Columbia is a city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It is the county seat of Boone County and home to the University of Missouri. Founded in 1821, it is the principal city of the five-county Columbia metropolitan area. It is Missouri's fourth most-populous and fastest growing city, with an estimated 126,254 residents in 2020.
The University of Missouri System is an American state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, and ten research and technology parks. Nearly 70,000 students are currently enrolled at its four campuses. The health care system operates several hospitals and clinics in central Missouri, while the extension program provides distance learning and other educational initiatives statewide.
Christopher Samuel Bond is an American attorney, politician and former United States Senator from Missouri and a member of the Republican Party. First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, he defeated Democrat Harriett Woods by a margin of 53%–47%. He was re-elected in 1992, 1998, and 2004. On January 8, 2009, he announced that he would not seek re-election to a fifth term in 2010, and was succeeded by fellow Republican Roy Blunt on January 3, 2011. Following his retirement from the Senate, Bond became a partner at Thompson Coburn.
Kenny C. Hulshof is an American politician and lawyer who represented Missouri's 9th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. He was the unsuccessful nominee of the Republican Party for Governor of Missouri in the 2008 election.
Matthew Roy Blunt is an American former naval officer and politician who served as the 54th Governor of Missouri from 2005 to 2009. Before his election as governor, Blunt served ten years in the United States Navy, was elected to serve in the Missouri General Assembly in 1998, and as Missouri's Secretary of State in 2000. He grew up in a political family; his father, Roy Blunt, has served in a variety of political offices.
Gary D. Forsee was the chairman and chief executive officer of Sprint Nextel Corporation (2003–2007) and served as president of the University of Missouri System from 2007-2011. Forsee resides in Columbia, Missouri, the headquarters of the UM System.
Walter Williams was an American journalist and educator. He founded the world's first journalism school at the University of Missouri, and later served as the university's president. An internationalist, he promoted the ideals of journalism globally and is often referred to as "The Father of Journalism Education".
Laws Hall was a residence hall at the University of Missouri. Located at the corner of Tiger Avenue and Kentucky Boulevard, Laws comprised a gross area of 72,871 square feet (6,769.9 m2) over 9 floors and basement area. The street address was 1005 Tiger Ave. 65201. The structure was constructed in 1957 as a women's residence hall. Eventually made a co-education residence hall, Laws housed students until the end of the 2015-2016 academic year. The building was demolished in March 2017 as part the final phase of the university's residence halls master plan.
The University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, was established in 1839. This later expanded to the statewide University of Missouri System.
Marching Mizzou, M2, or The Big 'M' of the Midwest is the performing marching band for the University of Missouri, founded in 1885 as a college military band. Originally consisting of only 12 members, it is now the largest student organization on the MU campus, drawing students from nearly every major. Marching Mizzou performs at all home football games of the Missouri Tigers football team, in addition to other university events; and expanded Mini Mizzou travels to two away games per season, while the entire band regularly follows the team to conference championship games and bowl games. Marching Mizzou's signature drill "Flip Tigers" has been a well-known tradition of its pre-game show since 1960. It is instructed by University of Missouri School of Music faculty.
Neal Evans Boyd was an American singer who developed an interest in opera after listening to the performances of the Three Tenors. Despite being raised in conditions of poverty within the U.S. state of Missouri, he achieved a degree in music and eventually entered the third season of America's Got Talent, winning that year's competition. In addition to music, he also became involved in politics and conducted performances at many state-wide events across Missouri.
Richard Bowen Loftin, better known as R. Bowen Loftin, is an American academic and the former chancellor of the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. He came to Missouri in 2013 after serving as the 24th President of Texas A&M University.
The University of Missouri is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in 1839 and was the first public university west of the Mississippi River. It has been a member of the Association of American Universities since 1908 and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". University of Missouri alumni, faculty, and staff include 18 Rhodes Scholars, 19 Truman Scholars, 141 Fulbright Scholars, 7 Governors of Missouri, and 6 members of the U.S. Congress. Two alumni and faculty have been awarded the Nobel Prize: alumnus Frederick Chapman Robbins won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1954 and George Smith (chemist) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018 while affiliated with the university.
Steve Owens is an attorney and higher education leader. After serving in private practice with a large Kansas City--based law firm, he joined the University of Missouri System as General Counsel 2008. The UM System, headquartered in Columbia, Missouri, includes four doctoral granting public research universities and a fully integrated academic medical center. He served as Interim President of the UM System from January 2011 to February 2012 and then returned to his previous position as General Counsel. Later, he was named Interim Chancellor of the System’s flagship university, the University of Missouri-Columbia, and served in that position from November 2013 to February 2014 after which he again returned to his previous position as General Counsel.
The 2015 Missouri Tigers football team represented the University of Missouri in the 2015 NCAA Division I FBS football season. It marked the Tigers' fourth season as a member of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) in the Eastern Division. The team played its home games at Faurot Field in Columbia, Missouri. They were led by 15th year head coach Gary Pinkel, in what would be his last season as the team's head coach.
In 2015, a series of protests at the University of Missouri related to race, workplace benefits, and leadership resulted in the resignations of the president of the University of Missouri System and the chancellor of the flagship Columbia campus. The moves came after a series of events that included a hunger strike by a student and a boycott by the football team. The movement was primarily led by a student group named Concerned Student 1950. The movement and protests were documented in two films, one made by MU student journalists and the other, 2 Fists Up, by Spike Lee. While it is alleged that bad publicity from the protests has led to dropping enrollment and cutbacks, others have cited budget cuts issued from the state legislature.
The School of Music is an academic division of the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. Its focus is the study of music, awarding baccalaureate, master's, and doctoral degrees as part of the College of Arts and Science. The institution's programs encompass composition, performance, conducting, music education, music history, musical theatre and musicology. Established in 1917 as the Department of Music, the school continues to play a prominent role in the cultural life of Missouri and is located in the Sinquefield Music Center, on the university's flagship campus in Downtown Columbia. The Fine Arts Building also houses classrooms, studios, and a recital hall. Its major performance venues are Jesse Hall, the Missouri Theatre, and Whitmore Recital Hall. The Missouri Tigers marching band, Marching Mizzou, performs at Faurot Field for Southeastern Conference football games. The school's ensembles have performed worldwide and can be heard weekly on the university's own KMUC 90.5 FM Classical, Mid-Missouri's classical music radio station. Alumni include singers Sheryl Crow and Neal Boyd, Canadian Brass founder Gene Watts, and jazz artist Mike Metheny.
Michael Joseph Budds was an American musicologist, and longtime professor, at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. In addition to teaching, he wrote and edited a number of works, including a widely used textbook on American popular music. Also a philanthropist, he established the Budds Center for American Music Studies at the University of Missouri School of Music where he taught. He was the first musicologist inducted into the Missouri Music Hall of Fame. Budds taught at Missouri for 37 years, until his death on November 19, 2020.
The MU School of Health Professions is the University of Missouri system’s only school of health professions and the state’s only public health program located on a health sciences campus. Its mission is to improve the health and well-being of others.
The Board of Curators of the University of Missouri is a body consisting of nine members that governs the University of Missouri System, four state universities in the U.S. state of Missouri. In addition to these four universities, it also supervises and coordinates University of Missouri Health Care, the University of Missouri Extension, and a number of research locations across the state. Refer to the list of colleges and universities for details on the individual schools.
