Arkansas State University (ASU) is the second largest university in the State of Arkansas located atop Crowley's Ridge at Jonesboro, Arkansas.

Arkansas State University enjoys a reputation as a quality regional institution of higher education and is recognized for offering special services to the people of the Arkansas Delta. It is the only comprehensive public university located in this region.

This institution was founded in Jonesboro in 1909 by the Arkansas Legislature as a regional agricultural training school. It began offering a two-year college program in 1918, then became "First District Agricultural and Mechanical College" in 1925. A four-year degree program was begun in 1930, then A & M College became "Arkansas State College" in 1933. The Arkansas Legislature elevated the college to university status and changed the name to Arkansas State University in 1967. Today, the institution has more than 55,000 alumni.

Master's degree graduate programs were initiated in 1955, and ASU began offering its first doctoral degree, in educational leadership, in the fall of 1992. A second doctoral program, in environmental science, was begun in the fall of 1997, and the doctoral program in heritage studies began in the fall of 2001. A doctoral program in the biomedical sciences will start off starting 2005. Programs at the specialist's, master's, bachelor's and associate's degree levels are available through the various colleges: Agriculture, Business, Communications, Education, Engineering, Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Nursing and Health Professions, Sciences and Mathematics, and University College.

The school is affiliated with the Sun Belt Conference in sports and maintains NCAA I-A Division programs in the major sports. The school sports teams are nicknamed "Indians" in honor of the Osage Nation that inhabited the area until the 1800s.

External links

• Arkansas State University
• Dean B. Ellis Library
• ASU Atheletics
• ASU Museum
• KASU
• The Herald
• ASU-TV
• The Edge