WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT OU?

Overview

Created by the Oklahoma Territorial Legislature in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a doctoral degree-granting research university serving the educational, cultural, economic and health-care needs of the state, region and nation. The Norman campus serves as home to all of the university’s academic programs except health-related fields. Both the Norman and Health Sciences Center colleges offer programs at the Schusterman Center, the site of OU-Tulsa. The OU Health Sciences Center, which is located in Oklahoma City, is one of only four comprehensive academic health centers in the nation with seven professional colleges. OU enrolls more than 30,000 students, has more than 2,300 full-time faculty members, and has 20 colleges offering 158 majors at the baccalaureate level, 166 majors at the master’s level, 81 majors at the doctoral level, 26 majors at the first professional level, and 24 graduate certificates. The university’s annual operating budget is $1.46 billion. The University of Oklahoma is an equal opportunity institution.

Facts

OU ranks number one in the nation among all public universities in the number of National Merit Scholars enrolled per capita.

The Princeton Review ranks OU among the best in the nation in terms of academic excellence and cost for students.

OU’s 2008-2009 freshman class is the highest ranked freshman class at a public university in state history.

OU has over a $1.5 billion impact on the state’s economy each year.

OU ranks first in the Big 12 and at the top in the nation in international reciprocal exchange agreements with universities around the world. The University has 174 student exchange agreements with universities in 66 countries. More than 1,500 students from almost 100 countries are enrolled on OU’s Norman campus.

OU is among the top universities in the nation in Goldwater Scholarship for math and science winners, with 12 in the past four years.

OU is one of the few public universities in the nation to cap the class size of first-year English composition courses at no more than 19 students as well as all Honors Courses.

OU ranks in the top 10 in the nation among most wired colleges, one of only a few universities to achieve the ranking two years in a row.

OU’s business entrepreneurship program ranks among the 10 best in the United States.  

OU’s Campaign for Scholarships has allowed the university to double new scholarships for students in just four years.

The Campaign for Scholarships is continuing, and in March 2008 surpassed its goal of raising $100 million for endowed scholarships. To date, almost $115 million in scholarship endowments have been donated or pledged.

OU is one of only 25 public universities in America with an endowment above $1.1 billion and has increased from 100 to 539, the number of endowed faculty positions in the past 13 years, demonstrating a strong commitment to excellence.

OU continues to break private fund-raising records, with more than $1.4 billion in gifts and pledges since 1994, which has provided funding for dramatic capital improvements, the growth in faculty endowment and student scholarships.

OU has the academically highest ranked student body at a public university in Oklahoma.

Since 1994, research and sponsored programs expenditures at OU have more than doubled, and OU continues to set new records for funding for externally sponsored research. OU ended FY 2008 with total expenditures of more than $275 million.

The OU Health Sciences Center in FY 2008 continued its impressive rate of sponsored research, training, and public service growth by achieving more than $141 million in federal, state, corporate and nonprofit or foundation grants and contracts. Funding from the National Institutes of Health – considered to be the gold standard for research – was $51 million.

Since 1995, almost $1.5 billion in construction projects have been completed, are under way or are forthcoming on OU’s three campuses, the largest of which is the $67 million National Weather Center.

OU is home to one of the two largest natural history museums in the world associated with a university. The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History has more than 7 million artifacts and contains 195,000 square feet on 40 acres of land. The museum exhibits include the largest Apatosaurus on display in the world and the oldest work of art ever found in North America — a lightning bolt painted on an extinct bison skull.

The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art’s collections total more than 10,000 works of art, including OU’s Weitzenhoffer Collection of French Impressionism, the single most important gift of art ever given to a U.S. public university; the Adkins Collection, among the most important private collections in the nation of works by the Taos artists as well as Native American works of art; the former U.S. State Department Embassy art collection; and the Dorothy Dunn collection of Native American art.

OU’s Western History Collection is one of the largest collections in the world of documents and photographs, including a rare multivolume portfolio on the Indians of the United States and Alaska by Edward S. Curtis.

A major beautification campaign has transformed the appearance of the OU Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City. The project replaced a divided highway through campus with seven tiered gardens featuring traditional OU arches at each end. The pedestrian walkway’s landmarks include an OU Seed Sower sculpture at the west end, a clock tower at the east end, and a 70-foot granite fountain in the center.

