Mississippi State University forms part of a cohesive town-university community with the growing agricultural-commercial-industrial town of Starkville. Located in the eastern part of north-central Mississippi, it is 125 miles northeast of Jackson and 23 miles west of Columbus; it is served by Highways 82, 12 and 25 and by feeder air service through the Golden Triangle Regional Airport 14 miles east. Away from urban complexities, the community enjoys many intellectual, cultural, and recreational advantages: the MSU-Starkville Civic Symphony and Chorus; the Starkville Community Theater; the University Lyceum series, bringing professional musical, dramatic, and artistic groups and performers to the campus; the Speakers Forum lecture series; art exhibits, plays, and recitals by local and visiting artists; public radio and public television programs through the Mississippi Authority for Educational Television; performances by popular musical groups of regional and national celebrity; frequent intercollegiate athletic events in modern facilities; and a variety of recreational opportunities on playing fields and courts, in neighboring forests, fields, and lakes, and along the nearby Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway.

Mississippi State University is a comprehensive, doctoral-degree-granting university offering to a diverse and capable student body a wide range of opportunities and challenges for learning and growth; to the world of knowledge, vigorous and expanding contributions in research, discovery, and application; and to the State and its people in every region, a variety of expert services. Mississippi State University is designated as a Doctoral/Extensive institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. It is representative of the American Land-Grant tradition and distinctive in its own character and spirit, born of its Mississippi heritage and the vision and loyal perseverance of those who have labored in its development. Mississippi State University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award baccalaureate, master?s, specialist, and doctoral degrees.

An able faculty, drawn from the best institutions in all parts of the nation, strive earnestly to demonstrate excellence in teaching, while producing in their specialized studies scholarly books, articles, and conference papers that gain respect for themselves, the University, and the state. Thus they ensure for their students instruction that is in immediate touch with current knowledge and thought. A body of energetic researchers, both faculty and other, assisted by an effective research administration, places Mississippi State among the first one hundred universities in the nation in research and development in the sciences and engineering. The University?s service agencies are similarly distinguished, earning the respect and support of their varied constituencies throughout the state, as well as in other states and in foreign countries.