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The University of Nebraska–Lincoln (Nebraska, NU, or UNL) is a
public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...
land-grant
research university A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are the most important sites at which knowledge production occurs, along with "intergenerational kn ...
in
Lincoln, Nebraska Lincoln is the capital city of the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Lancaster County. The city covers with a population of 292,657 in 2021. It is the second-most populous city in Nebraska and the 73rd-largest in the United ...
. Chartered in 1869 by the Nebraska Legislature as part of the
Morrill Act of 1862 The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are United States statutes that allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges in U.S. states using the proceeds from sales of federally-owned land, often obtained from indigenous tribes through treaty, cession, or ...
, the school was known as the University of Nebraska until 1968, when it absorbed the Municipal University of Omaha to form the University of Nebraska system. It is the state's oldest university and the
flagship institution A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the fi ...
of the state-wide system. The university has been governed by the Board of Regents since 1871, whose members are elected by district to six-year terms. The university is organized into nine colleges: Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Architecture, Arts and Sciences, Business, Education and Human Sciences,
Engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...
, Fine and Performing Arts, Journalism and Mass Communications, and Law. NU offers over two hundred degrees across its undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs. The school also offers programs through the University of Nebraska Omaha College of Public Affairs and Community Service, the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Dentistry and College of Nursing, and the
Peter Kiewit Institute The Peter Kiewit Institute is a facility in Omaha, Nebraska, United States which houses academic programs from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Engineering. Founded in 1996 in partnership with the University of Nebraska–Lincoln ...
, which is managed in partnership with the Kiewit Corporation. Among approximately 300,000 Nebraska alumni are three Nobel laureates, four Pulitzer Prize winners, one
Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...
winner, and twenty-two Rhodes Scholars. Nebraska is considered to have "very high research activity" based on the
Carnegie Classification The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, or simply the Carnegie Classification, is a framework for classifying colleges and universities in the United States. It was created in 1970 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Adva ...
. According to the
National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
, Nebraska spent $320 million on research and development in 2020. Between its three campus locations (City Campus, East Campus, and Nebraska Innovation Campus) the university has over one hundred classroom buildings and research facilities. The university's enrollment is 19,552 undergraduate students and 4,879 graduate students, with 1,595 full-time or part-time instructional faculty. Undergraduate admission to the school is considered "more selective." Nebraska's athletic programs, known as the
Cornhuskers The Nebraska Cornhuskers (often abbreviated to Huskers) are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The university is a member of the Big Ten Conference, and the Cornhuskers compete in NCAA Divis ...
, compete in
NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athleti ...
and are a member of the
Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...
. NU's football team has won forty-six conference championships and claims five national championships, with an additional nine unclaimed. Twenty-five former Cornhuskers have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. A total of 111 former Nebraska student-athletes have combined to win fifty-four Olympic medals, including sixteen gold medals.


History


Rise to Western prominence

The University of Nebraska was created by an act of the Nebraska Legislature in 1869, two years after
Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the sout ...
was admitted into the Union as the thirty-seventh state. The law described the new university's aims: "The object of such institution shall be to afford to the inhabitants of the state the means of acquiring a thorough knowledge of the various branches of literature, science, and the arts." The school received an initial federal land grant of about through the
Morrill Act of 1862 The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are United States statutes that allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges in U.S. states using the proceeds from sales of federally-owned land, often obtained from indigenous tribes through treaty, cession, or ...
. Public opinion on the new school was split; many argued the state did not need a university as it did not even have a state-wide high school system, and others suggested any public university should be church-controlled, which was typical of eastern colleges at the time. Campus construction began in September 1869 when the cornerstone of University Hall was laid at the corner of 11th and S Streets. Though the building was very large, expensive, and ornate, it was made of low-quality materials and required a foundation repair before hosting a single class. By 1871, the university welcomed its inaugural class of twenty collegiate students and 110 preparatory students, and in 1873 offered its first degrees to graduating students. A school newspaper, ''Monthly Hesperian Student'' (later ''The Hesperian'', now ''The Daily Nebraskan''), was quickly established and the University of Nebraska State Museum (now Morrill Hall) opened in University Hall. In its early years, the University of Nebraska was modest in terms of enrollment, budget, and stature. The school's development was slowed by a mid-1870s grasshopper swarm that devastated the state's economy and caused NU's first chancellor, Allen R. Benton, to resign. Benton's successor, Edmund Burke Fairfield, led a contentious tenure highlighted by clashes over the place of religion in higher education. Under Fairfield's watch, the University of Nebraska hired its first female faculty member, Ellen Smith (Smith Hall, built on campus in 1967 as a student residence hall, is named in her honor). Smith's hire highlighted the young university's relatively diverse group of students and faculty; this was done deliberately by the board of regents, which hoped to boost the school's enrollment and the city's population through immigration. Like University Hall, many early buildings were poorly and cheaply constructed, and not until James Hulme Canfield became chancellor in 1891 were any significant infrastructure upgrades made. The forward-thinking, enthusiastic Canfield was a sharp contrast to the conservative, traditional leaders before him. He began an aggressive remodeling and expansion of many university buildings, often overseeing construction himself. Among these was University Library (now Architecture Hall), which was built in 1895 and is the oldest building on campus. Canfield worked to make the high school-to-college transition as easy as possible for Nebraskans and traversed the state tirelessly to encourage students from all backgrounds to consider higher education. By the time Canfield resigned in July 1895 to return to his native
Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
, enrollment had nearly quadrupled. Shortly after his departure, NU became the first school west of the
Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest Drainage system (geomorphology), drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson B ...
to offer graduate courses and established its
College of Law A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction. Law degrees Argentina In Argentina, l ...
and School of Agriculture. The University of Nebraska's football program played its first game in 1890, but did not have a full-time head coach until hiring
Frank Crawford Frank Crawford (March 12, 1870 – November 25, 1963) was an American college football coach, lawyer, and law professor. He served as the first full-time head football coach at both Michigan and Nebraska, and also coached Wisconsin, Baker, and Te ...
in 1894.
Nebraska State Journal The ''Lincoln Journal Star'' is an American daily newspaper that serves Lincoln, Nebraska, the state capital and home of the University of Nebraska. It is the most widely read newspaper in Lincoln and has the second-largest circulation in ...
(now Lincoln Journal Star) writer Cy Sherman began referring to the team as the ''Cornhuskers'' in 1899, and the nickname was officially adopted the following year.


