Northern Kentucky University is a

public university A public university or public college is a university or college that is in owned by the state or receives significant public funds through a national or subnational government, as opposed to a private university. Whether a national universit ...

Highland Heights, Kentucky Highland Heights is a home rule-class city in Campbell County, Kentucky, in the United States. The population was 6,923 at the 2010 U.S. census. Highland Heights is home to Northern Kentucky University and General Cable, a Fortune 500 company wh ...

. It is primarily an

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-lev ...

institution with over 14,000 students; over 12,000 are undergraduate students and nearly 2,000 are graduate students. Northern Kentucky University is the third largest university, behind the

University of Cincinnati The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati) is a public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1819 as Cincinnati College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in Cincinnati and has an annual enrollment of over 44,00 ...

and

Miami University Miami University (informally Miami of Ohio or simply Miami) is a public research university in Oxford, Ohio. The university was founded in 1809, making it the second-oldest university in Ohio (behind Ohio University, founded in 1804) and the 10 ...

, of

Greater Cincinnati The Cincinnati metropolitan area and also known as the Cincinnati Tri-State area, or Greater Cincinnati) is a metropolitan area centered on Cincinnati and including surrounding counties in the U.S. states of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. The area i ...

's four large universities and the youngest of Kentucky's eight, although it joined the state system before the

University of Louisville The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public research university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of ...

. Among the university's programs are the

Salmon P. Chase College of Law The NKU Chase College of Law (formerly Salmon P. Chase College of Law, also known as Chase College of Law) is the law school of Northern Kentucky University, a public university in Highland Heights, Kentucky. It provides both part-time (day and ...

and the College of Informatics, founded in 2006.

History

Early history

Northern Kentucky University began in 1948, when an extension campus for the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentu ...

was opened in

Covington, Kentucky Covington is a list of cities in Kentucky, home rule-class city in Kenton County, Kentucky, Kenton County, Kentucky, United States, located at the confluence of the Ohio River, Ohio and Licking River (Kentucky), Licking Rivers. Cincinnati, Ohio, ...

, known as the UK Northern Extension Center. After 20 years in operation as an extension center for UK, it became an autonomous four-year college under the name Northern Kentucky State College (NKSC). In 1970, Dr. W. Frank Steely was hired as the first president. The following year, the Salmon P. Chase College of Law, formerly an independent law school in Cincinnati, merged with Northern Kentucky State College. The main campus moved from Covington to Highland Heights, Kentucky, in 1972. NKSC awarded its first bachelor's degrees in May 1973. Rapid expansion resulted in the school being upgraded to university status in 1976.Google cached page from NKU 2007 catalog
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Recent history

Since its founding in 1968 and elevation to university status in 1976, Northern Kentucky University has expanded with numerous construction projects, new colleges and a much larger, more diverse student body. One recent former president of the university, James C. Votruba, is largely credited with transforming the image of the university since his arrival in 1997, helping to build the university's reputation as a respected academic institution. As part of Votruba's administration, the university has increased its admissions standards and improved the academic performance of its students. Northern Kentucky University also launched a new university logo and branding effort in 2002. In recent years, the university has also concentrated on the construction of new and improved facilities across campus.

Presidents

* W. Frank Steely, 1970–1975 * Ralph Tesseneer, 1975-1976 ''(interim)'' * A.D. Albright, 1976–1983 * Leon Boothe, 1983–1996 * Jack M. Moreland, 1996–1997 ''(interim)'' * James Votruba, 1997–2012 * Geoffrey S. Mearns, 2012–2017 * Gerard St. Amand, 2017–2018 ''(interim)'' * Ashish Vaidya, 2018–present

Campus

Academic facilities

Northern Kentucky University's main campus in Highland Heights, Kentucky is situated on of rolling countryside along

U.S. Route 27 U.S. Route 27 (US 27) is a north–south United States Highway in the southern and midwestern United States. The southern terminus is at US 1 in Miami, Florida. The northern terminus is at Interstate 69 (I-69) in Fort Wayne, Indiana. F ...

, just off of Interstate 275 and

Interstate 471 Interstate 471 (I-471) is a Interstate Highway, linking I-71 in Downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, to I-275 in Highland Heights, Kentucky. South of I-275, the expressway continues south to U.S. Route 27 (US 27) as unsigned Kentucky Route&n ...

