Eastern Kentucky University

Encyclopedia : E : EA : EAS : Eastern Kentucky University

Eastern Kentucky University, commonly referred to as Eastern or by the acronym EKU by local residents, is an undergraduate and graduate teaching and research institution located in Richmond, Kentucky, U.S.A.. It has extension campus locations in Corbin, Danville, and Manchester. Its current president is Joanne Glasser.

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Contents

1 History
2 Campus media
3 Athletics
4 Greek Life
5 Notable alumni
6 External links

History

Eastern was founded in 1874 as Central University. In 1906, the Kentucky State Legislature established the Eastern Kentucky State Normal School as a teacher's college. In 1922 it became a four-year institution and changed its name to the Eastern Kentucky State Normal School and Teachers College, awarding its first degrees under that name in 1925. Today the undergraduate division remains the largest unit within the university. The school received accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools in 1928; then, two years later, in 1930, it changed its name again to the Eastern Kentucky State Teachers College. Eastern added graduate studies in 1935, and thirteen years later, in 1948, the General Assembly removed the word Teachers from the school's name, and granted it the right to grant nonprofessional degrees. It was not until 1966 that the school was officially renamed Eastern Kentucky University. EKU is known for its graduate Criminal Justice program. In addition, EKU offers graduate programs in the arts, sciences, education and teaching, nursing, business administration, public administration, and public health.

Campus media

EKU's campus newspaper is known as the Eastern Progress. The paper was founded in 1922, after two previous campus newspapers had quit publication. The Progress is published on essentially a weekly schedule during the school year, excluding major holiday breaks, for a total of about thirty issues per academic year.

EKU's radio station, [WEKU] broadcasts classical music and NPR news to much of central and southeastern Kentucky.

Athletics

Eastern's sports teams are known as the "Colonels." They compete in the NCAA's Division I in the Ohio Valley Conference. In football, they are classified as Division I-AA.

The school has traditionally had much success on the football field, having won 16 OVC conference titles and two Division I-AA National Championships in 1979 and 1982. Much of the success came during the long tenure of head coach Roy Kidd from 1964 to 2002. Eastern honored Kidd upon his retirement by naming the school's football stadium Roy Kidd Stadium.

In 2005, Eastern's men's and women's basketball teams won the Ohio Valley Conference tournament championships, earning the men their first bid to the NCAA basketball tournament since 1979. The basketball teams play their home games in McBrayer Arena within Alumni Coliseum, an arena with a vaulted roof and wooden ceiling that uses the Catalan_vault as its structural system. The arena was inaugurated in 1962 by then-Vice-President of the United States and future President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Greek Life

Sororities

National Panhellenic Conference:

Alpha Gamma Delta (est. 1968)
Kappa Delta (est. 1968)
Chi Omega (est. 1969)
Alpha Delta Pi (est. 1969)
Kappa Alpha Theta (est. 1972)
Pi Beta Phi (est. 1976)
Delta Zeta (est. 1982)
Alpha Omicron Pi (est. 1987)
Phi Mu (est. 1973, currently closed)
Alpha Chi Omega (est. 1990, currently closed)

National Pan-Hellenic Council:

Fraternities

North-American Interfraternity Conference:

Notable alumni

Thaksin Shinawatra - Prime Minister of Thailand (1975, M.S. in Criminal Justice)
Denver Dill - Internationally acclaimed trumpet soloist
Lee Majors - Six Million Dollar Man (1962, History/Physical Education)
Tom Colbert - first African-American Oklahoma Supreme Court Justice (M.Ed.)

External links

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