A new century and The Great War

As the twentieth century began, the university attempted to balance its identity as both a pragmatic, frontier establishment and an academic, intellectual institution.Knoll, Robert. ''Prairie University.'' Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. In addition to its football team, several noteworthy campus organizations were founded around this time, including a debate team, the school's first fraternities and sororities, and the
Society of Innocents The Innocents Society is the Chancellor's senior honorary society at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, composed of 13 men and women who apply during the spring of their junior year and are selected on the basis of academic excellence, unparall ...
(more commonly known as the Innocents Society). Much of this new growth was attributed to the hiring of
Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
president
Elisha Andrews Elisha Benjamin Andrews (January 10, 1844 – October 30, 1917) was an American economist, soldier, and educator. Early life Andrews was born in Hinsdale, New Hampshire.Marquis Who's Who, Inc. ''Who Was Who in American History, the Military'' ...
; under his guidance Nebraska became the fifth-largest public university in the United States. Andrews ambitiously sought funding for expansion; a 1904 investment from John D. Rockefeller led to the construction of The Temple, which still stands on campus. In total, nine new buildings were constructed during his tenure, including
Nebraska Field Nebraska Field was an American football stadium located on the campus of the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska. The stadium primarily served as the home venue for the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team and a variety of other university an ...
, and the school nearly doubled in enrollment. Shortly after Andrews retired due to health concerns, a fierce debate ensued over whether to keep the University of Nebraska in downtown Lincoln or to move it out of town. A relocation to the outskirts of Lincoln would allow for cheaper, quicker expansion and provide farmland for the College of Agriculture. New chancellor Samuel Avery favored this relocation, believing it would make alcohol-seeking students less likely to visit downtown Lincoln or nearby Havelock (then a separate city from Lincoln). Ultimately, a statewide vote determined the university would remain in its original location, with funding prioritized for additional buildings on the Farm Campus (now East Campus). When the United States joined
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
in April 1917, students from Nebraska's extensive
Reserve Officers' Training Corps The Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC ( or )) is a group of college- and university-based officer-training programs for training commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces. Overview While ROTC graduate officers serve in a ...
(ROTC) program were called into service. NU's ROTC was led by John J. Pershing during his time as a professor of military science and tactics in the 1890s; during World War I, Pershing commanded the American Expeditionary Forces and became the only person to hold the rank
General of the Armies of the United States General of the Armies of the United States, more commonly referred to as General of the Armies, is the highest military rank in the United States Army. The rank has been conferred three times: to John J. Pershing in 1919, as a personal accolad ...
during his own lifetime. Because of his chemical expertise, Avery was asked to join the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service in Washington, D.C., and during his absence the Board of Regents conducted "loyalty trials" against twelve faculty members accused of anti-American sentiment (all were exonerated of criminal activity, though a few were forced to resign for conduct detrimental to the university's reputation). Like most colleges across the United States, enrollment at NU plummeted as a result of the war. Nebraska was put in a particularly difficult position given the state and university's reliance on agriculture, which was slow to recover in the post-war years. Many at Nebraska wished to construct an on-campus memorial dedicated to those lost in The Great War. NU built Nebraska Field in 1909, but its wooden construction and limited seating capacity meant that after less than ten years there was significant momentum toward the building of a larger steel-and-concrete stadium. The abrupt departure of highly successful head coach Ewald O. Stiehm temporarily slowed this momentum, but by the early 1920s, with "the present athletic field as inadequate now as the old one was in 1907," the university began plans to build a new stadium on the site of Nebraska Field. The new stadium project was initially conceived as a combination gymnasium-stadium-war museum complex to be called the "Nebraska Soldiers and Sailors Memorial." Due to the slow post-war economy, the scope of the project was decreased to just a football stadium (though the
Nebraska Coliseum The Nebraska Coliseum (sometimes referred to as the NU Coliseum or The Coliseum) is an indoor coliseum on the campus of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in Lincoln, Nebraska. It was the home of Nebraska's men's basketball team from 1926 to 1 ...
was completed three years later). When the fundraising target amount of $450,000 had been met, a groundbreaking ceremony was held on April 23, 1923. Construction was completed on the 31,000-seat stadium in just over ninety days, in time for NU's first home game of the 1923 season, a 24–0 win over
Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...
on October 13. Memorial Stadium was dedicated the following week to honor Nebraskans who served in the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...
, the
Spanish–American War , partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence , image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = (clock ...
, and World War I. Later, the dedication was expanded to honor Nebraskans who died in
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, the
Korean War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Korean War , partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict , image = Korean War Montage 2.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Clockwise from top:{ ...
, and the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
.


The Great Depression into World War II

Avery retired in 1928 and dean of agriculture Edgar A. Burnett was named chancellor. The following year, the United States plunged into the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
and the
Great Plains The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, a ...
were struck by the
Dust Bowl The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of both natural factors (severe drought) a ...
; an agriculture-dependent state, Nebraska was hit hard in the early 1930s as crop prices fell to all-time lows. By 1932, the University of Nebraska was forced to institute a five-percent cut to maintenance and a ten-percent cut to all faculty salaries, including Burnett. A lengthy, bitter fight for funding between the Board of Regents and Nebraska Legislature lasted most of 1933, with the state initially suggesting an across-the-board budget reduction of over twenty percent, in addition to the cuts that had already been made, to prioritize funding for farmers. The Board of Regents desperately campaigned to alumni and voters for support in the budget fight and was ultimately able to negotiate a more modest set of cuts for the 1933 and 1934 fiscal years. A slight recovery in crop prices before the next round of university funding in 1935 meant the state was willing to raise NU's budget back to what it was early in the Depression. In response to the lack of available state funds throughout the Depression, the University of Nebraska Foundation was established in 1937 to serve as the school's primary fundraising arm. The lack of funding, reduction in salaries, and cancellation of many university events caused a sense of general tension between administration, faculty, and students throughout most of the decade. Though he took a salary cut himself, Burnett became distrusted by the faculty, and his reputation never fully recovered. He resigned in 1938, the same year Nebraska's student union opened on the corner of 14th and R Streets. The Board of Regents selected
West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Beckley, Potomac State Coll ...
president Chauncey Samuel Boucher to replace Burnett. The Depression was still unfolding, and in response to a rising level of failing students at the university, Boucher instituted NU's first admission standards. At the outset of
World War II in Europe The European theatre of World War II was one of the two main theatres of combat during World War II. It saw heavy fighting across Europe for almost six years, starting with Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and ending with the ...
, Boucher urged neutrality among students and faculty; even after the United States entered the war, he encouraged the university to "carry on" as normal. However, plummeting enrollment and intense national fervor meant the school could not stay "neutral" for long, and began offering vacant university buildings to the
United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...
for training and shelter. Nebraska soon joined the Army Specialized Training Program and the campus became disorganized and chaotic as soldiers "studied very casually while in residence" before being deployed overseas. More than 13,000 soldiers received language, medical, or engineering training before the program was shut down in 1944 to allow for the opening of Love Library, which had been used as a barracks. Many new classes and programs were offered throughout the 1940s, most of them in the medical and engineering fields. Following the end of the war, the school experienced an enormous influx of students, many of which were returning veterans seeking an education as part of the G.I. Bill, which offered them free tuition and housing assistance. The average soldier was older than the average college student, and thus the rate of drinking on campus (Nebraska remains a
dry campus "Dry campus" is the term used for the banning of alcohol at colleges and universities, regardless of the owner's age or intention to consume it elsewhere. The policy has received media attention in the United States, although dry campuses and deba ...
in principle to this day) increased significantly. Many older students were married with children, and the lack of adequate infrastructure on campus (specifically parking) culminated in a student riot in 1948. New chancellor Reuben Gustavson was understanding of the pranks and "tomfoolery" on his campus during the post-war years, and he became well-liked by the students. Gustavson was crucial to a number of post-war developments, including the integration of campus dormitories and the planning of the school's medical center (now the University of Nebraska Medical Center).


