Middle Tennessee State University is a publicly supported institution of higher learning in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The school was founded in 1911 as the Middle Tennessee State Normal School. Originally, the school only offered a two-year teacher-training program. It began offering four-year bachelor’s degree programs in 1925 but maintained its focus on training teachers. In 1943, the school was renamed Middle Tennessee State College and expanded its curriculum. Its name was changed to Middle Tennessee State University in 1965.
Middle Tennessee State University operates the Center for Popular Music, an archive and research center for the study of American popular music. The university also maintains the Center for Historic Preservation, which works to conserve Tennessee’s historic buildings, documents, and other materials and use them as resources for education.
Notable graduates of Middle Tennessee State include Nobel Prize-winning economist James M. Buchanan and former United States Senator Albert Gore, Sr., the father of former Vice President Al Gore. The university’s athletic teams are called the Blue Raiders.
The university’s website at https://www.mtsu.edu/ offers additional information.
