The University of Central Missouri (UCM) is a

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

Warrensburg, Missouri Warrensburg is a city in and the county seat of Johnson County, Missouri, United States. The population was 20,313 at the 2020 census. The Warrensburg Micropolitan Statistical Area consists of Johnson County. The city is a college town as it is ...

. In 2019, enrollment was 11,229 students from 49 states and 59 countries on its 1,561-acre campus. UCM offers 150 programs of study, including 10 pre-professional programs, 27 areas of teacher certification, and 37 graduate programs.

History

The University was founded in 1871 as Normal School No. 2 and became known as Warrensburg Teachers College. The name was changed to Central Missouri State Teachers College in 1919, Central Missouri State College in 1945 and Central Missouri State University in 1972. In 1965, the institution established a graduate school. In 2006, the name was changed to the University of Central Missouri. There are 150 majors and minors, 32 professional accreditations and 37 graduate programs. UCM has a high-tech, STEM-focused facility called the Missouri Innovation Campus in Lee's Summit, Missouri and provides numerous online courses and programs.

Academics

College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences: UCM students take College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences courses that develop critical-thinking, writing, and speaking skills. Accreditations include National Association of Schools of Music and National Council for Social Studies. Departments include: *School of Visual and Performing Arts **Music **Theatre and Dance **Art and Design *Government, International Studies and Languages **Political Science *English and Philosophy *History and Anthropology *Communication and Sociology Religious Studies Women's Studies Harmon College of Business and Professional Studies: The Harmon College of Business and Professional Studies is accredited by AACSB International. Other accreditations include Aviation Accreditation Board International and the Council on Social Work Education. Departments include: *School of Business Administration **Economics, Finance and Marketing **School of Accountancy and Computer Information Systems **Management *School of

Professional Studies "Professional studies" is a term used to classify academic programs which are applied or interdisciplinary in focus. The term can also be used for non-academic training for a specific profession. Research on professionals can be seen as a multidisc ...

**Aviation **Criminal Justice **Communication Disorders and Social Work **Military Science and Leadership College of Education: UCM's College of Education prepares students to become teachers. Departments include: *Career and Technology Education *Educational Leadership and Human Development *Educational Foundations and Literacy *Elementary and Early Childhood Education College of Health, Science, and Technology: Combining scientific theory and applied technology, the College of Health, Science, and Technology includes: *School of Health and Human Performance **Nursing **Nutrition and Kinesiology *Biology and Earth Science *School of Environmental, Physical, and Applied Sciences *School of Technology *School of Computer Science and Mathematics *Psychological Science. The Honors College: First-time incoming freshmen must have a minimum ACT score of 25 (or SAT equivalent) and a minimum cumulative high school GPA of 3.5 to be considered for admission to The Honors College. Once incoming freshmen have completed a semester at UCM as a full-time student and have a college cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher, they may apply to The Honors College. Current UCM students or students transferring to UCM must have achieved a minimum cumulative college GPA of 3.5 or higher. Benefits of being an Honors College student include, but are not limited to, early enrollment, one-on-one advising, smaller classes, Honors-only courses and colloquia.

GIMPS

The University of Central Missouri continues to hold an important role in the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. The GIMPS project at UCM is a university-wide effort managed by Curtis Cooper and Steven Boone. As of 2022, UCM's team () is currently the 10th place contributor to that project in terms of CPU power devoted to the project, and is the only GIMPS team that has discovered four

Mersenne prime In mathematics, a Mersenne prime is a prime number that is one less than a power of two. That is, it is a prime number of the form for some integer . They are named after Marin Mersenne, a French Minim friar, who studied them in the early 17th ...

s: M43 2^30402457 - 1 with 9,152,052 digits, M44 2^32582657 - 1 with 9,808,358 digits, M48 2^57,885,161-1 with 17,425,170 digits, and M49 2^74,207,281-1 with 22,338,618 digits.

Student life

The university has more than 200 student organizations with academic, cultural, recreational, community service and special interest clubs and associations. There are also more than 20 intramural sports to compete in, free movie nights on campus and a bowling alley and movie theater in the student union. Freshman and sophomore students are required to live in one of the 16 residence halls their first year to help ease the adjustment from high school to college. Students can also choose to live in a Special Housing Interest Program, which places students with the same program of study together in the residence halls.

Greek life

The University of Central Missouri is home to 26 Greek organizations; recruitment takes place in both the spring and fall semesters. Eleven percent of UCM students are involved in Greek life. A Greek program, Greeks Advocating Mature Management of Alcohol known as GAMMA, promotes alcohol awareness. It assisted the Student Government Association with bringing the Night Ryder bus to campus. Night Ryder provides students a free ride to and from campus to ensure that students have safe transportation. A list are of fraternity and sorority chapters are presented below. Fraternities * Alpha Phi Alpha * Alpha Kappa Lambda * Alpha Tau Omega *

Delta Chi Delta Chi () is an international Greek letter collegiate social fraternity formed on October 13, 1890, at Cornell University, initially as a professional fraternity for law students. On April 30, 1922, Delta Chi became a general membership soc ...

* FarmHouse *

Lambda Chi Alpha Lambda Chi Alpha (), commonly known as Lambda Chi, is a college fraternity in North America which was founded at Boston University in 1909. It is one of the largest social fraternities in North America, with more than 300,000 lifetime members a ...

* Omega Psi Phi * Phi Beta Sigma *

Phi Sigma Kappa Phi Sigma Kappa (), colloquially known as Phi Sig or PSK, is a men's social and academic Fraternities and sororities, fraternity with approximately 74 List of Phi Sigma Kappa chapters#List of Chapters, active chapters and provisional chapters in ...