A new university system in transition

By the mid-1950s, the University of Nebraska's enrollment surpassed 18,000, nearly triple what it was before the war. New dormitories were constructed and the Nebraska Center for Continuing Education (now Hardin Hall) was established on Farm Campus to provide adequate living accommodations for the growing student body. Around this time,
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
dean of agriculture Clifford M. Hardin was selected as Nebraska's twelfth chancellor; at thirty-eight, Hardin was the youngest university president in the country. Though not an avid fan of the sport himself, Hardin prioritized the re-establishment of Nebraska as a national football power and attempted to hire high-profile head coach Duffy Daugherty from
Michigan State Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It i ...
. Daugherty declined, but suggested Hardin contact
Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to t ...
head coach Bob Devaney. Over the next forty years, Devaney and his successor Tom Osborne created one of college football's great dynasties, claiming five national championships between them. Hardin later said that after the Depression, he "felt the state needed something to rally around." University television network NETV (later Nebraska Educational Telecommunications, now Nebraska Public Media) was created in 1954, broadcasting over ninety hours of programming weekly. The station proved so popular, especially among rural towns, that schools and city councils raised money to purchase three new transmitters and boost the broadcast's strength and range. The facilities for the new network were constructed on Farm Campus, which had grown considerably by the 1960s. It was home to more than just agricultural programs, including the
College of Law A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction. Law degrees Argentina In Argentina, l ...
, College of Dentistry, and Center for Hearing and Speech Disorders. To reflect this, it was renamed East Campus, given its location a mile east of the downtown campus. By the 1950s, the Municipal University of Omaha (now the University of Nebraska Omaha) was run-down and inadequately funded, threatening the existence of the school entirely. The Nebraska Legislature, faced with the prospect of its most-populous city not having a major institute of higher learning of any kind, decided to merge the Municipal University with the larger University of Nebraska to form a state-wide university system and offer the Omaha school additional budget pools to draw from. The University of Nebraska Medical Center, located in Omaha, was separated from the Lincoln school and brought under the direction of the new state-wide system. Hardin was named the first chancellor of the University of Nebraska system in 1968 and served for two years before being named
United States Secretary of Agriculture The United States secretary of agriculture is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The position carries similar responsibilities to those of agriculture ministers in other governments. The department includes several organ ...
under President
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
. During his tenure, Hardin was praised among faculty for his dedication to increasing salaries and benefits, as Nebraska faculty were among the most well-compensated in the Midwest. Just as Gustavson before him, Hardin's administration prioritized federal grant money as a way to build NU's research profile without relying on state funding. When Hardin took control of the state-wide system, he appointed his longtime colleague Joseph Soshnik to run what had become the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Soshnik's tenure began in the midst of a transition for the universities of Nebraska, as well as a period of turmoil across many United States campuses as students protested American involvement in the Vietnam War. At Nebraska, this included a student takeover of the ROTC building on May 4, 1970, when a crowd of nearly two thousand protesters and onlookers gathered on campus hours after the
Kent State shootings The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre and the Kent State massacre,"These would be the first of many probes into what soon became known as the Kent State Massacre. Like the Boston Massacre almost exactly two hundred years bef ...
. Administration responded to protests by meeting and negotiating with student leaders, and as a result, no Vietnam War protests at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln became violent or required a National Guard intervention. Student leaders later praised Soshnik and anti-war professor Paul Olson for maintaining communication and allowing students to "vent their frustrations." Minor protests were held in January 1971 when President Richard Nixon visited Lincoln to honor the school's national championship-winning football team. Nebraska won its second consecutive national title the following year, in the process defeating archrival
Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...
35–31 in what was dubbed "The Game of the Century". The university completed several large-scale construction projects throughout the late 1980s. Nebraska's student recreation accommodations were among the worst in the region, and thus a new recreation center attached to the
Nebraska Coliseum The Nebraska Coliseum (sometimes referred to as the NU Coliseum or The Coliseum) is an indoor coliseum on the campus of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in Lincoln, Nebraska. It was the home of Nebraska's men's basketball team from 1926 to 1 ...
was funded by the University of Nebraska Foundation; it began construction in 1987 and the third and final phase was completed in 1992. The Honors Program (later expanded to include the Raikes School of Computer Science and Management) was established, and the school's first computer lab was completed in 1985 in the Selleck Quadrangle. The eight-million dollar
Lied Center for Performing Arts The Lied Center for Performing Arts (frequently shortened to Lied Center) is a multi-venue performing arts facility in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States. It opened in 1990 on the southwest edge of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln's City Cam ...
finished construction in 1990.


