Former names
|
Southern College |
---|---|
Type |
Public flagship university HBCU Land grant |
Established | April 1, 1880 |
Parent institution
|
SU System |
Academic affiliations
|
|
Endowment | $9.6 million |
Provost | M. Christopher Brown II |
President-Chancellor | Ray Belton |
Administrative staff
|
1,600 |
Students | 6,508 (Fall 2017) |
Location |
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S. 30°31′29″N 91°11′24″W / 30.524674°N 91.190034°WCoordinates: 30°31′29″N 91°11′24″W / 30.524674°N 91.190034°W |
Campus | Urban; 512 acres (207 ha) |
Newspaper | The Southern Digest |
Colors | Columbia Blue and Gold |
Nickname | Jaguars & Lady Jaguars |
Sporting affiliations
|
NCAA Division I FCS – SWAC |
Website | www |
University rankings | |
---|---|
Regional | |
U.S. News & World Report | RNP (South) |
Master's University class | |
Washington Monthly | 104 |
Southern University and A&M College (often referred to as Southern University, SUBR or SU) is a historically black university (HBCU) in the Scotlandville area of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The campus is on Scott’s Bluff overlooking the Mississippi River in the northern section of the city. The campus encompasses 512 acres, with an agricultural experimental station on an additional 372-acre site, five miles north of the main campus. The university is the largest HBCU in Louisiana, a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and the flagship institution of the Southern University System.
Southern University's 13 intercollegiate athletics teams are known as the Jaguars, and are members of the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) in NCAA Division I. The Human Jukebox is the nationally renowned collegiate marching band that has been representing the university since 1947.
At the 1879 Louisiana State Constitutional Convention, African-American political leaders P.B.S. Pinchback, Theophile T. Allain and Henry Demas proposed founding a higher education institution "for the education of persons of color." Louisiana before the American Civil War had an established class of free people of color, who were often property owners and educated; they kept that tradition for their children.