Minnesota State University, Mankato

Minnesota State University, Mankato (MNSU, MSU, or Minnesota State) is a public university in Mankato, Minnesota, United States. It is Minnesota's second-largest university and has over 145,000 living alumni worldwide. Founded in 1868, it is the second-oldest member of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system and is commonly referred to as the flagship institution. It was established as the "Second State Normal School" in 1858 and officially opened as "Mankato Normal School" a decade later.

Across seven colleges and schools, Minnesota State offers over 130 undergraduate programs of study, over 80 master's programs, and 4 doctoral programs. MNSU has two satellite campuses: one in the Twin Cities suburb Edina and one in Owatonna. Through the College of Extended Learning, it provides bachelor's degrees online and at the Normandale Partnership Center in Bloomington. In 2023, MNSU partnered with Saint Paul College to launch the Minnesota Polytechnic and Applied Learning Institute (MinnPoly), becoming Minnesota's first polytechnic institute.

The Minnesota State Mavericks compete in 21 intercollegiate sports, most at the NCAA Division II level in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference. Its men's and women's ice hockey teams compete at the Division I level, respectively in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) and Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA).

The state legislature recognized the need for an education center in southern Minnesota in 1858. In 1860, the legislature chartered the development of other state-run normal schools across the state. The largest and fastest-growing cities outside of Saint Paul, Saint Cloud and Mankato, were selected for the sites, dependent on local fundraising to establish the schools with seed money. Through the efforts of local attorney and state legislator Daniel Buck, the newly formed City of Mankato donated $5,000 raised from the community and sold $5,000 in bonds to found the second state normal school, Mankato Normal School. It was chartered in state law in 1860 and held its first classes in 1868, with an enrollment of 27. The school's original mission was to train and educate teachers for rural schools in southern Minnesota. Early coursework included mathematics, science, civil engineering, agriculture, western classics, and basic pedagogy. The first Normal School-owned building's cornerstone was laid on June 22, 1869. George M. Gage served as Mankato Normal School's principal from 1868 to 1872.

During this period, Mankato Normal School provided educational certificates that allowed graduates to become schoolteachers, and most of the students were women. In relation to this focus on women's education, Mankato Normal School is noted as the first public college in the U.S. to be headed by a woman, suffragette Julia Sears, in 1872. In 1873, the State Normal Board demoted Sears to assistant principal, replacing her as principal with David C. John. Sears's salary as assistant principal was reduced from $1,500 to $1,200 and resulted in a letter to Gage that it was doubtful that she would see him again in Minnesota. In response, the assistant principal position was offered to Cornelius Hyde. Both Sears and Hyde arrived for work on September 1, 1873.

After it was determined that Hyde would receive the position, 41 students refused to attend classes and 32 were expelled for failing to return after three days. 60 residents signed a petition requesting that Hyde return to his position as instructor and that Sears be reinstated as assistant principal. This became known as the "Sears Rebellion", which lasted until Sears left the school for a professorship at Peabody Normal School. These events were commemorated when a new residence hall was dedicated in honor of Sears in 2008 and a commission on the status of women was founded to support the advancement of women's education at the institution in the 1990s.

By 1921, the school had grown to the point that it began to offer four-year bachelor's degrees. As a result, it was renamed "Mankato State Teachers College". The original Old Main building was destroyed in a fire in 1922 and a new building was completed on April 4, 1924. Enrollment dipped during World War II and the college refocused its extension programs on providing education to members of the Works Progress Administration and Naval Corps.

Clarence L. Crawford became college president in 1946. He held the position for 20 years, overseeing and promoting tremendous growth of the college from approximately 400 students at the time of his arrival to about 14,000 when he retired in 1966. During the postwar period, student enrollment expanded greatly. The original university buildings were then in what was known as the Valley Campus, down the hill in lower Mankato. The Valley Campus's size and footprint lacked the space needed to handle the growing student body. The Mankato Teachers College received 12 former Army barracks as a short-term solution. By the late 1950s work began on an entirely new, modern campus atop the river valley bluff. This became the Highland Campus. An experimental school, the Wilson School, was built on the Highland Campus to research and apply new teaching methods for students in grades K–12. The intention was to provide student teachers the opportunity to learn and experiment with new methods in a university environment.