Welcome to Sam Houston

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Welcome

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Welcome to Sam Houston State University, a public university founded in 1879 and located seventy miles north of the city of Houston, Texas. The school is often referred to as SHSU or just Sam, and boasts an enrollment of more than 18,000 students. It is known for strong programs in Education, Business, Dance, Agriculture, and Criminal Justice, as well as for an impressive 20:1 student-faculty ratio. There are many green spaces on the 272-acre campus and students enjoy participating in an abundance of outdoor activities. Let's take a look at the campus!

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The Bobby K. Marks Administration Building is home to administrative offices for the Vice President of Academic Affairs, the University President, Accounting, and Public Relations. It is also where you can find the Office of Graduate Studies, should you want to pursue additional degrees at SHSU. Sam Houston State University is considered a Doctoral Research University by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, a designation only given to the country's top 7% of academic institutions.

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The Lee Drain Building, or LDB, is the flagship building for the College of Sciences, housing classrooms, laboratories, and offices. Its more than 420,000 square feet of space includes the S.R. Warner Herbarium with more than 20,000 flora specimens and the Texas Bird Sound Library that features 2,000 different recordings. The Building is also home to the Vertebrate Museum, the Reeves Center for Mathematics Education, and a Geographic Information System (GIS) lab.

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Named after the famous SHSU Mass Communications alumnus, the Dan Rather Communications Building is home to two sizeable television studios. Fully equipped with sophisticated lighting and cameras, the Building also houses classrooms, offices, a conference room, and the headquarters for the student-run newspaper and radio station.

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Home to an array of services, the Lowman Student Center is conveniently located in the middle of campus. Here you can find multiple dining areas, a theater, ballroom, an art gallery, the bookstore, and a plethora of meeting rooms. There are more than 200 student organizations at SHSU and many of them are headquartered here at Lowman. In addition to all of these amenities, students also flock here to study, use the wireless internet, and unwind in the game room.

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Completed in 2010, the Performing Arts Center is a world-class facility devoted to artistic talent and creativity. Multiple performance spaces include a concert hall seating 800, a recital hall seating 175, and a dance theatre seating 150. In addition to these spaces, there are dance studios, practice rooms, a scene shop used for set construction, and a costume shop.

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Connected to the Performing Arts Center is this facility, the University Theatre, which actually houses two theaters: the Erica Starr Theatre and the smaller Showcase Theatre. These spaces are used by the Departments of Theatre & Musical Theatre, for performances like Thorton Wilder's Our Town, Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance, and Beckett's Waiting for Godot.

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he four-story Gresham Library is one of three libraries on campus, and contains more than 1.3 million volumes and periodicals in both print and digital forms. The fourth floor is home to the beautifully walnut-paneled Thomason Room, which is a repository for the university's rare books and Criminal Justice Special Collection. The Library expands its hours during exam weeks and it recently opened a Starbucks inside for those students in need of a caffeine fix.

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The Smith-Hutson Business Building is home to the College of Business Administration, which first began to award degrees in 1935. More than 3,000 students enroll in the College every year, pursuing undergraduate degrees in areas of study like international business, economics, and marketing, as well as graduate programs leading to an MBA or Master of Science in Accounting.

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Here we are at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Building, which opened recently in 2009 and won the "Award of Excellence" the same year in Texas Construction magazine. This $30 million, 150,000 square-foot facility houses many departments including English, History, Political Science, and Sociology. It is also home to the Student Advising & Mentoring Center, or SAM Center, an important resource for students who want tutoring, general academic advising, and study skills and time management strategies.

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The Bernard G. Johnson Coliseum is a large facility used by various athletic teams like men's and women's basketball as well as volleyball. The teams go by the name of the Bearkats and wear orange and white uniforms when competing. Because of its substantial size, with seating for upwards of 5,500 people, the Coliseum is also used for annual commencement ceremonies and other campus-wide events.

Welcome to Sam Houston

Welcome

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Bobby K. Marks Administration

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Lee Drain Building

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Dan Rather Communications Building

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Lowman Student Center

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Performing Arts Center

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University Theatre

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Newton Gresham Library

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Smith-Hutson Business Building

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College of Humanities and Social Sciences

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Bernard G. Johnson Coliseum

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