
ABOUT THE UO
Our Students
Diverse, well prepared, and multi-talented, our students hail from all fifty states and more than a hundred countries.
Academics



By the Numbers
Our Faculty Includes
1 Nobel Prize Winner
1 MacArthur Fellow
2 National Medal of Science Winners
2 American Cancer Society Fellows
1 Pulitzer Prize Winner
11 National Academy of Science Members
30 Guggenheim Fellows
15 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members
45 American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows
11 American Council of Learned Societies Fellows
11 National Academy of Inventors Fellows/Senior Members
2 National Academy of Medicine Members
23 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellows

What We Do
We exist to provide Oregonians and their peers from around the world access to an excellent education.
We challenge our students to question critically, think logically, communicate clearly, act creatively, and live ethically.
We serve the people of Oregon, our nation, and the world through research, teaching, and outreach that benefits humanity, drives innovation, strengthens the economy, and transforms lives.
How We Identify


We work collaboratively to strengthen individual capacity and community bonds that advance the academic mission of the university.
Our History
Initially, Oregon’s Euro-American settlers were more concerned with eking out a living than in the refinements of higher education. But in the early 1870s, Judge Joshua Walton convinced residents of Eugene City to commit to building an institution of higher learning. It would grown into the fledgling state’s flagship university. Then, as now, our roots were in our community. Farmers sold produce and mules, and townspeople held church socials to scrape together $27,500—enough to buy an 18-acre parcel that became the heart of our campus.
In 1876, 155 students showed up for the first day of classes at the University of Oregon. They filed into a single, four-story building in the middle of a muddy clearing, with workers inside still hammering away on the upper floors and cattle grazing in the pasture outside. Two years later, we graduated our first class—three men and two women; precursors to the hundreds of thousands who've since earned their diplomas here.
From these rustic origins grew one of the nation’s leading research institutions.
Our Alumni