Fisk University

Fisk University, private, coeducational institution in Nashville, Tennessee. The school was established, largely through the efforts of the American prohibitionist Clinton Bowen Fisk, by the American Missionary Association of New York and the Western Freedman’s Aid Commission of Cincinnati as the Fisk School for Freedmen; it was chartered as Fisk University in 1867. Freshmen and sophomores are enrolled in the Basic College, and juniors and seniors in the College of Higher Studies, which also offers a graduate program. The university confers bachelor’s and master’s degrees in a wide range of fields. Courses of study include the arts and sciences, business administration and management, finance, computer science, health services administration, public administration, religious studies, and performing arts. A joint degree in engineering is offered in cooperation with other universities, including Vanderbilt University, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, and the University of Alabama in Huntsville. A joint degree in management and public administration is offered in cooperation with Vanderbilt University.

The Cravath Memorial Library houses a collection of murals by 20th-century African American painter Aaron Douglas, and the university library houses a special collection on black culture. The university also houses the Stieglitz Art Collection, donated to the university by painter Georgia O’Keeffe, and a collection of the works of composer W. C. Handy. Other research facilities at the university include the Fisk Race Relations Institute, the Fisk National Aeronautics and Space Administration Center for Photonic Materials and Devices, and the Howard Hughes Science Learning Center. Notable alumni include historian W. E. B. Du Bois, poet Nikki Giovanni, United States Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary, and David Levering Lewis, who won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1994.