Henderson State University
Henderson State University, founded in 1890 as Arkadelphia Methodist College,[2] is a four-year public liberal arts university located in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, United States.[3] It is Arkansas's only member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges.[2] Henderson's curricula based on the belief that a liberal arts education is essential for all undergraduates; Henderson utilizes a program based on a core of courses in the arts and sciences.[4] The school owns and operates radio station KSWH-FM, as well as the local Public-access television cable TV channel, HTV on Suddenlink's channel 9.
History
| School Names |
| Arkadelphia Methodist College |
1890–1904 |
| Henderson College |
1904–1911 |
| Henderson-Brown College |
1911–1929 |
| Henderson State Teachers College |
1929–1967 |
| Henderson State College |
1967–1975 |
| Henderson State University |
1975–present |
| Source:[5] |
Henderson State University, was founded on March 23, 1890 as Arkadelphia Methodist College. The university was renamed for Charles Christopher Henderson, a Trustee and prominent Arkadelphia, in 1904. In 1911 the name was changed to Henderson-Brown College to honor Walter Brown. The state convention decided to close the institution down after thirty nine years of Methodist control and combine it with Hendrix College in Conway. The student body, administration, and local population strongly disagreed with the idea and after negotiations with state lawmakers, Henderson-Brown was turned over to the state to prevent the merger. Then in 1929, the institution became known as Henderson State Tearchers College. Hendrix was renamed Hendrix-Henderson College, and remained so for about two years before returning to Hendrix College. After becoming a public institution, Henderson State Teachers Collge began to expand at a rate never envisioned while it was under Methodist control. Six major buildings were built during the Great Depression alone. After World War II, the enrollment nearly doubled to about 500 students. Graduate classes were first offered in 1951 through the University of Arkansas. In 1955, the school's first graduate degree program began. To reflect the change, the name was changed to Henderson State College in 1967 and again in 1975 to Henderson State University. Henderson has an excellent academic record. It has produced numerous Rhodes, Fulbright, and Rotary International scholars. It serves as Arkansas’s only member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. Currently, degree programs are offered through the Matt Locke Ellis College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Business, the School of Education, and the Graduate School. Henderson has its own degree program in nursing, and it also provides the academic program for the Baptist School of Nursing. The university offers the state’s only four-year bachelor of science degree in aviation. The enrollment in the fall of 2010 was 3,709.
Administration
Dr. Charles Welch became Henderson State University’s 15th president in 2008. One of his first acts was to hire Dr. Vernon Miles as the university's provost. Miles previously served as Dean of the College at Lynchburg College in Virginia and worked at Our Lady of the Holy Cross College in New Orleans before coming to HSU.[6] On November 12, 2009, Dr. Welch was formally invested as president by the current governor of Arkansas, Mike Beebe.
Campus
Henderson State University has a urban campus. Some of the buildings include the Donald W. Reynolds Science Center, Arkansas Hall, McBrien Hall, Mooney Hall, Womack Hall, the Garrison Activity and Conference Center, and Sturgis Hall. Sturgis Hall is a three story building that provides classrooms, laboratories, offices, and student housing for the Honors College. McBrien Hall provides classrooms, offices, labs, and conference rooms for the English, social sciences, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and foreign languages programs. It also holds the administrative offices for Ellis Collge of Arts and Sciences. The Huie Library serves as the university's library. The library is named after the university's first full-time librarian, Minnie Bell Huie (1934). The library holds over 300,000 books, 100 databases, and 60 student computers.
Academic Divisions
Ellis College of Arts and Sciences
Ellis College is named after Henderson's tenth president and distinguished graduate, Matt Locke Ellis. It was created in 1989 through a reorganization of the existing Fine Arts, Liberal Arts, and Natural Sciences schools.
School of Business
Allows students to major and earn degrees in Acounting or Business administration. The School of Business offers the only university level aviation program in the state of [Arkansas]. The degree programs are accredited by AACSB International, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. The aviation program acts under the direction and rules of Federal Aviation Administration and is in the process of obtaining their own collegiate accreditation.
Teachers College
Honors College
Graduate School
Athletics
Henderson State University is an NCAA Division II school and competes in the Great American Conference. The schools sports teams in Baseball, Basketball (Men and Women), Cross Country (Women), Football, Golf (Men and Women), Softball, Swimming (Men and Women), Tennis, and Volleyball.
Men's Basketball
Baseball
Women's athletics
Traditions
Henderson State University is full of rich tradition
Battle of the Ravine
The Battle of the Ravine is a rivalry game between Henderson State University and Ouachita Baptist University. It is currently the oldest rivalry of any NCAA Division II institutions. The first game was played on November 8, 1895 (Thanksgiving Day) and Ouachita College beat Arkadelphia Methodist College 8-0. The next meeting did not occur until 1907 in the first sanctioned game of the series. The Reddies defeated Ouachita and went on to claim the Arkansa State Championship.
The Reddies went on to win the next six meetings and the game was played on Thanksgiving Day. Both teams also made the game their homecoming. The series was discontinued in 1951 after Henderson won 54-0 and the pranks got out of control. The series resumed in 1963 with the Reddies winning 28-13. The series continued until 1993 when Henderson State moved to the NCAA Division II Gulf South Conference. It continued again in 1996 when Ouachita Baptist University moved to the Lone Star Conference. OBU joined the GSC in 2000 and the two schools did not play each other in 2004 or 2005 as a result of schedule rotation. In total, the two schools have met 84 times. Henderson State currently leads the series 40-39-6.
Showband of Arkansas
The School with a Heart
That Old Reddie Spirit
Notable alumni
- Lynn A. Davis, lecturer, crime author, head of Arkansas state police, former candidate for Arkansas secretary of state
- Ken Duke, professional golfer
- Neal Sox Johnson (Class of 1955), executive director of the Arkansas Republican Party, 1970-1973
- David Kerr – World Champion Collegiate Debater[7]
- Billy Bob Thornton, (attended), Academy Award-winning American screenwriter, actor as well as occasional director, playwright and singer.
- Sid McMath, two-term governor of Arkansas
- John P. McConnell, 1927, General and Chief of Staff, United States Air Force
- Lloyd L. Burke 1950, Medal of Honor recipient
- James Hollis "Jim" Morris, 1976, Republican member of the Louisiana State House of Representatives
- Jerry Thomasson, state representative
- C. Vann Woodward, 1959, Sterling Professor of History at Yale University; Pulitzer Prize-winning historian
- Reggie Ritter, 1982, former professional baseball player
- Gus Malzahn, 1990, American football coach and current head football coach for Arkansas State University
- Aaron Owens, 1999, former AND1 Mixtape Tour basketball player
- Bobby Bones (Bobby Estell), 2002, Award-winning Radio Personality at KHFI-FM Austin, TX. Host of the Bobby Bones Show.
- G. Lloyd Spencer, United States Senator from Arkansas
External links
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