JACKSON, Miss.—As Mississippi College celebrates its 200th anniversary this year, it also dons a new name—Mississippi Christian University.
MCU’s Student Government Association President Marco Pineda, a senior communication and journalism major, expressed excitement for the future to be one of the first graduates to have “Mississippi Christian University” printed on a diploma.
“The name ‘Mississippi College’ is revered and will continue to be cherished and remembered across the state,” he said in a June 1 press release. “But I have often had to explain to those outside the campus community that MC is both a full-scale university and a Christian institution. I strongly believe the name ‘Mississippi Christian University’ provides immediate clarity to our identity as an institution.”
“This renaming is ultimately about identity and a recommitment to that identity. Many students share the sentiment that it is a needed step forward that will help drive MC into the future. They are excited to be a part of this moment that will lead to an even stronger sense of commitment and affection for what ‘Mississippi Christian’ stands for,” Pineda continued.
The school’s new name is updated on the marquee sign at Highway 80 and Springridge Road and a banner at the gates to campus says, “Welcome to Mississippi Christian University.” More new signage updating the university’s name will come over time, the press release said.
The university’s law school will also bear the new name of the Mississippi Christian University School of Law.
While its name change was announced more than a year ago, June 1 was the day the school officially became Mississippi Christian University after years of leadership discussing the decision.
A press release issued on Nov. 18, 2024, said MC will boost the Department of Christian Studies to be an interdisciplinary unit, consolidate the School of Christian Studies and the Arts with the School of Humanities and Social Studies, and rename the School of Education to the School of Education and Human Science. MC also dissolved its intercollegiate football program in 2024 as the institution geared up for its 200th anniversary.
The Mississippi Senate honored the state’s oldest institution of higher learning by adopting Senate Resolution 10 on the Senate floor on Jan. 22. Mississippi Sen. Hillman Frazier, D-Jackson, introduced it surrounded by Thompson, MCU employees, Senate graduates and MC’s mascot, a Choctaw eagle named Tushka. The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians collaborated with MC to create the mascot in 2023, Thompson explained when he stepped up to the podium to speak.
“That (name) articulates clearly who we are,” Mississippi Christian University President Blake Thompson said on the Mississippi Senate floor. “We are, by any stretch of the definition, a university, a comprehensive university both in Clinton and in downtown Jackson with our law school. We are Christian by heritage and perhaps that is more important than it’s ever been in the history of our institution.”
“We have this deep and abiding commitment to the state of Mississippi,” Thompson continued. “I tell prospective students all the time, there’s no better place in this country to do whatever it is you’re called to do. If you want to teach, if you want to practice health care, if you want to be inspired to write the next great novel, there’s no better place than the state of Mississippi to do that.”
CAPTION: Mississippi College President Blake Thompson speaks at the podium on the Mississippi Senate floor surrounded by senators, MC employees and MC mascot, a Choctaw eagle named Tushka, at the Mississippi Capitol building in downtown Jackson, Mississippi, on Jan. 22, 2026. MFP Photo by Heather Harrison
ALT TEXT: A man speaks at a podium. An eagle mascot looks on in the crowd behind him
The Mississippi Legislature chartered Mississippi College on Jan. 24, 1826. While the Methodist and Presbyterian churches had early involvement with the school, Thompson said the Mississippi Baptist Convention gained governance over the college about 175 years ago. It became the second Baptist college in the country.
Mississippi College became the first coeducational institution of higher learning in the U.S. to grant degrees to women in 1831, when it awarded degrees to Alice Robinson and Catherine Hall. The college discontinued classes for women after the Mississippi Baptist Convention took control of it in 1850, however, and Mississippi College would remain male-only until 1942.
The institution’s law school produces more graduates who become part of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, the military’s legal branch, than any other law school nationwide.
Four Mississippi governors, 26 current representatives and senators, along with state Treasurer David McRae and state Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson, have degrees from Mississippi College.
