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Ball State University


About

We spark intellectual curiosity. Spirited and motivated, we learn, grow, and take flight. Our faculty and staff—everyone in our community—treat students as partners, from day one. In classrooms and labs, on the sports fields, in immersive learning projects off campus—with agility and perseverance—Cardinals fly. We are grounded in our values, lifted by our knowledge, and go confidently upward toward ever greater opportunities. Ours is a simple promise: to challenge each other to excel. And with Beneficence as our guide—We Fly.

We spark intellectual curiosity. Spirited and motivated, we learn, grow, and take flight. Our faculty and staff—everyone in our community—treat students as partners, from day one. In classrooms and labs, on the sports fields, in immersive learning projects off campus—with agility and perseverance—Cardinals fly. We are grounded in our values, lifted by our knowledge, and go confidently upward toward ever greater opportunities. Ours is a simple promise: to challenge each other to excel.

And with Beneficence as our guide—We Fly.

We engage students in educational, research, and creative endeavors that empower our graduates to have fulfilling careers and meaningful lives enriched by lifelong learning and service, while we enhance the economic, environmental, and social vitality of our community, our state, and our world.

Proud Past

Ball State’s unwavering belief in an education rooted in creativity, values, and intellectual curiosity began in the late 19th century, when Muncie business leaders envisioned a local college to help boost the city’s development.

Among the visionaries were the five Ball Brothers—Lucius, William, Edmund, Frank, and George—industrialists and philanthropists who moved from New York to Muncie looking to expand their glass container business.

A small, private teacher training school opened 1899. After the community’s efforts to sustain the college failed, the Ball brothers purchased the land and buildings of the defunct institution and donated them to the State of Indiana. This gift became the Indiana State Normal School Eastern Division, which opened in 1918 to meet Indiana’s need for more and better teachers.

In recognition of the Ball family’s generosity, the Indiana General Assembly changed the school's name to Ball Teachers College in 1922 and then Ball State Teachers College in 1929.

By the 1960s, the regional teachers college had begun to attract faculty from outside the Midwest, and students sought majors in areas such as business, architecture, and other emerging disciplines. Enrollment and funding surged with national trends, and new facilities and degree offerings were added.

In 1965, the Indiana General Assembly renamed the college Ball State University, acknowledging its phenomenal growth in enrollment and facilities, the variety and quality of its educational programs and services, and the anticipation of the broader role it would play in the state’s future.

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  • Muncie

    W University Ave,2000, 47306, Muncie

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