New Mexico State University

New Mexico State University, or NMSU, is a land-grant university that has its main campus in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The school was founded in 1888 as an agricultural college and preparatory school called New Mexico A&M College. NMSU has approximately 26,400 students enrolled as of Fall 2005, and has a faculty-to-student ratio of about 1 to 19. NMSU offers a wide range of programs and awards associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees through its main campus and four community colleges. For nine consecutive years, NMSU has been rated as one of America's 100 Best College Buys for offering "the very highest quality education at the lowest cost" by Institutional Research & Evaluation Inc., an independent research and consulting organization for higher education. NMSU is the only land-grant institution that is classified as Hispanic-serving by the federal government. The university is home to New Mexico's NASA Space Grant Program and is one of 52 institutions in the United States to be designated a Space Grant College. During its most recent review by NASA, NMSU was one of only 12 space grant programs in the country to receive an excellent rating.

Academics

NMSU is broken up into several smaller colleges. These include:

College of Agriculture and Home Economics
College of Arts and Sciences
College of Business
College of Education
College of Engineering
College of Extended Learning
College of Health and Social Services
College of Honors

College of Engineering

NMSU's College of Engineering consistently ranks high in national ratings. Among its many honors are:

Conducts more than $15 million of research each year.
Offers the only degrees in aerospace, surveying, and industrial engineering, and engineering technology and information and communication technology in New Mexico
Programs are accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology in applied science, computing, engineering and technology.
More than 180 companies have recruited NMSU engineering graduates in recent years.
Full-time faculty members, rather than graduate assistants, teach all lecture-based engineering courses.
Named the Telemetering Center of Excellence in the United States by the International Foundation for Telemetering.
Ranked 13th nationally in federal-funded engineering research in 2002 by the National Science Foundation.

Sports

NMSU's teams are called the Aggies, a nickname derived from the university's agricultural beginnings. They compete in the Western Athletic Conference. Their mascot was formerly known as "Pistol Pete", but Pete was redesigned in 2005 as part of the university's plan to remake its image on the national stage; today, the mascot is known simply as "Pete," whose pistol has been replaced with a lasso. NMSU's colors are crimson and white.

NMSU has major rivalries with the University of New Mexico (the NMSU-UNM football game is called "The Battle of I-25"), and the University of Texas at El Paso (called "The Battle of I-10", with the winner of the NMSU-UTEP football game getting the Silver Spade).

Student Radio and Journalism

NMSU has two radio stations, as well as a TV station and a student run newspaper. The radio stations are KRUX, a station run by students, and KRWG, a public radio station.

The TV station is also known as KRWG and serves as the region's PBS affiliate. KRWG-TV, named for New Mexico broadcast pioneer Ralph Wilson Goddard, is one of the few journalism schools to student-produce a weekday newscast. It is also the only local newscast for southwest New Mexico viewers.

The "Round Up" is the student-run newspaper. The Round Up is "The student voice of New Mexico State University since 1907." It's published every Monday and Thursday.

Points of interest

A. R. Leding Cactus Garden

External links

New Mexico State University official website
NMSU Athletics official website