When Middle Tennessee State Normal School opened its doors on September 11, 1911,
125 eager students enrolled in a teacher training program. Today, the ¿ edgling teachers'
school has grown into Middle Tennessee State University, the largest undergraduate university
in Tennessee. ¿ is collection of essays, a centennial tribute that is both celebratory and
critical, reveals the school's laudable successes along with its growing pains over the past one
hundred years. ¿ ese are accounts of the ¿ erce competition generated by Tennessee towns
that sought to win the right to build the school, the ongoing e¿ orts by countless students,
administrators, and alumni to create an acceptable identity for their university, and the story of
campus women and African Americans who carved out a place for themselves as students and
educators. In other instances, teachers became professors, sports teams reached Division I-A
status, and PhD programs appeared, all against a backdrop of economic boom and bust times,
decades of war and peace as well as social and civic upheaval. ¿ e Middle Tennessee State
University story is sure to educate, enlighten, and entertain.
