Blue Mountain College

Blue Mountain College (BMC) is a private liberal arts college, supported by the Mississippi Baptist Convention, located in the northeastern Mississippi town of Blue Mountain not far from Tupelo. Founded as a women's college in 1873, the college's board of trustees voted unanimously for the college to go fully co-educational in 2005.

By 1873, the College was founded as a woman's college by Confederate Brigadier-General Mark Perrin Lowrey, a pastor who was known as "a preacher general" during the war. Blue Mountain Female Institute, as it was called at first, started with 50 students with Mr. Lowrey and his two daughters serving as the faculty. In 1877, the college was officially chartered by the State of Mississippi. Lowrey, his sons W. T. and B. G., and grandson Lawrence Lowrey all served as the first four presidents.

After the sudden death of President Lowrey, a longtime professor at the school, Dr. Wilfred Tyler, became the first non-Lowrey family president in 1960, followed by Dr. E. Harold Fisher in 1965. Dr. Bettye Rogers Coward served as the seventh president from 2001 to 2012. Dr. Janice I. Nicholson, a BMC alumna, served as transitional president prior to Dr. Barbara Childers McMillin's becoming the eighth president on August 1, 2012.

Originally an independently owned institution, the College was turned over to the Mississippi Baptist Convention in 1920 by the Lowrey Family. It remained focused on women's education until 1956 when a program to train men for church-related vocations was started. In October 2005, the College's Board of Trustees voted to make the school fully co-educational.

The 2012 Fall enrollment was 602. Twenty-five percent of the students are male and 75 percent of the students commute to campus each day.

The 2012 Fall enrollment was 602. Twenty-five percent of the students are male and 75 percent of the students commute to campus each day.