Modern stability and move to the Big Ten

When longtime chancellor
Martin Massengale Martin Andrew Massengale (born October 25, 1933) is an American academic. He was the president of the University of Nebraska System from 1989 to 1994. Massengale is an alumnus of the University of Wisconsin and Western Kentucky University. Massen ...
was appointed president of the university system in 1991, the Board of Regents named
Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering ...
provost
Graham Spanier Graham Basil Spanier (born July 18, 1948) is a South African-born American sociologist and university administrator who became the 16th president of Pennsylvania State University on September 1, 1995. On November 9, 2011, in the wake of the Penn ...
as his successor. Spanier quickly resolved Nebraska's six-million dollar budget shortfall while raising admission standards. Upon the retirement of Bob Devaney as athletic director in 1992, Spanier defied the wishes of Tom Osborne and hired Bill Byrne as Devaney's replacement. Osborne's program, however, was incredibly successful during Spanier's tenure, compiling a record of 45–4 and winning two national championships across four seasons. Shortly after the second of these championships, backup quarterback
Brook Berringer Brook Warren Berringer (July 9, 1973 – April 18, 1996) was an American quarterback for the University of Nebraska football team in the mid-1990s. Berringer came to Nebraska from Goodland, Kansas, and played a backup role to Tommie Frazier. He w ...
was killed in a plane crash days before the
NFL Draft The National Football League Draft, also called the NFL Draft or (officially) the Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the league's most common source of player recruitment. Each team is given a position in the drafting o ...
, where he was projected to be a mid-round pick. Berringer, a Nebraska native, endeared himself to fans when filling in for injured starter
Tommie Frazier Tommie James Frazier Jr. (born July 16, 1974) is an American former football player and coach who played quarterback for the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Frazier led his team to consecutive national championships in 1994 and 1995, and is ...
in 1994. The university erected a statue of Osborne and Berringer at Memorial Stadium. Osborne won another national championship in 1997, his third as a head coach, before retiring and naming longtime assistant
Frank Solich Frank Thomas Solich (born September 8, 1944) is a former American football coach and former player. He is the former head coach at Ohio University, a position he held from 2005 until 2021. From 1998 to 2003, Solich served as the head coach at th ...
his replacement. Spanier left in 1996 to become president of
Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State becam ...
, where he served until 2011 when he resigned following the Penn State child sex abuse scandal. Spanier was sentenced to two months in prison for his role in the scandal. In 2008, the state of Nebraska voted to move the Nebraska State Fair from Lincoln, where it had been held since 1950, to Grand Island. The site was turned over to the university, which began construction of Nebraska Innovation Campus (NIC) in 2012. The goal was for one-third of the development to be operated by NU, with the remaining two-thirds privately rented; though initial progress was slow, the facility now has over forty full-time tenants. Nebraska announced on June 11, 2010, it would end its affiliation with the
Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its ...
and accept an invitation to join the
Big Ten The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...
. It was the university's first major conference transition since joining the
Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association The Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MVIAA) was a college athletic conference and the second college conference formed upon its foundation on January 12, 1907.David A. Campaigne and John R. Thelin, "Big Twelve Conference", in ...
(later the Big Eight) in 1921. Shortly after joining the Big Ten, Nebraska constructed or significantly renovated most of its major athletic facilities. A $63.5-million overhaul of East Stadium added six thousand seats and thirty-eight luxury boxes to Memorial Stadium; the
Bob Devaney Sports Center The Bob Devaney Sports Center (commonly referred to as the Devaney Center, formerly the NU Sports Complex) is a sports complex on the campus of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in Lincoln, Nebraska. The 7,909-seat arena opened in 1976 and serve ...
, primarily a basketball venue from its opening in 1976 until 2013, was outfitted for use by Nebraska's volleyball program; and Pinnacle Bank Arena was constructed in downtown Lincoln. In 2011, Nebraska was removed as a member of the Association of American Universities, an organization of research universities of which it had been a member since 1908. Nebraska ranked near the bottom of many AAU criteria due largely to the university's extensive
USDA The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of comme ...
-funded agricultural research, which was not considered by the AAU because it was not awarded by peer-reviewed grants; and because Nebraska's medical center was a separate institution whose research funding was not under the auspices of the Lincoln campus. When the Big Ten expanded in 2010, all of its schools were members, and chancellor Harvey Perlman questioned whether Nebraska would have been invited to the conference were it not an AAU member. During Perlman's tenure, the school's research expenditures reached $284 million, an all-time high, and enrollment increased by over ten percent. However, Perlman acknowledged that many fans remember him by the failures of Nebraska's previously powerful football program, which did not win a conference title while he was chancellor. In Perlman's sixteen years, Nebraska fired four football head coaches and two athletic directors. He retired to return to teaching at the College of Law in 2016 and Ronnie D. Green was named his successor.


Organization and administration


Board of Regents

The University of Nebraska system is governed by the board of regents, a twelve-member panel consisting of eight voting members and a non-voting student body president from each campus. Voting members are elected by district to six-year terms; elections are held in even-numbered years. The board of regents meets at Varner Hall on East Campus and supervises the operation, expenditures, and tuition rates of each university in the system. The board of regents was established by Nebraska State Constitution Article VII-10, which states "The general government of the University of Nebraska shall... be vested in a board of not less than six nor more than eight regents, who shall be elected from and by districts as herein provided and three students of the University of Nebraska who shall serve as nonvoting members." Nebraska is one of four states with public university governing boards elected directly by the people.


President

The president of the University of Nebraska system is appointed by and reports to the board of regents. The position was created in 1968 when the Municipal University of Omaha and the University of Nebraska Medical Center were absorbed into the University of Nebraska to create a state-wide system. Clifford M. Hardin was the first president and Ronald Roskens was the longest-tenured. Ted Carter was named Nebraska's eighth full-time president on January 1, 2020.


Chancellor

The chancellor of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln is appointed by the Board of Regents and reports to the president of the University of Nebraska system. The position was created in 1871, shortly after the school was founded. Allen R. Benton was the first chancellor and Samuel Avery was the longest-tenured. Ronnie D. Green was named Nebraska's twentieth full-time chancellor on April 6, 2016.


Student government

The Nebraska student government was established in 1919 as the Student Council, and a constitution was adopted four years later. This constitution was revised in 1965 and the Student Council became the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska (ASUN). ASUN is structured after the United States government, consisting of an executive, legislative, and judicial branch. A president and two vice-presidents are elected each academic year by a popular vote of the general student body; the president serves on the Board of Regents as a non-voting member. At the end of each academic year, the outgoing president appoints seven students to form the student court for the upcoming school year. Thirty-five representatives are elected by department to serve in the student senate. Jake Drake was elected Nebraska's student body president on March 2, 2022. ASUN has thirteen committees: the Academic Committee, Appointments Board, Campus and Life Safety Committee, Committee for Fee Allocations, Communications Committee, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, Environmental Leadership Program, Environmental Sustainability Committee, Freshmen Campus Leadership Associates, Government Liaison Committee, Green Fund Selection Committee, Student Services Committee, and Technology Fee Committee. ASUN governs over four hundred student organizations on campus.


