Appalachian State University


Appalachian State University   is a public university in Boone, North Carolina. It was founded as a teachers college in 1899 by brothers B.B. and D.D. Dougherty and D.D.’s wife, Lillie Shull Dougherty. The university expanded to include other programs in 1967 and joined the University of North Carolina System in 1971.
The university is part of the University of North Carolina System and enrolls more than 19,000 students. It offers more than 150 bachelor's degrees and 70 graduate degree programs, including two doctoral programs.

History

Appalachian State University began in 1899 when a group of citizens in Watauga County, under the leadership of Blanford B. Dougherty and his brother Dauphin D. Dougherty, began a movement to educate teachers in northwestern North Carolina. Land was donated by Daniel B. Dougherty, father of the leaders in the enterprise, and by J. F. Hardin. On this site a wood frame building, costing $1,000, was erected by contributions from citizens of the town and county. In the fall of 1899, the Dougherty brothers, acting as co-principals, began the school named Watauga Academy. The first year saw 53 students enrolled in three grades. D.D. Dougherty's wife, Lillie Shull Dougherty, taught classes and contributed to administrative decisions.  
In 1903, after interest in the school had spread to adjoining counties, D. D. Doughterty was convinced the state would fund institutions established to train teachers. He traveled to the state capital, Raleigh, after drafting a bill. W. C. Newland of Caldwell County introduced the bill in the North Carolina Legislature to make this a state school, with an appropriation for maintenance and for building. Captain E. F. Lovill of Watauga County, R. B. White of Franklin County, Clyde Hoey of Cleveland County and E. J. Justice of McDowell County spoke in favor of the measure. On March 9, 1903, the bill became law, and the Appalachian Training School for Teachers was established. The school opened on October 5, 1903, with $2,000 from the state and 325 students.
For 22 years, there was a period of steady growth, academic development, and valuable service to the state. In 1925, the legislature changed the name to the Appalachian State Normal School and appropriated additional funding for maintenance and permanent improvement. Four years later, in 1929, the school became a four-year degree granting institution and was renamed Appalachian State Teachers College. Over 1,300 students were enrolled in degree programs offered for primary grades education, physical education, math, English, science, and history.
Appalachian attained national standards by becoming accredited by the American Association for Teacher Education in 1939, and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in 1942. In 1948 a Graduate School was formed. Dr. Dougherty retired in 1955, after 56 years of serving the school. J. D. Rankin became interim president until Dr. William H. Plemmons was installed. Plemmons lead from 1955 to 1969, and his administration oversaw the addition of new buildings as the campus expanded and enrollment grew to nearly 5,000 students.
Appalachian was transformed from a single-purpose teachers' college into a multipurpose regional university and Appalachian State Teacher's College became Appalachian State University in 1967. Growth continued in the 1970s to around 9,500 students and 550 faculty. Afterward, four degree granting undergraduate colleges were created: Arts and Sciences, Business, Fine and Applied Arts, and Education. Dr. Herbert Wey succeeded Plemmons as president in 1969 and was named chancellor in 1971. In 1972, Appalachian State became part of the University of North Carolina system.

Campus

Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of northwestern North Carolina, Appalachian State University has one of the highest elevations of any university in the United States east of the Mississippi River, at. The university's main campus is in downtown Boone, a town of 19,205 compared to an ASU enrollment of 19,108 students. The campus encompasses, including a main campus of with 20 residence halls, 3 main dining facilities, 30 academic buildings, and 11 recreation/athletic facilities.
The center of campus is nicknamed Sanford Mall, an open grassy quad between the student union, dining halls, and library. Sanford Hall, located on the mall's edge, is named for Terry Sanford, a former governor of the state. Rivers Street, a thoroughfare for town and university traffic, essentially divides the campus into east and west sections with tunnels and a pedestrian bridge connecting the two halves. The eastern half includes Sanford Mall, Plemmons Student Union, Roess Dining Hall, and Belk Library, along with two communities of residence halls. The west side has Trivette Dining Hall, the Student Recreation Center, the Quinn Recreation Center, Kidd Brewer Stadium, and Stadium Heights and Yosef Hollow, the two remaining residence hall communities. At the north end, Bodenheimer Drive crosses over Rivers Street and leads to Appalachian Heights, Mountaineer Hall, the Chancellor's House, the Living Learning Center, and Jim and Bettie Smith Stadium. The George M. Holmes Convocation Center at the south end of Rivers Street is the gateway and entrance to campus.
The Turchin Center for the Visual Arts on the edge of main campus is the university's visual art center. The Turchin Center is the largest visual arts center in northwestern North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, and southwestern Virginia. It displays rotating exhibits indoors and outdoors, some exhibits being culturally specific to the Appalachians, and offers community outreach programs through art courses. The center was opened by Appalachian State in 2003. The newly renovated Schaefer Center for the Performing Arts, a 1,635 seat performance venue, hosts artists from around the world.