, seven miles (11 km) southeast of Cincinnati, Ohio. The campus was built beginning in the early 1970s, and the first building, Nunn Hall, opened in 1972. Although most of the university's students commute daily to the campus, approximately 2,000 students live on campus. In recent years, the university has been in the process of expanding its campus and facilities. The $60 million

Truist Arena Truist Arena, formerly The Bank of Kentucky Center and BB&T Arena, is a 10,000-seat multi-purpose arena in Highland Heights, Kentucky, on the campus of Northern Kentucky University. The arena was topped off on June 21, 2007, and the first event ...

is a 9,400-seat arena completed in 2008. It serves as the primary venue for athletics on campus, and also as a venue for entertainment, such as live bands and concerts. The arena was originally known as The Bank of Kentucky Center, named after The Bank of Kentucky, which made an endowment of $5 million toward construction. The name was changed in 2015 when that bank was purchased by

BB&T BB&T Corporation (previously known as the Branch Banking and Trust Company) was one of the largest banking and financial services firms in the United States, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 2019, BB&T announced its intentions to merge ...

, and again in 2022 after BB&T merged with

SunTrust SunTrust Banks, Inc. was an American bank holding company with SunTrust Bank as its largest subsidiary and assets of US$199 billion as of March 31, 2018. The bank's most direct corporate parent was established in 1891 in Atlanta, where it was h ...

to create

Truist Financial Truist Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. The company was formed in December 2019 as the result of the merger of BB&T (Branch Banking and Trust Company) and SunTrust Banks. Its b ...

. Additionally, a new $37 million, Student Union building, which opened to students in August 2008, largely replaces an old university center and is designed to accommodate student needs on campus. The building includes cafeterias, stores, a game room, offices for student life programs, and other amenities for students. Other recent projects included the construction of a new parking garage to accommodate the arena and a European-style roundabout for traffic control and flow management. The most recent university master plan envisions a massive expansion of the campus by the year 2020, including multiple new academic buildings, housing developments, campus quad areas, athletic fields, parking lots and connector roads. The Landrum Academic Center houses an Anthropology Museum. The university campus is also the first educational institute in the world to have a laser-projection planetarium, as part of the Dorothy Westerman Hermann Natural Science Center. The Covington campus, located in

, closed at the end of 2008. It mainly served nontraditional and adult students and also hosted the Program for Adult-Centered Education and Emergency Medical Technology programs. Northern Kentucky University'
Grant County Center
located in

Williamstown, Kentucky Williamstown is a home-rule-class city in Grant and Pendleton counties in the U.S. state of Kentucky. The population was 3,925 at the 2010 census, up from 3,227 as of the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Grant County. History When Grant ...

, is a partnership between the

Grant County Grant County may refer to: Places ;Australia * County of Grant, Victoria ;United States *Grant County, Arkansas *Grant County, Indiana * Grant County, Kansas *Grant County, Kentucky *Grant County, Minnesota *Grant County, Nebraska *Grant C ...

Foundation for Higher Education and Northern Kentucky University. It houses Northern Kentucky educational programs and the Williamstown Innovation Center. The

Japanese Language School of Greater Cincinnati is a hoshuko, Japanese supplementary school with classes held at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) in Highland Heights, Kentucky, in the Cincinnati metropolitan area. Classes are held at the Mathematics, Education and Psychology Center (MP), form ...

is a weekend supplementary Japanese school held at the Mathematics, Education and Psychology Center (MP), formerly known as the Business Education Psychology (BEP) Building.English Information

.

. Retrieved on May 8, 2014. "BEP102 Northern Kentucky University, Nunn Drive, Highland Heights, KY 41099" It was scheduled to move to NKU in July 1993.
Clipping
at

Newspapers.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. In November 2018, ...

Libraries

Northern Kentucky's main library is the W. Frank Steely Library, completed in 1975 and named after the first president of the university. A $9.1 million renovation and expansion project was completed in 1995. The library's five floors contain over 850,000 volumes, more than 18,000 bound periodicals, and approximately 1.4 million microforms. The two-floor Chase Law Library Northern Kentucky's other library on campus, contains more than 313,000 volumes and 57,000 monographic and serial titles.

Civic engagement

Corporate and university partnerships include The Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement the Fifth/Third Entrepreneurial Center the Metropolitan Education and Training Services Center, the Center for Applied Informatics, and

Fidelity Investments Fidelity Investments, commonly referred to as Fidelity, earlier as Fidelity Management & Research or FMR, is an American multinational financial services corporation based in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was established in 1946 and is on ...

. Other centers on campus include the Center for Applied Anthropology, the Institute for Freedom Studies, the Center for Environmental Restoration the Small Business Development Center the Institute for New Economy Technologies the Center for Environmental Education the Center for Integrative Natural Science and Mathematics and the Chase Local Government Law Center.

