NORTHERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY

'Northern Kentucky University' is a public, co-educational university located in Highland Heights, Kentucky, seven miles (11 km) southeast of Cincinnati, Ohio. Enrollment is currently about 14,200 students. NKU is the second largest university in Greater Cincinnati and the youngest of Kentucky's eight state universities.

Contents

History

Campuses

Campus life

Academics

Schools and colleges

Construction and New Developments

The Bank of Kentucky Center

The New Student Union Building

NKU Planetarium

Libraries

Athletics

Campus media

Notable alumni

Notable faculty

Presidents of Northern Kentucky University

Partnerships

References

External links

History

Northern Kentucky University was founded in 1968 as Northern Kentucky State College and awarded its first bachelor's degrees in May 1973. Originally formed as a University of Kentucky extension campus, in 1976, it became Northern Kentucky University. The Salmon P. Chase College of Law, formerly an independent law school in Cincinnati, merged with Northern Kentucky State College in 1971.

Campuses

NKU's main campus in Highland Heights, Kentucky is situated on more than 330 acres of rolling countryside along US 27, just off I-275, seven miles southeast of Cincinnati, Ohio.
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.

Campus life

NKU is in the process of building a $37 million, 144,000-square foot student union building, the $60 million Bank of Kentucky Center, a 9,000-to-10,000-seat arena for basketball games and other events, and a $30 million four-story complex featuring a 100-room hotel, a 40,000-square-foot, upscale restaurant and retail area and 30,000-square feet of office space.
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 and George Will. The 2006 Alumni Association Lecture Series will feature Tucker Carlson, a conservative commentator who appears on MSNBC and writes for a number of national publications, and liberal writer, comedian and radio talk show host Al Franken.

Academics

Schools and colleges

★ College of Arts and Sciences

★ College of Business

★ College of Education and Human Services

★ College of Informatics

★ Department of Nursing and Health Professions

★ Salmon P. Chase College of Law

★ Honors Program
NKU's Alpha Beta Phi chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the International History Honor Society, has won 15 consecutive best chapter awards.
The Landrum Academic Center houses an Anthropology Museum.

Construction and New Developments

Northern Kentucky University is currently in the process of expanding its campus and facilities. There are currently multiple construction projects across the campus, including the development of a new 8,000 – 10,000 capacity arena and a ‘New Student Union Center.’ Other projects include the construction of a new parking garage to accommodate the arena when completed and a European-style roundabout for traffic control and flow-management.

The Bank of Kentucky Center

The Bank of Kentucky Center is a large, new 8,000 – 10,000 seating-capacity arena currently under construction at Northen Kentucky University. It will serve as the primary venue for athletics on campus and also as entertainment (live bands, concerts, etc.). The Bank of Kentucky Center is named after the Bank of Kentucky, who made a large endowment of 5 million dollars towards the construction.

The New Student Union Building

The New Student Union building is designed to accommodate student needs on campus: the location will include stores, cafeterias and other amenities for students.

NKU Planetarium

Northern Kentucky University is the first educational institute in the world to have a laser-projection planetarium.

Libraries

NKU's main library is the W. Frank Steely Library, named after the first president of NKU and completed in 1975. A $9.1 million renovation and expansion project was completed in 1995. The library's five floors contain 300,258 volumes, 18,797 bound periodicals and 1.4 million microforms. The library also houses the Greater Cincinnati Library Consortium Media Collection. In a Southern Association of Schools and Colleges reaccreditation study, library space was one of the main concerns.
The other library on campus is the two-floor Chase Law Library, which contains more than 313,792 volumes and approximately 57,859 monographic and serial titles.

Athletics

Northern Kentucky University is an NCAA Division II school that is part of the Great Lakes Valley Conference. Its sports nickname is '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.
The Norse 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).
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 its season with a 32-2 record. The 2002-03 team was the NCAA Women's Division II national runner-up.
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.
Students have organized club teams in ice hockey, taekwondo, fencing, boxing, lacrosse, rugby, skeet & trap, and brazilian jiujitsu. These clubs are primarily organized through the Sport Club program.

Campus media

The Northerner is NKU's award-winning^[2], independent, student-run newspaper. It has an online presence at The Northerner.
WNTV News and a late night comedy show are some of the television programming to be offered on the student-run TV station. WRFN is the online student-run radio station.
NKU is host to the award-winning^[3] public radio station WNKU-FM, founded in 1986. You can listen live at WNKU.
Northern Cable Television is the educational access station run by Northern Kentucky University. It is shown on channel 18 on Insight Cable of Northern Kentucky. NCTV produces many original programs such as "Northern Lights" hosted by Dr. James C. Claypool. "Northern Lights" won the 2006 Blue Chip Cable Access Award for best News/Talk Show in the professional division. [1] NCTV also produces live telecasts of NKU volleyball and softball. The NCTV website is online at http://www.nku.edu/~nctv/.

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!''

★ 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," CRACK AND THE CONTRAS 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''.

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.

★ Dr. 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.

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

★ 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.

Presidents of Northern Kentucky University

Dr. W. Frank Steely 1968-1972
Dr. Tesseneer 1972-1973
★
Dr. A.D. Albright 1973-1983
Dr. Leon Boothe 1983-1996
Jack M. Moreland 1996-1997
★
Dr. James Votruba 1997-Present

★ -Denotes Interim President

Partnerships

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.

References

1. Welcome to NKU
2. NKU Newspaper Honored, The Kentucky Post, 2008-02-28
3. WNKU Professional Awards

External links

★ Northern Kentucky University

★ The Northerner

★ Great Lakes Valley Conference Website

★ GLVC Communication

★ Collegiate Entrepreneurs' Organization (CEO) at NKU

★ NKU Club Hockey

★ NKU Fencing Club