University Information

Founded in 1866, Towson State University began as the Maryland State Normal School. The institution changed its name to Towson State Teacher's College in 1935 and with the creation of an arts and sciences program, became Towson State College in 1946. Towson State became a university in 1976 and changed its name to Towson University in 1997. Towson University is a comprehensive metropolitan university located in suburban Baltimore. It is the largest university in the Baltimore metropolitan area with 16,647 students enrolled during the Fall 1999 semester. 2,666 of these students were graduate students. Towson University offers 60 undergraduate majors and 33 master's level programs. No graduate degrees are offered in International Studies. Towson University serves the higher education needs of students from the Baltimore region, central Maryland, and many adjoining mid-Atlantic states. 18% of the students are out-of-state students and 3% are international students. The programs and services are designed to serve students in the top third of the high school graduates in Maryland.

Towson University is located on a rolling, wooded, 320 acre campus in Towson, Maryland, the county seat of Baltimore County (pop. 692,000). The campus is approximately 2 miles north of the Baltimore City line and about 50 miles north of Washington, DC. Its location places Towson University close to centers of local, state, and national government agencies and near major international business centers.

Towson State University is a constituent institution of the University System of Maryland. Other campuses in the system include the University of Maryland at College Park, University of Baltimore, and nine other universities and two research centers. (see http://www.usmh.usmd.edu/) This offers many opportunities for coordinating programs and resources with the other universities in the system. The International Studies Program does make some use of this collaboration, especially in the area of international education.

The Department of Political Science and the International Studies Program are located within the College of Liberal Arts at Towson University. Other departments in the College of Liberal Arts include the Departments of Anthropology, Criminology, & Sociology; English, Geography & Environmental Planning; History, Foreign Languages; Philosopy; and Psychology. Other interdisciplinary programs administered by the college include Women's Studies, Gerontology, Metropolitan Studies, and Law & American Civilization.