The University of Oregon is a comprehensive research university and the only Oregon member of the Association of American Universities. Its programs of instruction are designed to provide the opportunity for students to obtain a high-quality education in liberal arts and sciences as well as professional preparation. Its instructional, research, and public service programs advance scientific and humanistic knowledge and serve the educational, cultural, and economic needs of all Oregonians.

To achieve these goals, the University of Oregon offers undergraduate and graduate programs in mathematical and computer sciences, the physical and biological sciences, the arts and humanities, the social sciences and the professions. The university offers programs in the College of Arts and Sciences and in the professional schools of architecture and allied arts (including planning, public policy and management), business administration, education, journalism, law, and music. The professional fields build upon the core of the university’s arts and sciences programs.

Students pursue programs of instruction and research leading to bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees. The university is the only institution in the state offering doctoral degrees in the arts and humanities and in most areas within the social sciences. It places strong emphasis on research programs in the most advanced areas of basic science, many of which have special applicability to high-technology industry. Its international programs facilitate research and exchange of students and faculty with other countries.

Because the university’s students, as educated men and women, must be prepared to succeed in an increasingly heterogeneous environment, the university strives to provide them with both a student body and a faculty and staff that reflect the cultural, ethnic, and racial diversity of modern society.

The University of Oregon is a member of the Association of Research Libraries, an association of the largest research libraries in the country. In addition, the University of Oregon’s museums and libraries serve the entire state and also preserve the records and artifacts of Oregon’s past. Its outreach programs serve business, labor, and governmental groups throughout the state, the nation, and the world. The University of Oregon is recognized for its art and architecture exhibits and its musical and dramatic performances.

The university is guided by the principle that it shall make available educational opportunities of high quality to help students acquire knowledge, skills, and wisdom for personal development and enrichment; an understanding of science and technology; an understanding of other peoples and cultures as well as of our own; and responsible participation in a democratic society. Fundamental to the success of the university’s educational mission is the preservation and encouragement of an atmosphere of intellectual freedom.

The University of Oregon was the idea of a number of Eugene and Lane County-area pioneers who knew that the new state of Oregon would need a great university. If the state were to flourish, it should not count on the universities in the east to provide the kind of leadership that would be needed: homegrown leadership. So, in 1872, these early leaders persuaded the Oregon legislature to locate the University of Oregon in Eugene. Through their gifts of money, building materials, books, and labor, the citizens of Eugene provided the first buildings and furnishings. A few wealthy non-Eugeneans such as Henry Villard, who gave his library and a considerable amount of money, are remembered for their large gifts, but the university was initially made possible primarily by the small gifts of local people.

The first president, John Wesley Johnson, was joined by three other faculty members–Thomas Condon, Mark Bailey and Mary Spiller–who taught the 54 men and 25 women who enrolled in the first college-level courses. There were three majors: Classical Studies, Scientific Studies, and Normal Studies, but the faculty abolished the two-year program in Normal Studies in 1885.

From the outset, women's education has been a fundamental part of Oregon's mission. People of color have been part of the student body from the outset, too, at first as students in the university-run prep school and from 1892 on, as college students. Our first graduate of color received a degree in law in 1893.

The university granted its first Ph.D. in 1926, in geology. The first woman Ph.D. graduated in 1930 in biochemistry. The Law School opened in 1884 in Portland and moved to Eugene in 1919. The Medical School, which opened in 1887 in Portland, became an independent institution in 1975.

The original University Board of Regents was replaced by the State Board of Higher Education in 1929. There were five member institutions in the Oregon State System of Higher Education then: the University of Oregon, the Oregon State College, and the normal schools at Ashland, La Grande, and Monmouth. Portland State University and the Oregon Institute of Technology were created later. The Oregon Health Sciences University became the eighth member of the state system with its separation from the University of Oregon, but separated from the state system in 1994. Today, the Oregon State Board of Higher Education, with offices on the University of Oregon campus, continues to be the governing body for seven member institutions of the Oregon University System.

The university grew and diversified, creating programs in art and architecture, music, journalism, business, education, human development and performance, community service and public affairs, librarianship and engineering. In 1919, the state legislature moved the school of engineering to Oregon State University. In 1932 the state board moved all upper-division and graduate education in mathematics, the natural sciences and psychology to Oregon State, but reversed that decision in 1942. Upper-division and graduate science education again began to flourish here in 1946.

In 1969, the University of Oregon was elected to the Association of American Universities, an association of the sixty-two prestigious universities in North America. Oregon was the second institution located west of the Rocky Mountains to be elected to the AAU, after the University of California at Berkeley.

Program changes in the last twenty-five years include the suspension of several schools and the creation of numerous research centers, undergraduate majors, and graduate programs. In 1978 the schools of Community Service and Public Affairs and Librarianship were suspended, and in 1991 the College of Human Development and Performance was suspended. Between 1978 and 1999 more than fifteen new research centers and institutes were established. New undergraduate and graduate programs of study were created in international business, special education, historic preservation, computer and information science, and linguistics. In the last few years the university has expanded its offerings in foreign language, created new programs in biochemistry, and established programs in ethnic studies, women’s studies, and Judaic studies.

The university has changed a great deal in its 127-year history, but much has also remained the same. There have been good times and hard times, growth, decline, and more growth but, through it all, the university has remained a pioneering institution dedicated to serving the needs of the people of Oregon, the Pacific Northwest, and the nation through the education of intelligent, active, and committed individuals–the kinds of people who built this state, and who will fill its leadership roles in the future.

In fall 1998 there were over 16,700 students enrolled, including more than 3,400 pursuing graduate studies. More than half of our students are women, over 12 percent are people of color, and more than 8 percent come from foreign countries. The university employs more than 770 full-time and 380 part-time faculty members engaged in teaching, research, and administration during the regular academic year.

There are more than fifty departments and special programs within the College of Arts and Sciences; there are six professional schools and colleges; twenty-two research bureaus, institutes, and centers; and a graduate school.

Funds for the support of the university derive primarily from state appropriations; federal sources; tuition, fees and other charges; and private sector gifts and bequests.

The 1999 edition of the University of Oregon Faculty Handbook was compiled and edited by the Office of Academic Affairs.