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Northern Kentucky University

Northern Kentucky University (NKU) is a public, co-educational university located in Highland Heights, Kentucky, seven miles (11 km) southeast of Cincinnati, Ohio. NKU is primarily an undergraduate, liberal arts institution, but it also features graduate programs. Total enrollment at the university currently exceeds 14,000 students, with over 12,000 undergraduate students and nearly 2,000 graduate students. NKU is the second largest university in Greater Cincinnati and the youngest of Kentucky's eight state universities.

History

Early history

NKU's history began in 1948, when an extension campus for the University of Kentucky was opened in Covington, Kentucky, known as the UK Northern Extension Center. After 20 years in operation as an extension center for UK, it became its own college in 1968, when NKU was founded originally as Northern Kentucky State College (NKSC). Three years later, in 1971, the Salmon P. Chase College of Law, formerly an independent law school in Cincinnati, merged with Northern Kentucky State College. The main campus moved from Covington to Highland Heights, Kentucky in 1972. NKSC awarded its first bachelor's degrees in May 1973. Northern Kentucky State College was expanded and renamed to Northern Kentucky University in 1976, the name it has kept ever since.

Recent history

Since its founding in 1968 and name change in 1976, NKU has expanded with numerous construction projects, new colleges, and a much larger, more diverse student body. The current president of NKU, Dr. James C. Votruba, is largely credited with transforming the image of the university since his arrival in 1997, helping to build NKU's reputation as a respected academic institution. As part of Votruba's administration, the university has increased its admissions standards and improved the academic performance of its students. NKU also launched a new university logo and branding effort in 2002. In recent years, the university has also concentrated on the construction of new and improved facilities across campus.

Campus

Highland Heights

Northern Kentucky University's main campus in Highland Heights, Kentucky is situated on about 400 acres of rolling countryside along U.S. Route 27, just off of Interstate 275 and Interstate 471, seven miles (11 km) southeast of Cincinnati, Ohio. The campus was built beginning in the early 1970s, and the first building, Nunn Hall, opened in 1972.

Although most of NKU's students commute daily to the campus, approximately 1,500 students live on campus, which creates an atmosphere of a smaller, private university for residents, but with the resources of a larger, public university.

In recent years, NKU has been in the process of expanding its campus and facilities. The $60 million Bank of Kentucky Center is a recently completed 9,400 seating-capacity arena. It serves as the primary venue for athletics on campus, and also as a venue for entertainment, such as live bands and concerts. The arena is named after the Bank of Kentucky, which made an endowment of $5 million toward construction.

Additionally, a new $37 million, Student Union building, which opened to students in August 2008, largely replaces an old university center and is designed to accommodate student needs on campus. The building includes cafeterias, stores, a game room, offices for student life programs, and other amenities for students.

Other recent projects include the construction of a new parking garage to accommodate the arena and a European-style roundabout for traffic control and flow management.

The most recent NKU master plan envisions a massive expansion of the campus by the year 2020, including multiple new academic buildings, housing developments, campus quad areas, athletic fields, parking lots, and connector roads.

The Landrum Academic Center on the Highland Heights campus houses an Anthropology Museum. The NKU campus is also the first educational institute in the world to have a laser-projection planetarium, as part of the Dorothy Westerman Hermann Natural Science Center.

Other locations

NKU's Covington campus, located in Covington, Kentucky, mainly serves nontraditional and adult students and also hosts the Program for Adult-Centered Education and Emergency Medical Technology programs.

The NKU Grant County Center, located in Williamstown, Kentucky is a partnership between the Grant County Foundation for Higher Education and NKU. It houses NKU educational programs and the Williamstown Innovation Center.

Academics

Colleges

Northern Kentucky University has grown to include six colleges. The newest college at NKU is the College of Informatics, founded in 2006, replacing the College of Professional Studies.

Honors programs

Northern Kentucky University features a university-wide Honors program as well as individual chapters in numerous honor societies. NKU's Alpha Beta Phi chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the International History Honor Society, has won 15 consecutive best chapter awards.

Libraries

NKU's main library is the W. Frank Steely Library, completed in 1975 and named after the first president of the university. A $9.1 million renovation and expansion project was completed in 1995. The library's five floors contain over 300,000 volumes, more than 18,000 bound periodicals, and approximately 1.4 million microforms. The library also houses the Greater Cincinnati Library Consortium Media Collection. In a reaccreditation study by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, library space was one of the main concerns.