Academics

Northern Kentucky University Griffin Hall

Northern Kentucky University academic programs are organized into seven colleges. The College of Informatics, founded in 2006, replaced the College of Professional Studies. In July 2015, the School of the Arts was created, uniting the Music, Theatre & Dance, and Visual Arts programs within the College of Arts & Sciences. In 2018, the former Honors Program became the Honors College. * College of Arts and Sciences ** School of the Arts * Haile College of Business * College of Education and Human Services * College of Informatics * College of Health Professions *Honors College *

Northern Kentucky University students are also a part of individual chapters in numerous honor societies. Northern Kentucky's Alpha Beta Phi chapter of

Phi Alpha Theta Phi Alpha Theta () is an American honor society for undergraduate and graduate students and professors of history. It has more than 400,000 members, with new members numbering about 9,000 a year through its 970 chapters. Founding Phi Alpha The ...

, the International History Honor Society, has won 18 consecutive best chapter awards.

Athletics

The university's teams for both men and women are nicknamed "Norse". Their mascot is named Victor E. Viking. Northern Kentucky University joined the

Horizon League The Horizon League is an 11-school collegiate athletic conference in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I, whose members are located in and near the Great Lakes region. The Horizon League founded in 1979 as the Midw ...

on July 1, 2015, after leaving the

Atlantic Sun Conference The ASUN Conference, formerly the Atlantic Sun Conference, is a collegiate athletic conference operating mostly in the Southeastern United States. The league participates at the NCAA Division I level, and began sponsoring football at the Divisi ...

. The 2016–17 school year is the first in which NKU is eligible for NCAA Division I championships, following the completion of its four-year reclassification period to D-I. The university fields teams in baseball, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's cross country, men's and women's golf, men's and women's soccer, softball, women's track and field, men's and women's tennis and women's volleyball. In one of the school's first major events as a full Division I team, the Norse men's basketball team won the Horizon League, earning them a trip to the 2017 NCAA tournament.

Club sports

Students have also organized club teams in bowling, ice hockey, men soccer club, taekwondo fencing, boxing, lacrosse, rugby, kickball, skeet & trap, and Men's Wrestling. These clubs are primarily organized through the Sport Club program.

Student life

Greek life

;

National Panhellenic Conference The National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) is an umbrella organization for 26 (inter)national women's Fraternities and sororities, sororities throughout the United States and Canada. Each member group is autonomous as a social, Greek alphabet#Use ...

Alpha Omicron Pi Alpha Omicron Pi (, AOII, Alpha O) is an international women's fraternity founded on January 2, 1897, at Barnard College on the campus of Columbia University in New York City. The main archive URL iThe Baird's Manual Online Archive homepage "AOI ...

– Nu Omega *

Delta Gamma Delta Gamma (), commonly known as DG, is a women's fraternity in the United States and Canada with over 250,000 initiated members. It has 150 collegiate chapters and more than 200 alumnae groups. The organization's executive office is in Columbus ...

– Zeta Sigma *

Delta Zeta Delta Zeta (, also known as DZ) is an international college sorority founded on October 24, 1902, at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Delta Zeta has 170 collegiate chapters in the United States and Canada, and over 200 alumnae chapters in Cana ...

– Kappa Beta *

Kappa Delta Kappa Delta (, also known as KD or Kaydee) was the first sorority founded at the State Female Normal School (now Longwood University), in Farmville, Virginia. Kappa Delta is one of the "Farmville Four" sororities founded at the university, wh ...

– Eta Eta *

Phi Mu Phi Mu () is the second oldest female fraternal organization established in the United States. The fraternity was founded at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia as the Philomathean Society on , and was announced publicly on March 4 of the same ye ...

- Rho Nu *

Phi Sigma Sigma Phi Sigma Sigma (), colloquially known as Phi Sig, was the first collegiate nonsectarian sorority to allow membership of women of all faiths and backgrounds. The sorority was founded on November 26, 1913, and lists 60,000 initiated members, 115 ...

– Gamma Tau *

Theta Phi Alpha Theta Phi Alpha (), commonly known as Theta Phi, is a women's fraternity founded at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor on August 30, 1912. The main archive URL iThe Baird's Manual Online Archive homepage Theta Phi Alpha is one of 26 nation ...

– Alpha Mu ;

North American Interfraternity Conference The North American Interfraternity Conference (or NIC; formerly known as the National Interfraternity Conference) is an association of intercollegiate men's social fraternities that was formally organized in 1910, although it began at a meeting a ...

Alpha Sigma Phi Alpha Sigma Phi (), commonly known as Alpha Sig, is an intercollegiate men's social fraternity with 181 active chapters and provisional chapters. Founded at Yale in 1845, it is the 10th oldest Greek letter fraternity in the United States. The f ...

- Eta Phi *

Alpha Tau Omega Alpha Tau Omega (), commonly known as ATO, is an American social fraternity founded at the Virginia Military Institute in 1865 by Otis Allan Glazebrook. The fraternity has around 250 active and inactive chapters and colonies in the United Stat ...

