The University of Central Missouri (UCM) is a

public university A public university, state university, or public college is a university or college that is State ownership, owned by the state or receives significant funding from a government. Whether a national university is considered public varies from o ...

Warrensburg, Missouri Warrensburg is a city in and the county seat of Johnson County, Missouri, United States. Its population was 20,313 at the 2020 census. The Warrensburg micropolitan statistical area consists of Johnson County. The city is a college town, as it is ...

, United States. In 2024, enrollment was 13,734 students from 48 states and 52 countries on its 1,561-acre campus. UCM offers 150 programs of study, including 10 pre-professional programs, 27 areas of teacher certification, and 37 graduate programs.

History

The University was founded in 1871 as Normal School No. 2 and became known as Warrensburg Teachers College. The name was changed to Central Missouri State Teachers College in 1919, Central Missouri State College in 1945 and Central Missouri State University in 1972. In 1965, the institution established a graduate school. In 2006, the name was changed to the University of Central Missouri. There are 150 majors and minors, 32 professional accreditations and 45 graduate programs. UCM has a high-tech, STEM-focused facility called the Missouri Innovation Campus in Lee's Summit, Missouri and provides numerous online courses and programs.

Academics

The university is considered a Center for Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense. College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences departments include: *School of Visual and Performing Arts **Music **Theatre and Dance **Art and Design *Government, International Studies and Languages **Political Science *English and Philosophy *History and Anthropology *Communication and Sociology * Religious Studies * Women's Studies Harmon College of Business and Professional Studies: The Harmon College of Business and Professional Studies is accredited by

AACSB International The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) is an American professional and accreditation organization. It was founded as the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business in 1916 to provide accreditation to business ...

. Other accreditations include Aviation Accreditation Board International and the Council on Social Work Education. Departments include: *School of Business Administration **Economics, Finance and Marketing **School of Accountancy and Computer Information Systems **Management *School of

Professional Studies "Professional studies" is a term used to classify academic programs which are applied or interdisciplinary in focus. The term can also be used for non-academic training for a specific profession. Research on professionals can be seen as a multidis ...

**Aviation **Criminal Justice **Communication Disorders and Social Work **Military Science and Leadership College of Education departments include: *Career and Technology Education *Educational Leadership and Human Development *Educational Foundations and Literacy *Elementary and Early Childhood Education College of Health, Science, and Technology *School of Health and Human Performance **Nursing **Nutrition and Kinesiology *Biology and Earth Science *School of Environmental, Physical, and Applied Sciences *School of Technology *School of Computer Science and Mathematics *Psychological Science. The Honors College: Benefits of being an Honors College student include, but are not limited to, early enrollment, one-on-one advising, smaller classes, Honors-only courses and colloquia.

GIMPS

The University of Central Missouri continues to hold an important role in the

Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) is a collaborative project of volunteers who use freely available software to search for Mersenne prime numbers. GIMPS was founded in 1996 by George Woltman, who also wrote the Prime95 client and ...

. The GIMPS project at UCM is a university-wide effort managed by Curtis Cooper and Steven Boone. As of 2022, UCM's team () is currently the 10th place contributor to that project in terms of CPU power devoted to the project, and is the only GIMPS team that has discovered four

Mersenne prime In mathematics, a Mersenne prime is a prime number that is one less than a power of two. That is, it is a prime number of the form for some integer . They are named after Marin Mersenne, a French Minim friar, who studied them in the early 1 ...

s: M43 2^30402457 - 1 with 9,152,052 digits, M44 2^32582657 - 1 with 9,808,358 digits, M48 2^57,885,161-1 with 17,425,170 digits, and M49 2^74,207,281-1 with 22,338,618 digits.

Student life

The university has more than 185 student organizations with academic, cultural, recreational, community service and special interest clubs and associations. There are also more than 20 intramural sports to compete in, free movie nights on campus and a bowling alley and movie theater in the student union. Freshman and sophomore students are required to live in one of the 9 residence halls their first year to help ease the adjustment from high school to college. Students can also choose to live in one of ten Learning Communities, which places students with the same program of study together in the residence halls.

Greek life

The University of Central Missouri is home to 26 Greek organizations. Ten percent of UCM students are involved in Greek life.

Media

The UCM newspaper is called ''The Muleskinner;'' there is an online publication called ''digitalburg.com'' that covers the Johnson County area. These publications are entirely student-operated. The university also houses

KMOS-TV KMOS-TV (channel 6) is a PBS member television station licensed to Sedalia, Missouri, United States. The station is owned by the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg. KMOS-TV's studios are located in the Patton Broadcast Center on the ...

Athletics

UCM athletic teams compete in the

Mid–America Intercollegiate Athletics Association The Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level, headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. Its fourteen mem ...

, or MIAA. The athletic division includes

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

, women's bowling,

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

women's soccer Women's association football, more commonly known as women's football or women's soccer, is the team sport of association football played by women. It is played at the professional level in multiple countries, and about 200 national teams partic ...

softball Softball is a Variations of baseball, variation of baseball, the difference being that it is played with a larger ball, on a smaller field, and with only underhand pitches (where the ball is released while the hand is primarily below the ball) ...

, cross-country, track,

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 Summ ...

and

wrestling Wrestling is a martial art, combat sport, and form of entertainment that involves grappling with an opponent and striving to obtain a position of advantage through different throws or techniques, within a given ruleset. Wrestling involves di ...

. UCM's athletic teams are called Mules (men) and Jennies (women). UCM has two mascots, a costumed anthropomorphic mule named Mo, and live mules named Tammy and Molly. AJWStadiumNE

Basketball games are played in the

UCM Multipurpose Building The Jerry M. Hughes Athletics Center is a 6,500 seat multi-purpose arena in Warrensburg, Missouri, United States, on the campus of the University of Central Missouri. It was built in 1976, and is the home of the Central Missouri Mules and Jenn ...

, renamed in February 2024 for longtime athletic director Jerry Hughes as the Jerry M. Hughes Athletics Center. Built in 1976, ''The Multi'', as it is known to students and alumni, has a

seating capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that ...

of 6,500 for basketball and volleyball games. Football games are played on Vernon Kennedy Field at Audrey J. Walton Stadium. The stadium was erected in 1928 and underwent a major face-lift in 1995. The stadium officially holds 11,000 people, but crowds often approach 12,000. Keth Memorial Golf Course within Pertle Springs Park on the campus of the University of Central Missouri is an 18-hole grass greens course complete with a fully equipped pro shop. Keth Memorial also is home for UCM golf and cross country competitions.

Library

The James C. Kirkpatrick Library (JCKL) is the library of the University of Central Missouri. It was named for former Secretary of State, James C. Kirkpatrick, Secretary of State in Missouri from 1965 to 1985. There are over 480,000 circulating volumes.

Notable alumni and faculty

References

External links

*
Central Missouri Athletics website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Central Missouri, University of University of Central

University of Central Missouri The University of Central Missouri (UCM) is a public university in Warrensburg, Missouri, United States. In 2024, enrollment was 13,734 students from 48 states and 52 countries on its 1,561-acre campus. UCM offers 150 programs of study, incl ...

Universities and colleges established in 1871 Buildings and structures in Johnson County, Missouri Education in Johnson County, Missouri 1871 establishments in Missouri