The two-floor Chase Law Library, NKU's other library on campus, contains more than 313,000 volumes and 57,000 monographic and serial titles.

Athletics

Norse

Northern Kentucky University is an NCAA Division II school that is part of the Great Lakes Valley Conference. The university's teams for both men and women are nicknamed "Norse". The Norse field teams in men's baseball, women's softball, men's and women's basketball, soccer, cross country, tennis, golf, and women's volleyball.

Women's basketball team

In 2000, the NKU women's basketball team became NKU's first national championship team by winning the NCAA Women's Division II Basketball Championship, ending their season with a 32-2 record. The 2002-03 team was the NCAA Women's Division II national runner-up.

Unofficially known as the Lady Norse, the team won their second national championship in 2008, becoming one of only five schools to win more than one NCAA Women's Division II Basketball Championship, as well as the only two-time champions in the state of Kentucky. One of the top coaches in NCAA Division II women's basketball, Nancy Winstel, has been head coach of the team since 1983.

Other accomplishments

NKU has claimed the GLVC All-Sports Trophy in five of the last seven years (1999-2000, 2000-01, 01-02, 04-05 and 05-06).

The men's basketball team was the NCAA Division II national runner-up during the 1995-96 and 1996-97 seasons.

The women's soccer team was the NCAA Division II runner-up in 2000 and advanced to the NCAA Division II Final Four in 1999 and 2001.

The fastpitch softball team holds the NCAA record (including Division I) for most consecutive wins in a season with 55.

In 2006, the Norse cheerleading squad won the Universal Cheerleading Association's national title in the small unit coed category of NCAA Division II competition, and also won the national title again in 2007.

Club sports

Students have also organized club teams in ice hockey, taekwondo, fencing, boxing, lacrosse, rugby, kickball, skeet & trap, and Brazilian jiujitsu. These clubs are primarily organized through the Sport Club program.

Media

Public media

NKU is host to the award-winning public radio station, WNKU, founded in 1986. The public can listen to the station live in the Northern Kentucky area on 89.7 FM or worldwide at WNKU.org

NorseMediaTV is the educational public access television channel run by Northern Kentucky University. It broadcasts on channel 18 on Insight Cable of Northern Kentucky. NorseMediaTV produces many original programs, such as Northern Lights hosted by Dr. James C. Claypool, which won the 2006 Blue Chip Cable Access Award for the best news/talk show in the professional division. NorseMediaTV also produces live telecasts of NKU volleyball and softball games. Students in the Electronic Media & Broadcasting program at NKU are invited to assist in producing studio programs, but the university itself retains creative control over the station. NorseMediaTV is online at norsemedia.nku.edu

Student-run media

The Northerner is NKU's award-winning, independent, student-run newspaper. It is also published online at TheNortherner.com via the College Publisher Network. The university is also home to an independent, student-run Internet radio station, Norse Code Radio, online at WRFNRadio.com

Partnerships

Civic engagement

NKU is a national model of civic engagement and economic development initiatives. Corporate and university partnerships include The Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement, the Fifth/Third Entrepreneurial Center, the Metropolitan Education and Training Services Center, the Infrastructure Management Institute, and Fidelity Investments.

Other centers on campus include the Institute for Freedom Studies, the Center for Applied Ecology, the Small Business Development Center, the Institute for New Economy Technologies, the Center for Environmental Education, the Center for Integrative National Science and Mathematics and the Chase Local Government Law Center

Lecture series

The university also hosts yearly lecture-style debates between well-known conservative and liberal guests. NKU's Alumni Association Lecture Series has featured such guests as politicians Mario Cuomo, Alan Keyes, Steve Forbes, Newt Gingrich, George McGovern, Bob Dole and John Edwards; political strategists James Carville, Mary Matalin and Paul Begala; journalist Bob Woodward; and commentators George Stephanopoulos, George Will, Tucker Carlson, and Al Franken. Most recently, the 2007 lecture featured former Republican political candidate Pat Buchanan, and former Senate Majority Leader, Democrat Tom Daschle, and the 2008 lecture featured Karl Rove, the Republican political consultant and former Deputy Chief of Staff to George W. Bush, and Dee Dee Myers, the Democratic strategist and former White House Press Secretary in the Clinton administration.

Lists of NKU people

Notable alumni

Steve Chabot, U.S. Representative from Ohio's 1st Congressional District, earned his Juris Doctor from the Salmon P. Chase College of Law in 1978.

