NEBRASKA, UNIVERSITY OF

state university system composed of four coeducational campuses. It is a land-grant university with a comprehensive academic program; it is also a research institution. The main campus at Lincoln, through its eight colleges and its general studies division, offers about 145 bachelor's degree programs, more than 60 master's degree programs, and more than 30 doctoral degree programs. It includes colleges of Architecture, Law, and Human Resources and Family Sciences. The campus at Omaha has more than 130 undergraduate degree programs and more than 60 advanced degree programs; the campus at Kearney offers more than 180 academic programs. Omaha is also the home of the medical centre, which contains colleges of Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, and Pharmacy and the School of Allied Health Professions. Total enrollment in the state university system is approximately 51,000 students. The university conducts research in a variety of fields, including computer science, biochemistry, mass spectrometry, food processing, nontraditional manufacturing, and agriculture. The Lincoln campus contains the University of Nebraska State Museum, the Lied Center for Performing Arts, and the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, which was built by architect Philip C. Johnson. Prairie Schooner, a noted literary quarterly, is published there. The Museum of Nebraska Art is located at the Kearney campus, and the Center for Afghanistan Studies is found at the Omaha campus. The University of Nebraska was chartered in 1869 and became a land-grant institution under the aegis of the Morrill Act of 1862. Graduate instruction began in 1886, and in 1896 Nebraska became the first university located west of the Mississippi River to establish a graduate school. The medical centre, incorporated in 1881 as Omaha Medical College, joined the university system in 1902. Established in 1909, the University of Omaha joined the system as a campus in 1968. The Kearney branch, which had been created as a normal (teacher-training) school in 1903, joined the system in 1991. Notable graduates of Nebraska include botanist, jurist, and educator Roscoe Pound, novelist Willa Cather, photographer Harold E. Edgerton, anthropologist Loren Eiseley, and operatic tenor Jess Thomas.