OU has strong programs in international and area studies, with an International Programs Center led by Zach P. Messitte, a foreign policy expert with a doctorate in international politics whose experience includes working for the United Nations and CNN.

For the outdoor improvements to the Norman campus — gardens, fountains, sculptures, benches — the University of Oklahoma has won first place in the education category for Beautification and Landscaping in the statewide environmental competition. Gifts of over $3 million have permanently endowed OU’s gardens.

With nearly 400 doctors, OU Physicians is the state’s largest physician group. Our practice encompasses almost every adult and child specialty. Many OU Physicians have expertise in the management of complex conditions that is unavailable anywhere else in the state, region or sometimes even the nation. Some have pioneered surgical procedures or innovations in patient care that are world firsts.

About 125 of OU Physicians’ doctors are OU Children’s Physicians. These board-certified pediatric specialists committed their training and, now, their practices to the care of children. Many children with birth defects, critical injuries or serious diseases who can’t be helped elsewhere come to OU Children’s Physicians. Oklahoma doctors and parents rely on OU Children’s Physicians depth of experience, nationally renowned expertise and sensitivity to children’s emotional needs.

The University of Oklahoma maintains one of the three most important collections of early manuscripts in the history of science in the United States. It includes Galileo’s own copy of his work, which first used the telescope to support the Copernican theory, with corrections in his own handwriting.

The University of Oklahoma Libraries has added its 5 millionth volume, continuing a commanding lead as the state’s largest research library and claiming one of the top two spots in size among Big 12 libraries.

OU’s Julian P. Kanter Political Commercial Archive houses the world’s largest collection of political commercials. With more than 95,000 commercials, the archive includes political advertisements dating back to 1936 for radio and 1950 for television.

The highly acclaimed journal of international literature, World Literature Today, is published at the University of Oklahoma.

OU is home to the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, considered to be second in prestige only to the Nobel Prize and often referred to as the “American Nobel.” Twenty–six Neustadt laureates, candidates and jurors have won the Nobel Prize in the past 38 years.

The OU Cousins program matches U.S. and international students to share informal and social experiences. Students may volunteer to live on international floors with half of the residents from the United States and half from other countries.

Dance Magazine places the OU School of Dance in the top three of all dance programs in the country.

OU’s 271-acre Research Campus is anchored by the Stephenson Research and Technology Center, where cutting-edge research into life science fields ranging from robotics to genomic studies is taking place, and the National Weather Center, which houses OU’s academic and research programs in meteorology and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Norman-based weather, research and operations programs.

OU's largest supercomputer debuted as the fastest in the Big 12 and in Oklahoma history and among the top four among U.S. universities (excluding the big three National Science Foundation supercomputing centers).

Since its creation in 1998, OU’s Office of Technology Development has created 36 companies that have generated more than $84 million in capital, more than $10 million in cash and more than $30 million in current estimated equity value for the university. In addition, the companies have created in excess of 150 jobs, which pay on average nearly twice the median household income in Oklahoma.

OU’s debate team made history in winning the tournaments at Harvard, Northwestern and Wake Forest, in addition to the National Intercollegiate Debate Championship.

OU’s College of Education continues to be ranked in the top 10 percent of all graduate colleges of education by U.S. News & World Report.

The OU College of Law had a bar passage rate of 97 percent in 2008, which placed OU among the very best in the nation.

A major building project has doubled the size of the Law Center, refurbishing classrooms and creating a new library, a cutting-edge courtroom, and expanded student lounge and office facilities.

OU President David Boren, a former U.S. senator and governor of Oklahoma, teaches an introductory course in political science each semester, and keeps in close touch with students.

OU has one of the oldest comprehensive colleges of fine arts in the Great Plains states, with highly regarded schools of Music, Drama, Art and Dance, and programs in opera, musical theater, and sculpture.

OU has won awards for new initiatives to create a sense of family and community on campus. OU is one of the very few public universities to twice receive the Templeton Foundation Award as a “Character Building College” for stressing the value of community.