– Theta Omega *

Pi Kappa Alpha Pi Kappa Alpha (), commonly known as PIKE, is a college fraternity founded at the University of Virginia in 1868. The fraternity has over 225 chapters and colonies across the United States and abroad with over 15,500 undergraduate members over 30 ...

– Eta Rho *

Sigma Phi Epsilon Sigma Phi Epsilon (), commonly known as SigEp, is a social college fraternity for male college students in the United States. It was founded on November 1, 1901, at Richmond College (now the University of Richmond), and its national headquarte ...

– Eta RLC *

Tau Kappa Epsilon Tau Kappa Epsilon (), commonly known as or Teke, is a social college fraternity founded on January 10, 1899, at Illinois Wesleyan University. The organization has chapters throughout the United States and Canada, making the Fraternity an internat ...

– Pi Omicron *

Theta Chi Theta Chi () is an international college fraternity. It was founded on April 10, 1856 at Norwich University then-located in Norwich, Vermont, and has initiated more than 200,000 members and currently has over 8,700 collegiate members across Nort ...

– Iota Tau ;

National Pan-Hellenic Council The National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) is a collaborative umbrella council composed of historically African American fraternities and sororities also referred to as Black Greek Letter Organizations (BGLOs). The NPHC was formed as a permanent ...

Alpha Kappa Alpha Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. () is the first intercollegiate historically African American sorority. The sorority was founded on January 15, 1908, at the historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C., by a group of sixteen stud ...

– Sigma Eta *

Kappa Alpha Psi Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. () is a historically African American fraternity. Since the fraternity's founding on January 5, 1911 at Indiana University Bloomington, the fraternity has never restricted membership on the basis of color, creed ...

– Pi Pi *

Alpha Phi Alpha Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. () is the oldest intercollegiate historically African American fraternity. It was initially a literary and social studies club organized in the 1905–1906 school year at Cornell University but later evolved int ...

– Rho Gamma ;

National Association of Latino Fraternal Organizations The National Association of Latino Fraternal Organizations (NALFO) is an umbrella council for 16 Latino Greek Letter Organizations (GLOs) established in 1998. The purpose of NALFO is to promote and foster positive interfraternal relations, commu ...

Alpha Psi Lambda Alpha Psi Lambda National, Inc. (), is a Coeducation, co-educational, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Latino-oriented Fraternities and sororities, fraternity which began in 1985 at Ohio State University. It is the first co-ed fraternity for Lati ...

– Psi

Government

* Student Government Association NKU-lake-3

Media

''The Northerner'' is Northern Kentucky's student-run newspaper. It is published both in print and online. The university is also home to an independent, student-run

Internet radio Online radio (also web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio, IP radio, Internet radio) is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not transmitted ...

station Norse Code Radio Northern Kentucky University formerly hosted the award-winning

public radio Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...

station, WNKU, founded in 1986, until the station's sale in August 2017. NorseMediaTV is the PEG access

Public-access television Public-access television is traditionally a form of non-commercial mass media where the general public can create content television programming which is narrowcast through cable television specialty channels. Public-access television was creat ...

cable TV Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broadc ...

station run by Northern Kentucky University. It airs on channel 818 on Cincinnati Bell Fioptics cable and 18 digital/96 analog on Insight Cable of Northern Kentucky. NorseMediaTV students and faculty produce many original programs, such as "Norse Access" - a weekly talk show, various sporting events and entertainment programming. Many NorseMedia programs have won awards at the local (Blue Chips), regional (Philos) and national (Telly) levels, usually in the professional categories. Students in the program at NKU are invited to create and assist in producing the Electronic Media & Broadcasting programs for the station.

Noted people

Northern Kentucky University has over 60,000 living alumni, approximately 41,000 of them in Ohio and Kentucky. Many have gone on to achieve success in a variety of fields, including athletics, journalism, business, and government. File:George Clooney 2016.jpg, Attended but did not graduate - actor

George Clooney George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by George Clooney, numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Awards, British Academy Film A ...

File:10.17.09DavidMackByLuigiNovi.jpg, 1995 Alumnus artist David W. Mack File:Brian Pillman Jr, 2020 (cropped).jpg, Graduated in

Information Systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, information storage, store, and information distribution, distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems a ...

- professional wrestler

Brian Pillman Jr. Brian Zachary Pillman (born September 9, 1993), better known by the ring name Brian Pillman Jr., is an American professional wrestler currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW). He is also known for his time in Major League Wrestling (MLW). Pil ...

References

External links

*
Northern Kentucky Athletics website
{{authority control Public universities and colleges in Kentucky Educational institutions established in 1968 Buildings and structures in Campbell County, Kentucky Universities and colleges accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Greater Cincinnati Consortium of Colleges and Universities Education in Campbell County, Kentucky Tourist attractions in Campbell County, Kentucky