Ball State University (BSU)  is a state-run research university located in Indiana, U.S. Ball State's campus spans more than 1,000 acres (4 km²). Founded in 1918, Ball State is a state-assisted residential university in Muncie, Indiana, a midsized Midwestern city one hour northeast of Indianapolis. About 20,000 undergraduate and graduate students enroll each year in diverse academic programs on and off campus.

Ball State is ranked a doctoral/research-intensive institution by the Carnegie Foundation and is fully accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. Individual programs are accredited by various regional and national organizations.

As a comprehensive university, Ball State offers a wealth of academic opportunities, including about 180 undergraduate majors and preprofessional programs, and more than 100 master’s and doctoral degrees. And the programs in architecture, telecommunications, landscape architecture, education, entrepreneurship, and online master’s degree in nursing are consistently ranked among the best in the nation. That excellence is due to the quality of BSU's faculty and their commitment to teaching. More than 90 percent of the classes are taught by professors. That’s almost unheard of at an institution of Ball State’s size.

Campus Life

More than 6,300 students live on campus and residence life is great at Ball State. Nearly 35 percent of the student body chooses to live in one of the 29 residence halls. And the campus dining is excellent. First-year students take part in Freshman Connections, a national award-winning program, and just one reason Ball State was named one of 13 “Institutions of Excellence in the First College Year” by the national Policy Center on the First Year of College in 2003 and deemed a “program to look for” by U.S. News & World Report. The program allows freshmen to make friends and a smooth adjustment to college life through common programming. Whether it’s because they have a great study circle or a great circle of friends, students who live on campus get better grades and are more likely to graduate on time. And they get a classic college experience.

Department of Art Facilities

One of the newer buildings on campus, the Art and Journalism Building provides more than 57,000 square feet of state-of-the-art classroom and studio space for the Department of Art. AJ has become a major focal point of campus life at Ball State. The building's first floor includes an impressive dining and food court area, the main university bookstore, a coffee shop, and the Department of Art's Atrium Gallery, a high-profile space for students, faculty, and visiting artists to display their work.

Ball State University Art - Watch this video

Classrooms and Studios: The department's classrooms and studios are organized around a central atrium, connected to the ground floor with major circulation corridors that create two "first floors" and allow students to travel at a diagonal throughout the building. Art education classrooms, photography studios, art history classrooms, visual resources, and computer labs are located on the second floor and are grouped with faculty offices. Visual communication studios as well as electronic art and animation studios are located on the third floor. 

Two-dimensional art studios are located on the upper floors to optimize the natural lighting scheme. Faculty offices are grouped directly across from the studio spaces, making faculty easily accessible to students.

Ball State University Senior Art Exhibit Fall 2008 - Watch this video

The three-dimensional studios are located on the first floor in a one-story construction that allows for a more efficient, industrial character of space, and provides ground-floor access for heavy art objects and an adjacent outdoor working space for sculpture and ceramics.

Museum of Art: Not far across campus is one of the nation's largest and finest university art museums, with a collection of nearly 11,000 works of art valued at more than million. 

The Ball State University Museum of Art cultivates lifelong learning and recreation in the visual arts through its collection of original works of art, engaging exhibitions, and educational programs for the university community and other diverse audiences.

In addition to the collection installation, the Ball State University Museum of Art also presents an ongoing program of temporary special exhibitions. These are drawn from the museum's collection as well as external sources, and they include both contemporary and historical works of art. Selected museum events explore aspects of these exhibitions.

The Ball State University Museum of Art is accredited by the American Association of Museums.

Highlights

• University Theatre, the Arts and Communications Building, and Ball Gymnasium offer a technically sophisticated mainstage theatre, intimate black box theatre, laboratory theatre, state-of-the-art dance studios, computer design lab, sound recording studio, and performance studies classroom
• The Music Instruction Building, built in 2004, includes the tunable Sursa Performance Hall, nationally recognized music technology studios, new performance studios, and large band and choral halls. The Hargreaves Music Building houses music education classrooms and a computer lab.
• Ball State University's Department of Art is an accredited member of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD).  NASAD is the only accrediting agency covering the whole field of art and design recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

Ball State Programs in Brief

Post Graduate Programs

Undergraduate Programs