The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a public research university in Norman, Oklahoma
The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a public research university in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two became the state of Oklahoma. In Fall 2018 the university had 31,702 students enrolled, most at its main campus in Norman. Employing nearly 3,000 faculty members, the school offers 152 baccalaureate programs, 160 master's programs, 75 doctorate programs, and 20 majors at the first professional level.
The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". According to the National Science Foundation, OU spent $283 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 82nd in the nation. Its Norman campus has two prominent museums, the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, specializing in French Impressionism and Native American artwork, and the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, specializing in the natural history of Oklahoma.
The university has won multiple national championships in multiple sports, including seven football national championships and two NCAA Division I baseball championships. The women's softball team has won the national championship five times: in 2000, 2013, and consecutively in 2016 and 2017, and again most recently in 2021. The gymnastics teams have won a combined 11 national championships since 2002, with the men's team winning eight in the last 15 years, including three consecutive titles from 2015 to 2017.
History
With the support of Governor George Washington Steele, on December 18, 1890 the Oklahoma Territorial legislature established three universities: the state university in Norman, the agricultural and mechanical college in Stillwater (later renamed Oklahoma State University) and a normal school in Edmond (later renamed University of Central Oklahoma). Oklahoma's admission into the union in 1907 led to the renaming of the Norman Territorial University as the University of Oklahoma. Norman residents donated 407 acres (1.6 km2) of land for the university 0.5 miles (0.8 km) south of the Norman railroad depot. The university's first president ordered the planting of trees before the construction of the first campus building because he "could not visualize a treeless university seat." Landscaping remains important to the university.
The university's first president, David Ross Boyd, arrived in Norman in August 1892, and the first students enrolled that year. The university established a School of Pharmacy in 1893 because of the territory's high demand for pharmacists. Three years later, the university awarded its first degree to a pharmaceutical chemist. The "Rock Building" in downtown Norman held the initial classes until the university's first building opened on September 6, 1893.
On January 6, 1903, the university's only building burned down and destroyed many records of the early university. Construction began immediately on a new building, as several other towns hoped to convince the university to move. President Boyd and the faculty were not dismayed by the loss. Mathematics professor Frederick Elder said, "What do you need to keep classes going? Two yards of blackboard and a box of chalk." As a response to the fire, English professor Vernon Louis Parrington created a plan for the development of the campus. Most of the plan was never implemented, but Parrington's suggestion for the campus core formed the basis for the North Oval. The North and South Ovals are now distinctive features of the campus.
The campus has a distinctive architecture, with buildings designed in a unique "Cherokee Gothic" style. The style has many features of the Gothic era but has also mixed the designs of local Native American tribes from Oklahoma. This term was coined by the renowned American architect Frank Lloyd Wright when he visited the campus. The university has built over a dozen buildings in the Cherokee Gothic style.
In 1907, Oklahoma entered statehood, fostering changes in the state's political atmosphere. Up until this point, Oklahoma's Republican tendencies changed with the election of Oklahoma's first governor, the Democratic Charles N. Haskell. Since the university's inception, religion had divided those on campus. Early in the university's existence, many professors were Presbyterian, as was Boyd. Under pressure, Boyd hired several Baptists and Southern Methodists. The Presbyterians and Baptists coexisted but the Southern Methodists conflicted with the administration. Two notable Methodists, Rev. Nathaniel Lee Linebaugh and Professor Ernest Taylor Bynum, were critics of Boyd and activists in Haskell's election campaign. When Haskell took office, he fired many of the university's Republicans, including President Boyd.
The campus expanded over the next several decades. By 1932, the university encompassed 167 acres (0.7 km2). Development of South Oval allowed for the southern expansion of the campus. The university built a new library on the oval's north end in 1936. By convincing the Oklahoma legislature to increase their original pledge of $200,000 for the library to $500,000, President Bizzell ensured an even greater collection of research materials for students and faculty.
Like many universities, OU had a drop in enrollment during World War II. Enrollment in 1945 dropped to 3,769, from its pre–World War II high of 6,935 in 1939.
Many infrastructure changes have occurred at the university. The southern portion of south campus near Constitution Avenue, still known to long-time Norman residents as 'South Base', was originally built as an annex to Naval Air Station Norman. It contained mostly single-story frame buildings used for classrooms and military housing. By the late 1980s, most were severely deteriorated and were demolished in the 1990s to make room for redevelopment. The Jimmie Austin University of Oklahoma Golf Course was built as a U.S. Navy recreational facility.
