Former name | State Normal School for Colored Persons (1886–1902) Kentucky Normal and Industrial Institute for Colored Persons (1902–1926) Kentucky State Industrial College for Colored Persons (1926–1938) Kentucky State College for Negroes (1938–1952) Kentucky State College (1952–1972) |
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Motto | "Onward, Upward." |
Type | Public historically black land-grant university |
Established | 1886[1] |
Academic affiliations | Space-grant |
President | Koffi C. Akakpo |
Provost | Michael D. Dailey (interim) |
Students | 1,726 (fall 2022) [2] |
Location | , , United States 38°12′00″N84°51′30″W / 38.20000°N 84.85833°W |
Campus | 915 acres (3.70 km2) |
Colors | Kelly Green and light Gold |
Nickname | Thorobreds & Thorobrettes |
Sporting affiliations | NCAA Division II – SIAC |
Website | www |
Kentucky State University (KSU, and KYSU) is a public historically black land-grant university in Frankfort, Kentucky. Founded in 1886 as the State Normal School for Colored Persons, and becoming a land-grant college in 1890, KSU is the second-oldest state-supported institution of higher learning in Kentucky. [1] In fall 2019, total undergraduate enrollment was 2,029 with a total graduate enrollment of 142. [3]
Kentucky State University was chartered in May 1886 as the State Normal School for Colored Persons, only the second state-supported institution of higher learning in Kentucky. [1] During the euphoria of Frankfort's 1886 centennial celebration, the city donated $1,500 towards the purchase of land for a new college on a bluff overlooking Frankfort. [4]
The new school formally opened on October 11, 1887, with three teachers, 55 students, and John H. Jackson as president. [1] Recitation Hall (now Jackson Hall), the college's first permanent building, was erected in that year.
KSU became a land-grant college in 1890 following the passage of the Morrill Land-Grant Acts, and the departments of home economics, agriculture, and mechanics were added to the school's curriculum. [1] [5] The school produced its first graduating class of five students in the spring of that year. A high school was organized in 1893. This expansion continued into the 20th century in both name and program. In 1902, the name was changed to Kentucky Normal and Industrial Institute for Colored Persons. The name was changed again in 1926 to Kentucky State Industrial College for Colored Persons.
In 1929, the high school was discontinued by president Rufus B. Atwood, since students were now entering college with a high school education. [5] In 1938, the school was named the Kentucky State College for Negroes. [1] The term "for Negroes" was dropped in 1952.
The civil engineering program was started in 1942 after the NAACP threatened a lawsuit on behalf of a black student who wanted to attend the engineering program at the University of Kentucky. [6]
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the commencement speech at the 1957 graduation ceremonies titled, "Facing the Challenge of a New Age". [7] [8]
In 1960, the first white student enrolled. [5] Kentucky State College became a university in 1972, renamed Kentucky State University. [5]
Enrollment | |
---|---|
African American | 80.7% |
Asian American | 0.5% |
Non-Hispanic White American | 8.0% |
Hispanic American | 2.1% |
Native American | 0.4% |
Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander | 0.4% |
Two or more races, non-Hispanic | 4.3% |
Nonresident | 0.8% |
Unknown | 3.0% |
Year | Pop. | ±% p.a. |
---|---|---|
2006 | 2,500 | — |
2007 | 2,696 | +7.84% |
2008 | 2,659 | −1.37% |
2009 | 2,834 | +6.58% |
2010 | 2,851 | +0.60% |
2011 | 2,746 | −3.68% |
2012 | 2,524 | −8.08% |
2013 | 2,533 | +0.36% |
2014 | 1,895 | −25.19% |
2015 | 1,586 | −16.31% |
2016 | 1,736 | +9.46% |
2017 | 1,926 | +10.94% |
2018 | 1,781 | −7.53% |
2019 | 2,171 | +21.90% |
2020 | 2,290 | +5.48% |
2021 | 2,279 | −0.48% |
2022 | 1,726 | −24.27% |
Students are divided into five colleges, four associate degrees, 55 undergraduate degrees, and six postgraduate programs. [22] [23]
The university also offers five liberal study degrees through the Whitney Young School (WYS) of Honors and Liberal Studies, which consists of a Honors Program, an Integrative Studies Program, and an International Studies Program. [24] The degrees include Africana Studies and Liberal Studies. [23]
As of 2022 [update] , Kentucky State University was host to 1,343 undergraduate students. African Americans comprised 81% of the undergraduate student body. [3]
The Paul G. Blazer Library, [25] constructed in 1960, [26] houses a collection of more than 700,000 items includes extensive reference, periodical, and circulating collections of materials such as books, videos, microforms, sound recordings, and others, to aid students in their course work and research. [27] It is named after Paul G. Blazer, a strong supporter of education [28] who was the founder and CEO of Ashland Oil and Refining Company in Ashland, Kentucky.
