EAST TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY

'East Tennessee State University' ('ETSU') is an accredited American university, founded October 21911 and located in Johnson City, Tennessee. It is part of the Tennessee Board of Regents system of colleges and universities. ETSU has small off-campus centers in nearby Kingsport, Bristol, Elizabethton, and Greeneville, Tennessee.
Graduate programs include a fully accredited medical school, the 'Quillen College of Medicine', named in honor of U.S. Congressman James H. Quillen who successfully fought for its creation in the 1970s. In 2005 a College of Pharmacy was approved which will further augment the medical specialties at ETSU. Classes in the ETSU College of Pharmacy began in January 2007. The university is listed by The Princeton Review in their 2007 edition of ''America’s Best Value Colleges''.
ETSU has been increasingly noted for its Appalachian Studies programs and features a nationally acclaimed and accredited program in Bluegrass and Country Music. Recording star Kenny Chesney, 2004 and 2006 Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year, graduated from the school, and holds a degree in advertising.^[3] Another notable ETSU attendee is Timothy Busfield, known for his Emmy Award-winning role on the popular 1980s TV series ''thirtysomething''. Busfield attended ETSU for a short while, but did not graduate. He starred in a series of advertisements for the school in the late 1980s.

Contents

History

Athletics

Football

Proposed student athletic fee increase

References

External links

See also

History

ETSU was founded as East Tennessee State Normal School, to educate teachers; the K-12 training school, called University School, operates to this day. East Tennessee State officially became a college in 1925 when it changed its name to East Tennessee State Teachers College, subsequently gaining accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools in 1927. In 1943, East Tennessee State Teacher's College was expanded into a college with a range of liberal arts offerings, becoming East Tennessee State College. The college became a University in 1963, adopting the name it holds today.^[4]

Athletics

ETSU collegiate athletic teams, nicknamed ''Buccaneers'', presently compete in the NCAA Division I Atlantic Sun Conference. In the 2006-07 year, ETSU won both of the conference's men and women's All-Sport trophies, winning seven team titles.^[5]
Current men's sports at ETSU are baseball, basketball, cross country, golf, tennis and track and field. Women's sports are basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, tennis, track and field and volleyball. Men's soccer will compete at the club level in the fall of 2007, before entering NCAA and Atlantic Sun competition as a scholarship program for the 2008 season.^[6]

Football

The 2005 move of the Buccaneers from the Southern Conference to the Atlantic Sun was an indirect result of ETSU President Stanton's decision, following the 1999 ETSU Athletic Task Force recommendations, to drop the ETSU football program after the 2003 season, in response to budget limitations imposed by the state legislature. The football program was posting close to $1 million in financial losses each year between 1999-2003.^[7]
The end of the ETSU football program permitted the "Mini Dome", the largest building on the ETSU campus, which served as an U.S. indoor arena venue for college football and track and field competitions, to be used for other purposes. The Mini Dome has hosted many non-athletic events which could not be housed in an indoor setting on most American college campuses. The dollar savings that resulted from ending the ETSU football program was equally divided between both the ETSU athletic and academic departments.

Proposed student athletic fee increase

ETSU President Stanton announced on December 22, 2006 that the ETSU administration is now supporting the return of the ETSU NCAA Division I FCS football program to the university, after accepting the recent ETSU Football Task Force report calling for increased student athletic fees to both restore the ETSU football program and additional funding for equivalent female athletic programs in order to meet U.S. federal Title IX gender equity requirements. Dr. Stanton has also stated that ETSU will "...need $4 million to $5 million" collected each year from of a combination students fees and private contributors to "...get it all done."^[8]
Both the ETSU student body (by a referendum vote) and the Tennessee Board of Regents would have needed to approve Dr. Stanton's proposal to increase ETSU student athletic fees for funding a new football program before competing in the 2010 season.^[9]
Dr. Stanton also stated that ETSU generates approximately $500,000 of revenue from every $25 student athletic fees collected each semester at ETSU (i.e.: a conservative estimate of student fees fully funding ETSU football at the $5 million dollar level would amount to an additional $250 in ETSU student athletic fees each year). During the last year of the football program in 2003, ETSU was only able to raise $127,000 (of the minimum $1.5 million needed) in private contributions toward the operating costs that will associated with the ETSU football program (excluding approximately $15 million dollars for a new 10,000 seat stadium).
On April 10-11, 2007 the football referendum failed by a vote of 59%-41%, with about 3,500 students voting. Dr. Paul Stanton released a statement following the vote, saying the issue of football was dead for the immediate future.^[10][11]

References

1. Foundation President's Report
2. Fact Book 2006
3. Kenny Chesney 1998 Distinguished Alumnus in the Arts
4. History
5. Atlantic Sun All-Sports Race
6.
7. Football at what cost? Feleesha Sterling
8. ETSU poll shows support for return of football program Sam Watson
9.
10. Students vote down football fee referendum
11. ETSU bucks football - Student fee hike vote fails, thwarting plans for sport’s return Sam Watson

External links

;Official websites

★ ETSU website

★ ETSU athletics website

★ ETSU Alumni Association online community

★ WETS 89.5 FM public radio
;Other websites

★ History of East Tennessee State Normal School

★ Buccaneer Nation: The official forum of ETSU athletics

★ Buc Football and Friends Foundation

See also

★ East Tennessee State University Arboretum

★ Gray Fossil Site

★ WETS-FM