History of Michigan State University

The history of the Michigan State University (MSU) dates back to 1855, when the Michigan Legislature established the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, with three buildings, five faculty members and 63 male students. As the first agricultural college in the United States, the school served as a prototype for future Land Grant institutions under the Morrill Act enacted during Abraham Lincoln's presidential administration. The school's first class graduated in 1861 right after the onset of the American Civil War. That same year, the Michigan Legislature approved a plan to allow the school to adopt a four-year curriculum and grant degrees comparable to those of the University of Michigan.

In 1870, the College became co-educational and expanded its curriculum beyond agriculture into a broad array of coursework commencing with home economics for women students. The school admitted its first African American student in 1899. Not long before this, in 1885, the College had begun offering degrees in engineering and other applied sciences to students. The 26th U.S. President, Theodore Roosevelt, addressed the school at the 1907 commencement, an event coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the school's opening. During this period, the school established "Farmers' Institutes" as a means of reaching out to the state's agricultural community and informing the membership of developments in agricultural science; the program gradually became the MSU Extension Services.

After World War II, the college gained admission to the Big Ten Conference, joining the rival University of Michigan, and grew to become one of the largest educational institutions in the United States with 44,937 currently enrolled. In its centennial year of 1955, the state officially made the school a university and the current name was adopted in 1964 after Michigan voters adopted a new constitution. During the Vietnam War, student activists brought about many changes to the institution and the school was a hotbed of anti-war protests. In more recent years, MSU has worked on improving its academic reputation, though a series of student riots in the late 1990s has made this task more difficult. Nevertheless, MSU's current president has stated that a renewed focus on biotechnology research and residential college learning would make the university a new model for America's Land Grant institutions.

Agriculture School

The College first admitted women in 1870 but the school's relative isolation and lack of women's living quarters tamped coeducational enrollment for decades. [Momin 2002, p. 4.] The few women who enrolled either boarded with faculty families or were locals who made the daily three-mile trek from Lansing by stagecoach over unpaved Michigan Avenue. The women were educated in the same scientific agriculture courses as men, excepting "practical agriculture." In 1896, the College became one of only fourteen other colleges and universities in America to adopt and meld a home economics curriculum within the liberal arts and sciences program, increasing female enrollment. [Momin 2002, p. 4.] That same year, the school relocated male students from the old Abbot Hall dormitory in order to allow for greater a number of women to enroll in the course. [ [http://www.s150.msu.edu/history_origins.php MSU Sesquicentennial Page — Origins of MSU] ]

In 1885, in order to fill out its mandate as a Morrill Act college, the College established a Mechanics program which became the College's first full-fledged, degree-granting engineering program. [ [http://www.egr.msu.edu/ece/students/prospectus.pdf M.S. & PH.D. Programs in Electrical Engineering (August, 2003)] ]

, commencement speaker for the Semi-Centennial celebration of the College’s opening. [Widder, Keith. " [http://www.s150.msu.edu/history_origins.php Origins of MSU] ". "MSU Sesquicentennial Celebration". January 16, 2004. Accessed April 12, 2007.]

The City of East Lansing incorporated in 1907 as well. [Miller 2002, p. 26.] Two years later, the college officially changed its name to Michigan Agricultural College (M.A.C.), since by this time there were many other agricultural colleges across the country. Even though the College had been around for over fifty years and was a widely-recognized leader of the Land Grant Colleges, some within the state legislature opposed expansion. Despite the Morrill Act’s original mandate that Land Grant Colleges teach engineering (then called “mechanic arts”), some in Michigan believed its agricultural college should not have engineering program because these duplicated the University of Michigan's offerings. Nonetheless, M.A.C. had developed civil, and electrical engineering programs to compliment the original mechanical program of 1885. [Kuhn 1955, p. 112–13, n. 6.] These separate disciplines were unified in a new Department of Engineering in 1908.cite web | url= http://kevinforsyth.net/ELMI/engineering.htm |title= Engineering Building |accessdate= 2008-04-12 | last = Forsyth |first= Kevin S. |year= 2003 |work= A Brief History of East Lansing, Michigan ]

