About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Central Michigan University

Encyclopedia : C : CE : CEN : Central Michigan University

Central Michigan University (also known as CMU) is a state university located in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Nearly 28,000 students are enrolled, of which approximately 20,000 are undergraduates. CMU offers students their choice of 27 degrees through eight academic divisions.

Contents

Academics

Central Michigan University offers programs and degrees at the bachelor's, master's, specialist's and doctoral levels. Undergraduate students can select from more than 3,000 classes in 150 programs, and graduate students have the choice of more than 60 programs. The university offers degrees in 25 areas.

CMU has eight academic divisions:

Academic work on campus is supported by the recently renovated Charles V. Park Library which holds one million books and can seat up to 2,655 patrons at a time.

Athletics

The CMU Chippewas logo, current as of 2003.
Enlarge
The CMU Chippewas logo, current as of 2003.

The school's athletics programs are affiliated with the NCAA and compete in the Mid-American Conference. The school colors are maroon and gold, and the school, and its students and alumni are referred to as Chippewas which is sometimes shortened to Chips. This nickname is used with consent of the nearby Saginaw Chippewa Tribe, who has a positive relationship with the university. The university was placed on the NCAA's list of schools with "hostile and abusive" nicknames in August 2005, but appealed the decision, with the support of the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe. On September 2, 2005 the university announced that their appeal of the decision had been upheld.

The school athletics logo has changed over time, once featuring an Indian spear, but is now a stylized block letter "C". Within the university this logo is often referred to as the "flying C" or the "running C" (and derisively as the "flaming C"), although it is actually called the "action C". The current version of the athletic trademark was first used in 1997.

History

Wanting teachers in the state to be better trained, officials opened the Central Michigan Normal School on September 13, 1892. 31 students met in one building that day.

The school was renamed the Central State Teacher's College in 1927. In 1941, it became the Central Michigan College of Education, and then the Central Michigan College in 1955 before getting the present name in 1959.

Notable Alumni

Residence Life

Central Michigan University is home to 20 on-campus residence halls, arranged in four districts throughout the campus. In 2006-07, the 21st and 22nd residence halls on campus will open in what is currently the East complex.

All residence halls except for the Towers, Barnes Hall, and Robinson Hall are two-bedroom suites designed for 4 or 5 persons. The Original Towers, nine-story high-rise residence halls designed primarily for freshmen, feature one-bedroom suites. The New Towers, designed primarily for upperclassmen, are four-bedroom suites. Robinson Hall and the old section of Barnes are the only residence halls designed for double occupancy. Residence of both the New Towers and Robinson Hall pay an additional charge over the standard room and board rate.

Each district is connected to one of four Residential Restaurants. Only Barnes Hall, the oldest residence hall at CMU, is not directly connected to a residential restaurant. The older section of Barnes Hall is also the only part of any residence hall on campus that has community bathrooms.

Some residence halls are designated as official Residential Colleges, associated with a particular academic department, allowing students who choose to live there opportunities for study and collaboration with other students from similar programs.

Barnes Hall is also the traditional home of many of CMU's international students because it is the only hall that remains open during university breaks.

CMU offers both co-ed and single-gender residence halls. Beddow and Sweeney Halls are for females only, Merrill and Thorpe Halls for males only. Since the Fall 2005 semester, Calkins Hall, home of the Education residential college, is co-educational, after a long history of being females only. The other residence halls are either co-ed by floor or by room.

Construction began on two more buildings, colloquially known as the "Woldt Towers," near the East Quad in the spring of 2005. The buildings will be somewhat similar in design to the New Towers, opened in 2003. On December 1, 2005, one of the buildings was named The Ben and Marion Celani Residence hall to recognize the generosity of Detroit area businessman Thomas Celani and his wife Vicki. On April 20, 2006, the remaining building was named the Fabiano Family Residence Hall, recognizing their contribution to the school. John S. Fabiano served on the board of trustees 1999-2004, and also owns the Fabiano Brothers Inc, an alcohol distribution company.

Media

The campus newspaper is Central Michigan Life. There is also a college radio station run by students, FM 91.5 WMHW, as well as the student-run college TV station MHTV.

In addition, the university owns and operates WCMU-TV, the region's PBS station, and WCMU-FM, the NPR affiliate. Both stations serve most of Northern Michigan, including the eastern Upper Peninsula, through a network of repeater stations.

Also established in 2003 is White Pine Music, the recording label of the CMU School of Music.

Songs of CMU

CMU Fight Song (The Fighting Chippewa)

Fight, Central, down the field,
Fight for victory!
Fight, fellows, never yield,
We're with you, oh varsity!
Rah! Rah! Rah!
Onward with banners bold, to our colors we'll be true
Fight for maroon and gold!
Down the field for CMU!

Varsity!
Rah! Rah!
Victory!
Rah! Rah!
Chippewas, we're proud of our nickname!
Hear our song!
Loud and strong!
Central is going to win this game!

Come on and...
(Repeat first stanza)
by 'Howdy' Loomis, Class of '35

Hail Chippewa (Secondary Fight Song)

Hail to the Chippewa
All hail to the Chippewa!
The valiant men who wear maroon and gold
Will fight, fight, fight, our honor to uphold!
Hail to the Chippewa
All hail to the Chippewa!
We salute you warriors brave and true,
Win or lose, we're proud of you!

by Norman C. Dietz

CMU Alma Mater

Alma mater, hear us now
Ever more we praise thee
Hear us pledge our sacred vow
Ever to defend thee

Mighty mother, queen of earth eternal,
Precious emblem of our life supreme,
Ever symbolizing truth and knowledge,
In glorified esteem.

(Repeat first stanza)
by Ruth Mavis, Class of '27

lyrics from CMU Athletics Website

Greek Life

Social fraternaties on CMU's campus are Sigma Chi, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Alpha Chi Rho, Phi Sigma Phi, Lambda Chi Alpha, Phi Kappa Tau, Sigma Pi, Delta Chi, Phi Sigma Kappa, Pi Kappa Phi, Beta Theta Pi, Sigma Tau Gamma, Alpha Sigma Phi, and Sigma Lambda Beta. Social Sororities are Delta Phi Epsilon, Sigma Sigma Sigma, Phi Sigma Sigma, Zeta Tau Alpha, Alpha Gamma Delta, Sigma Kappa, Phi Mu, Delta Zeta, Alpha Sigma Tau, Alpha Chi Omega, and Alpha Sigma Alpha.

The CMU Promise

In July 2005, CMU made state headlines by offering the "CMU Promise," a program that raised tuition rates by nineteen percent for incoming freshmen, but guaranteed these rates would be frozen for the next five years. The program was implemented as a response to shrinking state funding streams. Modeled after a program at Western Illinois University, the tuition guarantee is the first of its kind in Michigan. The university kept its commitment to the promise in 2006, as tuition rates for all undergraduate students between their second and fifth years were kept constant. However, tuition rates for incoming freshmen increased by nearly 18% to an in-state figure of $251 per credit hour, a rate that will remain constant until summer of 2011.

Central Michigan Life Report; July 13, 2006: http://www.cm-life.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/07/13/44b6c63ba916c

External links

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: