User:Willisroberts

History
University Gateway on College Green The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 called for educational institutions as part of the settlement and eventual statehood of the Ohio Territory: "Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." In 1797, settlers from Marietta traveled up the Hocking River to establish a location for the school, choosing Athens due to its location directly between Chillicothe (the original capital of Ohio) and Marietta. Originally chartered in 1802 as the American Western University,[5] Ohio University was founded on February 18, 1804, when its charter was approved by the Ohio General Assembly. Its founding came 11 months after Ohio was admitted to the Union. The first three students enrolled in 1808. Ohio University graduated two students with bachelor's degrees in 1815. In 1828, a free black man, John Newton Templeton, became one of the first African Americans to earn a college degree. The four years Templeton spent at Ohio University, in which he compiled a superior academic record and became an active member of the Athenian Literary Society, are chronicled in the stage play Free Man of Color by Charles Smith.[6] In the early 20th century, Alumni Gateway was dedicated on the College Green, inscribed with words borrowed from the Latin inscription above the main portal to the ancient university of Padua, Italy. The famous E.W. Scripps School of Journalism was established with a grant from the Scripps Foundation. ==Added Section==

On May 15, 1970, Ohio University was closed due to protests aimed at the university's ROTC program and the Vietnam War. Many students believed that Army and Air Force ROTC programs should not be part of the university and should be removed from campus. On April 22 nine students were arrested for disrupting an Army ROTC class in Carnegie Hall. The next day around fifty students went to Cutler Hall, broke into a President's Advisory Council meeting, and spoke against the ROTC programs and the arrest of the nine students, known as the “Athens Nine”. President Sowle listened to their complaints and agreed to attend a meeting at noon the next day. The meeting was held at Memorial Auditorium and over two thousand students attended. When President Sowle made it clear that the charges against the “Athens Nine” were not going to be dropped, about fifty students left and went straight to Carnegie Hall and marched through the basement of the ROTC offices shouting, "one, two, three, four, kick ROTC out the door."

On April 30 President Richard Nixon announced that several thousand American combat forces entered Cambodia. On May 4, a peaceful protest on the College Green against American involvement in Cambodia ignited when the crowd heard that members of the National Guard had killed four Kent State University students. That night students decided to stage a peaceful strike. The next day professors reported a twenty-five to thirty percent class attendance. President Sowle spoke to large groups of students that day on the college green and later that night at Grover Center. He applauded both groups for their non-violence, but emphasized that the university would not close because of the strike. On May 6 a group of students marched through the business section of Athens and demanded that they close because of the strike. Many of the businesses conceded. Later that day twenty-five hundred students rallied on the College Green and went on the “March Against Death” that went through the business section of town and back to campus. Another student rally was held that night. The majority of the students involved were in favor of ending the strike. That day Ohio Governor James Rhodes recommended that all state universities experiencing unrest close at once. The Governor also stated that universities that remained open would not receive aid from the National Guard or the State Highway Patrol. President Sowle insisted on keeping the university open. Early the next morning the non-violence ended when two firebombs were thrown through ROTC supply room windows in Peden Stadium causing over four thousand dollars damage to equipment and the building. On May 11, nearly twenty-five hundred students met at Grover Center for a protest rally. After the rally around one hundred students broke into the deserted Chubb Library, which was awaiting renovation, and declared the building a "Free University" and refused to leave. By six’ o’clock the next morning Chubb Library was surrounded by city and Ohio University Police and some students were forced to leave.

Another firebomb was set off earlier that morning, May 12, in Nelson Cafeteria causing a fire that took several hours to get under control. The damage amounted to nearly one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. In response to the violence and lack of respect for university authority the Board of Trustees enforced a campus curfew and passed an act allowing President Sowle to expel and ban any student from campus that posed as a danger to the university community. Seven students were suspended that day. The next night a crowd of about three hundred students gathered outside Cutler Hall where President Sowle tried to reason with them until a brick was thrown at him. In the early hours of May 14 the crowd moved to the intersection of Court and Union where they were met by city police and police from Logan and Belpre. Bricks and bottles were thrown into the police who responded with tear gas and pepper fog. The battle lasted for forty-five minutes until the police were able to break up the crowd. Later that night another crowd of students between five and seven hundred gathered outside Baker Center. At ten thirty the crowd met the police again at the intersection of Court and Union. For the next three hours bricks were hurled at police and city buildings and the police struggled to contain the students. That evening the university called the highway patrol for aid three times and each time their request was denied. Fifty-four people, almost all students, were arrested. At 4:10 the next morning the university officially closed until the beginning of the first summer session in June.

In 1975, Ohio University opened the College of Osteopathic Medicine; today it is the only Ohio institution to award the D.O. degree Currently the university's medical school and college of engineering are engaging in a major collaboration to develop the Academic and Research Center funded by physician and engineering alumni. This University is also well known in Malaysia for its ties with MARA University of Technology in the 1980s. Ohio University is classified as Tier 1 University by U.S. News ranking of Best American Colleges. It was named by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a Doctoral/High Research Activity institution to reflect its growing number of graduate programs. University libraries contain more than 3 million bound volumes.[10]