Indiana University Bloomington

Indiana University Bloomington is the principal campus of the Indiana University system. It is popularly known as "Indiana University," IUB, or simply IU. It is located in Bloomington, Indiana, in Monroe County, Indiana.

History of IUB

Early years

Indiana's state government founded Indiana University in 1820 as the "State Seminary." The 1816 Indiana state constitution required that the General Assembly (Indiana's state legislature) create a "general system of education, ascending in a regular gradation, from township schools to a state university, wherein tuition shall be gratis, and equally open to all." It took some time for the legislature to fulfill its promise. While the original legislative charter was granted in 1820, construction began in 1822, the first professor was hired in 1823, and classes were offered in 1824. The first class graduated in 1830.

Related Topics:
General Assembly - State legislature

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The school developed rapidly in its first years. The hiring of Andrew Wylie, its first president, in 1828 signified the school's growing professionalism. The General Assembly changed the school's name to "Indiana College" in the same year. In 1838 the legislature changed the school's name for a final time to Indiana University.

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Wylie's death in 1851 marks the end of the university's first period of development. IU now had nearly a hundred students and seven professors. Despite the university's more obviously secular purpose, presidents and professors were still expected to set a moral example for their charges. It was only in 1885 that a non-clergyman, biologist David Starr Jordan, became president.

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Between Wylie and Jordan's administrations, the University grew slowly. Few changes rocked the university's repose. One development is interesting to modern scholars: The college admitted its first woman student, Sarah Parke Morrison in 1867, making IU the first state university to admit women on an equal basis with men.

Related Topics:
Sarah Parke Morrison - 1867

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In mid-passage

In 1883, IU awarded its first Ph. D. and played its first intercollegiate sport, baseball, prefiguring the school's future status as a major research institution and a power in collegiate athletics. But two other incidents that year were far more important to the university. First, the university's original campus in Seminary Square near the center of Bloomington burned to the ground. Second, instead of rebuilding in Seminary Square, as had been the practice following previous blazes, the college was rebuilt at the far eastern edge of Bloomington. (Today, Bloomington has expanded eastward, and the "new" campus is once again at the center of the city.)

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The first extension office of IU was opened in Indianapolis in 1916. In 1920/1921 the School of Music and the School of Commerce and Finance (what later became the Kelley School of Business) were opened. In the 1940s Indiana University opened extension campuses in Kokomo and Fort Wayne. The controversial Kinsey Institute for sexual research was also established in 1940.

Related Topics:
Indianapolis - 1916 - 1920 - 1921 - Kelley School of Business - Kokomo - Fort Wayne - Kinsey Institute - 1940

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Athletics

IUB's intercollegiate athletics program has a long tradition of excellence in several key sports. As of 2005, the school has won five championships in men's basketball (1940, 1953, 1976, 1981 and 1987), the first two under coach Branch McCracken and three under Bobby Knight; seven championships in men's soccer (1982, '83, '88, '98, '99, 2003 and 2004 - the first six teams led by coach Jerry Yeagley); and six consecutive men's swimming and diving titles between 1968 and 1973 under the tutelage of Doc Counsilman.

Related Topics:
Basketball - Branch McCracken - Bobby Knight - Soccer - Jerry Yeagley - Swimming - Diving - Doc Counsilman

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Men's basketball at IUB grew phenomenally popular under Coach Knight, especially in 1975-6 - when he led the team which remains the last men's Division I squad to go undefeated for an entire season. Knight's volatile temper, though, often brought as much controversy to the school as success, and eventually led to his dismissal in 2000 by then-University President Myles Brand. (See Knight's wikipedia entry for more details).

Related Topics:
Division I - Myles Brand - Wikipedia entry

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Students and alumni protested the Knight firing, and several players threatened to transfer unless Knight assistant Mike Davis was chosen to replace Knight; Davis ultimately got the job and took the team to the 2002 NCAA Title Game. After initial success, Davis has struggled and has been given an ultimatum to improve his team in the 2005-06 season or be fired.

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As of Summer 2005, IUB athletes have won 133 individual national championships, including 79 in men's swimming and diving and 31 in men's track and field. In addition, IU teams have won or shared 157 Big Ten conference championships.

Related Topics:
Track and field - Big Ten

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Women's sports at IUB have not traditionally enjoyed the same level of success, with the notable exception of the women's tennis and golf programs, which have won thirteen and seven conference titles, respectively.

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In recent years, IU's athletics department has been unable to support itself financially due to revenue shortages. Because of this the university administration has attempted, thus far unsuccessfully, to double the athletics fee which students pay with their tuition each semester. A number of students argue that the athletics department's financial woes are its own problems, and that support of athletics should be voluntary. Others, especially in the athletics department, argue that athletic programs are an integral part of the university experience, and therefore everyone should pay into it. But the low turnouts for athletic events that caused these financial problems is itself evidence that athletics is not in fact important to all students' university experience. Moreover, the athletics department has yet to present any evidence that the university, specifically scholastic experience would be diminished without a large athletics department.

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