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Middle Tennessee State University

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Middle Tennessee State University (founded September 11, 1911, and commonly abbreviated as MTSU) is an American university located in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. In 1909, the Tennessee Legislature enacted the General Education Bill. This bill stated that three colleges be established within each grand division of the state (Modern-day ETSU, MTSU, and University of Memphis) and one additional school for African-American students (TSU). These schools would be founded in 1911. Originally known as the Middle Tennessee Normal School, it became a state college in 1943 and officially became a university in 1965. It is currently the second-largest institution of higher learning in Tennessee (by overall enrollment), trailing only The University of Tennessee at Knoxville. MTSU, however, currently has the state's largest enrollment of undergraduate students.

MTSU's tenth and current President is Sidney A. McPhee, Ed.D. He has served since 2001.

MTSU is a member of the Tennessee Board of Regents System, one of two higher education systems in Tennessee.

Originally known primarily for its Education and Nursing programs, MTSU has more recently gained notoriety for its outstanding Aerospace, Business, and Mass Communication/Recording Industry programs.

MTSU's easy access from Nashville and surrounding cities via Interstate 24 and State Route 840, coupled with its favorable enrollment standards, makes it the largest university in the central third of the state and the single largest economic contributor in Murfreesboro.

Contents

Enrollment

As of Spring 2005, MTSU has the state's largest undergraduate student body with 20,279 students. Much of the student body comes from within a 50 mile (80 km) radius of campus.

MTSU's focus in recent years has been on growth, but the university is quickly outgrowing its infrastructure. With the 2004 advent of the Tennessee Lottery (which provides college scholarships to Tennessee students attending in-state schools), more students than ever have the financial resources to attend MTSU. The current administration seeks to curb growth by raising admission standards and delegating remedial study programs to 2-year community colleges within the Tennessee Board of Regents system.

MTSU classifies itself as a regional university, and primarily draws its student base from the areas surrounding Nashville and Murfreesboro. As the school has grown larger, its student base has expanded. The Aerospace and Recording Industry programs regularly draw students from outside the state of Tennessee. Most other programs primarily draw students from inside the state.

Only 3,500 students (approximately 15% of enrollment) live in on-campus dormitories, though the landscape surrounding the university is littered with apartments marketed toward students. It is estimated another 35-40% of students rent residential space within the city of Murfreesboro.

MTSU holds two graduation ceremonies each spring and autumn, and one each summer (a total of three classes each year). The spring and autumn commencements are split into two ceremonies to accommodate the large number of graduates (an average of 1,600 per class) and their families wishing to attend. The ceremonies are held in the 10,000-seat Monte Hale Arena inside the Charles M. Murphy Athletic Center.

Admission Standards

Guaranteed Admission

The majority of freshman applicants are admitted in the Standard Admission category. In addition to completion of the required high school courses, applicants must present one of the following:

Conditional Admission

Any student not meeting guaranteed admission requirements will be considered for conditional admission. The review will include all academic credentials as well as other special interests and skills, and other non-academic factors as explained on the Personal Statement Form. Students admitted in this category will be expected to:

Academics

MTSU was founded on its education program, and it remains one of the highest-enrolled programs at the university. Nursing and agriscience, also staples among Tennessee universities, were also a large part of the school's early identity and continue to be strong programs today. In recent years, MTSU has become known for its newer programs, including Aerospace, Journalism, Broadcasting, and Recording Industry.

MTSU is divided into seven colleges:

Eight Bachelor degrees are offered: The College of Graduate Studies confers Master's degrees in nine areas, the Specialist in Education degree, and the Doctor of Arts degree. MTSU's first Ph.D. was awarded in May 2003, though the university had awarded many Doctor of Arts degrees in the past.

Middle Tennessee State University employs approximately 800 full-time faculty members.

Department of Recording Industry

The Department of Recording Industry (part of the College of Mass Communication, and commonly referred to by the acronym "RIM" for its former name "Recording Industry Management") is the university's most popular program. Due to the popularity of the program, students must apply for candidacy, which constitutes acceptance into the program. Before they can apply for candidacy, students must complete pre-requisite "core courses". Every semester, only a limited number of slots are opened for new candidates. Eighty-five percent of these slots are awarded on the basis of a score which is determined by a formula that considers cumulative GPA, the required mathematics course grade, the GPA from the core courses, and the total hours earned. This system insures that the most highly motivated students enter the program, and confers a certain degree of exclusivity.

