Mississippi State University

Organized into 12 colleges and schools, the university offers over 180 baccalaureate, graduate, and professional degree programs, and is home to Mississippi's only accredited programs in architecture and veterinary medicine. Mississippi State participates in the National Sea Grant College Program and National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program. The university's main campus adjacent to the city of Starkville is supplemented by auxiliary campuses in Meridian, Gautier, and Biloxi. Mississippi State's intercollegiate sports teams, the Mississippi State Bulldogs, compete in NCAA Division I athletics as members of the Southeastern Conference. Mississippi State was a founding member of the SEC in 1932. In their more-than 120-year history, the Bulldogs have won 21 individual national championships, 30 regular season conference championships, and 1 national championship title. The school is noted for a pervasive baseball fan culture, with Dudy Noble Field holding all of the top 26 all-time NCAA attendance records and the school's Left Field Lounge being described as an epicenter of college baseball.

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.

The main campus is mostly in the Mississippi State census-designated place, with a small part in Starkville. Mississippi State's campus is centered on the main quadrangle, called the Drill Field due to its heavy use by the Corps of Cadets prior to the end of World War II. The Drill Field is defined at its north and south ends by the mirror-image buildings, Lee Hall and Swalm Hall. Old Main was the original dormitory, west of Lee Hall; it burned in a tragic fire, and was replaced by the Colvard Student Union. The largest building on Drill Field is Mitchell Memorial Library. Beyond the main campus (and the series of commuter parking lots ringing the main campus) are the North and South Farms. While still used for their original purpose of agricultural research, the Farms are also host to newer facilities, such as the astronomical observatory and Veterinary College (South Farm) and the High Performance Computing Collaboratory (North Farm). At the far west of campus, one finds first the fraternity and sorority houses, and beyond them the Cotton District and downtown Starkville, Mississippi. The university is also home to the Thad Cochran Research, Technology and Economic Development Park, which host many of the university's research centers, such as the Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems (CAVS) and the nationally recognized Social Science Research Center. The Williams Building, which houses the MSU Police Department was designed by architect Emmett J. Hull. Mississippi State University operates an off-campus, degree-granting center in Meridian, Mississippi that offers undergraduate and graduate programs. In cooperation with the U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station, the College of Engineering offers the Master of Science degree to students in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Formerly the poorly-conceived convergence of five often-congested roadways and, earlier, a rail line, this student-inspired concept got its name from the term "Malfunction Junction", the informal name of the crossroads prior to the vacation and rerouting of some of the roadways. This resulted in improved traffic flow and ample new green space for leisure activities and events, including football tailgating. Anchored by Davis Wade Stadium, Barnes & Noble Bookstore and the University Welcome Center, the Junction is the focal point of a pedestrian-friendly central campus and a significant gathering place for students, alumni and visitors. It is linked by paved walkways and green space to the university's other manicured "lawn", the historic Drill Field.

U.S. News & World Report National Rankings Mississippi State University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award baccalaureate, master's, specialist, and doctoral degrees. The university has the following colleges and schools: As of fall 2021, Mississippi State's enrollment was 23,086. The university has 160 buildings, and the grounds comprise about 4,200 acres (17 km2), including farms, pastures, and woodlands of the Experiment Station. The university also owns an additional 80,000 acres (320 km2) across the state.

MSU has over 300 student organizations. Prominent groups include the Student Association, Famous Maroon Band, MSU Road Runners, Alumni Delegates, Maroon VIP, Lambda Sigma, Orientation Leaders, 18 fraternities and 11 sororities, the Residence Hall Association, the Black Student Alliance, the Mississippi State University College Democrats and Republicans, Music Maker Productions, the Baptist Student Union, the Engineering Student Council, Arnold Air Society, the Stennis-Montgomery Association and ChallengeX. The University Recreation department oversees the intramural sports program. There are many international student organizations active on campus. The literary magazine Jabberwock Review is also based at MSU.

Mississippi State's local radio station is WMSV. Prior to WMSV, Mississippi State had a student-run radio station, WMSB, which went off the air permanently at the end of the spring semester of 1986. WMSB was a low-power FM station with studios on the top floor of Lee Hall. WMSB was begun in the fall semester of 1971 in a freshman dorm room on the third floor of Critz Hall, utilizing an FM stereo transmitter that was designed and built as a high school science fair project by one of the station's founders. The station's original call letters were RHOM. Later, funding was solicited from the Student Association. Funding was approved, the low-power RCA FM transmitter was ordered and the call letters WMSB were issued by the FCC. The station was moved to studios on the top floor of Lee Hall that were formerly occupied by a student-run AM station. The student newspaper is The Reflector, published twice per week on Tuesday and Friday. The publication was named the #1 college newspaper in the South in 2007 by the Southeast Journalism Conference. In recent years, The Reflector has remained in the top 10 college newspapers in the South.

Mississippi State is home to WMSV, the campus radio station. During the spring semester the Old Main Music Festival takes place, it is also free to the public, and is held on the Mississippi State Campus. The city of Starkville and the Mississippi State campus have been a tour stop for many artists, including a visit in 1965 by Johnny Cash. After Cash's performance he was arrested, which led him to write the song "Starkville City Jail".

Mississippi State's Greek system comprises 20 fraternities (IFC and NPHC) and 14 sororities (Panhellenic and NPHC). In 2019, 24% of undergraduate men and 18% of undergraduate women were active in MSU's Greek system.

Mississippi State University's 16 athletic teams are known as the Bulldogs. Previous nicknames included the Aggies and the Maroons. They compete in Division I of the NCAA, in the 16-member Southeastern Conference (SEC). Bulldogs athletic teams have won a total of 28 conference championships (14 SEC). Mississippi State's most successful sport is baseball. The Diamond Dogs have won 17 conference championships (11 SEC) and 6 SEC tournament championships, while making 28 NCAA Tournament appearances and 12 College World Series appearances. The Diamond Dogs play home games at Dudy Noble Field, Polk-DeMent Stadium, which holds the NCAA record for the largest single-game on-campus baseball attendance at 16,423 fans (April 15, 2023, vs. Ole Miss). After finishing runner-up in 2013, the Diamond Dogs won their first Men's College World Series in 2021, the university's first national championship in any sport.