ball state
The area of Muncie, Indiana that is now known as Ball State University had its start in 1899 as a private school called the Eastern Indiana Normal School to educate teachers.
The state granted operating control of the Muncie Campus and school building to the administrators of the Indiana State Normal School in Terre Haute. That same year, the Marion Normal Institute relocated to Muncie, joining the former Indiana State Normal School to form what would eventually become Ball State University.
During the regular legislative session of 1929, the Indiana General Assembly formally separated the Terre Haute and Muncie campuses of the state teachers college system, but placed the governing of the Ball State campus under the Indiana State Teachers College Board of Trustees, based in Terre Haute. During this action, the school was renamed Ball State Teachers College.
In 1961, Ball State became fully independent of Indiana State University via the creation of the Ball State College Board of Trustees, so that Ball State was no longer governed remotely by the Indiana State College Board of Trustees.
Located on the northwest side of the city, Ball State’s campus spans more than 1,000 acres (4 km”).
Despite being dedicated fairly recently in 2002, Shafer Tower has become an unofficial landmark of Ball State University. Brian Collins, now a report for KXXV in Waco Texas, is best known for the viral video showing him fumbling through a Ball State sportscast.
The short-lived CW Network television series ” Online Nation ” featured viral sketch comedy clips created by the Ball State student comedy organization Something Else. Following the opening of the David Letterman Communication and Media Building, Letterman appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show where he gave Ball State and University President JoAnn Gora high praise.
In 1935, the school added the Arts Building for art, music and dance instruction (now used by the Ball State University Museum of Art and the Department of Geology).
None of the academic buildings on the campus of Ball State have identical facades, which is unusual for a large university.
Possibly the top destination for Ball State students is Bracken Library. This facility has the floor area of nearly seven American football fields and houses five floors of university offices, classrooms, computer labs, private study suites, video viewing suites, and thousands of books, videos, and audio devices available to students.
PBS visited Ball State University in 2006 to interview students for a documentary entitled Generation Next. A webcam kiosk asked students for their opinions on topics ranging from the Iraq War to religion.
By the 1925″26 school year, Ball State enrollment reached 991 students: 697 women and 294 men.
The student body consists of more than 20,000 students, of which over 18,000 are undergraduate students and over 1,500 are graduate students. Originally a normal school, Ball State has grown and expanded over the years and is recognized today for its programs in architecture, exercise science, education, anthropology, entrepreneurship, and communications.
The 2005 edition of Almanac of Architecture and Design named Ball State one of the top ten colleges in landscape architecture. The BSU School of Music is widely known for its quality at both the undergraduate and graduate levels; the school’s Music Technology program houses one of the most elite facilities in the United States.
According to the 2006 edition of the same magazine, Ball State has one of the best undergraduate business programs in the nation. In 2004 “This Business of Broadcasting” named Ball State as one of the nation’s top broadcasting programs in the country.
A 2005 survey conducted by Intel Corporation rates Ball State as the number one wireless campus in the nation.
In 2006 the CBS reality show Armed and Famous was filmed in Muncie and featured shots of the Ball State campus and students in the series.
Ball State has one all women’s residence hall that houses approximately 600 students.
The entire school, including classrooms, library and the president’s residence were housed in what is now known as the Ball State Administration building.
Ball State is identified by the Carnegie Classification as a high research university.
Bracken Library hosts the Ball State University Digital Media Repository, an open access resource containing over 67,000 digital objects in 29 collections.
The Ball State Department of Chemistry held the record for largest undergraduate summer research program in 2004 and 2005.
NBA stars Theron Smith of the Charlotte Bobcats and Bonzi Wells of the New Orleans Hornets competed on the NCAA level at Ball State as did Major League Baseball players, including Larry Bigbie of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Bryan Bullington, pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Thomas Howard (”Tank”), formerly of the San Diego Padres, Cincinnati Reds, and several other major league teams.
Sam Smith, sports writer for the Chicago Tribune, is a graduate of Ball State.
Ball State competes in the NCAA Division I / IA and is part of the Mid-American Conference (MAC) in all Olympic sports except for men’s volleyball, where it competes in the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association Conference (MIVAC).
In the field of comics, artist Jim Davis, the cartoonist creator of Garfield also is a graduate of Ball State.
Built in 1964 with a capacity of 3,575, the Auditorium is named for former Ball State President John R. Emens.
ABET has continuously accredited Ball State University’s following bachelors degree since the date listed: Manufacturing Engineering Technology 1994.
“Education Redefined” is a registered trademark of Ball State University.
The Ball State field hockey team suffered a 7-0 setback at the hands of Towson University Friday afternoon to open its two-game stint in Maryland.
