A study of the University of Oklahoma (OU) provides a number of interesting and surprising pieces of information. It was surprising to discover that the annual operating budget of OU is over $1 billion per year (OU, 2004). It was also interesting to learn that the President of OU, David Boren, not only teaches a political science course but formerly served as both a U.S. senator and governor of Oklahoma. It was impressive to find out that OU ranks number one in the per capita number of freshman National Merit Scholars and that OU is in the top five in universities in the nation that graduate Rhodes Scholars (OU, 2004).
I was surprised to discover the cast resources maintained by the university, including one of the three most significant collections of early manuscripts in the history of science. This collection includes copies of GalileoÆs work in support of Copernican theory that have corrections made in GalileoÆs own handwriting. Likewise, the university features one of the two largest natural history museums in the world. The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History houses over 5 million artifacts in a space that has 198,000 square feet on 60 acres of land (OU, 2004). The MuseumÆs exhibits include the largest Apatosaurus in the world and the oldest work of art ever discovered in North America, an extinct bison skull with a lightning bolt painted on it.
It was interesting to discover that OU embraces diversity, including large populations of Native American and Hispanic students. The university teaches more Native American languages for college credit than any other university in the world, and the OU Press is not only the oldest in the Great Plains states but it remains a leading publisher of books focusing on Native Americans and the American West (OU, 2004). I was also surprised to discover that the University of Oklahoma bestows to writers the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, considered to be ...