When a 1916 fire destroyed M.A.C.’s nine-year-old engineering hall, there was a movement to have the entire program absorbed by the University of Michigan. Lansing automobile magnate Ransom E. Olds, however, solidified the program on the East Lansing campus with a gift of $100,000 in 1917 for a new engineering building to be erected directly upon the foundations of the burned hall. [Rodriguez 2004, p. 117.] The donation, the College's first significant private gift for a building, resulted in Olds Hall. The original building is still standing but now houses MSU’s University Relations division as well as classroom space.

In 1914, the United States Congress passed the Smith-Lever Act, which provided federal funding for a system of state cooperative extension services. Like T.C. Abbot's initial "Farmers' Institutes", these extension services spread college-based knowledge about agriculture and related issues to citizens around the state. Such extension services served as the third prong of the Land Grant college mission of education, research and public service. With this new mandate, the College looked to expand its curriculum beyond agriculture and engineering. By 1925, the institution had expanded enough that it petitioned the state of Michigan to remove the word "agriculture" from its name, but the University of Michigan opposed the name change. As a compromise, the state government decided to call it Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science (M.S.C.). However, the College's athletic teams were still known as the "Aggies". Thus M.S.C. held a contest to find a new nickname. They decided to call the teams the "Michigan Staters". Local sports writers for the Lansing State Journal and the Capital News went through the losing entries to find a shorter and more heroic name. They decided on the "Spartans". By coincidence, Justin Morrill had once compared the Land Grant colleges to the schools of ancient Sparta. [Kuhn 1955, p. 305.] With a heroic name and a historic precedent, the "Spartans" quickly caught on as the teams' new nickname. Within a few years, the College changed the lyrics of the Fight Song to reflect the name change of the College and its sports teams.

Big Ten University

As the pioneer land grant university, MSU has historically sought to provide educational opportunities to a wide variety of students, especially to those from the farming and working classes. Former President Peter McPherson stated "access to MSU and the education it offers is one of our roots” while noting the challenge, even irony, in maintaining such openness as the University’s quality makes it ever more popular and difficult to be admitted into. [McPherson, M. Peter. " [http://www.msu.edu/~presofc/speeches/stateofu092402.html Keep the Drive Alive] ". "Michigan State University". September 24, 2002. Accessed April 14, 2007.] In more recent years, "town and gown" relations have soured as students and permanent residents looked at each other with increasing hostility. This erupted in clashes involving the police in 1997, [Terlep, Sharon. "E.L. turmoil angers city". "The State News". September 9, 1997.] 1998, [Mullin, Greg. "17 arrested in weekend riot". "The State News". May 4, 1998.] and 1999. [Staff reports. "Thousands of revelers crowd streets in violent, fiery riot". "The State News". March 28, 1999.] Local and national news referred to the disturbances as riots. After several years without any major incidents, another disturbance broke out on April 2, 2005 after the North Carolina's men's basketball team defeated MSU in the 2005 NCAA Final Four. [Phillips, Lauren. " [http://www.statenews.com/article.phtml?pk=29446 Police, student actions disputed] ". "The State News". April 4, 2005. Accessed April 12, 2007.] Officially called a "civil disturbance," the ensuing violence sparked accusations of police brutality in East Lansing.

More recently, East Lansing's plan to redevelop Cedar Village (a student-dominated neighborhood at the center of several riots) has increased the tensions between the school and local government. In 2005, East Lansing City Council declared the neighborhood "blighted", and proposed to redevelop the 35 acre (14 ha) site as a complex of upscale condominiums and retail stores called East Village. Several fraternities in the affected area mounted a campaign against the redevelopment plan. [Cendrowski, Scott. " [http://www.statenews.com/article.phtml?pk=33667 FarmHouse and friends fight East Village plan] ". December 7, 2005. Accessed April 13, 2007.]

