Contact: Joe Farris
Mississippi State University is planning a year-long series of activities commemorating the founding of the institution 125 years ago Friday.
On Feb. 28, 1878, Gov. John M. Stone signed into law the legislation organizing the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi. The new institution quickly became generally known as Mississippi A&M, the name it carried until becoming Mississippi State College in 1932.
Founders' Day activities on Friday include an evening banquet honoring the university's living former MSU presidents Dean W. Colvard, who served 1960-1966; Donald Zacharias, 1985-1997; Malcolm Portera, 1998-2001; and current President J. Charles Lee.
Other 125th anniversary year events will be scheduled in conjunction with Super Bulldog Weekend in April and the formal inauguration of Lee as the university's 17th president in the fall, as well as at other times during the year.
Mississippi A&M was created as one of the land-grant institutions authorized by the federal Morrill Act of 1862. After its creation in law in 1878, the new college opened its doors to 354 students in the fall of 1880.
Under first president Stephen D. Lee, the college operated with military-style discipline. The almost all-male student body--now 46 percent women--wore uniforms, rose to reveille, attended daily chapel, and helped run the institution with mandatory daily labor. The three buildings of the original campus were heated by coal-burning fireplaces and lighted with kerosene lamps.
Mississippi State University, as it became in 1958, now is the state's largest, with more than 16,600 students representing every state and every county of Mississippi as well as countries around the world. It ranks 57th among more than 600 public four-year colleges and universities in research.