The story
The university began as The Agricultural and Mechanical College of the State of Mississippi (or Mississippi A&M), one of the national land-grant colleges established after Congress passed the Morrill Act in 1862. It was created by the Mississippi Legislature on February 28, 1878, to offer training in "agriculture, horticulture and the mechanical arts... without excluding other scientific and classical studies, including military tactics." The university received its first students in the fall of 1880 in the presidency of General Stephen D. Lee.
In 1887 Congress passed the Hatch Act, which provided for the establishment of the Agricultural Experiment Station in 1888. The Cooperative Extension Service was established in 1914 by the Smith-Lever Act. The university has since had its mission expanded and redefined by the Legislature. In 1932, the Legislature renamed the university as Mississippi State College.
In 1958 the Legislature renamed the university Mississippi State University in recognition of its academic development and addition of graduate programs. The Graduate School had been organized (1936), doctoral degree programs had begun (1951), the School of Forest Resources had been established (1954), and the College of Arts and Sciences had replaced the General Science School (1956).
The university was desegregated in July 1965, when Richard E. Holmes became the first African-American student to enroll. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed by Congress the year before, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was being debated, and the United States Supreme Court had ruled in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional.
The School of Architecture admitted its first students in 1973, the College of Veterinary Medicine admitted its first class in 1977. The MSU Vet school is the largest veterinary school under one roof in the nation. The School of Accountancy was established in 1979. The University Honors Program was founded in 1968 to provide more rigorous course curricula and support guest speakers. The program has now has a separate college, the Judy and Bobby Shackouls Honors College.
MSU started a joint Ph.D. program in engineering with San Jose State University in California. In March 2009, Mississippi State announced the conclusion of the university's seven-year capital campaign, with more than $462 million received in private gifts and pledges.
On March 24, 2012, a 21-year-old student at the university named John Sanderson was shot twice and killed inside the Evans Hall Dormitory on campus. Mason Perry Jones later pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.
From Wikipedia’s article on Mississippi State University, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4