The history of Michigan State University (MSU) dates back to 1855, when the Michigan Legislature established the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan in East Lansing, 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 presidency. 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. Today, Michigan State University emphasizes biotechnology research and residential college learning as a modern paradigm for America's land-grant institutions, of which it was the first.
Read more about History Of Michigan State University: Agriculture School, Civil War and Post-war Period, Coeducational College, Big Ten University, Post-Vietnam War and Today
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history, state and/or university:
“Indeed, the Englishman’s history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All history is a record of the power of minorities, and of minorities of one.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Within the university ... you can study without waiting for any efficient or immediate result. You may search, just for the sake of searching, and try for the sake of trying. So there is a possibility of what I would call playing. It’s perhaps the only place within society where play is possible to such an extent.”
—Jacques Derrida (b. 1930)