During World War II, OU was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
The north campus and airfield were built in the early 1940s as Naval Air Station Norman. The station served mainly an advanced flight training mission and could handle all but the largest bombers. A large earthen mound east of Interstate 35 and north of Robinson Street, colloquially known as 'Mount Williams', was a gunnery (the mound has been removed to make way for a commercial development). In the post–World War II demobilization, the university received the installation. Naval aviator's wings displayed at the entrance to the terminal commemorates this airfield's Naval past.
After the World War, the university enjoyed rapid growth and a surge in enrollment. By 1965, enrollment had risen over 450% to 17,268, causing housing shortages. In the mid-1960s, the administration constructed three new 12-story dormitories immediately south of the South Oval. In addition to these three towers, they built an apartment complex for married students, including men returning to college under the GI Bill. These apartments are now Kraettli Apartments.
In 1943 George Lynn Cross took over as president of the university, two years after the U.S. entered World War II. He served until 1968, 25 years later, becoming the longest-serving president in the university's history. Five presidents served in the next 25 years. In 1994, the university hired a president who has stayed longer.
The Civil Rights Movement began a new era as the university began policies against racial discrimination and segregation after legal challenges and court cases outlawed discrimination. The Bizzell Memorial Library has been designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in commemoration of the cases of G. W. McLaurin, a black man denied admission to graduate school in 1948. It was then state law that no school should serve both white and black students, but there were few or no separate graduate programs available for blacks. A court case effectively forced the Board of Regents to vote to admit McLaurin, but he was directed to study in a separated area within the law library and to be allowed to lunch only in a segregated area. The National Association for Advancement of Colored People brought the case to the U.S. Supreme court in McLaurin vs. Oklahoma State Board of Regents. In 1950, the court overturned the university's policy for segregation at the graduate school level. The case was an important precedent for the more famous and sweeping 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education which disallowed "separate but equal" policy at all school levels.
Since David Boren became president in 1994, the University of Oklahoma system has experienced tremendous growth, with an increase in new developments throughout including the purchase of 60 acres (0.2 km2) for OU-Tulsa, the new Gaylord Hall, Price Hall, the ExxonMobil Lawrence G. Rawl Engineering Practice Facility, Devon Energy Hall, the Wagner Student Academic Services Center, the Research and Medical Clinic, the expansions of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, and the National Weather Center.
In March 2015, the University of Oklahoma shut down the Oklahoma Kappa chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity when a video surfaced that showed members singing a racist chant as they rode a bus. Sigma Alpha Epsilon shut down the chapter on March 8, 2015, and University of Oklahoma president David Boren gave members two days to leave the fraternity house. He also expelled two students who he said "played a leadership role" in the incident, creating "a hostile learning environment for others". The expulsion, allegedly without due process, earned the university a spot on the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education's 2016 "10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech".
David Boren, a former U.S. Senator and Oklahoma Governor, served 24 years as the university's president from 1994 to 2018. James L. Gallogly succeeded Boren on July 1, 2018, only to retire ten months later on May 12, 2019. OU College of Law Dean Joseph Harroz was appointed effective immediately May 16, 2019 to a 15-month term as Interim President. On May 9, 2020, Harroz was announced as the 15th President of the University by the Board of Regents.
Museums and libraries
The university has two prominent museums, the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art and the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History.
The Museum of Art was founded in 1936 and originally headed by Oscar Jacobson, the director of the School of Art at the time. The museum opened with over 2,500 items on display and was originally on campus in Jacobson Hall. Mr. and Mrs. Fred Jones of Oklahoma City donated money for a permanent building in 1971 and the building was named in honor of their son who died in a plane crash during his senior year at the University of Oklahoma. Since then, the museum has acquired many renowned works of Native American art and, in 2000, received the Weitzenhoffer Collection of French Impressionism which includes works by Degas, Gauguin, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, and Vuillard. As of 2011 the museum has over 65,000 square feet (6,000 m2) filled with over 8,000 items from a wide array of time periods and movements. In 2005, the museum expanded with the opening of the new Lester Wing designed by contemporary architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen. The architectural style of the new addition deviates from the Collegiate Gothic style of the university, but Jacobsen felt this was necessary given the contemporary works of art the wing would house.