Actor George Clooney briefly attended NKU but did not graduate.

Wrestler "Wildcat" Chris Harris attended NKU for two years but did not graduate.

Ken Lucas, former U.S. Representative from Kentucky's fourth congressional district from 1999 to 2005, received an honorary doctorate from NKU. Lucas was a founding regent at NKU, where he served for 23 years on the Board of Regents, 13 of those as chairman. After his term in Congress, Lucas donated his congressional papers to the Schlachter Family Archives in NKU's Steely Library. In 1994, Lucas had a building on campus named after him, the Lucas Administrative Center.

David Mack, acclaimed creator of the comic book Kabuki and former writer/artist of Daredevil, graduated from NKU in 1995 with a BFA in graphic design.

Actress Jenny Robertson, who has appeared on such television programs as Law and Order and Reno 911!

Raymond J. Brune – Four-time Emmy Award winning media producer and co-head of Yani-Brune Entertainment. Brune has produced more than 15,000 hours of live network, cable and local television.

Shawn Nordheim, Mrs. Kentucky 2006, has an associate's degree in nursing from NKU.

Gary Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, attended NKU and was on staff of the student newspaper, The Northerner, before dropping out and joining The Kentucky Post. He later worked at the San Jose Mercury News, where his series, "Dark Alliance," alleged that the U.S.-supported Contra rebels in Nicaragua sold drugs in America and were largely responsible for introducing crack-cocaine into the U.S. There was debate about the accuracy of the series, although the series was soon found to be accurate. Webb committed suicide in December 2004.

Warren Bettis, an Ohio jurist who serves as a judge on the Ohio Court of Claims, earned his law degree from the Chase College of Law in 1952.

Joe Zerhusen, the public-address announcer for Cincinnati Reds home games at Great American Ball Park.

Brigham A. McCown, the Deputy Administrator and Acting Administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) at the U.S. Department of Transportation, earned a law degree from the Chase College of Law in 1997.

Ryan Abeo (RA Scion), MC of Common Market, a hip hop duo based in Seattle, Washington, attended NKU, but did not graduate.

Suzanne Fitzpatrick, television writer for shows including The Nanny, 7th Heaven, The Dooley and Pals Show.

Tom Luken, former mayor of Cincinnati, U.S. Representative from Ohio, and father of former Cincinnati mayor Charlie Luken, earned his Juris Doctor from the Salmon P. Chase College of Law in 1950.

Rockin' Ron Schumacher, 1983 graduate of Northern Kentucky University with a Bachelor's degree in Radio/Television/Film. He's worked at WCLU in Covington, 55KRC in Cincinnati and since 1990 has been hosting the midday show on 103.5 WGRR Cincinnati's Greatest Hits.

Tricia Macke, a TV news anchor at WXIX-TV in Cincinnati.

Sheree Paolello, a TV news anchor at WLWT-TV in Cincinnati.

Notable faculty

Mark Hardy, Broadway actor, appeared on Broadway in Titanic: The Musical, Les Miserables, and Sunset Boulevard.

Ken Jones, playwright and screenwriter, Best known for the plays Darkside, The Middle of Yesterday, A Red Eagle Falling, Victims of the Ice Age, and The Great Easter Egg Hunt. Wrote the book for the musical Burgertown. Previously head writer for Lightpoint Entertainment at Disney/MGM Studios.

Gary McGurk, an actor from Home Improvement and Babylon 5, is a current acting professor at NKU.

James Ramage, a faculty member in the history department, is a well-known Civil War expert who has a Civil War museum in Fort Wright, Kentucky named in his honor.

Robert Trundle, a philosophy professor who Fate Magazine named as one of the 100 most influential people in Ufology in 2005 based on his book Is E.T. Here? and an article published in Science and Method in the Netherlands

Ukrainian pianist Sergei Polusmiak, an internationally-renowned concert artist and master teacher, is artist in residence and professor in the music department.

NKU double bass instructor Owen Lee is a published artist who has gained international acclaim as a musician, including a spot on the cover of Bassist Magazine. He is currently principal bassist in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

Joan Ferrante is a sociology professor who is best known as the author of several popular sociology textbooks, among them Sociology: A Global Perspective.

Stephen Leigh, a novelist, is an assistant professor at NKU.

Richard Cowan, an internationally recognized opera singer and founder of Lyrique en Mer/Festival de Belle Ile, an opera festival in Western France, is currently on the faculty in the music department.