Colorado State University

Colorado State University (also referred to as Colorado State and CSU) is a public research university located in Fort Collins, in the U.S. state of Colorado. The university is the state's land grant university, and the flagship university of the Colorado State University System.

The current enrollment is approximately 32,236 students, including resident and non-resident instruction students and the University is planning on having 35,000 students by 2020. The university has approximately 1,540 faculty in eight colleges and 55 academic departments. Bachelor's degrees are offered in 65 fields of study, with master's degrees in 55 fields. Colorado State confers doctoral degrees in 40 fields of study, in addition to a professional degree in veterinary medicine.

In fiscal year 2012, CSU spent $375.9 million on research and development, ranking 60th in the nation overall and 34th when excluding medical school spending.

Colorado State University is a land-grant institution classified as a Carnegie Doctoral/RU/VH: Research Universities (very high research activity). CSU was founded as Colorado Agricultural College in 1870, six years before the Colorado Territory gained statehood. It was one of 68 land-grant colleges established under the Morrill Act of 1862. Doors opened to a freshman class of 1 student in 1879.

U.S. News & World Report: The Professional Veterinary Medicine program is currently ranked second in the nation by U.S. News & World Report and first in the country in federal research dollars. In the 2015 edition, U.S. News & World Report 's "Best Colleges" ranked CSU as #121 among public and private national universities and 58th among public universities.

U.S. News & World Report America's Best Graduate Schools Rankings:
Top Graduate Programs (ranked in 2010):

• Biological Sciences – 82nd
• Chemistry – 45th
• Earth Science – 69th
• Mathematics – 76th
• Physics – 70th

Top Engineering Schools – 63rd (ranked in 2010)

• Civil Engineering – 39th
• Electrical Engineering – 66th
• Environmental/Environmental Health Engineering – 42nd
• Mechanical Engineering – 67th

Top Graduate Programs (ranked in 2009):

• Psychology – 91st
• Social Work – 60th

Top Graduate Programs (ranked in 2008):

• Occupational Therapy Master's – 8th[6]

Princeton Review: Considers CSU one of the "Best 373 Colleges," and named the university a "Best Western College", which refers to schools that stand out in their region. The Princeton Review also included CSU's College of Business as one of the 301 "Best Business Schools" in the country.[6] The Review named CSU's MBA program as one of the 10 best administered programs nationwide in 2007, and 2012-2015.

Business Week: Includes CSU's undergraduate business program among the best in the country in 2011, ranked at #89 In 2014 the College of Business moved up in the ranks to be ranked 73rd (an increase of 16 places from the previous year) in Bloomberg Business Week's Undergraduate rankings.

Consumers Digest: One of the top 50 best values for public universities

National Science Foundation: CSU is among the nation's top 5% universities in terms of federal research dollars received for engineering and the sciences.

The Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index, based on faculty publications, federal grant dollars awarded, and honors and awards. Announced by Academic analytics in 2007, high ranking departments at Colorado State:

• Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics: 1
• Department of Biology: 2
• Department of Atmospheric Sciences: 3
• Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology: 5
• Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition: 8
• Department of Soil and Crop Sciences/soil science: 9
• Department of Soil and Crop Sciences/agronomy: 10
• Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: 10

Online Degree Reviews: The online degrees programs are ranked 37th based on student reviews of universities worldwide.

Fort Collins is located 65 miles (105 km) north of Denver, approximately 2 hours from major ski resorts and 45 minutes from Rocky Mountain National Park. There are opportunities for students to be active, with bike trails and hiking nearby. In 2006, Money ranked Fort Collins as the "Best Place to Live" in the United States.

Clubs and activities

There are 325 student organizations and 34 honor societies at CSU. 60% of undergraduates participate in intramural sports while 10% join one of 19 fraternities and 14 sororities. There are 30 sport clubs, including cycling, baseball, water polo, triathlon, wrestling, and rugby. 300 music, theatre and dance performances, exhibitions, and other arts events take place on campus each year. The student government is the Associated Students of Colorado State University. CSU's daily newspaper is the Rocky Mountain Collegian. CSU also has a student-run campus television station and a student radio station, KCSU FM.

