University of Oklahoma
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The University of Oklahoma athletics program boasts a tradition that few schools can rival. Over the years, Sooner squads have combined for 23 team national championships including seven in football, seven in wrestling, five in men's gymnastics, two in baseball, one in men's golf and one in softball.

The Sooner tradition isn't something buried in the past. It inspires our student-athletes to greater heights every season.

Oklahoma's student-athletes continue to lead in the classroom and their actions in the community are exemplary. With the Great Expectations project, Oklahoma is aggressively building the finest facilities in the nation. Each day, it becomes more evident that the University of Oklahoma has become the finest comprehensive athletics program in the country.

When OU student-athletes raise the trophy of another championship, the hands responsible for hoisting that trophy symbolize thousands of Sooners around the globe.

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 2,000 full-time faculty members, and has 20 colleges offering 153 majors at the baccalaureate level, 133 majors at the master’s level, 75 majors at the doctoral level, 20 majors at the first professional level, and 18 graduate certificates. The university’s annual operating budget is $1.2 billion. The University of Oklahoma is an equal opportunity institution. (6/06)

Facts
OU is number one in the nation per capita among public universities in the number of National Merit Scholars enrolled. Seven hundred National Merit Scholars currently are enrolled at OU.

The University of Oklahoma ranks in the top 10 in the nation in the Freshman Year Experience, according to a national study by the Policy Center on the First Year of College. The study recognizes OU's initiatives for first-year students and its commitment to put students first.

OU is included on Princeton Review's “Top 10 Best Value Public Colleges” list, which ranks the best colleges in the nation based on academic excellence and cost to students – the University of California-Berkeley and University of Virginia-Charlottesville were among others selected.

OU is one of only 10 universities in the nation with four Goldwater Scholars, including colleges such as Dartmouth , Williams and Duke.

OU is the highest ranked public university in the history of Oklahoma . The latest U.S. News and World Report rankings place OU in the top tier among national public universities.

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 exchange agreements with countries around the world. The University has 150 student exchange agreements with universities in 60 countries. Fourteen hundred students from 95 countries are enrolled on OU's Norman campus.

OU is in the top five in the nation among all comprehensive public universities in the graduation of Rhodes Scholars.
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 University has created an Honors College with one of the largest honors programs among public universities in the United States . Fourteen hundred students participate in small classes of 19 or less.

Just one year after launching a five-year, $50 million Campaign for Scholarship endowments, OU achieved its goal, allowing the university to award hundreds of new scholarships this fall and ensuring that OU will remain affordable and keep open the door of opportunity for all qualified students.

OU's private endowment has more than quadrupled since 1994, growing from $204 million to more than $850 million.

OU continues to break private fund-raising records, with more than $1 billion in gifts and pledges over the past decade, which has provided funding for dramatic capital improvements, the growth in faculty endowment and student scholarships.

Due to OU's increased private support during the past 11 years, the number of endowed faculty positions has quadrupled, increasing from 100 to 407, helping to retain and attract talented faculty members.

Over the past decade, 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 2004 with total expenditures of $210 million – the first time in the University's history that annual expenditures have passed the $200 million mark.

The OU Health Sciences Center in FY 2004 continued its impressive rate of research growth by achieving more than $124 million in federal, state, corporate and non-profit or foundation grants and contracts. Funding from the National Institutes of Health – considered to be the gold standard for research – was nearly $53 million.

Since 1994, almost $1 billion in construction projects have been completed or are under way 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 5 million artifacts and contains 198,000 square feet on 60 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, major works by the Taos Colony of artists; the former U.S. State Department Embassy art collection; and the Dorothy Dunn collection of Native American art.