Ball State University (Ball State or BSU) is a public research university in Muncie, Indiana, United States. The university has three off-campus centers in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and Fishers, Indiana. The university is composed of ten academic colleges. As of 2023, the university enrolled about 20,400 students with 14,900 undergraduates and 5,500 graduate and doctoral students. The university offers about 120 undergraduate majors and 130 minor areas of study and more than 100 masters, doctoral, certificate, and specialist degrees.
In 1917, the Ball brothers, industrialists and founders of the Ball Corporation, acquired the foreclosed Indiana Normal Institute and gave the school and surrounding land to the State of Indiana. The Indiana General Assembly accepted the donation in the spring of 1918, with an initial 235 students enrolling at the Indiana State Normal School – Eastern Division on June 17, 1918. Ball State is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".
Ball State athletic teams compete in Division I of the NCAA and are known as the Ball State Cardinals. The university is a member of the Mid-American Conference (MAC), competing at the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) Subdivision. Ball State's volleyball program is a member of the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA).
History
Predecessor schools The location of today's Ball State University had its start in 1899 as a private university called the Eastern Indiana Normal School. The entire school, including classrooms, a library, and the president's residence were housed in what is today's Frank A. Bracken Administration Building. The one-building school had a peak enrollment of 256 and charged $10 for a year's tuition. It operated until the spring of 1901, when it was closed due to lack of funding. In 1902, the school reopened as Palmer University for the next three years when Francis Palmer, a retired Indiana banker, gave the school $100,000 as an endowment.
Between 1905 and 1907, the school dropped the Palmer name and operated as the Indiana Normal College. It had two divisions, the Normal School for educating teachers and the College of Applied Sciences. The school had an average enrollment of about 200 students. Due to diminishing enrollment and lack of funding, the school closed at the end of the 1906–1907 school year. In 1912, a group of local investors led by Michael Kelly reopened the school as the Indiana Normal Institute. To pay for updated materials and refurbishing the once-abandoned Administration Building, the school operated under a mortgage from the Muncie Trust Company. Although the school had its largest student body with a peak enrollment of 806, officials could not maintain mortgage payments, and the school was forced to close once again in June 1917 when the Muncie Trust Company initiated foreclosure proceedings.
The Ball brothers and Ball State Teachers College era (1917–1960)
On July 25, 1917, the Ball brothers, local industrialists and founders of the Ball Corporation, bought the Indiana Normal Institute from foreclosure. The Ball brothers also founded Ball Memorial Hospital and Minnetrista, and were the benefactors of Keuka College, founded by their uncle, George Harvey Ball.Anthony O. Edmonds and E. Bruce Geelhoed, Ball State University: An Interpretive History (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001), p.51. For $35,100, the Ball brothers bought the Administration Building and surrounding land. In early 1918, during the Indiana General Assembly's short session, state legislators accepted the gift of the school and land by the Ball brothers. The state granted operating control of the Muncie campus and school buildings to the administrators of the Indiana State Normal School in Terre Haute (now Indiana State University. That same year, the Marion Normal Institute relocated to Muncie, adding its resources to what would officially be named the Indiana State Normal School – Eastern Division. An initial 235 students enrolled in 1918, with William W. Parsons serving as the first president of the university.
The close relationship between the Balls and the school led to an unofficial moniker for the college, with many students, faculty, and local politicians casually referring to the school as "Ball State," a shorthand alternative to its longer, official name. During the 1922 short session of the Indiana legislature, the state renamed the school Ball Teachers College. This was in recognition of the Ball family's continuing beneficence to the institution. During this act, the state also reorganized its relationship with Terre Haute and established a separate local board of trustees for the Muncie campus. In 1924, Ball Teachers College's trustees hired Benjamin J. Burris as the successor to President Linnaeus N. Hines. The Ball brothers continued giving to the university and partially funded the construction of the Science Hall (now called Burkhardt Building) in 1924 and an addition to Ball Gymnasium in 1925. By the 1925–1926 school year, Ball State enrollment reached 991 students: 697 women and 294 men. Based on the school's close relationship with the Ball Corporation, a long-running nickname for the school was "Fruit Jar Tech."Perspective (Ball State University alumni magazine) , January 2005. Retrieved September 9, 2007. During the regular legislative session of 1929, the General Assembly nominally separated the Terre Haute and Muncie campuses of the state teachers' college system, but it placed the governing of the Muncie campus under the Board of Trustees of what was now Indiana State Teachers College based in Terre Haute. With this action, the school was renamed Ball State Teachers College. The following year, enrollment increased to 1,118, with 747 female and 371 male students.
