In 120 years, the sweep of history has carried Morehead State University and its predecessor institution, the Morehead Normal School, from one makeshift classroom to the high-tech world of Internet-based classes and a radio telescope/space tracking system that reaches from a campus ridgetop to the stars -- literally.

One student appeared on the first day of class in October 1887, in a little, rented cottage. Since then, tens of thousands of students have come to the public university from the foothills and mountains, the river towns and the hillside farms of East Kentucky and beyond to seek the means to a better life in the beautiful, forested valley.

Today, Morehead State University enrolls more than 9,000 students from 100 Kentucky counties, 42 states, and 37 nations. Students are enrolled at the state school's Morehead campus, at regional campuses in Ashland, Jackson, Mount Sterling, Prestonsburg, and West Liberty, and several other locations in East Kentucky and across the globe through the World Wide Web.

Nearly 80 degree programs are available on the two-year, four-year, and graduate levels through the public university's four colleges (Caudill College of Humanities, College of Business, College of Education, and College of Science and Technology) and the Institute for Regional Analysis and Public Policy.

Morehead State University's campus is ranked among the safest in the nation. The state school has also been recognized for the third consecutive year as one of the top public universities in the South in U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Colleges 2007.