Eastern Michigan University (EMU) is a public, comprehensive, metropolitan university whose roots date to 1849, when it was established as Michigan State Normal School. What is now EMU was, at the time of its founding, the sixth normal school in the United States and the first one west of the Allegheny Mountains. Ypsilanti is in culturally and environmentally diverse southeast Michigan, about 40 miles west of Detroit and 10 miles east of Ann Arbor. The area is characterized by metropolitan growth and economic transformation and is rich in cultural, academic, research, technological, and recreational resources.
Numerous educational "firsts" are associated with EMU. These "firsts" include being the first teacher's college in the nation (1) to offer teacher training courses in physical education, (2) to prepare teachers of disabled children, and (3) to provide a program for the preparation of community educators. We were the first college in Michigan (1) to establish a program in manual training (industrial arts), (2) to establish a program for the preparation of teachers of the mentally retarded, (3) to establish a department of special education, and so on. What is now the Michigan Education Association was organized on our campus 150 years ago.
The institution became Eastern Michigan State Normal College in 1899, Eastern Michigan College in 1956, and Eastern Michigan University in 1959. Within the new university, several colleges emerged: the College of Education (1959), the College of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School (1960), the College of Business (1964), the College of Health and Human Services (1973), and the College of Technology (1977).
The University owns 803 acres and 129 buildings, including the main campus in a residential section of Ypsilanti, the West campus (primarily athletics and recreation), the Owen Building (College of Business) in downtown Ypsilanti, and other specialized properties. Eagle Crest--EMU's conference center, golf course, and resort--is located on the banks of nearby Ford Lake. The campus residence halls and apartment complexes house more than 5,000 students. Numerous courses and programs are offered at locations other than on the Ypsilanti campus, including in Detroit, Flint, Jackson, Livonia, Monroe, Traverse City and Brighton; via compressed video; over the Internet; and through other modes of instruction.
The 24,532 students enrolled in fall 2002 included 18,851 undergraduates and 5,681 graduate students. Undergraduate students are 60 percent female; graduate students are 65 percent female. EMU students represent 45 U.S. states and 93 foreign countries, although most are from Southeastern Michigan. The average age for undergraduates is 23.5; for graduate students (from an earlier report), 34. EMU's student population is 75 percent white and 18 percent African American.
Programming extends from the baccalaureate degree (400 majors, minors, and concentrations) through extensive offerings (85 degree/certificate programs) at the master's degree level. The Ed.S. degree is offered in a few areas and the Ed.D. is offered in educational leadership and the Ph.D. is offered in clinical psychology, with an additional Ph.D. in technology in the preparation process.
EMU employs 676 tenure-track faculty members and about 1,300 staff members. The student-to-faculty ratio is about 19:1. The FY01 operating budget was $241.5 million, including $86.3 million in state funds. Grant and contracts amounted to $16.4 million. EMU's endowment at a recent time stood at $33.7 million. For additional detail on university-wide matters, see the reports for the EMU Office of Institutional Research and Information Management.
Personnel from the university were instrumental in founding the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools and the university has been continuously accredited by that body (the Higher Learning Commission in particular) since its inception. A large number of discipline-based accreditations and recognitions are held as well. A list of these may be found in the Undergraduate Catalog Supplement.
EMU is a charter and continuous member of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. The dean of the College of Education is serving his third term on AACTE's Board of Directors. EMU's professional education programs have been continuously accredited by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) since the founding of that organization. EMU is a member of the Teacher Education Council of State Colleges and Universities (TECSCU) and the dean of the College of Education is a recent president and current Board member of that organization. EMU is a member of the Michigan Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the dean of the College of Education is in his third term as the president of that group.
The university is an active member of The Renaissance Group. The former Provost served on the board of that organization and the dean of the College of Education has recently completed a term as the vice chair of the group. Two faculty members have served as Renaissance Group Fellows. The "consociate school" model of the Renaissance Group was first implemented at EMU. Through The Renaissance Group, EMU is involved in several consortia dealing with Teacher Quality and technology in education.
The EMU College of Education (COE) is a member of several other organizations, including the Sino-American Education Consortium, the Colleges of Education of the Council of the Great City Schools, the Consortium for Outstanding Achievement in Teaching with Technology (COATT). COE Personnel are active in and provide leadership to the Michigan [Education] Deans' Council and the Directors and Representatives of Teacher Education Programs (DARTEP). Faculty and staff members are active in the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) and EMU Director of Student Teaching is the immediate past president of the Michigan Association of Teacher Educators. EMU has just completed a decade as the "university partner" (with the Detroit Public Schools and the financial support of the Skillman Foundation) for the Comer Schools and Families Initiative (Comer Project) in Detroit.
About 3,500 undergraduate students and about 2,000 graduate and special students are involved in professional education programs during each academic year. There are about 2,000 program completers each year, which makes EMU, according to most issues of the AACTE Directory, the nation's largest producer of educational personnel, certainly when aggregated over periods of time. Earlier statistics have shown that EMU was, at least at the time, the nation's largest producer of special education personnel, the nation's largest producer of teachers of mathematics, and the nation's largest producer of teachers of science.
The professional education programs have received ten national awards from six major professional organizations in the past two decades. (For details, click here.) EMU alums have received numerous major recognitions, including national Teacher of the Year, national Superintendent of the Year, national Special Education Teacher of the Year, and the like. Still others have been presidents of major national professional organizations. Several have been the executives of major national professional organizations (e.g., NEA, NASSP). At least 24 have received the $25,000 Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award. Numerous others have achieved major recognition at the state level. See Outstanding COE Alumni and Education Alumni Hall of Fame for additional information.
Recognized in many ways for not only the size and diversity of its professional education programs, EMU is committed to continue the quality of its programming for educational personnel for which it has also been recognized extensively for more than 150 years.