In 1935, the school added the Fine Arts Building for art, music, and dance instruction. Enrollment that year reached 1,151: 723 women and 428 men. As an expression of the many gifts from the Ball family since 1917, sculptor Daniel Chester French was commissioned by Muncie's chamber of commerce to cast a bronze fountain figure to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Ball brothers' gift to the state. His creation, Beneficence, stands between the Administration Building and Lucina Hall where Talley Avenue ends at University Avenue.
Ball State, like the rest of the nation, was affected by the onset of World War II. There were several dramatic changes on Ball State's campus during World War II. In 1939 Ball State began its Civilian Pilot Training program which had popular enrollment. This program allowed students and local residents to learn to fly, instructed by the Muncie Aviation Company. By the fall of 1941, Ball State reached its peak enrollment to this point of 1,588 students. When the United States entered the war, Ball State like many other college campuses, saw a decline in male enrollment. At this time Ball State partnered with the United States military and established two training programs on campus, the Army Specialized Training Program and Navy V-1 Program. Each of these programs encouraged male enrollment in the college that also trained them to go on as pilots in the military service.
Ball State students and staff also contributed to the war effort by supporting the troops abroad. Students and staff led by Sherly DeMotte, a member of the English faculty, wrote dozens of letters to Ball State students and staff serving overseas. By 1943, a dozen students from Ball State had become war casualties. To bring awareness to their service, in 1943, the War Morale Committee dedicated the Roll of Honor; it listed the names of all those who served during the war.
Independent institution (1961–present)
In 1961, Ball State became independent of Indiana State University through the creation of the Ball State College Board of Trustees. The official name of the school was also changed to Ball State College. The Indiana General Assembly approved the development of a state-assisted architecture program, establishing the College of Architecture and Planning, which opened on March 23, 1965. The Center for Radio and Television (now named the College of Communication, Information, and Media) opened the following year, in 1966.
Recognizing the college's expanding academic curriculum and growing enrollment (10,066 students), the General Assembly approved renaming the school to Ball State University in 1965. Most of the university's largest residence halls were completed during this period of high growth, including the DeHority Complex (1960), Noyer Complex (1962), Studebaker Complex (1965), LaFollette Complex (1967), and Johnson Complex (1969). Academic and athletic buildings, including Irving Gymnasium (1962), Emens Auditorium (1964), Cooper Science Complex (1967), Scheumann Stadium (1967), Carmichael Hall (1969), Teachers College Building (1969), Pruis Hall (1972), and Bracken Library (1974), also expanded the university's capacity and educational opportunities.
The university experienced another building boom beginning in the 2000s, with the openings of the Art and Journalism Building (2001), Shafer Tower (2001), the Music Instruction Building (2004), the David Letterman Communication and Media Building (2007), Park Hall (2007), Kinghorn Hall (2010), Marilyn K. Glick Center for Glass (2010), and the Student Recreation and Wellness Center (2010).
Under the university's 14th president, Dr. Jo Ann Gora, over $520 million was committed to new construction and renovation projects throughout the Ball State campus. Within the last decade, Ball State University adopted Education Redefined as its motto, focusing on "immersive learning" to engage students across all academic programs in real-world projects. To date, there have been over 1,250 immersive learning projects, impacting residents in all of Indiana's 92 counties under the mentoring of faculty from every academic department.
The university has also adopted environmental sustainability as a primary component of the university's strategic plan and vision. Starting in the mid-2000s, all building additions and renovations are designed to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification standards. Ball State announced in 2009 that it would begin construction on the largest geothermal energy conversion project in U.S. history.
The university was defendant in the U.S. Supreme Court case Vance v. Ball State University, which dealt with who can be regarded as a "supervisor" for harassment lawsuits. The case was argued on November 26, 2012. In a 5–4 decision, the court ruled in favor of Ball State.
In 2022, the final projects of the "North Neighborhood" were finished on the northern side of campus, where the LaFollette Complex once stood. The renovated residence halls included Botsford/Swinford (Johnson East) and Schmidt/Wilson (Johnson West). Jack Beyerl Hall, home of the STEM Living-Learning Community, and North West Hall, home of the Education and Design Living-Learning Communities were the two newly built residence halls adjacent to the new North Dining building. During construction, the former LaFollette Complex was demolished to make way for a new green space to be utilized by students and faculty with 10 pillars of Indiana limestone placed in the center in remembrance of the former residence hall.
Campus Main campus
Ball State's main campus spans and includes 109 buildings at centered mostly on three main quadrangles. The university also manages just over of research property. The main campus is situated about northwest of downtown Muncie.
McKinley Ave. is a two-lane, primary north–south street through the Ball State campus. Streetscape features include landscaped medians, granite curbing, limestone bollards and planters, bus turn-outs, and brick crosswalks. A pedestrian scramble is located at the intersection of Riverside and McKinley avenues.