Sean James

Missouri Southern State University is a public, state university located in Joplin, Missouri. Missouri Southern State University was formerly Missouri Southern State College and is also known as Missouri Southern, MSSU, or MoSo for short. Established in 1937 as Joplin Junior College, Missouri... Southern became a four-year college in 1968. In 2003, the Missouri General Assembly authorized the renaming of the college to Missouri Southern State University - Joplin, and in 2005 the university dropped Joplin from its name. MSSU's mission is to provide an international education, defined by the state of Missouri as, "develop[ing] such academic support programs and public service activities it deems necessary and appropriate to establish international or global education as a distinctive theme of its mission." The international mission was strongly promoted by the school's longtime president, Dr. Julio León, who served from 1982 to August 17, 2007. The international mission is supported by the selection of a country to serve as a fall semester theme .
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Meridian is the county seat of Lauderdale County, Mississippi. It is the sixth largest city in the state and the principal city of the Meridian, Mississippi Micropolitan Statistical Area. Along major highways, the city is 93 mi east of Jackson, Mississippi; 154 mi west of Birmingham,... Alabama; 202 mi northeast of New Orleans, Louisiana; and 231 mi southeast of Memphis, Tennessee. Established in 1860 at the intersection of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and Southern Railway of Mississippi, Meridian relied heavily on the rails and goods transported on them. Union Station is now also home to several other modes of transportation, including the Meridian Transit System, Greyhound Buses, and Trailways, averaging 242,360 passengers per year. During the American Civil War, much of the city was burned to the ground by General William Tecumseh Sherman in the Battle of Meridian. Rebuilt after the war, the city entered a "Golden Age", becoming the largest city in Mississippi between 1890 and 1930 and a leading center for manufacturing in the South, with 44 trains coming in and out daily.
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