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The University of North Alabama (UNA) is a coeducational university located in Florence, Alabama, and the state's oldest four-year public university. Occupying a campus in a residential section of Florence, UNA is located within a four-city area that also includes Tuscumbia, Sheffield and Muscle Shoals. The four cities comprise a metropolitan area with a combined population of 140,000 people.〔("Description of the University: History and Location," University of North Alabama Catalog, 2006-2007 )〕 The University of North Alabama, which celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2005, has undergone numerous sweeping changes in the course of its long history. Originally founded as LaGrange College in 1830, it was reestablished in 1872 as the first state-supported teachers college south of the Ohio River. A year later, it became one of the nation's first coeducational colleges.〔(Jarnigan, Bill. "Facts and Figures about UNA," Office of University Relations, University of North Alabama )〕〔Palmer, Michael E. (April 25, 2009) "(LaGrange College is Alabama’s birthplace of higher education )" ''Tuscaloosa News''〕 Within the last half century, the University of North Alabama has developed into a comprehensive regional university exerting a major influence over the cultural, social and economic life of Northwest Alabama and providing educational opportunities for students pursuing undergraduate and graduate majors offered through the colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, Education and Nursing and Health.〔("Description of the University: History and Location," University of North Alabama Catalog )〕 UNA has strong commitment to improving academic quality, an effort perhaps reflected in the 2008 edition of U.S. News and World Report's America's Best Colleges, which ranked the university as a top tier public university.〔(Eubanks, Michelle "UNA gets top tier ranking in colleges report" )〕 UNA also underwent continued growth in 2009, with 7,243 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled for the fall semester.〔(Goens, Mike. "Student Numbers Continue to Climb" The Times Daily, September 9, 2009 )〕〔(Singleton-Rickman, Lisa "Increasing number of students heading to UNA, Northwest Shoals" )〕 == History == (詳細はLeighton in northeast Franklin County, Alabama. LaGrange means "The Barn" in French. Twenty-one local college trustees were listed in Acts of Alabama, Eleventh Annual Session. Today only a nine-ton stone monument silently guards the ghosts of the once bustling little town of LaGrange and its vibrant college, both of which were sacked and burned by Union troops in 1863. But by then, however, the college, as such, had moved north across the Tennessee River to Florence. The section of Franklin County containing LaGrange Mountain is now Colbert County. LaGrange College, which became Florence Wesleyan University in 1855, is now the University of North Alabama. LaGrange College arose from the idea offered at a November 28, 1826 meeting of the Tennessee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church to establish a college which would not be "religious or theological." By January 1829, the selection of Lawrence Hill on LaGrange Mountain was made for the site of the school. A year later, LaGrange College opened to students of all denominations in two three-story brick buildings. The Rev. Robert Paine was the first president. The North Carolina native was also the professor of moral science and belles lettres and taught geography and mineralogy. He was assisted by two other professors. The first board of trustees had a total of 50 members, including two Native Americans, a Choctaw politician and a Cherokee leader. In 1830, Turner Saunders, a native of Virginia, was the first President of the Board of Trustees. Saunders' mansion c1826 still stands in Lawrence County. Among the many distant trustees was John Coffee of Florence, friend of Andrew Jackson. Among the local trustees was Henry Stuart Foote of Tuscumbia, who would move to Mississippi and defeat Jefferson Davis in the 1850 Governor's race. J.D. Malone, of Limestone County, was the first graduate in 1833. In 1850, a grammar school was added to LaGrange College. (Today, UNA has the only university-owned and operated elementary laboratory school - Kilby Professional Laboratory School - in Alabama.) In 1858 the death of the school's president and the loss of most of its students to nearby Florence, the college was suspended and re-established as the LaGrange College and Military Academy, with James W. Robertson as superintendent. Under its new name, additional buildings were constructed and the school reached its highest prosperity. the state of Alabama made provision for two cadets from each county to be enrolled, and by 1861 47 of its 171 students were state cadets. The school suffered a loss of enrollment again when Alabama seceded, and in March 1862 Robertson received approval from the Alabama governor to enroll the 35th Alabama Infantry from faculty, cadets, and enlistees from surrounding counties. On April 28, 1863, the buildings were destroyed by Union soldiers of the 10th Missouri Cavalry, including a library of 4,000 volumes. Among LaGrange's alumni were several generals, Alabama governors Edward A. O'Neal and David P. Lewis, Alabama Supreme Court justice William M. Byrd and U.S. Senator Jeremiah Clemens, who wrote the first American Civil War novel and the first western novel.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「University of North Alabama」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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