Looking to improve its academic reputation in the 21st century, current president Lou Anna Simon called in September, 2004 for MSU to become the "global leader" of Land Grant institutions by the year 2012. These plans include creating a new residential college (the Residential College in Arts & Humanities), investing in biotechnology research, [McMahon, Kathleen. " [http://medc.michigan.org/news/major/combo.asp?ContentId=DE45348C-DC00-4E00-B799-F7DEFFF391EA&QueueId=1&ContentTypeId=7 First Round of Life Sciences Corridor Funds Awarded] ". "Michigan Economic Development Corporation" press release. December 14, 2000. Accessed April 13, 2007.] and increasing National Institutes of Health donations above the $100 million mark. [Darrow, Bob. [http://www.statenews.com/article.phtml?pk=31495 Simon: MSU to be model university] . "The State News". September 9, 2005. Accessed April 12, 2007.]

Notes

References

*cite book | author=Darling, Birt. | title=City in the Forest; The Story of Lansing | location=New York | publisher=Stratford House | year=1950 | id=LCCN 50008202
*cite book | author=Davis, Amy | title=Michigan State University: Off the Record | location=New York | publisher=College Prowler | year=2005 | id=ISBN 1-59658-083-6
*cite book | author=Heineman, Kenneth J. | title=Campus Wars: The Peace Movement at American State Universities in the Vietnam Era | location=New York | publisher=New York University Press | year=1993 | id=ISBN 0-8147-3512-6
*cite book | author=Hugo, Nancy | title=Earth Works: Readings for Backyard Gardeners | publisher=University of Virginia Press | year=1997 | id=ISBN 0-8139-1831-6
*cite book | author=Kuhn, Madison. | title=Michigan State: The First Hundred Years, 1855–1955 | location=East Lansing | publisher=Michigan State University Press | year=1955 | id=ASIN B0007E4VX6
* Momin, Shenila (2002). "The History of Woman’s Course at Michigan Agricultural College, 1896–1905", [http://www.msu.edu/user/mominshe/EAD870/Womens%20course.pdf PDF] accessed March 21, 2006.
*cite book | author=Nixon, Mark | title=Journal of Our Times: 150 Years in the Life of Greater Lansing. | location=Lansing, Michigan | publisher=Lansing State Journal | year=2004 | id=ISBN 1-932129-85-5
*cite book | author=Miller, Whitney. | title=East Lansing: Collegeville Revisited (Images of America) | location=Charleston, South Carolina | publisher=Arcadia Publishing | year=2002 | id=ISBN 0-7385-2045-4
*cite book | author=Rodriguez, Michael | title=R.E. Olds and Industrial Lansing | location=Charleston, South Carolina | publisher=Arcadia Publishing | year=2004 | id=ISBN 0-7385-3272-X
*cite book | author=Widder, Keith | title=Michigan Agricultural College: The Evolution of a Land-Grant Philosophy, 1855–1925 | location=East Lansing | publisher=Michigan State University Press | year=2005 | id=ISBN 0-87013-734-4

External links

;Michigan State websites
* [http://www.msu.edu/ Main university site]
* [http://museum.cl.msu.edu/ Michigan State University Museum]
* [http://www.msu.edu/unit/msuarhc/exhibits.htm MSU Archives & Historical Collections]
* [http://www.msu.edu/unit/msuarhc/buildingexhibit.htm MSU Campus Buildings That No Longer Exist]
* [http://newsroom.msu.edu/snav/184/page.htm MSU Facts] ;External websites
* [http://kevinforsyth.net/ELMI/ A Brief History of East Lansing, Michigan] includes a chronology of campus buildings during the M.A.C. years.
* [http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Morrill.html Morrill Act and related resources at the Library of Congress]
* [http://www.aau.edu/ Association of American Universities website]