Those of you who are not from the southwest part of the country, may not think much of the University of Oklahoma. You probably just think of great football? Well, here are some fast facts taken from their Web site (www.ou.edu).
Signed,
A Boomer-Sooner in NY....................
OU ranks number one in the nation among all public universities in the number of National Merit Scholars enrolled per capita.
The Princeton Reviewranks OU among the best in the nation in terms of academic excellence and cost for students.
OU ranks first in the Big 12 and at the top in the nation in international reciprocal exchange agreements with countries 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 produced its 27th Rhodes Scholar in 2007 ranking it tops among public institutions nationwide in the total number of Rhodes Scholars.
OU is among the top universities in the nation in Goldwater Scholarship 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.
The Joe C. and Carole Kerr McClendon Honors College at OU is the largest honors program among public universities in the United States. Almost 2,900 students participate in small classes usually of 19 or less.
OU's Campaign for Scholarships has almost reached the $135 million mark, allowing 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.
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 8,000 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.
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