A student visiting Tuskegee University
Tuskegee University
History
Tuskegee University was founded in 1881 as the Normal School for Colored Teachers. Originally in a one-room shanty, the first class was taught by Dr. Booker T. Washington, and the initial space and building for the school were provided by Butler Chapel AME Zion Church.
Not long after the founding, however, the campus was moved to a 100-acre abandoned plantation which was the nucleus of the present site.
Between the times of its founding and today, there have been six name changes — each of which contained the name “Tuskegee” — until it achieved its permanent university name in 1985.
Academic Merit
Tuskegee University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award baccalaureate, master’s, professional and doctoral degrees. Tuskegee faculty, administration, and students are extremely proud of their university’s academic distinction as:
• The only Historically Black College and University approved to offer the Doctor of Philosophy in materials science and engineering, which began in the fall of 1998;
• The only HBCU with a fully accredited College of Veterinary Medicine that offers the Doctoral Degree, and produces over 71% of the African American veterinarians in the world;
• The first and only historically Black college or university designated as the location for a National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care in the nation;
• The only college or university campus in the nation to be designated a National Historic Site by the U.S. Congress;
• One of two universities funded by NASA to develop a technology for growing food in space during human space missions;
• One of the oldest baccalaureate programs in nursing in the country, the first in Alabama.
• Tuskegee is also the largest producer of African Americans with baccalaureate degrees in math, science, and engineering in Alabama and has produced more Black military officers than any other institution, including the US Military service academies.
Campus Life
Located in Macon County, Alabama about 40 miles from Montgomery, Tuskegee University now has more than 3,200 students on a campus that includes some 5,500 acres (the main campus, farm, and forest land) and more than 70 buildings.
These buildings encompass Band Cottage, Armstrong and Tompkins Halls, the James Center, the Food Animal Production Research & Service Center in Veterinary Medicine, and the $20 million Kellogg Center — one of only 11 in the world authorized and funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to develop and manage a Kellogg Conference Center — among other structures.
ADDRESS: Tuskegee University, Tuskegee, AL MAP
PHONE: 334-727-8307
WEBSITE: https://www.tuskegee.edu