Colleges

The university has nine colleges, combining to offer more than 150 undergraduate majors, twenty pre-professional programs, and one hundred graduate programs. NU offers additional programs at its campus from other University of Nebraska institutions, including the University of Nebraska Omaha College of Public Affairs and Community Service, the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Dentistry and College of Nursing, and the
Peter Kiewit Institute The Peter Kiewit Institute is a facility in Omaha, Nebraska, United States which houses academic programs from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Engineering. Founded in 1996 in partnership with the University of Nebraska–Lincoln ...
, which is managed in partnership with the Kiewit Corporation. College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources The Board of Regents established the School of Agriculture in 1877 as part of the Industrial College, three years after the university was founded. Agricultural buildings were built on the outskirts of town given the lack of available farmland in downtown Lincoln, and this area came to be known as Farm Campus. The school received a boost when the Second Morrill Act was passed by the
United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...
in 1890, providing annual funds for land-grant research universities to support agricultural departments. In 1909 it was separated from the Industrial College as the College of Agriculture. The department was renamed the College of Agriculture Sciences and Natural Resources (CASNR) in 1990. Farm Campus has since become East Campus and is no longer on the outskirts of Lincoln as the area around it has developed, but is still home to most CASNR buildings. The college maintains rural facilities across the state of Nebraska for research purposes. It offers one of eighteen PGA Golf Management degree programs in the United States. College of Architecture Nebraska offered its first architecture course in 1894 and established the Department of Architecture in 1930. The department did not become the College of Agriculture until 1973, by which time the University Library, the oldest building on campus, had become Architecture Hall. In 1987, Architecture Hall was connected to the former Law College building, significantly expanding the space available to the college. College of Arts and Sciences The
College of Arts and Sciences A College of Arts and Sciences or School of Arts and Sciences is most commonly an individual institution or a unit within a university that focuses on instruction of the liberal arts and pure sciences, although they frequently include programs an ...
, established with the university itself in 1869, is the oldest college at Nebraska. It is also the largest, offering sixty degree programs to over five thousand undergraduate students. College of Business Nebraska's school of commerce was founded in 1913 and became the College of Business Administration in 1919. The college was one of seventeen charter members of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business in 1916 and has since received accreditation in accounting as well. It is one of thirty-six United States business schools affiliated with the
CFA Institute The CFA Institute is a global, not-for-profit professional organization that provides investment professionals with finance education. The institute aims to promote standards in ethics, education, and professional excellence in the global investme ...
. In 2017, the College of Business opened Howard L. Hawks Hall, an $84 million, 240,000-square-foot facility named in honor of Omaha businessman and former NU Regent Howard Hawks. With over four thousand undergraduate students, it is NU's second-largest college. College of Education and Human Sciences The College of Education and Human Sciences (CEHS) was established in 2003 when the College of Human Resources and Family Sciences was merged with Teachers College. The department offers a degree in Textile History and operates the International Quilt Museum on East Campus, which houses the largest public collection of quilts in the world. In 2020, Mabel Lee Hall was demolished to clear the site for the construction of Carolyn Pope Edwards Hall; upon its completion, scheduled prior to the 2022–23 academic year, the new building will house CEHS. College of Engineering The Industrial College was founded in 1872 and began offering engineering classes in 1877. In 1909, it was split into the
College of Engineering Engineering education is the activity of teaching knowledge and principles to the professional practice of engineering. It includes an initial education (bachelor's and/or master's degree), and any advanced education and specializations that ...
and the College of Agriculture. The Mechanical Arts Building (later Stout Hall) was completed in 1898 and served as the College of Engineering's primary home for nearly eighty years. What became Nebraska Hall was purchased from the
Elgin National Watch Company The Elgin National Watch Company, commonly known as Elgin Watch Company, was a major US watch maker from 1864 to 1968. The company sold watches under the names Elgin, Lord Elgin, and Lady Elgin. For nearly 100 years, the company's manufacturing ...
in 1958 and NU relocated most of its engineering programs there in 1971. The college absorbed the engineering department from the University of Nebraska Omaha in 1970; though the Omaha campus has its own facilities, its degree programs, faculty, and funding come from Lincoln and its students are considered part of the Lincoln university. In 2019, the college began a $170-million expansion and remodel of most of its Lincoln facilities. In conjunction with the Kiewit Corporation, the College of Engineering runs the
Peter Kiewit Institute The Peter Kiewit Institute is a facility in Omaha, Nebraska, United States which houses academic programs from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Engineering. Founded in 1996 in partnership with the University of Nebraska–Lincoln ...
(PKI) in Omaha. PKI houses the original
Holland Computing Center The Holland Computing Center, often abbreviated HCC, is the high-performance computing core for the University of Nebraska System. HCC has locations in both the University of Nebraska-Lincoln June and Paul Schorr III Center for Computer Science & En ...
, which opened a second location in Lincoln in 2007. The college also operates the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility, which researches highway design and safety and in 2002 created the SAFER barrier for use on high-speed racetracks. Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts The College of Fine and Performing Arts was established in 1993 upon the completion of the
Lied Center for Performing Arts The Lied Center for Performing Arts (frequently shortened to Lied Center) is a multi-venue performing arts facility in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States. It opened in 1990 on the southwest edge of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln's City Cam ...
. The center, and later the college, are named for donor Christina Hixson and the Lied Foundation Trust. College of Journalism and Mass Communications Will Owen Jones, later the editor of the
Nebraska State Journal The ''Lincoln Journal Star'' is an American daily newspaper that serves Lincoln, Nebraska, the state capital and home of the University of Nebraska. It is the most widely read newspaper in Lincoln and has the second-largest circulation in ...
(now Lincoln Journal Star), taught Nebraska's first journalism class in 1894. A School of Journalism was created three decades later. When the university founded NETV (now Nebraska Public Media) in 1954 and KRNU in 1970, the journalism college offered broadcasting classes for opportunities in both television and radio. The college is one of six journalism schools in the United States that participates in the Dow Jones News Fund editing internship program and one of eleven selected for the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education. Though ''
The Daily Nebraskan ''The Daily Nebraskan'', established in 1871 as the ''Monthly Hesperian Student'', is the student newspaper of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Although many journalism students are on staff, the ''Daily Nebraskan'' is independent of the uni ...
'' and ''
The DailyER ''The DailyER,'' formerly titled ''The Dailyer Nebraskan'' and ''The DailyER Nebraskan'' (often referred to as ''The DER''), established in 2008, is a satirical newspaper produced monthly during the fall and spring semester at the University of Neb ...
'' are independent of the College of Journalism and Mass Communications, most of the papers' writers are journalism students. College of Law The Central Law College was founded as a private entity in 1888 and integrated into the University of Nebraska three years later as the Law College (now the College of Law).
Roscoe Pound Nathan Roscoe Pound (October 27, 1870 – June 30, 1964) was an American legal scholar and educator. He served as Dean of the University of Nebraska College of Law from 1903 to 1911 and Dean of Harvard Law School from 1916 to 1936. He was a memb ...
, one of the foremost proponents of
legal realism Legal realism is a naturalistic approach to law. It is the view that jurisprudence should emulate the methods of natural science, i.e., rely on empirical evidence. Hypotheses must be tested against observations of the world. Legal realists ...
in the United States and later the dean of Harvard Law School, led the department from 1903 to 1907. It was one of twenty-five charter members of the
Association of American Law Schools The Association of American Law Schools (AALS), formed in 1900, is a non-profit organization of 176 law schools in the United States. An additional 19 schools pay a fee to receive services but are not members. AALS incorporated as a 501(c)(3) n ...
and is accredited by the
American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of aca ...
. Graduate College The University of Nebraska Graduate College is a school-wide program, with the same dean and administration supporting each department. Established in 1896, it is the oldest graduate college in the
Western United States The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the We ...
.


Campus

The University of Nebraska–Lincoln operates three campuses, which are laid out over a combined .


