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Texas Tech University

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Texas Tech University is a Tier I research university located in Lubbock, Texas. Formed in 1923 as Texas Technological College, the first classes opened in 1925 with 914 students.

History

A 1921 bill creating an institution of higher education in West Texas had been vetoed, leading newspapers from Ft. Worth to El Paso to call for the secession of West Texas. In a controversial move, the name was changed to Texas Tech University in 1969. Although most Techsans were in agreement that the expanded educational opportunities in the arts and sciences made the school more than just a technological institution, students and faculty supported changing the school's name to Texas State University while alumni and the Board of Directors favored Texas Tech, in part to retain the familiar Double T. After increasingly acrimonious debate (one student even suggested "The University of Moscow at Lubbock" out of frustration at the Board's refusal to listen to student preference), the Texas Legislature formally changed the school's name in 1969. A 1964 bill to change the name was defeated primarily because it would have made Tech a part of the Texas A&M University System.

Enrollment and campuses

Texas Tech enrolls approximately 28,500 students in its ten academic colleges and an additional 2,000 in its School of Law and Health Sciences Center. Consisting of Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Allied Health, and with campuses in Lubbock, Amarillo, El Paso, and Odessa, the Health Sciences Center has an 108 county service area that is larger than all but 4 states.

Sports

Texas Tech is a member of the Big Twelve Conference and competes in Division I-A for athletics. Athletic teams are known as the Red Raiders or Lady Raiders, and Texas Tech is home to the 1993 NCAA Women's Basketball champions.

In 1999, the "Goin' Band from Raiderland," a 400+ member marching band which was the first to travel extensively in support of its football team and the first college band to have its half-time performance broadcast over the radio, was awarded the Sudler Trophy. Known as the "Heisman Trophy" of marching bands, this is the highest honor a collegiate marching band can receive.

Tech has two mascots, a Yosemite Sam-like character, Raider Red, designed by former Lubbock mayor and cartoonist, Dirk West, and the Zorro-like Masked Rider, mounted on a black horse, whose first appearance at the 1954 Gator Bowl sparked Tech to an upset of heavily favored Auburn.

Notable alumni

External links

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