Mars Hill University

Mars Hill University is a private institution in North Carolina. It has a grounding in liberal arts and the Christian faith.

Its location, the small town of Mars Hill, is in the east of the state, around 15 miles from the border with Tennessee and 135 miles north west of Charlotte. Its large campus, which combines old buildings with new, enjoys views of the Appalachian Mountains, including 6,685-foot Mount Mitchell, the highest US summit east of the Mississippi River.

Established as the French Broad Baptist Institute in 1856, it was renamed Mars Hill College three years later, which it remained until a name change in 2013. The college suffered enormously during the American Civil War, closing between 1863 and 1865, but started to grow rapidly at the beginning of the 20th century.

As well as a vast range of undergraduate programmes, Mars Hill offers a postgraduate elementary education course, and a number of evening classes for adults in subjects such as business management, criminal justice and social work. More than two-thirds of classes at Mars Hill comprise fewer than 20 students, and a similar proportion of students live on campus.

Alumni include Eugene L. Roberts Jr., a former editor of the New York Times who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for a book about the civil rights movement, and Archie Campbell, a comedian and country musician best-known for his work on variety television show Hee Haw.