The University of Oklahoma has consistently been designated as one of America’s 100 Best College Buys by Institutional Research & Evaluation, an independent higher education research and consulting organization.

OU has established a faculty-in-residence program with faculty members and their families living in apartments in the student residence halls.

Price College is ranked as one of the nation’s top business schools at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Price College ranks in U.S. News & World Report’s top 50 in undergraduate business schools and in the top 15 in undergraduate business specialties for international business.

OU is one of a small number of Division I-A universities in the nation to receive the CHAMPS award for preparing student-athletes for life. The award is based on academic excellence, athletic excellence, personal development, community service and career development.

The Oklahoma Daily, OU's student newspaper, and Sooner yearbook are consistently ranked among the best in the country.

More Native American languages are taught for college credit at OU than at any other university in the world.

The Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at OU is home to the Native American Journalists Association, the oldest and largest international organization for indigenous journalists.

OU has been recognized as an outstanding university for Hispanic students by Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education magazine.

The Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center — the only congressional studies center located at a comprehensive research university — houses the papers of more than 50 current and former members of Congress, making it the nation’s leading research center for congressional studies.

OU’s journalism and mass communication school was elevated to college status, thanks to a $22 million gift from Edward L. Gaylord on behalf of the Gaylord family of Oklahoma City.

The OU Health Sciences Center is one of only four comprehensive academic health centers in the nation with seven professional schools. It includes the colleges of Allied Health, Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health and Graduate Studies.

The Donald W. Reynolds Department of Geriatric Medicine, established at the OU Health Sciences Center with an $11.2 million grant from the Reynolds Foundation, is one of the premier programs in education, research and service to elders.

OU is the only public university in Oklahoma to be included in the Fiske Guide to Colleges, which lists the top 10 percent of all U.S. universities.

The Department of Communication’s doctoral program is ranked among the top 20 programs in the country.

The University frequently hosts national and international scholars and policymakers during major national conferences and symposia. Over the past few years, guests have included former President George Bush; former U. S. Secretary of State Colin Powell; New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; former Vice President Al Gore; presidential historian Michael Beschloss; U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer; former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu; former President of Mexico Vicente Fox; and award-winning broadcast journalist Katie Couric.

OU’s A. Max Weitzenhoffer Musical Theatre Program is one of the very few university programs in the nation that provides students an opportunity to be in the same cast with professional Broadway actors in brand-new productions.

The OU Press is the oldest in the Great Plains states and ranks among the 20 most important university presses in the United States. It is a leading publisher of books about Native Americans and the American West.

The OU College of Law publishes the only law journal in the United States devoted exclusively to Native American legal issues.

OU finished among the top 25 eight times in the last nine years in the U.S. Sports Academic Director’s Cup Standings, which measures the overall strength of each Division I-A athletics program.  

A $50 million gift from the George Kaiser Family Foundation – the largest single gift the university has ever received – will help create the OU School of Community Medicine. The school’s mission will be to improve the overall health status of underserved Oklahoma areas, both rural and urban, through community-based medicine.

In 1999, a $10 million grant to OU from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation of Tulsa supported the purchase of the BP Amoco property in Tulsa, enabling OU to establish a new community-based campus for the University’s Tulsa programs.

In 2003, the Schusterman Family underlined their support of OU in Tulsa with the announcement of a $10 million challenge grant for OU-Tulsa that will be used to help complete the first phase of the campus master plan for the Schusterman Center and will allow OU-Tulsa to expand degree programming in key areas.

First- and second-year students receive outstanding instruction and mentoring under a program that brings over 50 retired full professors back to campus to teach their introductory courses.

OU’s Center for Continuing Education is one of the largest in the nation and serves 200,000 learners around the world.

The OU Sooners have won 26 national championships in men’s and women’s sports with the latest coming in 2008 when the men’s gymnastics team won its fifth title in seven years.

More than 80 Sooner student-athletes earned Academic All-Conference honors, and a total of 10 teams recorded team GPAs of 3.0 or better.

More than 200 Sooner student-athletes were named to the Big 12 Commissioner’s Honor Roll. A total of 69 OU student-athletes recorded a 4.0 GPA.

The Athletics Department became just the second Division 1 winner of the Prism Award, recognizing best practices in sports management.