Kennesaw is a city in Cobb County, Georgia, United States, located within the greater Atlanta metropolitan area. Known from its original settlement in the 1830s until 1887 as Big Shanty, it became Kennesaw under its 1887 charter. According to the 2010 census, Kennesaw had a population of 29,783, but in 2019 it had a population of 34,077 showing a 14.4% increase in population over the past decade. Kennesaw has an important place in railroad history. During the Civil War, Kennesaw was the staging ground for the Great Locomotive Chase on April 12, 1862. The city is perhaps best known nationally today for its mandatory gun-possession ordinance requiring all households in Kennesaw to have a gun, with certain exceptions.
Southern Polytechnic State University was a public, co-educational, state university in Marietta, Georgia, United States approximately 20 miles (32 km) northwest of downtown Atlanta. Until 2015, it was an independent part of the University System of Georgia and called itself "Georgia's Technology University."
The University System of Georgia (USG) is the government agency that includes 26 public institutions of higher learning in the U.S. state of Georgia. The system is governed by the Georgia Board of Regents. It sets goals and dictates general policy to educational institutions as well as administering the Public Library Service of the state which includes 58 public library systems. The USG also dispenses public funds to the institutions but not the lottery-funded HOPE Scholarship. The USG is the sixth largest university system in the United States by total student enrollment, with 333,507 students in 26 public institutions. USG institutions are divided into four categories: research universities, regional comprehensive universities, state universities, and state colleges.
Georgia Highlands College is a public college in northwest Georgia. It has locations in Floyd County, Cartersville, Marietta, and Dallas and serves the northwest parts of Georgia, as well as parts of east Alabama and southeast Tennessee. A member of the University System of Georgia, the college was originally a community college and has since expanded to also offer bachelor degrees in healthcare management, logistics and supply chain management, dental hygiene, criminal justice, and an RN-BSN program. Students are now being accepted into a bachelor's of health science degree launched in 2020 and an associate's entrepreneurship pathway launched in 2021. Between 5,700 and 6,100 students are enrolled at GHC in any given semester, representing 49 different countries. In 2020, the college had a record high number of graduates and an economic impact of over $181 million.
Dr. Blake Ragsdale Van Leer was an engineer and university professor who served as the fifth president of Georgia Institute of Technology from 1944 until his death in 1956.
Betty L. Siegel was an author and president of Kennesaw State University. She was the first female president of the University System of Georgia. She served in that position for 25 years, making her the longest serving female president of a state university in the United States.
The Kennesaw State Owls fields 17 varsity athletics teams, competing for Kennesaw State University. After spending ten years in Division II's Peach Belt Conference, the university fully transitioned to Division I status in the National Collegiate Athletic Association at the beginning of the 2009–10 season. All of Kennesaw State's sports teams compete in the ASUN Conference, except for the football team, which is an associate member of the Big South Conference. The school mascot is Scrappy the Owl.
Kennesaw State University (KSU) is a public research university in the U.S. state of Georgia with two primary campuses in the Atlanta metropolitan area, one in Kennesaw and the other in Marietta on a combined 581 acres (235 ha) of land. The school was founded in 1963 by the Georgia Board of Regents using local bonds and a federal space-grant during a time of major Georgia economic expansion after World War II. KSU also holds classes at the Cobb Galleria Centre, Dalton State College, and in Paulding County (Dallas). The fall 2021 enrollment exceeded 42,000 students making KSU the second-largest university by enrollment in Georgia while also having the largest freshman class in the state as well.
John E. Endicott serves as Vice Chancellor of the SolBridge International School of Business and President of Woosong University. Previously, he served as a Professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech and director of the school's Center for International Strategy, Technology and Policy. Endicott has written or co-written five books on foreign policy and security issues and one—his memoirs.
The Kennesaw State Owls football represents Kennesaw State University in college football. The team began play in 2015 as a member of the Big South Conference at the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision level. The head coach of the Owls is Brian Bohannon, and plays at Fifth Third Bank Stadium in Kennesaw, Georgia.
Fifth Third Bank Stadium, known as Kennesaw State University Stadium until 2013, is a stadium near Kennesaw, Georgia, that is primarily used as the home for the Kennesaw State Owls football team as well as the KSU women's soccer and women's lacrosse teams. It was built as a soccer-specific stadium and opened May 2, 2010, with the first match played on May 9. The facility is the result of a public-private partnership between Kennesaw State University and the now-defunct Atlanta Beat of Women's Professional Soccer.
Jessica Colotl is an undocumented immigrant to the United States whose 2010 arrest for driving without a license and possible deportation called attention to the issue of illegal immigration. Colotl was brought from Mexico by her parents illegally into the US when she was either 10 or 11 years old. Colotl became the center of debate over immigration policy, including the enrollment of non-citizens in state universities and discussion of Immigration and Nationality Act Section 287(g) which allowed police to turn her over to immigration enforcement.
Samuel Scott Olens is an American lawyer and politician who served as Attorney General of Georgia. Olens was elected Georgia AG in 2010, resigning on November 1, 2016, following his appointment as President of Kennesaw State University. He subsequently resigned as KSU's president on February 15, 2018 and then served as counsel for Dentons global law firm. He was named partner Dentons' Public Policy practice in 2021.
Susan Herbst is an American political scientist and academic administrator who served as the 15th president of the University of Connecticut. She was named president on December 20, 2010, and took office on June 1, 2011. She succeeded Michael J. Hogan and was the first woman to be selected as the University of Connecticut's president since the school's founding in 1881. In August of 2019, Herbst was succeeded by Thomas C. Katsouleas.
Sports in Atlanta has a rich history, including the oldest on-campus NCAA Division I football stadium, Bobby Dodd Stadium, built in 1913 by the students of Georgia Tech. Atlanta also played host to the second intercollegiate football game in the South, played between the A&M College of Alabama and the University of Georgia in Piedmont Park in 1892; this game is now called the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry. The city hosts college football's annual Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl and the Peachtree Road Race, the world's largest 10 km race. Atlanta was the host city for the Centennial 1996 Summer Olympics, and Downtown Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park was built for and commemorates the games.
The Kennesaw State Owls baseball team represents Kennesaw State University, which is located in Kennesaw, Georgia. The Owls are an NCAA Division I college baseball program that competes in the ASUN Conference. They began competing in Division I in 2006 and joined the ASUN Conference the same season.
Brian Bohannon is the head football coach at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia.
Carolyn Carlson is an American professor of journalism at Kennesaw State University. She specializes in Freedom of Information studies. She was the second woman to serve as national president of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Clarice Cross Bagwell was an American educator and activist. She was the first woman in Georgia to serve as forewoman of a grand jury, as well as one of the first special education teachers in the state of Georgia and the first in DeKalb County. She studied at Georgia State University, the University of Georgia, and West Georgia College. Bagwell also was president of the Georgia Parent Teacher Association and sat on the board of directors of the national PTA. Working for the PTA's Committee on International Relations, she visited Canada, Japan, Switzerland, and the USSR on goodwill and outreach missions.