Sport clubs

Sport Clubs at Colorado State University were established in 1978. They are run and funded by student fees and team fundraisers and compete with other colleges and universities but not at the NCAA level. There are currently 30 Sport Club teams. Every year the clubs take a combined 150 trips. There are over 1,000 students associated with the program. Last year 23 of these teams competed at regional and national championships. The programs have enjoyed a significant amount of recent success with National Championships in: Men's Ice Hockey (1995) Women's Lacrosse (2008, 2010, 2011, 2013); Baseball (2004–2010); Men's Lacrosse (1999, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2012).

The sport clubs at Colorado State University include: Alpine Ski Team, Baseball, Bowling (Coed), Crew, Cycling, Field Hockey, Horse Polo (Men's and Women's), Ice Hockey (Men's and Women's), In-Line Hockey, Lacrosse (Men's and Women's), Logging Sports, Rodeo (Men's and Women's), Rugby (Men's and Women's), Shotgun Sports (Men's and Women's), Snowboard, Soccer (Men's and Women's), Synchronized Ice Skating, Triathlon (Coed), Ultimate Frisbee Summer League, Ultimate Frisbee (Men's and Women's), Volleyball, Water Polo (Men's and Women's), and Wrestling (Men's and Women's)

Student media

The Rocky Mountain Collegian is CSU's student-run daily newspaper, where students have complete control over editorial decisions. The paper was founded in 1891, and was a weekly publication by the 1930s. During the 1940s and 1950s, the paper earned disrepute in the local community for its unpopular support of women's rights and anti-racism stance. By the 1970s, the Collegian was consistently publishing daily. Editorial quality and financial support have varied over the years, at times rising among elite college newspapers and at others struggling to publish. During the 1990s, the paper was twice selected as one of the top 12 daily student papers in the country. In late 2007, the Collegian published a staff article that incited national debate about free speech. The article read, in its entirety, "Taser This...Fuck Bush." This event, as well as president Penley's considerations of "partnering" out the Collegian by Gannett in January 2008, lead to proposals in making CSU's student media, including the Rocky Mountain Collegian, a not-for-profit organization independent from the university. This resulted in the entirety of CSU Student Media to separate from the university to operate under an independent company, the Rocky Mountain Student Media Corporation. The Rocky Mountain Collegian has developed a fully functioning website and a mobile application.

KCSU is Colorado State's student run station, with a format focusing on alternative and college rock music, including indie rock, punk, hip-hop and electronic music. News, sports and weather updates along with talk programs and specialty shows round out the programming schedule. Broadcasting at 10,000 watts, KCSU is among the larger college stations in the country, reaching approximately 250,000 listeners. KCSU first began broadcasting in 1964 as a station owned, operated and financed by students. Following a long period as a professional station, KCSU again became student run in 1995, at which time the current format was adopted. As with the Collegian and CTV, KCSU was hit hard by the 1997 flood, and for a time was forced to broadcast from remote locations. Now back in its original Lory Student Center location, KCSU has benefited from revamped production facilities and updated equipment.

CTV is CSU's student-run television station, that allows students to hone their media skills- reporting, writing, producing, shooting, editing- in an educational environment. The station is a winner of fourteen Rocky Mountain Collegiate Media Association awards and a Student Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Heartland Chapter. Content includes news shows on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, a sports show on Mondays, and an entertainment show Thursdays. CTV was founded in 1989, and currently broadcasts weeknights on the university cable station (Comcast channel 11) at 8pm, with reruns at 9am and 12 noon the next day.

Student-run magazine College Avenue was founded in 2005 with the goal, as put forth by its founding editors, of giving students a new forum to address controversial issues affecting the campus community from their own vantage point. Since its first issue in fall 2005, the magazine is released quarterly.

Greek life

Greek life at Colorado State began in the fall of 1915. Currently 10% of undergraduates join one of CSUs 19 fraternities and 14 sororities. The CSU Inter-Fraternity Council acts as the governing body for the 19 fraternities, each with a delegate representative. Similarly, the CSU Panhellenic Council governs the sororities. CSU Greek organizations are involved in a number of philanthropic activities around campus, among them CSUnity, Cans around the Oval, Habitat for Humanity and RamRide. The governing bodies recently raised $25,000 towards the sponsorship of a Habitat for Humanity home.

From 1932 until 1949, Colorado State University was home to the Eta chapter of Phrateres, a philanthropic-social organization for female college students. Eta was the 7th chapter installed and Phrateres eventually had over 20 chapters in Canada and the United States. (The chapter name "Eta" was reused for the chapter installed at Arizona State University in 1958.)