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Montana State University

public land-grant research university in Bozeman, Montana, United States

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ1861687 ↗
Source-derived summary

Montana State University (MSU) is a public land-grant research university in Bozeman, Montana, United States. It enrolls more students than any other college or university in the state. MSU offers baccalaureate degrees in 60 fields, master's degrees in 68, and doctoral degrees in 35 through its nine colleges. More than 16,700 students attended MSU in fall 2019, taught by 796 full-time and 547 part-time faculty. In the Carnegie Classification, MSU is placed among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity", one of only two universities in Montana to receive this distinction with a "very high undergraduate" enrollment profile. The university had research expenditures of $257.9 million in 2024.

Located on the south side of Bozeman, the university's 1,170-acre (470 ha) campus is the largest in the state. The university's main campus in Bozeman is home to KUSM television, KGLT radio, and the Museum of the Rockies. MSU provides outreach services to citizens and communities statewide through its agricultural experiment station and 60 county and reservation extension offices. The elevation of the campus is 4,900 feet (1,500 m) above mean sea level.

Editorial summary

“Montana State University” enters the record as public land-grant research university in Bozeman, Montana, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Montana, State and University can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2019, 2024—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1893. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Montana, State and University.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Montana State University” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Montana, State and University provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1861687. VIAF identifies the subject as 129810534. The Library of Congress control number is no95051091. Authority coordinates are 45.668, -111.050. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2019 and 2024.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Montana State University”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Montana State University primary sources, Montana State University archive and Montana research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Montana State University”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Montana State University” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.