Northern Michigan Wildcats Football - History

History

Northern Michigan University was established in 1899 by the Michigan Legislature as Northern State Normal School with the original purpose of providing teacher preparation programs in Michigan's then-wild and sparsely populated Upper Peninsula. When it opened its doors in 1899, NMU enrolled thirty-two students who were taught by six faculty members utilizing rented rooms in Marquette City Hall. The original 20-acre (81,000 m2) campus-site at the corner of Presque Isle and Kaye Avenues was on land donated by local businessman and philanthropist John M. Longyear, whose namesake academic building, Longyear Hall, opened its doors to students in 1900.

Throughout the school's first half-century, education and teacher training was the primary focus of the small regional school. During this time, the school built the native sandstone buildings Kaye and Peter White Halls, as well as a manual training school adjacent to the campus buildings, J.D. Pierce School. Modest increases in enrollment resulted in several name changes throughout the years:

  • Northern State Normal, 1899
  • Northern State Teachers College, 1927
  • Northern Michigan College of Education, 1942
  • Northern Michigan College, 1955

In 1963, through the adoption of a new state constitution in Michigan, Northern was designated as a comprehensive university serving the diverse educational needs of Upper Michigan. During this time, enrollment at the small state school swelled (due in large part to the opening in 1957 of the Mackinac Bridge, linking the Upper and Lower Peninsulas to vehicle traffic) and as a result, the campus expanded rapidly, roughly to the size it remains to this day. Accredited undergraduate and graduate degree programs are offered by the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Business, the College of Professional Studies.

Graduate education was inaugurated in 1928 when courses at the master’s degree level were offered in cooperation with the University of Michigan.

Read more about this topic:  Northern Michigan Wildcats Football

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    Free from public debt, at peace with all the world, and with no complicated interests to consult in our intercourse with foreign powers, the present may be hailed as the epoch in our history the most favorable for the settlement of those principles in our domestic policy which shall be best calculated to give stability to our Republic and secure the blessings of freedom to our citizens.
    Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)

    Don’t you realize that this is a new empire? Why, folks, there’s never been anything like this since creation. Creation, huh, that took six days, this was done in one. History made in an hour. Why it’s a miracle out of the Old Testament!
    Howard Estabrook (1884–1978)

    All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)