Administration

The University of North Carolina's Board of Governors plans and develops the coordinated system of higher education with the
state. They set university policy but delegate Appalachian State's daily operations to a chancellor. The chancellor likewise delegates some duties to the provost, several vice-chancellors, and other administrative offices. These administrative offices are advised by several university committees on the needs of campus constituents, as represented by a Faculty Senate, Staff Senate, Graduate Student Association Senate, and the Student Government Association.

Presidents

Rankings and recognition

Library

In 2005, the Carol Grotnes Belk Library & Information Commons opened in a new five-story building. Belk Library holds over 1.871 million bound books and periodicals, 1.5 million microforms, 24,000 sound recordings, and 14,000 videos. The Library holds varying collections, including the W.L Eury Appalachian Collection for regional studies and the Stock Car Racing Collection. With the opening of the new library building in 2005, Bill and Maureen Rhinehart of Long Island, New York, donated a large collection of rare books in English history, spanning from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The university created a special collections room for this valuable donation which includes some 900 volumes comprising nearly 450 titles. The entire collection was published in two volumes of an annotated bibliography, comprised by retired English professor Dr. M. John Higby. Both volumes comprise almost 240 pages and are excellent in both scholarship and thoroughness. It was the last major endeavor of his career in education. The library is also home to an impressive stock car racing collection including a donation from the family of Richard "The King" Petty. Besides serving university patrons, the library also serves the local community with circulation available to registered patrons.

Colleges

Appalachian State offers 176 undergraduate and 42 graduate majors. The average GPA for incoming freshmen in 2017 was 4.20. Courses at Appalachian are organized into eight colleges and one graduate school:

Off-campus centers

Appalachian State University offers off-campus courses through three off-campus centers and online. These centers are:
Off-campus programs offer students the ability to maintain family and careers while working toward a degree. Full-time undergraduate programs are available in Elementary Education, Advertising, Criminal Justice, Management, Social Work and Psychology. Appalachian provides a variety of off-campus, part-time undergraduate and graduate programs.

Publications

The history department of ASU publishes History Matters: An Undergraduate Journal of Historical Research, an undergraduate research journal. It was established in 2003 by Eric Burnnette, an ASU undergraduate student of history. The journal accepts submissions from all undergraduates nationwide and internationally, with special attention to papers that utilize primary sources. The editorial board consists of undergraduate and faculty advisors at ASU.
Members of the ASU Department of Physics and Astronomy serve as editors for the journal The Physics Teacher.
The university publishes or holds copyrights to several other periodicals, including:
The university houses several academic centers and institutes related to its mission. These include:
Students at ASU enjoy a variety of outdoor activities. The mountains offer snowboarding, skiing, tubing, rock climbing, hiking, rafting, camping, and fishing on and around the Blue Ridge Parkway. ASU also has over 400 clubs and organizations run by the McCaskey Center for Student Involvement and Leadership, such as Greek organizations, academic and diversity clubs, and sports clubs. Before the start of every semester, the University hosts a 'Club Expo' featuring all the clubs and organizations on campus. This event is for students to find an organization or club that suits them and to become involved. The university also has volunteer centers including the Multicultural Center, the LGBT Center, and the Women's Center. All three centers are under the supervision of the Multicultural Student Development Office. On November 11, 2016, ASU opened a fourth center in their student union; the Student Veterans Resource Center.
The Appalachian Popular Programming Society is a university funded organization that exists to plan and provide diverse educational, enriching, and entertaining events for the community and student body of Appalachian State. Through its seven programming councils, A.P.P.S. members select, plan, promote, and present a diverse variety of popular entertainment programs and films which enhance the social and cultural life for Appalachian students. A.P.P.S. was founded in 1985 to help with the student nightlife and to support retention. APPS plays a vital role in fostering and developing an inclusive Appalachian State University community. The seven councils include Appalachian heritage, club shows, concerts, cultural awareness and student engagement, films, special events, and stage shows. Students can enjoy shows, dances, and concerts at Legends, an entertainment facility located on campus.