The RIM program is divided into two concentrations, 'Music Business', and 'Production & Technology'. Students must choose either one for their major. Music business focuses on the marketing, management, and business aspect of the recording, touring, and publishing industries. And the Production and Technology concentration focuses on the techniques of recording, mixing, mastering, and specific technological trends of the industry.

The Pro/Tech side of the department boasts a number of studios and labs available exclusive for student course work. Studio A, and B, as well as the Mastering Lab, Post Production, MIDI Lab, and Maintenance are located in the Bragg Mass Comm building. Studio C is located in a basement in the James Union Building, and Studios D & E are located in two renovated Ezell former dorm rooms. A Pro Tools Lab is located in the basement of the Alumni Memorial Gym.

The school's close proximity to Nashville, a mecca for music recording, provides incredible resources for this outstanding department, which is regularly recognized as one of the best the nation has to offer. It competes for students with Belmont University, a small private Christian university located in the heart of Nashville's Music Row district, which also offers a critically-acclaimed Recording Industry program but is more known for its music business program than its technological recording program. Competitors of the Pro/Tech side are SAE, Full Sail, Berklee, and the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences.

Although the RIM department has exceptional credibility and prestige, there are some criticisms. Students often complain about the draconian candidacy rules that have been implemented in order to only allow the most qualified applicants. Another chief complaint of the Pro/Tech side is the limited course sections available in the upper division elective courses. Due to small class sizes and limited facility time, only a specific number of students can take the upper division courses per semester. This has caused a backlog of students waiting to graduate. Criticisms from the Industry itself are not based upon the quality of the program, but yet the quantity of the students graduated each semester. Many are of the opinion that the Industry cannot support jobs or viable sources of income for the majority of the students who earn a RIM degree.

Department of Aerospace

The Department of Aerospace has a working agreement with the single-runway Murfreesboro Airport to provide many of its classes on-site. A decommissioned 727 airliner is housed at the airport as a teaching tool. American Airlines has donated a 727 precedures static cockpit simulator to MTSU. It is housed in the Business & Aerospace Building near the center of campus.

Campus information

The campus is 1.3 miles (2 km) east of downtown Murfreesboro, and is generally flat in nature, much like the landscape that makes up much of Murfreesboro (the mountains of the Highland Rim are only a few miles to the southeast). The oldest building on campus, Kirksey Old Main, lies at the north end of the original quadrangle. Flanking it to the west are Rutledge Hall (a dormitory), the James Union Building (student life and extra administration offices), and Lyon and Monohan Halls (also dormitories). Flanking to the east are Jones Hall (now an office building), Todd Hall (the former library, which recently underwent major renovations and is now home to the Art Department), Wiser-Patten Science Hall/Davis Science Building, and Smith Hall (a men's dormitory). These are the key original buildings on campus and form its historic core. Between these buildings are Peck Hall, (English and History departments), Walnut Grove, and Cope Administration Building. Further east are newer additions, such as the Keathley University Center (KUC), Photography Building, Ned McWherter Learning Resources Center, John Bragg Mass Communications Building, James Walker University Library, Business and Aerospace Building, Campus Recreation Center, and the campus's newest building, the Paul W. Martin, Sr. Honors College.

In the early 2000s, eight fraternities moved from off-campus sites to the university's state-of-the-art Greek Row, located on the extreme eastern side of campus (a few other fraternities remain off-campus). Sorority houses at public universities in Tennessee were disallowed per a perceived prohibition in Tennessee state law discouraging sorority houses based on the notion that more than eight women living in the same house would constitute a brothel. This law was never questioned until 2003, when the Tennessee General Assembly passed a resolution clearing the myth when it determined there was indeed no statute prohibiting sorority houses. To this date, no sorority houses have opened on MTSU's campus.

