Ohio State University
The Ohio State University is a coeducational public research university in the U.S. state of Ohio. The university was founded in 1870 as a land-grand university and is currently the largest university in the United States.
Ohio State University - Overview
The Ohio State University is a coeducational public research university in the U.S. state of Ohio. The university was founded in 1870 as a land-grand university and is currently the largest university in the United States. Ohio State is currently ranked as among the top 60 universities in the U.S. Although Ohio operates a decentralized system of higher education, Ohio State is widely considered both within Ohio and outside of its borders to be the flagship institution of the state’s public system of higher education.
Ohio State’s main campus is located in Columbus. The university also maintains regional campuses located in Lewis Center, Lima, Mansfield, Marion and Newark. Additionally Ohio State operates small campuses and research facilities at the Gibraltar Island, the Ohio agricultural research and development center and the Ohio agricultural research institute in Wooster.
History
Ohio State’s roots go back to 1870, when the Ohio General Assembly established the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College. The new college was made possible through the provisions of the Land-Grant Act, signed by President Lincoln on July 2, 1862. This legislation revolutionized the nation’s approach to higher education, bringing a college degree within reach of all high school graduates.
The college’s curriculum was a matter of bitter dispute among politicians, the public, and educators. One faction, the “narrow gauge” group, held that the college should devote itself solely to the teaching of agriculture and mechanical arts. The “broad gauge” faction wanted a wider program that featured English and ancient and foreign languages as well. Joseph Sullivant, a member of the first Board of Trustees, pushed the “broad gauge” idea through the Board of Trustees, where it passed by a margin of 8-7. His legacy endures; Ohio State continues to offer a broad-based, liberal arts education and a diverse range of study.
Classes began at the new college on September 17, 1873. Twenty-four students met at the old Neil farm just two miles north of Columbus. In 1878 the college’s name was changed to The Ohio State University. In the same year the first class of six men graduated, and in 1879 the university graduated its first woman.
Origins of the Buckeye Name
The use of the term Buckeyes refer to Ohio State University sports teams derives from the even wider use of the term to refer to all residents of the state of Ohio.
The university’s Athletic Council officially adopted the term in 1950, but it had been in common use for many years before – certainly it was firmly established by 1920, and most records indicate that it had probably been used with some frequency to refer to Ohio State and its athletic teams since before the turn of the century.
As with many such terms that seem to have evolved rather than been decreed, the history of “buckeye” is a bit fuzzy. The buckeye (aesculus glabra) is a tree, native to Ohio and particularly prevalent in the Ohio River Valley, whose shiny dark brown nuts with lighter tan patches resemble the eye of a deer. Although inedible, the nuts are attractive and folk wisdom had it that carrying one in a pocket brings good luck and wards off rheumatism. In general, the trees and their nuts are of little practical use: the wood does not burn well, the bark has an unpleasant odor, and the bitter nut meat is mildly toxic. Still the tree has grit. It grows where others cannot, is difficult to kill, and adapts to its circumstances.
It is rare for an athletic team to be named after a tree; but the Buckeye name is so ingrained in the history and lore of the state and the university that few stop to consider how unusual it is. It is native, tenacious, attractive and unique – traits that Ohioans and Ohio State Buckeye alumni are proud to be associated with.
Some Discoveries
Food scientists at Ohio State have developed a new technology, Pulsed Electric Field, which may soon change the way foods are processed and preserved.
Physicians at Ohio State’s Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute have developed a new method of killing breast cancer with heat which may one day lead to the elimination of surgery for thousands of women.
Two teams of researches from Ohio State have identified the 22nd genetically encoded amino acid, a discovery that is the biological equivalent of physicists finding a new fundamental particle or chemists discovering a new element.
Three Ohio State faculty members are creating and testing new nutritionally enhanced tomato soups, juices, and sauces enriched with soy. The researches will establish whether these foods, in combination, are more effective in reducing cancer risk than as single foods.
OCLC, the Online Computer Library Center, Inc., was founded at the Ohio State University Libraries to share library resources and reduce costs to library users. OCLC serves approximately 40,102 libraries in 76 countries and territories around the world.
A team of researchers at Ohio State are the first to isolate two strains of HIV that attack the immune system in a different way than previously thought. Results of the study could produce new treatments for AIDS.
Facilities
In all, Ohio State has over 850 buildings on our campuses (26 of which are residence halls, and four of which are on the National Register of Historic Places).
A new $10 million institute at Ohio State will connect research in mathematics, statistics, and computing with the biological and medical sciences. The National Science Foundation (NSF) will fund the nation’s first-ever Mathematical Biosciences Institute (MBI)
The Fisher College of Business is home to a state-of-the-art, six-building campus, combining undergraduate, graduate and executive education on one campus, with a five-star luxury hotel, The Blackwell.
Academics
The Ohio State Buckeyes was the first university in Ohio to be extended membership into the prestigious Association of American Universities in 1916 and remains the only public university in Ohio among the organization’s sixty members.
Ohio State is one of a select few top American universities to offer multiple area studies programs under “Comprehensive National Resource Center” funding from the U.S. Department of Education. The most notable of these is the Center for Slavic and East European Studies founded in 1965 by Professor Leon Twarog. Subsequently, Ohio State’s Middle Eastern Studies Center and East Asian Studies Center also achieved Comprehensive National Resource Center status. The university is also home to the interdisciplinary Mershon Center for International Security Studies, which was founded in 1952 through a bequest of $7 million from alumnus Colonel Ralph D. Mershon.
Activities
The Ohio Union was the first student union built by a public university. The Ohio Union is dedicated to enriching the student experience on and off the Ohio State University campus. The first Ohio Union, located on the south edge of the South Oval, was constructed in 1909 and later renamed Enarson Hall. The present Ohio Union was completed in 1950 and is located prominently along High Street and southeast of the Oval. It has been a center of student life at The Ohio State University for more than 50 years, providing facilities for student activities, organizations and events, and serves as an important meeting place for campus and community interaction. In addition, many student services and programs are housed in the union, along with dining and recreational facilities.
Notable Alumni
Ohio State currently has almost 400,000 living alumni located around the world. Ohio State alumni Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize and Medal of Honor recipients, as well as Fortune 500 CEOs and members of the Forbes 400 list of the world’s wealthiest individuals. Numerous graduates have gone on to become Governors, Senators and members of Congress. Ohio State alumni have appeared on the cover of TIME twelve times, with the artwork of alumnus Roy Lichtenstein featured on an additional two TIME covers.
Athletics
Ohio State’s intercollegiate sport teams are called the “Buckeyes” and participate in the NCAA’s Division 1 in all sports and the Big Ten Conference in most sports. The school colors are Scarlet and Gray, although they were originally black and orange. The colors were not used however, because Princeton already used the colors. The teams’ nickname is “Buckeyes” and “Brutus” the Ohio State Buckeye is their mascot.
Ohio State is one of only two universities to have won an NCAA national championship in baseball, men’s basketball, and football. Ohio State has also won national championships in men’s swimming & diving, men’s outdoor track & field, men’s golf, men’s gymnastics, men’s fencing, co-ed fencing, and synchronized swimming. Since the inception of the Athletic Director’s Cup, Ohio State has finished in the top 25 each year, including top 6 finishes in three of the last five years. During the 2005-06 school year Ohio State became this Big Ten team to win conference championships in Football, Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball.
Education
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