KYSU has the world's largest pawpaw ( Asimina triloba ) research planting. [29] The research program was started in 1990 with the aim of developing pawpaw as a new tree-fruit crop for Kentucky. [30] [31] Pawpaw is the largest native fruit in the United States and has very few diseases compared to other orchard crops. KYSU is the site of the USDA National Clonal Germplasm Repository for Asimina species [32] and the pawpaw orchards at KYSU contain over 1,700 trees. Research activities include germplasm collection and variety trials, and efforts are directed towards improving propagation, understanding fruit ripening and storage, and developing orchard management practices. Cultivation is best in hardiness zones 5-9 and trees take 7–8 years from seedling to fruiting. KYSU has created the three cultivars 'KSU-Atwood', 'KSU-Benson', and 'KSU-Chappell', with focus on better flavors, higher yields, vigorous plants, and low seed-to-pulp ratios. [33] [34] [35] [36] [37]
Kentucky State University teams participate as a member of the Division II Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The school's mascot are the Thorobreds. Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, and indoor and outdoor track and field; while women's sports include basketball, cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field, softball, and volleyball. [38] Kentucky State's main rivals include Tennessee State University, West Virginia State University, and Central State University.
The men's basketball team was national champions in 1970, 1971, and 1972 at the NAIA level.
The Exum Center, the university's athletic and recreational complex, was named after William Exum, the first African-American varsity football player at the University of Wisconsin. [39] Exum was hired as head of KSU's Physical Education department in 1949, and later made head of the Athletics department. He then became manager of the United States Track and Field teams at the 1972 and 1976 Olympics. Exum retired from KSU in 1980.
Kentucky State University's marching band is named the Mighty Marching Thorobreds (MMT). MMT is one of the largest student organizations on campus with over 200 members. MMT has several notable performances including the Honda Battle of the Bands in Atlanta and the National Battle of the Bands in Houston. MMT is accompanied by the K-Rettes danceline and Silk Flag Corps. [40]
Name | Class year | Notability | Reference(s) |
---|---|---|---|
Ezzrett Anderson | One of the first African Americans from a predominantly African-American school to play professional football when he joined the Los Angeles Dons of the All-American Football Conference in 1947. He also played with the Los Angeles Mustangs. He played for the Hollywood Bears in the Pacific Coast League when they won the title. | ||
Michael Bernard | Basketball player; the first from KSU to be drafted by the NBA in 1970 (Cincinnati Royals) | ||
Anna Mac Clarke | 1941 | Member of Women's Army Corps during WWII; 1st African American officer of an otherwise all-white company | |
Tom Colbert | First African-American Oklahoma Supreme Court Justice | ||
Travis "Machine" Grant | College basketball star on Kentucky State University's 1970, 1971 and 1972 NAIA National Championship teams. Played for the Los Angeles Lakers and the San Diego Conquistadors of the American Basketball Association | ||
Jayjay Helterbrand | Filipino Player of the Barangay Ginebra Kings in the Philippine Basketball Association, 2008–09 Philippine Basketball Association MVP | ||
Rod Hill | Former professional football player who played six seasons in the NFL (1982–1987) and later starred in the CFL | ||
Cletidus Hunt | Former professional football player who played six seasons in the NFL (1999–2004) | ||
Joseph Kendall | 1938 | Former All-American Quarterback; dominated black college football in the 1930s while leading Kentucky State to a black college championship in 1934; the first person in KSU history to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame; inducted into the Kentucky State Athletics Hall of Fame in 1975. He has been a teacher, coach, and parks administrator in Owensboro, Kentucky | [41] |
John Kenerson | NFL, AFL and CFL player. | ||
John Merritt | 1950 | Former head football coach at Jackson State University and Tennessee State University. One of the winningest coaches in HBCU football. Inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. | |
Council Rudolph Jr. | 1972 | A native of Anniston, AL graduated from Cobb Avenue High School in 1968. In his senior season, he helped the team go to a 9-0-1 championship season. He earned all-conference honors and a scholarship to Kentucky State. In his senior season, Kentucky State ended 8-3-0 and played in the Orange Blossom Classic Bowl game. He was a Pittsburgh Courier Honorable mention. He was inducted into both the Kentucky State Athletic Hall of Fame and Calhoun County (AL) Sports Hall of Fame. Drafted into the NFL in the seventh round, he helped the St. Louis Football Cardinals win two NFC East Championships (1974 & 1975). He retired after playing 6 seasons in the NFL with Houston, St. Louis and Tampa Bay. | |