City Campus

The original University of Nebraska campus was laid out on four city blocks in the northeast corner of the planned downtown Lincoln area, and for fifteen years comprised just one building, the four-story University Hall. The university used its last available allotment of original land to construct the Law College Building in 1911. The first expansion of what became known as City Campus occurred in 1908, when the school acquired land to the west to construct
Nebraska Field Nebraska Field was an American football stadium located on the campus of the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska. The stadium primarily served as the home venue for the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team and a variety of other university an ...
. Further development of the surrounding area meant that Memorial Stadium, constructed on the site in 1923, had to be oriented east-to-west instead of north-to-south as Nebraska Field was. As enrollment increased following
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, the university purchased lands owned by the
Missouri Pacific Railroad The Missouri Pacific Railroad , commonly abbreviated as MoPac, was one of the first railroads in the United States west of the Mississippi River. MoPac was a Class I railroad growing from dozens of predecessors and mergers. In 1967, the railroad ...
to construct high-rise dormitories. City Campus is home to the
Lied Center for Performing Arts The Lied Center for Performing Arts (frequently shortened to Lied Center) is a multi-venue performing arts facility in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States. It opened in 1990 on the southwest edge of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln's City Cam ...
, a
performing arts The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Perfo ...
venue used primarily for orchestra concerts and theatre performances. The nearby Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center is a two-screen theater featuring primarily arthouse,
independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independe ...
, and
documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...
s. Since 1928, City Campus has been the headquarters of the National Society of Pershing Rifles, a military fraternal organization for college-level students. John J. Pershing, an 1893 law school graduate and professor of Military Science and Tactics, created "Company A," a competitive drill team, for the University of Nebraska's Cadet Corps in 1891. The team won the National Competitive Drills in 1892 and soon changed its name to the "Pershing Rifles" in honor of Pershing. The Mueller Tower, built in 1949, stands near the Pershing Rifles headquarters on 14th Street. The school's first student union, called simply the Student Union (now the Nebraska Union), was constructed in 1938 on the corner of 14th and R Streets. It underwent extensive renovation and expansion in 1958, 1969, and 1999; a further $40-million project approved in 2019 was delayed due to the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
. The Nebraska Union houses the University Bookstore and offices for ''
The Daily Nebraskan ''The Daily Nebraskan'', established in 1871 as the ''Monthly Hesperian Student'', is the student newspaper of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Although many journalism students are on staff, the ''Daily Nebraskan'' is independent of the uni ...
'' and ''
The DailyER ''The DailyER,'' formerly titled ''The Dailyer Nebraskan'' and ''The DailyER Nebraskan'' (often referred to as ''The DER''), established in 2008, is a satirical newspaper produced monthly during the fall and spring semester at the University of Neb ...
'', the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska, Greek life, and the Jackie Gaughan Multicultural Center.


East Campus

As much of the land originally allocated to the school was unsuitable for farming, 320 acres to the east of campus was purchased in 1874. Termed Farm Campus (commonly referred to as "The Farm"), it became home to many of Nebraska's agricultural programs. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was considerable discussion to move the entire university to Farm Campus to allow for greater expansion, and the idea was supported by faculty who felt the "wholesome environment" may be "more conducive to academic pursuits." Ultimately, a state-wide vote approved the purchase of new lands for City Campus. Farm Campus was renamed East Campus in 1964 to reflect its development past a purely agricultural development. East Campus is heavily landscaped, with the grounds functioning as a research mission of the university; they are administered as the UNL Botanical Garden and Arboretum, which handles major plantings at both Cather Garden and Maxwell Arboretum. The headquarters of
Nebraska Public Media Nebraska Public Media, formerly Nebraska Educational Telecommunications (NET), is a state network of public radio and television stations in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is operated by the Nebraska Educational Telecommunications Commission (NETC) ...
are located on East Campus, where it was established in 1954 as NETV. Almost immediately after the Nebraska Union opened on City Campus, there was momentum among agricultural students to do the same on Farm Campus. A temporary union was established in 1947, with a performance from student
Johnny Carson John William Carson (October 23, 1925 – January 23, 2005) was an American television host, comedian, writer and producer. He is best known as the host of '' The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' (1962–1992). Carson received six P ...
at its grand opening, but a permanent building was not constructed until thirty years later. A $28.5-million renovation of the Nebraska East Union was completed in 2021. The Nebraska East Union is home to the Loft Gallery, used for community and student artwork, as well as a full-size bowling alley that is the home venue and practice facility for Nebraska's bowling team.


Nebraska Innovation Campus

The University of Nebraska–Lincoln's third campus, Nebraska Innovation Campus, was established in 2014 on the former site of the Nebraska State Fair grounds, just northeast of City Campus. Plans for redevelopment included an $800-million expansion to house agricultural biotechnology and other life science research. Several historic structures formerly used for the state fair were repurposed and modernized for university use. Bordered by several athletic facilities which are technically a part of City Campus, Innovation Campus serves as a research hub for over forty public and private enterprises. As many developments are privately owned or rented, it is the only NU campus which allows alcohol. The $35-million Scarlet Hotel was opened on Innovation Campus in 2022.


Academics


Admissions


Undergraduate

Admission to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln is rated "more selective" by '' U.S. News & World Report''. Among 17,775 first-year applicants for the 2021–22 academic year, Eighty-eight percent (15,701) were admitted and twenty-seven percent (4,736) enrolled. Among 2,654 transfer applicants for the 2021–22 academic year, sixty-three percent (1,675) were admitted and twenty-sixpercent (685) enrolled. Of the 85% of enrolled freshmen in 2021 who submitted ACT scores; the middle 50 percent Composite score was between 22 and 28. Of the 8% of the incoming freshman class who submitted SAT scores; the middle 50 percent Composite scores were 1100-1310. The University of Nebraska–Lincoln is a college-sponsor of the National Merit Scholarship Program and sponsored 37 Merit Scholarship awards in 2020. In the 2020–2021 academic year, 43 freshman students were
National Merit Scholars The National Merit Scholarship Program is a United States academic scholarship competition for recognition and university scholarships administered by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), a privately funded, not-for-profit organizat ...
.


Libraries

The university dedicated University Library (now Architecture Hall) on December 10, 1895. Initially, only one of the building's four stories housed library collections, but less than twenty years after its opening the entire facility was needed. An $850,000 gift from former Lincoln mayor Don Lathrop Love facilitated the construction of Don L. Love Memorial Library, completed in 1943. The new building was initially used to house cadets in the Army Specialized Training Program during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
before opening for university use in 1945. A significant expansion on the north side of the building was completed in 1972 and became known as Love Library North. The $10-million, 30,000-square-foot Adele Coryell Hall Learning Commons were opened in 2016 on the first floor of Love Library North. The C. Y. Thompson Library was dedicated in 1966 on East Campus as the university's first standalone branch library; it was renamed the Dinsdale Family Learning Commons in 2022 following a significant remodel and serves the Colleges of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Dentistry, and Special Education and Communication Disorders. There are six other branch locations on campus: the Architecture Library, Engineering Library, Geology Library, Marvin and Virginia Schmid Law Library, Mathematics Library, and Music Library. The university's libraries combine to offer nearly four million volumes and are the only set of comprehensive research libraries in Nebraska.


