Blue Mountain Christian University (BMCU), formerly Blue Mountain College, is a

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

Baptist college in

Blue Mountain, Mississippi Blue Mountain is a town in Tippah County, Mississippi. The population was 920 at the 2010 census. It is the location of Blue Mountain College, a private Christian liberal arts college. History Blue Mountain is rooted in the community that deve ...

. Founded as a women's college in 1873, the college's board of trustees voted unanimously for the college to become coeducational in 2005. The university offers baccalaureate degrees as well as graduate programs.

History

By 1873, the college was founded as a woman's college by Confederate Brigadier-General Mark Perrin Lowrey, a pastor who was known as "a preacher general" during the war. Blue Mountain Female Institute, as it was called at first, started with 50 students with Lowrey and his two daughters serving as the faculty. In 1877, the college was officially chartered by the State of Mississippi. Lowrey, his sons W. T. and B. G., and grandson Lawrence Lowrey all served as the first four presidents. By 1910, the institution was using the name Blue Mountain Female College. After the sudden death of President Lowrey in 1960, a longtime professor at the school, Wilfred Tyler, became the first non-Lowrey family president followed by E. Harold Fisher in 1965. Bettye Rogers Coward served as the seventh president from 2001 to 2012. Janice I. Nicholson, a BMC alumna, served as transitional president prior to Barbara Childers McMillin's becoming the eighth president on August 1, 2012. Originally an independently owned institution, the college was turned over to the Mississippi Baptist Convention in 1920 by the Lowrey Family. It remained focused on women's education until 1956 when a program to train men for church-related vocations was started. In October 2005, the college's board of trustees voted to make the school fully coeducational. On November 4, 2022, the college was renamed Blue Mountain Christian University to distinguish the institution from two-year community colleges and to highlight its Christian identity and mission.

Athletics

The Blue Mountain Christian (BMCU) athletic teams are called the Toppers. The college is a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), primarily competing in the Southern States Athletic Conference (SSAC; formerly known as Georgia–Alabama–Carolina Conference (GACC) until after the 2003–04 school year) since the 2013–14 academic year. The Toppers previously competed in the

TranSouth Athletic Conference The TranSouth Athletic Conference (TSAC) was a college athletic conference for smaller colleges and universities located in the Southern United States. It was affiliated with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and compe ...

(TranSouth or TSAC) from 1996–97 to 2012–13. Men's sports began competition in the 2007–08 academic year, when the school became co-educational. BMCU competes in 18 intercollegiate sports: Men's sports include baseball, basketball, bowling, cross country, golf, soccer, tennis and track & field; while women's sports include basketball, bowling, cheerleading, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, tennis, track & field and volleyball. Club sports include men's & women's archery, bass fishing and powerlifting.

Notable alumni

Dusti Bongé Dusti Bongé (''née'' Eunice Lyle Swetman, 1903–1993) was an American painter who worked from the 1930s through the early 1990s. She is considered Mississippi's first Abstract expressionism, Abstract Expressionist painter and its first Modernism ...

Artist, Biloxi, Mississippi *

George Duke Humphrey George Duke Humphrey (August 30, 1897 – September 10, 1973) was the President of the Mississippi State College (now Mississippi State University) from 1934 to 1945. He then became the president of the University of Wyoming from 1945 to 1964. ...

- 9th president of

Mississippi State University Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Unive ...

Annibel Jenkins Annibel Jenkins (March 4, 1918 – March 20, 2013) was an American college professor and scholar of the eighteenth century. Early life Annibel Jenkins was born in Shubuta, Mississippi, and raised in Whiteville, Tennessee, Forest and Lucedale, ...

, English scholar, professor at Georgia Tech

References

External links

Official website

Official athletics website
{{Coord, 34, 40, 19, N, 89, 1, 45, W, display=title Former women's universities and colleges in the United States Southern States Athletic Conference schools Universities and colleges affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention Educational institutions established in 1873 Female seminaries in the United States Education in Tippah County, Mississippi Universities and colleges accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Private universities and colleges in Mississippi 1873 establishments in Mississippi