TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

state university system based in College Station, Texas, U.S., the outgrowth of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, which was established in 1871. The system includes branches at Corpus Christi (founded 1947), Galveston (1962), and Kingsville (1925), as well as Prairie View A&M University (1876), Tarleton State University (1899) in Stephenville, Texas A&M International University (1969) in Laredo, and West Texas A&M University (1909) in Canyon. There is also a campus in Koriyama, Japan, and an academic centre in Santa Chiara, Italy. In earlier periods, the Texas A&M University system also included Arlington State College (now University of Texas at Arlington) and James Connally Technical Institute (now Texas State Technical College Waco/Marshall). The main campus at College Station is one of the largest in the nation, with an area of about 5,200 acres (2,104 hectares). It comprises 10 colleges and offers about 5 undergraduate, 15 graduate, and 2 professional degrees. The Health Science Center, which includes the College of Medicine, was created in 1991. The Galveston branch contains the marine and maritime campus of the College of Geosciences and Maritime Studies and also the Texas Institute of Oceanography. Texas A&M is a land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant university and a major research university, with institutes for the study of biotechnology, race and ethnicity, nautical archaeology, nuclear science, and transportation, among other areas. Enrollment at College Station is approximately 41,000 students. The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas became the state's first institution of higher education when it opened in 1876. It was originally created as a military institution, and the university has one of the largest Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs in the nation. Although designated as a land-grant college under the Morrill Act of 1862, the college emphasized literature courses over science and vocational studies in its first few years. Graduate-level instruction began in 1888; the first master's degrees were awarded in 1890 and the first doctorate in 1940. In 1963 the college was renamed Texas A&M University. It received sea-grant status in 1971 and space-grant status in 1989.