All buildings on campus are given 2, 3, or 4 letter abbreviations, which most people use to identify the buildings. For example, the Keathley University Center is known as "the K.U.C."; the Business and Aerospace Building is better known as "the B.A.S."; and the James Union Building is called "the J.U.B." Some buildings, however, are not referred to by their abbreviations. For example, Cope Administration Building (CAB) is commonly just called "Cope", John Bragg Mass Communications Building (COMM) is called "Mass Comm", and most students opt to call Peck Hall (PH) by its full name.

The campus takes the general shape of a square and is largely cut off to automobile traffic. Its borders, however, are defined by four high-traffic Murfreesboro thoroughfares:

Middle Tennessee State University has no auxiliary campuses, and aside from online courses, all classes are held either on-campus or at adequate facilities in the city of Murfreesboro.

MTSU is only a half-mile (800 m) east of the nearest hospital, privately-owned Middle Tennessee Medical Center, located on East Bell St. The hospital will move to a new building across town in 2008.

Greek Life

NPC Sororities

IFC Fraternities

NPHC Fraternities and Sororities

Athletics

Middle Tennessee State University's colors are Royal Blue (PMS Uncoated 300) and White.

Nickname

Its nickname is the Blue Raiders. Female teams are known as the Lady Raiders. The nickname's origin goes back to a 1934 newspaper contest. An MTSU football player, Charles Sarver, won $5 from The (Murfreesboro) Daily News Journal with his winning entry "Blue Raiders", which he later admitted borrowing from Colgate University, whose teams were known as "Red Raiders" at the time. No official nickname existed prior to 1934, when teams were called "Normalites," "Teachers," and "Pedagogues". Contrary to popular belief, the "Blue Raiders" nickname is not related to the American Civil War, in which Union soldiers, wearing blue, raided Murfreesboro in 1863 on their way to the Battle of Stones River.

The university's athletic teams simply refer to the school as "Middle Tennessee" or "MT", abandoning the words "State University". This is being done to save another logo change should the university change its name to "University of Middle Tennessee", as has been long-rumored.

Mascot

MTSU's mascot is a blue pegasus named "Lightning". Lightning symbolizes the university's aerospace program and the region's heritage in the walking horse industry. MTSU's original mascot was a student dressed as Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Confederate General who later joined the Ku Klux Klan and became its first Grand Wizard. Due to sensitivities within the African-American community, the mascot was changed to a blue-colored scent hound dog named "Ole Blue" in the 1970s. The current "Lightning" mascot was adopted in 1998, when the athletics department updated its image in preparation for the 1999 upgrade to Division I-A football and subsequent transfer to the Sun Belt Conference.

Competition

MTSU athletic teams participate in NCAA Division I (I-A for football) in the Sun Belt Conference. MTSU competed in the Ohio Valley Conference until 2000.

NCAA-sanctioned athletic teams include:

MEN:

WOMEN: MTSU also fields teams in club sports such as rugby, ice hockey and inline hockey. These "club sports" are not sanctioned by the university, though each team does receive funding as a student organization. They are also authorized to use school logos, wordmarks, and identities. These teams do not compete at the NCAA level, though they do compete against other colleges and universities within unofficial intercollegiate organizations.

MTSU also has a very active equestrian team which competes in the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association in both huntseat and western division. Though a club team, the members have won several individual national championships and were as a team the 2003 National Western Reserve Champions.

MTSU has won only one national championship in a team sport: golf, 1965. However, seven individuals have won national championships. All were in golf or track. The most recent was in 2003.

MTSU won the highest-scoring NCAA Division I-A football game in history, 70-58 over the University of Idaho Vandals on October 6, 2001 at Floyd Stadium.

Between the 2003-04 and 2005-06 seasons, the Lady Raiders basketball team won the Sun Belt Conference championship and was given a berth in the NCAA Women's Tournament. Each of the first two years, the team was victorious in its first-round game, only to lose in the second round. Middle Tennessee blew a 20 point lead to fall to Utah in the first round in Tucson, Arizona in 2006.