Sustainability

Appalachian has invested in several sustainability projects in recent years such as:
Appalachian's sports teams are nicknamed the Mountaineers. The Mountaineers compete in NCAA Division I and are members of the Sun Belt Conference. Appalachian fields varsity teams in 20 sports, 10 for men and 10 for women. The Mountaineer football team started competing in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision in the 2014–2015 academic year.
Kidd Brewer Stadium is the 30,000-seat home of Appalachian football. Nicknamed "The Rock", the stadium is located at an elevation of. In 2017, App State added a new video board, sound system and LED ribbon displays. Kidd Brewer Stadium also offers additional stadium seating with 18 luxury suites, 600 club seats, and the Chancellor's Box areas that offer a great view of the field and campus.
The George M. Holmes Convocation Center is the home court for Appalachian's basketball teams. The arena, with seating for 8,325, is also the home for volleyball and indoor track and field. In 2017, a new Daktronics video board was installed. The board is made up of nine displays totaling a square footage of 1,200.
University Recreation also offers 20 club sports that compete with other regional institutions on a non-varsity level: lacrosse, rugby, soccer, ultimate frisbee, volleyball, climbing, cycling, equestrian, fencing, ice hockey, skiing, racquetball, snowboarding, swimming, and triathlon.
The university's cycling team has had success at the regional and national level; they compete within the Atlantic Collegiate Cycling Conference. The team competes in every discipline of bicycle racing that is acknowledged by National Collegiate Cycling Association within USA Cycling. This includes road bicycle racing, Mountain bike racing and Cyclocross. The team won the Division 2, as established by USA Cycling, collegiate team mountain bike national championships in 2008. They won the Division 2 collegiate team cyclocross national championships in 2008 and 2009. The team is now recognized as a Division 1 team.
On February 19, 2011, the Appalachian State Mountaineer women's basketball team won the 2011 Southern Conference regular-season title. The last time they had won the title was 1996. This is a first for Head Coach Darcie Vincent. On May 18, 2012, the Appalachian State baseball team beat Western Carolina University, becoming Southern Conference baseball champions for the first time since 1985.

Football

Appalachian won three consecutive Division I FCS national championships in 2005, 2006, and 2007, over the University of Northern Iowa, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Delaware, respectively. The Mountaineers are the first FCS football team to win three straight national championships since the playoffs began in 1978. They are also the first Division I program to win three consecutive national championships since Army accomplished the feat in 1944, 1945, and 1946.
In a milestone for ASU athletics, on September 1, 2007, the Appalachian State football team played their season opener at the fifth-ranked University of Michigan in front of the largest crowd to ever witness an ASU football game. Appalachian State beat Michigan in the game that would become known as the "Alltime Upset" by Sports Illustrated with a final score of 34–32 and became the first Division I FCS football team to defeat a Division I FBS team ranked in the AP poll.
Appalachian State moved to the FBS subdivision in 2014, finishing its first season with a winning record but ineligible for a bowl bid per NCAA rules. Each season from 2015 to 2019, App State won both its conference championship and final bowl game.
On September 21, 2019, Appalachian State beat the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 34–31, representing the Mountaineer's first Power Five conference win since the victory at Michigan in 2007. On November 9, 2019, Appalachian State followed up their victory over the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a victory over the University of South Carolina, beating the Gamecocks 20–15. 2019 was the first season the Mountaineers finished ranked in the final polls since joining the FBS, after briefly entering the top 25 during the 2018 season. The one-loss Mountaineers were No. 18 in the final 2019 Amway Coaches Poll and No. 19 in the final AP Top 25.

Athletic bands

The Hayes School of Music provides support for the Mountaineers at all home football games with the Marching Mountaineers, and at all home basketball games with the Appalachian Pep Band. The Marching Mountaineers travel to a select few away games each football season. The director of the athletic bands is Mr. Donald E. Peach. In addition to supporting the athletic department, the Marching Mountaineers have assisted the Rho Tau chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia in hosting the Appalachian Marching Band Festival annually.

In media

In 2004, a committee for the Appalachian Family Caravan tour created a promotional video titled "Hot Hot Hot", shown throughout the area by Chancellor Kenneth E. Peacock. The video became an inadvertent internet phenomenon and was featured on VH1's Web Junk 20 program in early 2006. The video was never intended to promote Appalachian State to anyone but the Family Caravan, much less as a recruiting tool for prospective students. The video is no longer used by the university, due to student and alumni protests.
In 2002, MTV's program Road Rules visited ASU to produce an episode called Campus Crawl, aired on-campus during an annual, winter student swimming event called the "Polar Plunge". The shows participants also crossed a high-wire strung between Coltrane and Gardner Halls.
On March 16, 2012, Appalachian State placed a tenured sociology professor on administrative leave for a variety of charges, which included showing an anti-pornography documentary, The Price of Pleasure. This move gained national attention from the academic community.

Notable alumni

Academia