Former names
|
Mossy Creek Missionary Baptist Seminary Carson College Newman College Carson and Newman consolidate to form Carson–Newman College |
---|---|
Motto | Truth, Beauty, Goodness |
Type | Private |
Established | 1851 |
Religious affiliation
|
Baptist |
Endowment | $49 million |
President | J. Randall O'Brien |
Administrative staff
|
199 |
Undergraduates | circa 1800 (fall 2015) |
Postgraduates | circa 700 (fall 2015) |
Location | Jefferson City, Tennessee, U.S. |
Campus | Suburban, ca 200 acres (roughly 1 mi wide by .4 mi deep) |
Colors | Orange & Blue |
Athletics | NCAA Division II – SAC |
Nickname | Eagles |
Affiliations |
Tennessee Baptist Convention CIC CCCU |
Website | www |
Carson–Newman University is a Christian liberal arts college located in Jefferson City, Tennessee, United States. A new enrollment record of 2,528 was set in August 2015. Studies are offered in approximately 90 different academic programs. The university has a current retention rate of 70%. Recent rankings include: A Best College in the Southeast (The Princeton Review), 7th Best Baccalaureate College in the U.S., and America's number 2 ranked baccalaureate college for community service (Washington Monthly). Currently, the five most popular majors are: Nursing, Education, Business, Pre-Medicine/Biology, and Psychology. The school holds overall institutional accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
On July 8, 2008, the trustees appointed Baylor University Provost Dr. J. Randall O'Brien as the 22nd president of the college.
Following a ten-year effort of five early East Tennessee Baptists, the school was established as Mossy Creek Missionary Baptist Seminary in 1851, the school began by holding classes in a local Baptist church. Within a few years the institution became Mossy Creek Baptist College and occupied its own buildings on the site of the present campus.
In 1880, the university was named Carson College for James Harvey Carson (1801–1880), who left $15,000 of his estate to the school. For several years it existed alongside Newman College, a separate facility for the education of women named for William Cate Newman, who had donated money to the women's college. In 1889, the two colleges united as one of the first coeducational institutions in the South. The institution operated as Carson–Newman College until 2012 when the board of trustees voted to acknowledge recent organizational changes by changing the name to Carson–Newman University.
In 1919, Carson–Newman became officially affiliated with the Tennessee Baptist Convention. The college was admitted to membership in the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in 1927 and the Association of American Colleges in 1928.