Facilities

The university's main athletics building (which houses the basketball arena and athletic department offices and was built in 1973) is named in honor of Charles M. Murphy, standout MTSU athlete in the 1930s. The basketball arena is named in honor of local sports writer and broadcaster Monte Hale, though it is more commonly called "Murphy Center", the name of the building that houses it. The football stadium is named in honor of Johnny "Red" Floyd, former MTSU football coach.

The athletic facilities, including Murphy Center and Floyd Stadium, are located in the northwest corner of campus.

Murphy Center features an indoor track, and is regularly home to the Sun Belt Conference indoor track championships.

Johnny "Red" Floyd Stadium features 31,788 seats and a brand new [Sportexe PowerBlade] playing surface installed before the 2006 season. The stadium has never been filled to capacity since its expansion (from approximately 15,000 seats) in 1997.

Rivals

MTSU's chief football rivals are the University of North Texas Eagles, although MTSU has developed a gridiron rivlary with the Vanderbilt Commodores, a member of the powerful Southeastern Conference located in nearby Nashville. The chief basketball rivals are the Western Kentucky University Hilltoppers.

Media coverage

MTSU operates the "Blue Raider Sports Network," a radio network syndicating its sporting events to several stations across the area. Also, some of the football games are recorded onto video by students from the College of Mass Communications and are run on University-controlled cable channel 10, MTTV. Occasionally, football games will be broadcast on ESPN Plus, and can either be seen locally or on ESPN's pay-per-view "Gameplan" service.

MTSU football and men's basketball games can be heard on 1450 AM WGNS (flagship), 104.9 FM WBOZ, 105.1 FM WVRY, and 89.5 FM WMOT.

MTSU women's basketball, plus occasional baseball and softball games, can be heard on 88.3 FM WMTS.

Distinguished alumni

Athletics

Politicians

Other

Trivia

Alumni and boosters have repeatedly tried to change the university's name to the University of Middle Tennessee, but the request has been consistently rejected by the Tennessee Board of Regents. Though the official reason is not known, speculation centers on The University Of Tennessee's efforts to stop such a change, so "UMT" would not be confused as being a member of the UT system, the other higher education organization in Tennessee.

Middle Tennessee State University has its own zip code (Murfreesboro, TN 37132) and telephone prefix +1 615 898 ****.

Parking is abundant on campus, but mostly lies on the outside perimeter. Parking is a constant gripe among students.

The university's newspaper is entitled "Sidelines". It is published twice a week (Monday and Thursday) during the spring and fall semesters, and once weekly (Wednesday) during the summer session. No issues are published during fall, winter, and spring breaks.

MTSU holds the licenses to two FM radio stations:

MTSU has been awarded Comcast Cable's channel 10, which has been named "MTTV", throughout Rutherford County and southeastern portions of Davidson County/Nashville for student-created programs and official university announcements. MTSU also carries instructional class work related programming on Comcast channel 9 in the same area.

The athletic facilities at MTSU (along with select venues in and around Murfreesboro) play host to every Tennessee state high school championship game/match in every sport except girls' soccer, which is held in Chattanooga.

Floyd Stadium, the university's football field, is thought to be the geographic center of Tennessee, though the official marker sits approximately a half-mile (800 m) north of the stadium on Old Lascassas Pike.

The three main roads through campus were named A Street, B Street, and C Street until 2001. Then they were renamed Alumni Avenue, Blue Raider Drive, and Champion Way in correlation with their original A, B, C names. Another road, Faulkinberry Drive, kept its original name.

Middle Tennessee State University has its own police force.

Middle Tennessee State University is a "dry campus", meaning alcoholic beverages are prohibited at all times. If a student is discovered to have alcohol on campus, he/she is put on academic probation, suspended, or expelled.

Charles M. Murphy Athletic Center on the northwest corner of the MTSU campus was once the Nashville area's premier concert venue, hosting concerts from artists such as Elvis Presley, KISS, Elton John, Pearl Jam, Phish, and Garth Brooks. Murphy Center was the site of country/western duo The Judds' 1992 farewell concert.

The school's athletics logo appears on overhead street signs for the newly-christened Middle Tennessee Boulevard (formerly Samsonite Blvd, Sanbyrn Dr, and North Tennessee Blvd until being renamed in May 2005).

External links

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
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