MEMPHIS, UNIVERSITY OF

public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Memphis, Tenn., U.S. It is part of the State University and Community College System of Tennessee. It offers a comprehensive selection of undergraduate, graduate, and professional degree programs. It includes a graduate school, law school, nursing school, university college, a division of audiology and speech pathology, and colleges of arts and sciences, business and economics, communication and fine arts, education, and engineering. At the graduate level it offers master's degrees in about 45 major disciplines. It operates research units in such areas as ecology, business and economics, education, Egyptian art and archaeology, electron microscopy, and earthquakes. Student enrollment exceeds 20,000. As a result of state legislation passed in 1909, the University of Memphis was founded in 1912 as West Tennessee State Normal School. It became a college in 1929. It was renamed Memphis State College in 1941, and it became a university in 1957. In 1994 the name was changed to the University of Memphis. The graduate school was added in 1951, and the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law was opened in 1962.