Museums and galleries

Originally established in 1871, the University of Nebraska State Museum is located in Morrill Hall on City Campus. It houses collections and exhibits featuring natural history, including its most popular attraction, a set of
Mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks an ...
fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
s. Because of these fossils and a bronze Columbian mammoth statue in front of the building named Archie, it is popularly known as "Elephant Hall." The State Museum is a member of the
American Alliance of Museums American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...
and a
Smithsonian affiliate Smithsonian Affiliations is a division of the Smithsonian Institution that establishes long-term partnerships with non-Smithsonian museums and educational and cultural organizations in order to share collections, exhibitions and educational st ...
. The Sheldon Museum of Art is home to more than twelve thousand works of American visual art in all media. It has prominent holdings in nineteenth-century landscape and
still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, bo ...
, American Impressionism, early
modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
, and
contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic ...
. The museum has the largest collection of twentieth-century North American art in the world and houses works by artists
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
,
Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionism, abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splas ...
, and Georgia O'Keeffe. The nearby
Great Plains Art Museum The Great Plains Art Museum is a fine arts museum located in Lincoln, Nebraska that is dedicated to the arts of the Great Plains in the United States. The museum, which opened in 1981 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, was founded with the C ...
is home to the Christlieb Collection and features American western art and Americana. The International Quilt Museum, home to the largest public collection of quilts in the world, is located in the southwest corner of East Campus. The
Lester F. Larsen Tractor Museum The Lester F. Larsen Tractor Test and Power Museum is a museum dedicated to preserving and documenting the history of Nebraska's tractor test law, operated by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (NU) in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States. The Ne ...
, established on East Campus in 1980, houses forty historical tractors, an antique auto, and various farm tools. Along with the
Nebraska Tractor Test Laboratory The Nebraska Tractor Test Laboratory (NTTL) is a program operated by the University of Nebraska in accordance with Nebraska law to test the performance of agricultural equipment that is to be sold in the United States for compliance with OECD standa ...
, it documents Nebraska's tractor testing law examination that tests all tractors sold in the state to ensure performance meets advertised specifications. The Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery, also on East Campus, features exhibitions of historic and contemporary textiles and clothing. Other university art galleries include the Eisentrager-Howard Gallery, the Kruger Collection, and the student-run MEDICI Gallery in Richards Hall. The Lentz Center for Asian Culture is no longer open to the public, though its collection of Asian ceramics, paintings, prints, sculpture, and textiles has been digitized for online viewing.


Athletics

The Nebraska Cornhuskers (often abbreviated to Huskers) are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The Cornhuskers compete in
NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athleti ...
, fielding twenty-two
varsity team In most English-speaking countries, varsity is an abbreviation of the word ''university''. In the United States and Canada, the term is mostly used in relation to sports teams. Varsity in the United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, varsity team ...
s (nine men's, thirteen women's) in fifteen sports. Nineteen of these teams participate in the Big Ten, while rifle is a member of the single-sport
Patriot Rifle Conference The Patriot Rifle Conference (PRC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rifle-only conference. The PRC was established in 2013 for schools that sponsor rifle teams, but do not have rifle as a sponsored sport in their primary conf ...
and beach volleyball and bowling compete as independents. The Cornhuskers have two official mascots,
Herbie Husker Herbie Husker is the oldest current mascot of the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Herbie was created by Lubbock-based artist Dirk West and first appeared on the cover of the Huskers' media guide in 1974. Soon after, he became the university's official mas ...
and
Lil' Red Lil' Red is the lesser of two mascots representing University of Nebraska–Lincoln's athletic programs. Lil' Red was created in 1993, after a statewide contest was conducted to find a counterpart for Herbie Husker. Then-associate athletic direct ...
. Early nicknames for the university's athletic teams included the ''Antelopes'' (later adopted by the
University of Nebraska at Kearney The University of Nebraska at Kearney (UNK) is a campus of the public University of Nebraska system and located in Kearney, Nebraska. It was founded in 1905 as the Nebraska State Normal School at Kearney. History In March 1903 the Nebraska St ...
), the ''Old Gold Knights'', the ''Bugeaters'', and the ''Mankilling Mastodons''. ''Cornhuskers'' first appeared in a school newspaper headline ("We Have Met The Cornhuskers And They Are Ours"), after a 20–18 upset victory over Iowa in 1893. In this instance, Cornhuskers was used to refer to Iowa. The name was first applied to Nebraska was in 1899 by
Nebraska State Journal The ''Lincoln Journal Star'' is an American daily newspaper that serves Lincoln, Nebraska, the state capital and home of the University of Nebraska. It is the most widely read newspaper in Lincoln and has the second-largest circulation in ...
writer Cy Sherman. The next year, the nickname was officially adopted by the school. For nearly 100 years, the Cornhuskers participated in the
Big Eight Conference The Big Eight Conference was a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)-affiliated Division I-A college athletic association that sponsored football. It was formed in January 1907 as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Associati ...
(previously known as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the Big Six, and the Big Seven), and later for fifteen years in the
Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its ...
, which was formed when the Big Eight merged with four members of the defunct
Southwest Conference The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference included schools from Oklahoma ...
. Nebraska joined the Big Ten in 2011. Nebraska's athletic programs have won twenty-nine national championships: eight in men's gymnastics and
bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), though ...
, five in
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...
and
volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...
, and three in women's track and field.


Football

The Nebraska Cornhuskers football team competes as part of the
NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As ...
. Nebraska plays its home games at Memorial Stadium, where it has sold out every game since 1962. Nebraska is among the most storied programs in college football history and has won forty-six conference championships, five national championships, and nine other national championships the school does not claim. The program's first extended period of success came just after the turn of the century. Between 1900 and 1916, Nebraska had five undefeated seasons and completed a stretch of thirty-four consecutive games without a loss, still a program record. Despite a span of twenty-one conference championships in thirty-three seasons, the Cornhuskers didn't experience major national success until Bob Devaney was hired in 1962. In eleven seasons as head coach, Devaney won two national championships, eight conference titles, and coached twenty-two All-Americans, but perhaps his most lasting achievement was the hiring of Tom Osborne as offensive coordinator in 1969. Osborne was named Devaney's successor in 1973, and over the next twenty-five years established himself as one of the best coaches in college football history with his trademark I-form offense and revolutionary strength, conditioning, and nutrition programs. Following Osborne's retirement in 1997, Nebraska cycled through four head coaches before hiring state native Scott Frost in 2017.


Student life


Student body

Seventy-six percent of UNL's undergraduates were classified as "white, non-Hispanic," 8.3 percent were Hispanic or Latino, 3.6 percent were Asian, 2.8 percent were black or African-American, and less than one percent were American Indian, native Alaskan, native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander. Fifty-one percent of the undergraduate population was male and forty-nine percent was female. At the outset of the 2021–22 academic year NU had 1,595 instructional faculty, of which 1,304 were full-time. Fifty-eight percent (919) were male and forty-two percent (676) were female. The school's student-to-faculty ratio was sixteen-to-one. Sixty-nine percent of NU's students are from Nebraska; the remaining thirty-one percent is made up of students from all forty-nine other states and 114 countries. Sixty-eight percent of undergraduate students received grants and thirty-nine percent received federal loans.


