-level elementary[26] and secondary education[27] programs number one for the last eleven years. In 2006, U.S. News ranked nuclear physics programs, MSU ranked second behind only MIT. Indeed, MSU’s entire Physics & Astronomy department ranks highly based on the number and impact of publications by its faculty. A ranking by the National Communication Association ranks MSU doctoral programs as the nation’s most effective in educating researchers in health communication and communication technology.[28] MSU also is ranked in the top four in several other communication fields, including international/intercultural communication, mass communication and interpersonal communication. Other programs of note include criminal justice,[29] music therapy,[30] packaging,[31],and communications.[32] MSU's study abroad program is the largest of any single-campus university in the nation with 2,461 students studying abroad in 2004–05 in over 60 countries on all continents, including Antarctica.[33]

Research
The university spent $289,787,000 on research in 2002,[34] capping a long history of productive research. In 1877, botany professor William J. Beal performed the first documented genetic crosses to produce hybrid corn, which led to increased yields. MSU dairy professor G. Malcolm Trout invented the process for the homogenization of milk in the 1930s. In the 1960s, MSU scientists developed cisplatin, a leading cancer fighting drug. Today Michigan State continues its research with facilities such as the U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory and a particle accelerator called the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. In 2004, scientists at the Cyclotron produced and observed a new isotope of the element germanium, called Ge-60.[35] In that same year, Michigan State, in consortium with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the government of Brazil, broke ground on the 4.1-meter Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR) in the Andes Mountains of Chile. The consortium telescope will allow the Physics & Astronomy department to study galaxy formation and origins.[36] Since 1999, MSU has been part of another consortium called the Michigan Life Sciences Corridor, which aims to develop biotechnology research in the State of Michigan.[37]

zz  www.answers.comSample TextSample Text