The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, south of the main campus and directly southwest of the law building, specializes in the history of the people and animals that have inhabited Oklahoma over the last 300 million years. Since its founding in 1899, the museum has acquired over 5 million objects. In 2000, a new building was opened to house the ever-expanding museum. The new building offered nearly 200,000 square feet (18,600 m2) of space to display the many exhibits the museum has to offer.
The University of Oklahoma Library system has its headquarters in Bizzell Memorial Library. The largest research library in Oklahoma, it contains over 4.7 million volumes and is ranked 27th out of 113 research libraries in North America in volumes held. It contains more than 1.6 million photographs, subscriptions to over 31,000 periodicals, over 1.5 million maps, government documents dating back to 1893, and over 50 incunabula. It has five locations on campus. The primary library is Bizzell Memorial Library, in the middle of the main campus. Other notable campus libraries include the Architecture Library, the Fine Arts Library, and the Geology Library. The OU library system contains many unique collections such as the History of Science Collections (which houses over 94,000 volumes related to the history of science, including hand-noted works by Galileo Galilei), the Bizzell Bible Collection, and the Western History Collection.
The School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS), the only American Library Association-accredited program in Oklahoma, offers a graduate degree (Master of Library and Information Studies) and an undergraduate degree (Bachelor of Arts in Information Studies). The impact of OU and SLIS on the history of libraries in Oklahoma is shown in the recent list of 100 Oklahoma Library Legends as produced by the Oklahoma Library Association. Two current faculty, one faculty emeriti, and numerous others associated with either the OU libraries or SLIS account for nearly 10% of the list's members.
Residential life
Oklahoma requires, with few exceptions, that all freshmen live in one of the six residence halls. Each residence hall has its own RSA (Resident Student Association) office, as well as its own computer lab and laundry facilities.
The most popular living option among freshmen is the Towers, three 12-story buildings on the south side of campus:
Adams Center is split into four smaller towers (Johnson, McCasland, Muldrow, and Tarman), all united by a common ground floor. It has amenities such as a 24-hour study room, free tutoring courtesy of the University College, and Raising Cane's.
Couch Center is split into east and west wings. It features Couch Express, a quick-stop restaurant, and a lounge that has a 3D printing lab and separate study rooms.
Walker Center, also split into east and west wings, has a spacious kitchen on the first floor. It also houses a convenience store called Xcetera as well as Housing and Food services.
The Towers have suite-style rooms where two neighboring rooms share a bathroom. They are all around each other with the Couch Restaurants (often referred to by students as the Caf), completing the residence community. Couch Restaurants is an all-you-can-eat buffet composed of several different themed restaurants that serves a wide variety of food each day.
David L. Boren Hall is the fourth major residence hall on campus. Although it is commonly believed that this residence hall caters only to honors students, a large proportion of non-honors students live there. It has community-style bathrooms that are regularly cleaned by staff and shared with approximately 10-16 people.
Headington Hall, completed in the Summer of 2013, is the fifth major residence hall on campus and is on the corner of Lindsey and Jenkins street. This facility is named after Tim Headington, OU graduate and former OU tennis player. The housing facility contains 400 students (49 percent student athletes and 51 percent students who do not participate in intercollegiate sports).
The residential colleges, which are Dunham and Headington Colleges, are the sixth and newest major residence hall. having opened in Fall 2017. The majority of students who live in the residential colleges are upperclassmen, but some freshmen are allowed to live here if at least one of the roommates is in the Honors College. Dunham and Headington are connected by a dining hall that is open to all students.
The university owns several apartment complexes around the campus. Some of these apartments were old and dilapidated, and the university has taken the strides to resolve this issue. Two brand new complexes owned by the university opened in recent years; OU Traditions Square East in 2005 and OU Traditions Square West in 2006.
Due to a low cost of living in Oklahoma, many students find it financially viable to live off campus in either apartments or houses. In recent years, many new apartment or condominium complexes (not including the OU-owned properties) have been built in addition to a booming housing market that is resulting in Norman spreading further east. Many students also commute from nearby Moore and Oklahoma City, both north of Norman.
Charge
Virtual tour
tour@ou.edu
- Closed on Sundays
- Guided tours are offered