Kansas State University was founded February 16, 1863, as a land-grant institution under the Morrill Act. It was initially located on the grounds of the old Bluemont Central College, which was chartered in 1858. The university moved to its present site in 1875.

The 664-acre campus is in Manhattan, 125 miles west of Kansas City via Interstate 70 in the rolling Flint Hills of northeast Kansas. The campus is convenient to both business and residential sections of the city. Under an enactment of the 1991 Kansas Legislature, the Salina campus, 70 miles west of Manhattan, was established through a merger of the former Kansas College of Technology with the university.

Additional university sites include 18,000 acres in the four branch locations of the Agricultural Experiment Station (Hays, Garden City, Colby, and Parsons) and 8,600 acres in the Konza Prairie Research Natural Area jointly operated by the AES and the Division of Biology.

One of the six universities governed by the Kansas Board of Regents, Kansas State University continues to fulfill its historic educational mission in teaching, research, and public service.

This text was extracted from the 1997-99 Graduate Catalog.