[10] Georgia Southern University's intercollegiate sports teams, known as the "Eagles", compete in the Sun Belt Conference.

Georgia Southern University began as First District Agricultural & Mechanical School, a land grant college under federal legislation and support.

The university finally integrated its student body in 1965,[13] eleven years after the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

College President Marvin Pittman had been fired in 1941 by Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge for supporting racial integration; he was eventually rehired.

Additional undergraduate and graduate programs were formed, including doctorate degrees in psychology, public health and nursing.

Additionally, the university offers master's degrees in business administration, applied economics, accounting, computer science and sport management.

Since 2011, in an attempt to improve efficiency and lower costs, the USG has consolidated several colleges and universities within its system, merging some and closing others while altering or transforming curriculums.

In January 2018, both Armstrong State and its smaller Liberty Campus, located in Hinesville, formally merged with Georgia Southern.

In October 2019, some students of Georgia Southern University publicly burned books of Cuban-American novelist Jennine Capó Crucet after she gave a talk on campus.

The university declared that "book burning does not align with Georgia Southern's values" but declined to discipline the students.

[18][19][20][21] Campus events were scheduled October 15 and 16 to discuss censorship and free speech in response to the book burning.

In addition to undergraduate and graduate research, the center hosts over 165,500 annual visitors through general admission and off-site outreach programs.

The center is home to "Freedom", Georgia Southern's American bald eagle mascot, as well as 85 other birds, 67 reptiles, 70 amphibians, and eight mammals.

In 2009, the center added a 12-acre (49,000 m2) expansion known as the Wetland Preserve, featuring various species of water fowl in their native habitats.

[27] The Recreation Activity Center[28] (the RAC) is a 220,000-square-foot (20,000 m2) complex that includes areas for weight lifting, cardio, and basketball.

The Georgia Southern Botanical Garden is centered on an early 20th-century farmstead and offers visitors a view of the cultural and natural heritage of the southeastern coastal plain, an area rich in endangered plants.

Georgia Southern University is one of the first to implement a biometric iris recognition system to gain entry to the dining halls in lieu of a swipe card.

The 825-seat theatre features an orchestra pit and shell, a full-sized stage, and technology for lighting, sound, and production.

The Gold Route runs from the University Store and makes two stops on Forest Drive before proceeding to the RAC and the park-ride lot at Paulson Stadium.

The landscaped campus includes subtropical ferns and flowers, southern magnolias, oak trees draped with Spanish moss, and a wide variety of native plants scattered throughout the 268-acre (1,084,557.5 m2) arboretum-style grounds.

[48] It was the Armstrong State University's first green building, built with rapidly renewable and recycled materials and featuring a high-efficiency chilled water cooling system.

[49] The union houses a 300-seat food court, 200-seat movie theatre, ballroom, bookstore, coffeehouse, convenience store, and expansive porches and lounges.

[51] Such a proposal, if approved, could take up to a decade to complete, with the entire project having a low-end cost of forty million dollars to upgrade the campus's current athletic facilities, including infrastructure needs as mandated by division standards.

A variety of programs are offered or supported, including associate’s degrees in arts and applied sciences, and bachelor's degrees in criminal justice, nursing, early childhood education, middle grades education, and liberal studies, with plans to develop consortium programs with Savannah State University in the years post-consolidation.

Herty's clients are currently focused in the transportation, forest and paper related products, building materials, energy and the environment and bio-products industries.

[70] Herty devised the first system for manufacturing newsprint from southern pines, giving the South a tremendously successful cash crop.

The Georgia Southern University Student Government Association (SGA) is a devolved system in which the individual campuses are self-governing.

The Eagles compete in baseball, basketball, rifle, football, golf, tennis, volleyball, soccer, softball, swimming and diving, cross country and track and field.

The university offers, intramural teams for all varsity level sports, equestrian events, fencing, and judo.

[citation needed] Georgia Southern's football team currently competes in NCAA Division I FBS as a member of the Sun Belt Conference.