Phi Sigma Pi Phi Sigma Pi National Honor Fraternity () is a gender-inclusive/mixed-sex national honor fraternity based in the United States. The fraternity is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization incorporated in the state of Pennsylvania with the purpose ...

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 ...

* Sigma Pi *

Sigma Tau Gamma Sigma Tau Gamma (), commonly known as Sig Tau, is a United States college social fraternity founded on June 28, 1920, at the University of Central Missouri (then known as Central Missouri State Teachers College). The fraternity was founded as a re ...

* Tau Kappa Epsilon *

Theta Chi Theta Chi () is an international Fraternities and sororities, 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 c ...

Sororities * Alpha Kappa Alpha *

Alpha Gamma Delta Alpha Gamma Delta (), also known as Alpha Gam, is an international women's fraternity and social organization. It was founded on May 30, 1904, by eleven female students at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, making it the youngest member ...

* Alpha Omicron Pi *

Alpha Phi Alpha Phi International Women's Fraternity (, also known as APhi) is an international sorority with 172 active chapters and over 250,000 initiated members. Founded at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York on September 18, 1872, it is the fo ...

Alpha Sigma Alpha Alpha Sigma Alpha () is a United States National Panhellenic sorority founded on November 15, 1901, at the Virginia State Female Normal School (later known as Longwood College and now known as Longwood University) in Farmville, Virginia. Once a sor ...

* Delta Sigma Theta *

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 ...

Gamma Phi Beta Gamma Phi Beta (, also known as GPhi or Gamma Phi) is an international college sorority. It was founded in Syracuse University in 1874, and was the first of the Greek organizations to call itself a sorority. The main archive URL iThe Baird's Man ...

Sigma Kappa Sigma Kappa (, also known as SK or Sig Kap) is a sorority founded on November 9, 1874 at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. In 1874, Sigma Kappa was founded by five women: Mary Caffrey Low Carver, Elizabeth Gorham Hoag, Ida Mabel Fuller Pie ...

Sigma Sigma Sigma Sigma Sigma Sigma (), also known as Tri Sigma, is a national American women's sorority. Sigma Sigma Sigma is a member of the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC), an umbrella organization encompassing 26 national sororities or women's fraterni ...

* Sigma Gamma Rho *

Zeta Phi Beta Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. () is a historically African American sorority. In 1920, five women from Howard University envisioned a sorority that would raise the consciousness of their people, encourage the highest standards of scholastic ach ...

Media

UCM produces a newspaper focusing on the campus called ''The Muleskinner'' and an online publication called ''digitalburg.com'' that covers the Johnson County area. Even though these publications are overseen by a faculty advisor, they are entirely student operated and accept article submissions from any student. The university also houses

KMOS-TV KMOS-TV (channel 6) is a PBS member television station licensed to Sedalia, Missouri, United States. The station is owned by the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg. KMOS-TV's studios are located in the Patton Broadcast Center on th ...

Athletics

UCM athletic teams compete in the Mid–America Intercollegiate Athletics Association, or MIAA. The athletic division includes

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

, women's bowling,

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

women's soccer Women's association football, more commonly known simply as women's football or women's soccer, is a team sport of association football when played by women only. It is played at the professional level in multiple countries and 176 national ...

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

, cross-country, track,

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

and

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

. UCM's athletic teams are called Mules (men) and Jennies (women). UCM has two mascots, Mo the Mule and a live mule named Mancow. AJWStadiumNE

Basketball games are played in the UCM Multipurpose Building. Built in 1976, ''The Multi'', as it is known to students and alumni, has a

seating capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that ...

of 6,500 for basketball and volleyball games. Football games are played on Vernon Kennedy Field at Audrey J. Walton Stadium. The stadium was erected in 1928 and underwent a major face-lift in 1995. The stadium officially holds 11,000 people, but crowds often approach 12,000. Keth Memorial Golf Course within Pertle Springs Park on the campus of the University of Central Missouri is an 18-hole grass greens course complete with a fully equipped pro shop. In 2015 a $1.2 million renovation was completed that included a new driving range, new practice putting and chipping greens, and a new pro shop. Keth Memorial also is home for UCM golf and cross country competitions.

Library

The James C. Kirkpatrick Library (JCKL) is the library of the University of Central Missouri. At the Library dedication on March 24, 1999, the then Governor of Missouri,

Mel Carnahan Melvin Eugene Carnahan (February 11, 1934 – October 16, 2000) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 51st Governor of Missouri from 1993 until his death in a plane crash in 2000. A Democrat, he was elected posthumously to t ...

, was present and gave the keynote address. It was named for former Secretary of State, James C. Kirkpatrick, who was the longest serving Secretary of State in Missouri from 1965 to 1985. Upon retirement, his office was moved from the Missouri State Capitol to Ward Edwards Library, the previous University of Central Missouri library building. It is now located in the James C. Kirkpatrick Library. There are over 480,000 circulating volumes. The Ophelia Gilbert Room provides exhibit space for the Philip A. Sadler Research Collection of Literature for Children and Young Adults and General Special Collections. The room is named for Ophelia Gilbert, a longtime University of Central Missouri faculty member, children's librarian, and co-founder, with Philip Sadler, of the Children's Literature Festival at the University of Central Missouri. The McClure Archives and University Museum, Learning Commons, and Digital Learning and Instructional Innovation are also located in the building. Also located in the James C. Kirkpatrick Library is the Einstein Bros. Café, which is situated on the ground floor along with a grand piano once owned by Clyde Robert Bulla, who had a long association with the Children's Literature Festival.

Notable alumni and faculty

References

External links

*
Central Missouri Athletics website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Central Missouri, University of University of Central University of Central Missouri Educational institutions established in 1871 Buildings and structures in Johnson County, Missouri Education in Johnson County, Missouri 1871 establishments in Missouri