Portal:Kentucky/Selected article/6
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Western Kentucky University (WKU) is a public university in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The roots of WKU go back to 1875 and the founding of the privately owned Glasgow Normal School. This institution moved to Bowling Green in 1884 and became the Southern Normal School and Business College.
The student body and building were transferred to the Western Kentucky State Normal School, when it was created by an act of the Kentucky General Assembly in 1906. The owner of the Southern Normal School, Henry Hardin Cherry, became the first president of the new school. Classes began on January 22, 1907. The school moved to its present location in 1911. The property had been purchased in 1909 when the Pleasant J. Potter College closed. In 1922, the school was authorized by the state to grant four-year degrees and was renamed as Western Kentucky State Normal School and Teachers College. The first four-year degrees were awarded in 1924. In 1927, it merged with Odgen College, which occupied an adjacent campus.
WKU is also home to the largest American master's degree program in folklore; it is contained within the Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology.
Extended campuses are operated in Glasgow, Elizabethtown/Fort Knox and Owensboro.