Yingluck Shinawatra | 1991 | The 28th and first female Prime Minister of Thailand | |
Benjamin F. Shobe | 1941 | Civil rights attorney and jurist who advocated for the desegregation of public education and public facilities in the Commonwealth of Kentucky | |
Sam Sibert | Former college basketball standout; Drafted as the 19th player in the 1972 NBA Draft by the Cincinnati Royals | ||
Moneta Sleet Jr. | 1947 | Photographer for Ebony , won a Pulitzer Prize for his picture of Coretta Scott King at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr. | |
Effie Waller Smith | ca. 1900 | Educator & poet; poet James Still called her "Kentucky's Emily Dickinson" | |
Elmore Smith | NBA and college basketball player, who is listed among the top rebounders in college basketball history, starred on KSU's 1970 and 1971 national championship teams. Holds the NAIA records for Rebounds in a Season (799 in 1971 also tops on the NCAA All-Divisions list, as well as being eighth with 682 in 1970) and Career Average (22.6, seventh on the NCAA All-Divisions list), while ranking eighth on the NCAA All-Divisions Career list with 1719 total despite being the only player in the top 10 to play only three seasons. Earned NCAA Division II First Team All-American honors in 1971. A seven-foot center, Smith played in the NBA for eight seasons (1971–1979) and was the third overall pick in the 1971 NBA draft for the Buffalo Braves; listed amongst all-time greatest shot-blockers in NBA history even though that statistic was only recorded for six of his seasons. | [42] | |
Herb Trawick | 1942 | First black man to play in the Canadian Football League; played for the Montreal Alouettes 1946–1957 and was a seven-time All-Star; played in 4 Grey Cup Championships, winning in 1949; was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1975. | |
Luska Twyman | Kentucky's first African American mayor in 1968 when he became mayor of Glasgow, Kentucky. | [43] | |
Davey 'Wiz' Whitney | 1953 | Former head basketball coach at Texas Southern University and Alcorn State University. One of the winningest coaches in HBCU basketball. Inducted into National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame | |
Harrison Wilson, Jr. | 1950 | Became the second President of Norfolk State College in 1975 | |
Whitney M. Young Jr. | 1941 | Former civil rights leader, educator and executive; former Executive Director who led the National Urban League through its most prosperous period; served many presidential commissions including as a Vietnam elections observer in 1967 |
Asimina is a genus of small trees or shrubs described as a genus in 1763. Asimina is the only temperate genus in the tropical and subtropical flowering plant family Annonaceae. Asimina have large, simple leaves and large fruit. It is native to eastern North America and collectively referred to as pawpaw. The genus includes the widespread common pawpaw Asimina triloba, which bears the largest edible fruit indigenous to the United States. Pawpaws are native to 26 states of the U.S. and to Ontario in Canada. The common pawpaw is a patch-forming (clonal) understory tree found in well-drained, deep, fertile bottomland and hilly upland habitat. Pawpaws are in the same plant family (Annonaceae) as the custard apple, cherimoya, sweetsop, soursop, and ylang-ylang; the genus is the only member of that family not confined to the tropics. Fossils date to the Cretaceous.
Frankfort is the capital of the U.S. state of Kentucky and the seat of Franklin County. It is a home rule-class city. The population was 28,602 at the 2020 United States census. Located along the Kentucky River, Frankfort is the principal city of the Frankfort, Kentucky Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Franklin and Anderson counties.
The University of Kentucky is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky, United States. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state's two land-grant universities. It is the institution with the highest enrollment in the state, with 32,710 students in the fall of 2022.
The Arboretum, State Botanical Garden of Kentucky, 40 hectares or 100 acres (0.40 km2), is located at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, United States. It is open to the public from dawn to dusk every day of the year. The Arboretum hosts 18 tree species native to Kentucky, as well as 80 other native Kentucky plant species. In total, the Arboretum contains more than 1,200 native species.
Eurytides marcellus, the zebra swallowtail, is a swallowtail butterfly native to the eastern United States and south-eastern Canada. It is the state butterfly of Tennessee. Its distinctive wing shape and long tails make it easy to identify, and its black-and-white-striped pattern is reminiscent of a zebra. The butterflies are closely associated with pawpaws, and are rarely found far from these trees. The green or black caterpillars feed on the leaves of various pawpaw species, while the adults feed on flower nectar and minerals from damp soil.
The Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) is the system of public community and technical colleges in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It is headquartered in Versailles, Kentucky, and has 16 colleges with over 70 campuses. Programs offered include associate degrees; pre-baccalaureate education to transfer to a public 4-year institution; adult education, continuing and developmental education; customized training for business and industry; and distance learning. KCTCS was founded as part of the Postsecondary Improvement Act of 1997, signed by former Kentucky Governor Paul E. Patton, to create a new institution to replace the University of Kentucky's Community College System and the Kentucky Department of Education's network of technical schools. The Kentucky Fire Commission, a separate state entity responsible for training emergency responders, also became part of KCTCS at that time.
Asimina triloba, the American papaw, pawpaw, paw paw, or paw-paw, among many regional names, is a small deciduous tree native to the eastern United States and southern Ontario, Canada, producing a large, yellowish-green to brown fruit. Asimina is the only temperate genus in the tropical and subtropical flowering plant family Annonaceae, and Asimina triloba has the most northern range of all. Well-known tropical fruits of different genera in family Annonaceae include the custard-apple, cherimoya, sweetsop, ylang-ylang, and soursop.
Simmons College of Kentucky, formerly known as Kentucky Normal Theological Institute, State University at Louisville, and later as Simmons Bible College, is a private, historically black college in Louisville, Kentucky. Founded in 1879, it is the nation's 107th HBCU and is accredited by the Association for Biblical Higher Education.
Paul Garrett Blazer was president and CEO of Ashland Oil and Refining Company located in Ashland, Kentucky.
The Kentucky State Thorobreds and Thorobrettes are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Kentucky State University, located in Frankfort, Kentucky, in intercollegiate sports at the Division II level of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The Thorobreds and Thorobrettes are members of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC), which they have competed since the 1997–98 academic year. Kentucky State previously competed in the Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) from 1989–90 to 1993–94. KSU's main rivals are Tennessee State University, West Virginia State University, and Central State University.
The Day Law mandated racial segregation in educational institutions in Kentucky. Formally designated "An Act to Prohibit White and Colored Persons from Attending the Same School," the bill was introduced in the Kentucky House of Representatives by Carl Day (D) in January 1904, and signed into law by Governor J.C.W. Beckham in March 1904. As well as prohibiting students of color from attending the same school as white students, the law prohibited individual schools from operating separate black and white branches within 25 miles of each other.
Raymond M. Burse is a college administrator, Harvard educated lawyer, and businessman who served two terms as the ninth and fourteenth President of Kentucky State University.
Carl McClellan Hill was an American educator and academic administrator who served as president of Kentucky State University from 1962 to 1975, and as the 11th president of Hampton University from 1976 to 1978.
Rufus Ballad Atwood (1897—1983) was an American educator, academic administrator, and university president. He was the sixth and longest-serving president of Kentucky State University in Frankfort, Kentucky.
Mary Levi Smith was an American educator who served as the 11th president of Kentucky State University (KSU) from 1991 to 1998. She was the first female president of KSU and the second woman to lead a state university in Kentucky.
Black Kentuckians are residents of the state of Kentucky who are of African ancestry. The history of Blacks in the US state of Kentucky starts at the same time as the history of White Americans; Black Americans settled Kentucky alongside white explorers such as Daniel Boone. As of 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, African Americans make up 8.5% of Kentucky's population. Compared to the rest of the population, the African American census racial category is the 2nd largest.
Minor league baseball teams were based in Frankfort, Kentucky in various seasons between 1885 and 1916. Frankfort teams played as members of the Interstate League in 1885, the Blue Grass League from 1908 to 1912 and Ohio State League in 1915 and 1916. Frankfort won Blue Grass League championships in 1908 and 1912.
The 1946 Kentucky State Thorobreds football team was an American football team that represented Kentucky State Industrial College as a member of the Midwest Athletic Association (MAA) during the 1946 college football season. Led by Robert White in his first and only season as head coach, the Thorobreds compiled a 5–4 record and outscored opponents by a total of 111 to 77.
The Russell School (1895–2003) is a former public school located in the Northside neighborhood of Lexington, Kentucky. From 1895 until roughly the mid-1960s, the school was segregated and served African American students.
Green Pinckney Russell (1861/1863–1939), was an American teacher, principal, school district supervisor, and college president. He was the first licensed African-American teacher in Lexington, Kentucky. Russell was the first "Supervisor of Negro Schools" in Lexington, and he served two-terms as president of Kentucky State Industrial College for Colored Persons.