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ECU Highlights and Distinctions
East Carolina University, a diverse, comprehensive university, is known for the quality and breadth of its academic programs
and for its pursuit of excellence in a variety of activities.
With an enrollment of nearly 18,000 students, ECU is the third-largest institution of the 16 campus University of North Carolina
system. It has a work force of more than 3,500, a faculty numbering more than 1,100 and a budget of almost $290 million.
The campus today is alive not only with the activities of its students and faculty but also with the whir and clatter of construction
crews. More than 20 percent of the campus is under construction or renovation or will be in the next few months; the total
budget for new construction or renovation is about $120 million. Among the most prominent projects are the Student
Recreation Center, which will be completed in the fall of 1995, and the additions and renovations to Joyner Library, which will
be under way for four years. The university is spending close to $12 million on a complete renovation of Minges Coliseum,
which will have 7,500 seats in a new arena configuration and will be home to the men's and women's basketball teams.
The university is rapidly growing in the area of grants and contracts as well. Over the last five years, sponsored research has
increased by nearly 40 percent to its current level of $7 million. Most recently, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
announced grants and pledges of $2.35 million to ECU that will form the core of a major effort to increase the number of
primary care physicians in eastern North Carolina.
ECU students come from all 100 of North Carolina's counties, 45 states and 38 nations. Of the students, 57 percent are
women, 83 percent are undergraduates and 13 percent are minorities.
ECU was one of 19 NCAA Division I-A football programs cited for academic accomplishments this year by the College
Football Association. The university received a certificate of merit for graduating more than 70 percent of the football players
who enrolled during the 1987-88 school year.
The university offers 106 undergraduate degree tracks and 92 graduate degree tracks. It confers more than 3,000 degrees
annually, and it has close to 70,000 living alumni.
Here is a selection of other distinctions:
- ECU has the largest teacher-education program in North Carolina and the l5th largest in the nation.
- ECU has one of the largest art schools in the Southeast and the only art program in North Carolina accredited by the
National Association of Schools of Art and Design. The Wellington B. Gray Gallery is one of the largest contemporary
art galleries in North Carolina.
- The School of Medicine has ranked No. 1 nationally in the percentage of graduates entering primary care fields.
- The School of Social Work is the only one in North Carolina with both undergraduate and graduate programs
accredited by the National Council on Social Work Education.
- In the School of Human Environmental Sciences, the hospitality management program is one of only two such programs
in North Carolina. The child life program is the first one in North Carolina.
- The music education program in the School of Music is among the largest and strongest in the Southeastern United
States. The music therapy program is the only one in a state-supported school in North Carolina.
- The School of Business has the second-oldest accredited MBA program in the state as well as the second-oldest
undergraduate program in North Carolina.
- The university has state-of-the-art student computing labs campus-wide and some of the finest discipline-specific student
computing labs in the nation.
- The Department of English publishes seven scholarly and literary journals: Children's Folklore Review, The Concord
Saunterer, Minnesotareview, North Carolina Literary Review, Tar River Poetry, TheThoreau Society Bulletin and
Victorians Institute Journal.
- The School of Education's Model Clinical Teaching Program has received best-in-the nation recognition for it alternative
approach to traditional student- teaching programs. It provides selected education majors with year-long internships in
classrooms.
- The program in Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology has received international acclaim for its work in underwater
research along the North Carolina Coast, in Bermuda, the Great Lakes, major Southern rivers, the English Channel and
the Hawaiian coast. The program is one of two of its kind in the country. The Decision Sciences Department is the
largest in North Carolina and has the second largest number of computer information systems students in the state.
- The School of Music offers the only graduate program in Suzukistring pedagogy in this region of the country. The school
also has the only Center for Music Technology, incorporating MIDI applications in music instruction and composition, in
this region.
- ECU has the first research center on aging approved by the UNC Board of Governors.
- The School of Industry and Technology Construction Management program is one of only 41 in the nation that are
accredited by the American Council for Construction Education.
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