Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Southwest Missouri State University is one of Missouri's regional state public university systems with its main campus located in Springfield. It is Missouri's second largest university and its main campus is second only to the University of Missouri, Columbia campus in student enrollment. In addition to its main campus, SMSU has a 2 year branch campus in West Plains and a research campus in Mountain Grove. History Founded in 1905 as the Fourth District Normal School as a teachers preparation college for the Missouri public schools, the name was change in 1919 to Southwest Missouri State Teachers College. In the early 1940s, the college expanded its curriculm and its name was changed to Southwest State Missouri College in 1945. Finally in 1972, the name was changed to its current name, Southwest Missouri State University. External Links http://www.smsu.edu This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.