The Ball State women’s volleyball team will host a post-match reception following the final contest of the 2008 Ball State Active Ankle Challenge which pits the Cardinals against 18th-ranked Purdue at 7:30 p.m. With seven letterwinners returning from the 2007 campaign, second year Ball State cross country head coach Randy Heisler looks to build upon the team’s fifth-place finish at the 2007 Mid-American Conference Championships.
The videos featuring the “Real Life”bloggers are produced by Ball State telecommunications student Sean O’Key Sean O’Key.
Ball State physics chapter receives national honor Ball State physics chapter receives national honor Ball State’s chapter of the Society of Physics Students has been selected as an outstanding chapter for 2005-06.
Ball State Joins Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy Ball State Joins Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy Ball State faculty and students now have access to research-grade astronomy equipment as a result of the university’s recent membership in the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy (SARA).
“I transferred here from a small liberal arts college where I was the only disabled student on campus,” she said.
A Ball State University football player, who is also the nephew of coach Brady Hoke, was suspended from the team after being arrested last weekend.
Using the national spotlight as its guide, Ball State University is announcing progress on a new fundraising campaign Friday night.
Ball State Bold, a capital campaign totaling about $200 million, is being presented during halftime of the Ball State vs. 5, and Ball State coach Brady Hoke has concerns about the Midshipmen.
The difficulty Ball State and other teams have in defending Navy’s run is that.
Nobody shuts down Navy’s hard-to-stop triple-option offense, but Ball State proved last season that it could take a blow and still win a game. The close relationship between the Balls and the school led to an unofficial moniker for the college as many students, faculty and local politicians casually referred to the school as “Ball State” as a shorthand alternative to its longer, official name.
During the 1922 short session of the Indiana legislature, the state renamed the school as the Ball Teachers College. During this act, the state also reorganized its relationship with Terre Haute, and established a separate local board of trustees for the Muncie campus.
In early 1918, during the Indiana General Assembly’s “short session,” state legislators accepted the gift of the school and the land by the Ball Brothers.
As an expression of the many gifts the Ball family gave the university since 1917, sculptor Daniel Chester French was commissioned by the Muncie Chamber of Commerce to cast a bronze fountain figure to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Ball brothers’ gift to the state. His creation, the statue Beneficence, still stands today between the Administration Building and Lucina Hall where Talley Avenue ends at University Avenue.
Many of the events in the movie were “supposed” to take place around the Delaware County Area (Ball State).
The newest building on campus is the David Letterman Communication and Media Building, named for Ball State’s most famous alumnus. It was dedicated during a ceremony on September 7, 2007, with Letterman as the guest of honor.
Ball State’s academic and administrative buildings, residence halls, and green spaces have wireless access fed by 625 Wi-Fi access points.
Ball State’s freshman residence hall program is listed as one of the best in the nation by the Unofficial, Unbiased Insider’s Guide to the Most Interesting Colleges.
In 2004, Ball State’s master’s program in Student Affairs Administration in Higher Education (SAAHE) ranked 14th among 186 programs in a national study presented to the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA).
In 2006, Planetizen.com ranked Ball State’s Urban Planning & Development program the seventeenth best in the country. It was also ranked in the following areas: number seven in historic preservation, number seven in land-use planning, number six in technology, number five in zoning administration, and number three in the midwest.
Ball State’s academic future is considered by many to be bright as the University continues a course of upgrading programs and adding new ones where applicable.
Physics and Astronomy Department’s SPS Receives Two Awards Physics and Astronomy Department s SPS Receives Two Awards Ball State’s Society of Physics Students (SPS) received two national awards from the national parent organization of SPS and Sigma Pi Sigma, the national physics honor society.
Ball State’s “unblocked guy” failed to make a play last year, and Navy penalized the Cardinals by gaining 72 and 68 yards on the two runs.
The Ball brothers continued giving to the university and partially funded the construction of the Science Hall (now called the Burkhardt Building) in 1924, and an addition to Ball Gymnasium in 1925.
For $35,100, the Balls bought the Administration Building and surrounding land bordered by University Avenue, McKinley Avenue, Riverside Avenue and Tillotson Avenue, except for the northwest quadrant which was kept as a wildlife preserve (Christy Woods).
Previous educational institutions operated at the intersection of University and McKinley Avenues before 1918. On July 25, 1917, local industrialists the Ball Brothers, founders of the Ball Corporation, bought the Indiana Normal Institute out of foreclosure.
Based on the school’s close relationship with the Ball Corporation, a long-running nickname for the school was “Fruit Jar Tech.”
Richard Dreyfuss’ character in the feature film Close Encounters of the Third Kind can be seen wearing a famous “Ball U” t-shirt.