Residence halls

On-campus students are members of the
Residence Hall Association In the United States, a residence halls association (RHA) is a student-run university residence hall organization that is usually (but not always) the parent organization for individual hall governments. Their function is similar to a student gove ...
, which serves as the governing body for dormitory living. Approximately forty percent of the student body lives on-campus throughout traditional
residence halls A dormitory (originated from the Latin word ''dormitorium'', often abbreviated to dorm) is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or universit ...
, apartment-style halls, and suite-style halls. There are seven traditional residence halls on City Campus: Abel, Harper, Kauffman Academic Residential Center, Sandoz, Schramm, Selleck Quadrangle, and Smith. City Campus has two apartment-style halls (The Courtyards and The Village) and three suite-style halls (Eastside Suites, Knoll Residential Center, and University Suites). East Campus is home to the Massengale Residential Center, which contains both traditional and apartment-style housing, and Love Memorial Hall, an all-female cooperative facility. Though many Greek houses opened in the 1920s, the first university-operated dormitory was not completed until the female-only Raymond Hall (now Neihardt Residential Hall, though it is not in use) was dedicated in 1932. Nebraska opened what was initially a male-only facility, the Selleck Quadrangle, in 1954, and constructed Cather and Pound Halls in 1963 to house a rapidly expanding student body. Just a few years later it opened Abel and Sandoz Halls, still the largest residency complex on campus. By the 2000s, Cather and Pound Halls were out-of-date and the university began plans to renovate or remove the buildings. After a 2014 study determined it would cost $22.7 million to bring the facility up to code, and millions more to complete a modern renovation, Cather and Pound Halls were imploded on December 22, 2017.


Greek life

Nebraska has a significant Greek population, with about 5,200 students in twenty-seven fraternities (twenty-five chapters and two colonies) and sixteen sororities. In the 2021–22 academic year, twenty-one percent of freshman males joined fraternities and twenty-six percent of freshman females joined sororities. The school's earliest surviving fraternity ( Sigma Chi) was established in January 1883;
Kappa Kappa Gamma Kappa Kappa Gamma (), also known simply as Kappa or KKG, is a collegiate sorority founded at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois, United States. It has a membership of more than 260,000 women, with 140 collegiate chapters in the United States ...
became its first sorority the following year. By 1900 the campus had eleven fraternities and five sororities, and Nebraska established the Intrafraternity Council and Intrasorority Council to govern Greek life on campus. The
Society of Innocents The Innocents Society is the Chancellor's senior honorary society at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, composed of 13 men and women who apply during the spring of their junior year and are selected on the basis of academic excellence, unparall ...
(more commonly known as the Innocents Society) was founded in 1903 as an all-male pep group that led student rallies before football games. It is named after the thirteen
popes The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
named Innocent and each year inducts thirteen seniors (now male and female) based on academic achievement and leadership qualities. Historically, the organization has inducted new members by tackling them in a secret ceremony. A similar all-female organization, the Black Masque chapter of Mortar Board, was created in 1918.


Media

''
The Daily Nebraskan ''The Daily Nebraskan'', established in 1871 as the ''Monthly Hesperian Student'', is the student newspaper of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Although many journalism students are on staff, the ''Daily Nebraskan'' is independent of the uni ...
'' (often referred to as "''The D. N.''") is Nebraska's
student newspaper A student publication is a media outlet such as a newspaper, magazine, television show, or radio station produced by students at an educational institution. These publications typically cover local and school-related news, but they may also rep ...
. It was established in 1871 as the ''Monthly Hesperian Student'' and was published every weekday during the fall and spring semesters and weekly during the summer until 2017, when students voted to reduce the paper's funding. The paper now operates mainly online, publishing only a monthly print copy. Novelist Willa Cather served as managing editor of the paper from 1892 to 1895. Though many of its writers are students in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications, ''The Daily Nebraskan'' is independent of the college. In February 2008, the Publications Board recognized ''
The DailyER ''The DailyER,'' formerly titled ''The Dailyer Nebraskan'' and ''The DailyER Nebraskan'' (often referred to as ''The DER''), established in 2008, is a satirical newspaper produced monthly during the fall and spring semester at the University of Neb ...
'' as an affiliated publication and approved the printing costs of the first three issues of the satirical paper. The paper is published monthly during the fall and spring semesters. Despite its similarity in name, ''The DailyER'' is not affiliated with ''The Daily Nebraskan''. The university established NETV (later Nebraska Educational Telecommunications, now Nebraska Public Media) in 1954 on what was then Farm Campus. Initially a television station broadcasting ninety hours of local programming per week to a thirty-mile radius, the network has expanded to service all of Nebraska and is a member of the
Public Broadcasting Service The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educa ...
, while its radio stations (established in 1989) are members of
National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
. The school operates a Class A FM radio station, KRNU, which broadcasts on 90.3 FM over approximately twenty miles. The station plays mostly
alternative Alternative or alternate may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Alternative (''Kamen Rider''), a character in the Japanese TV series ''Kamen Rider Ryuki'' * ''The Alternative'' (film), a 1978 Australian television film * ''The Alternative ...
and
modern rock Modern rock is an umbrella term used to describe rock music that is found on college rock radio stations. Some radio stations use this term to distinguish themselves from classic rock, which is based in 1960s–1980s rock music. Radio format Mod ...
, as well as broadcasts of news, campus speakers and forums, and some home sporting events.


Notable people

Since honoring its first graduating class in 1873, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln has issued over 300,000 degrees. Among these graduates are three Nobel laureates, four Pulitzer Prize winners, one
Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...
winner, twenty-two Rhodes Scholars, fifteen state governors, and twenty-three College Football Hall of Famers. Fifteen alumni have been selected as Truman Scholars and in 2010 Nebraska was named a Truman Scholarship Honor Institution. Warren Buffett at the 2015 SelectUSA Investment Summit (cropped).jpg,
Warren Buffett Warren Edward Buffett ( ; born August 30, 1930) is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is currently the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is one of the most successful investors in the world and has a net ...
, CEO of
Berkshire Hathaway Berkshire Hathaway Inc. () is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Its main business and source of capital is insurance, from which it invests the float (the retained premiu ...
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Jordan Burroughs Jordan Ernest Burroughs (born July 8, 1988) is an American freestyle wrestler and former folkstyle wrestler who currently competes at 79 kilograms, and previously competed at 74 kilos. In freestyle, he was the 2012 Olympic gold medalist, is t ...
,
Olympic gold medalist This article lists the individuals who have won at least four gold medals at the Olympic Games or at least three gold medals in individual events. List of most Olympic gold medals over career This is a partial list of multiple Olympic gold medalis ...
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Johnny Carson John William Carson (October 23, 1925 – January 23, 2005) was an American television host, comedian, writer and producer. He is best known as the host of '' The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' (1962–1992). Carson received six P ...
, host of The Tonight Show Cather Van Vechten.jpg, Willa Cather, novelist Karlis Ulmanis.jpg, Kārlis Ulmanis,
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
and
Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
of
Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
General John Joseph Pershing head on shoulders.jpg, John J. Pershing,
United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...
general Tom Osborne US Congress portrait.jpg, Tom Osborne, college football coach Ev Williams in 2014.jpg, Evan Williams, co-founder of
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...


Notes


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nebraska-Lincoln, University Of Land-grant universities and colleges University of Nebraska-Lincoln Educational institutions established in 1869 Education in Lincoln, Nebraska Buildings and structures in Lincoln, Nebraska Tourist attractions in Lincoln, Nebraska Flagship universities in the United States
University A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...
Lincoln