University of Oklahoma

The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a public research university in Norman, Oklahoma, United States. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two territories became the state of Oklahoma. In Fall 2024, the university had 34,523 students enrolled, most at its main campus in Norman. Employing nearly 4,000 faculty members, the university offers 174 baccalaureate programs, 199 master's programs, 101 doctoral programs, and 88 certificate programs.

The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity", with over $416 million in research expenditures across its three campuses in 2022. 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 Oklahoma Sooners athletic teams compete in NCAA Division I FBS as a member of the Southeastern Conference. The Sooners have won 47 team national championships. Beginning with the 1932 Summer Olympics, Sooners have made 90 appearances at the Olympics and collected 23 medals in total.

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. Although much of the plan was never implemented, 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 the unique "Cherokee Gothic" style, a term coined by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright when he visited the campus. These buildings are similar to Collegiate Gothic but are built from lighter stones. They combine conventional Gothic Revival architecture with Native American elements. 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, Nathaniel Lee Linebaugh and 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.

Campuses

Norman campus

As of Fall of 2024, the Norman campus had 23,351 undergraduate students and 7,522 postgraduate students.

Following the Sooners' 2000 football national-championship season the university experienced an increase in college applicants and admissions. The falls of 1999 and 2000 both saw a 1.3% increase in the number of students over the respective previous years, while fall 2001 saw an increase of 4.8% over 2000.

The largest school, the College of Arts and Sciences, enrolls 35.2% of the OU-Norman students. The College of Arts & Sciences offers several programs, which include internships and a joint archaeological program (with Saint Anselm College of Goffstown, New Hampshire) in Orvieto, Italy. The next largest school, the Price College of Business enrolls 13%. Other large colleges on the Norman campus include the College of Engineering with 10.6% and the College of Education, Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication, and College of Liberal Studies, each with approximately 6% of the student body.

Smaller schools include the Colleges of Architecture and Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences, Earth and Energy, the Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts, and the College of Law.

The Norman campus has three sections: north campus, main campus, and south campus. All three are connected by a bus service funded by student fees which allows students to park at Lloyd Noble Center and provides 5- to 10-minute service to the main and south campuses. Other regular Norman bus routes provide service to north campus as well as the main campus. The main and south campus are contiguous while the north campus is about two miles north of the main campus.

The Norman campus is the focus of a number of ghost stories, some negative, some positive.

Main campus

The main campus is bordered by Boyd Street on the north, Timberdell Road on the south, Chautauqua Avenue on the west, and Jenkins Avenue on the east. The Norman campus is centered on two large "ovals." The Parrington Oval (or North Oval as it is commonly called) is anchored on the south by Evans Hall, the main administrative building. This building highlights the "Cherokee Gothic" style of architecture locally derived from the Collegiate Gothic style, the style that dominates and defines the older buildings on the OU campus. The North Oval is bordered on the east by the Oklahoma Memorial Union.

On the east side of the northernmost part of campus sits Sarkeys Energy Center while to the west is the Fred Jones, Jr. School of Art and Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, home to the Weitzenhoffer Collection of Impressionist art and the Catlett Music Center. Just south of Catlett is Goddard Health Center, an on-campus clinic that provides medical care and counseling and testing services to students, faculty, staff, and their dependents. Goddard comprises the OU Health Services laboratory, Counseling Services, Health Promotion, and a pharmacy. The Van Vleet Oval (or South Oval) is anchored on the north by the Bizzell Memorial Library and flanked by academic buildings. Elm Avenue bounds the western edge of the academic portion of OU, with a few exceptions. Lying between Elm Avenue and Chautauqua Avenue are mostly fraternity and sorority houses.

Academics

The University of Oklahoma is a large residential, research university. The university consists of fifteen colleges, including 174 majors. Native American studies includes language classes in Cherokee, Choctaw, Mvskoke, and Kiowa as part of the university's Native American language program; currently Creek, Choctaw, and Cherokee I, II, and III are offered in both fall and spring semesters. The university has a high four-year full-time undergraduate enrollment including a high transfer-in population. While the two main campuses are in Norman and Oklahoma City, affiliated programs in Tulsa expand access for students in eastern Oklahoma. Some of the programs in Tulsa include: architecture, arts and sciences, education, engineering, medicine, nursing, public health, allied health and liberal arts studies.

In addition to 174 majors to choose from, the University of Oklahoma also has an Honors College featuring its own dedicated faculty, dormitories, and writing center. Every student from any major can apply to the college; if accepted, the student is eligible to take honors classes and graduate cum laude. In order to graduate with honors, the student must complete 18 credit hours of honors classes and submit an honors thesis. Transfer students are able to transfer up to nine credit hours of honor classes from a different university.

In addition to being a member of the Southeastern Universities Research Association and Universities Research Association, undergraduate admission to the University of Oklahoma is categorized by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education as "more selective". For the 2010–2011 school year, 9,996 applied and 8,498 were admitted (85%). The university's freshman retention rate in 2009 was 82% and the six-year graduation rate was 62.0%.

In May 2019, U.S. News & World Report said that the University of Oklahoma gave "inflated" data on its alumni giving rates for two decades and in response, would show the university as unranked in its 2019 edition of "Best Colleges" rankings.

For the 2024–2025 academic year, the middle 50% of enrolled students scored between 1090 and 1380 on the SAT (with a 50th percentile of 1220), between 550 and 690 on the SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing section (50th percentile: 610), and between 540 and 690 on the SAT Math section (50th percentile: 610).

Drama School

The School of Drama was founded in 1931 and expanded significantly by 1946, when over 150 students took courses there. By 1948, dramatic performances were given in the North Campus auditorium, a Studio Theater and a Little Theater on the North Campus. Main productions were produced in Holmberg Hall on the Main Campus. 150 students were enrolled in theater and radio education. Rupel J. Jones was chairman of the School of Drama. A theater on campus was originally named after Jones, but in 2015 was named after Elsie C. Brackett. The drama library was based on the lifetime collection of play clippings by Winnie Rice Bixler, the wife of a Norman newspaper editor.

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. 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. It is the largest research library in Oklahoma and contains over 4.7 million volumes. 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. 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.

Residential life

Oklahoma requires, with few exceptions, that all freshmen live in one of the six residence halls: the Towers, which are two (formerly three) 12-story buildings on the south side of campus.

Due to a low cost of living in Oklahoma, many students find it financially viable to live off campus in apartments or houses. In recent years, many new apartment or condominium complexes (not including the OU-owned properties) have been built.

Student organizations, activities, and media

The Pride of Oklahoma, the university's marching band, celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2004 and consists of 311 student musicians and dancers from 19 states. Students wishing to enter the band go through a rigorous audition process. The band plays at every home football game. A smaller pep band, which usually consists of 100 members, travels to every away football game. The full band makes trips to the AT&T Red River Rivalry game against The University of Texas, Big 12 Championship Game, bowl games and other games of importance. Members of the band are also present for many student events. It was awarded the Sudler Trophy in 1987. In 2007, The Pride of Oklahoma marched in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, making it one of only a few bands to have ever marched in both the Tournament of Roses and Macy's Parades.

The local chapter of the Army ROTC provides officer training and education for nearly 100 OU students. Officially founded in 1919, it is one of the oldest such programs in the nation. OU Army ROTC cadets are active in numerous campus and state activities. They provide military color guards for Sooner football games and various on-campus ceremonies and events. After completing the Army ROTC program, OU students receive a commission in either the Regular Army, Army Reserve, or National Guard.

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