Ohio Northern University (Ohio Northern or ONU) is a

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

United Methodist Church The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelica ...

–affiliated university in

Ada, Ohio Ada ; ; is a village in Hardin County, Ohio, United States, located about southwest of Toledo. The population was 5,952 at the 2010 census. History Following the 1817 Treaty of Fort Meigs, the Shawnee Indians held reservation land at Hog Cre ...

. Founded by Henry Solomon Lehr in 1871, ONU is accredited by the

Higher Learning Commission The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) is an institutional accreditor in the United States. It has historically accredited post-secondary education institutions in the central United States: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Io ...

. It offers over 60 programs to choose from across five colleges: arts & sciences,

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit." Having a business name does not separ ...

, engineering, pharmacy, and

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

. It is one of only four universities in Ohio to have both a pharmacy school and a law school, along with

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best pub ...

, the

University of Cincinnati The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati) is a public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1819 as Cincinnati College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in Cincinnati and has an annual enrollment of over 44,0 ...

, and the

University of Toledo The University of Toledo (UToledo or UT) is a public research university in Toledo, Ohio. It is the northernmost campus of the University System of Ohio. The university also operates a Health Science campus, which includes the University of ...

History

Early years

Henry Solomon Lehr founded the Northwestern Ohio Normal School in August 1871. When the college's curriculum grew to include pharmacy, engineering, law and business programs, its name was changed to Ohio Normal University and, eventually, in 1903, Ohio Northern University. In 1899, the university became affiliated with the United Methodist Church as a method to reduce debt.

Interwar and post-war education

Before the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, more than one thousand students were typically enrolled at Ohio Northern every year. Both the Great Depression and the following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

plunged the school into low enrollment, and the possibility of closure was considered. During World War II, enrollment reached a low of 156 students. Thanks to the G.I. Bill, Ohio Northern was able to bring enrollment back up to nine hundred students by 1946. Throughout the 1960s, a number of ONU students and faculty/staff participated in the American

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

. ONU hosted Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...

on January 11, 1968, four days before his 39th birthday and just three months before his assassination. During his visit at ONU, King famously spoke regarding the myth that many immigrant and/or ethnic groups successfully pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, whereas African Americans were incapable of doing so. ONU honored King and his speech on campus with the unveiling of a statue in his likeness on April 17, 2018.

Later 20th century into today

Growth continued under Dr. DeBow Freed through the 1980s and 1990s with additions to the Taggart Law Library, Presser Hall, Dukes Memorial, Wilson Art Building, Biggs Engineering, Heterick Memorial Library, and Meyer Hall of Science, and the construction of the Freed Center for the Performing Arts and a new president's on-campus home. Under Dr. Kendall Baker, campus additions include Dicke Hall, an expansion of the Robertson-Evans Pharmacy building, the Dial-Roberson Stadium and the Mathile Center for the Natural Sciences. In 2008, Ohio Northern University built and opened The Inn at Ohio Northern University. A new engineering building was opened in October 2019. Starting in the early 1980s, the university provided computer services to a growing segment of the university's population, expanding from a centralized mainframe to networked personal computers and a computer network. ONU joined

OhioLINK The Ohio Library and Information Network (OhioLINK) is a consortium of Ohio's college and university libraries and the State Library of Ohio. Serving more than 800,000 students, faculty, and staff at 88 institutions with 117 libraries, OhioLINK' ...

and technology revolutionized academic administrative activities and supported classroom activities. With the addition of the Internet, the university began offering its first

distance learning Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually in ...

courses in the pharmacy program. Today, there are over 1,200 networked computers and internet access on campus. In 2010, ONU announced that its

board of trustees A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit org ...

approved the nomination of Daniel A. DiBiasio, president of Wilmington College to become the new president of Ohio Northern; he assumed his duties on August 1, 2011. He was succeeded in 2022 by Melissa J. Baumann.

Academics

The university comprises five colleges: * Getty College of Arts and Sciences * James F. Dicke College of Business Administration * T.J. Smull College of Engineering * Rudolph H. Raabe College of Pharmacy * Claude W. Pettit College of Law (established 1885) Prior to 1973, the law school was known as "the Warren G. Harding College of Law". It was renamed in honor of Claude W. Pettit, a judge and former dean of the college.

Athletics

Ohio Northern Polar Bears (52390170655) (cropped)

ONU students participate in intercollegiate,

intramural Intramural sports are recreational sports organized within a particular institution, usually an educational institution, or a set geographic region. The term, which is chiefly North American, derives from the Latin words ''intra muros'' meaning " ...

, and sports clubs in a variety of sports. The ONU Polar Bears compete in the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

Division III

Ohio Athletic Conference The Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) was formed in 1902 and is the third oldest athletic conference in the United States. Its current commissioner is Sarah Otey. Former commissioners include Mike Cleary, who was the first General Manager of a profe ...

(OAC). The men's volleyball team participates in the Midwest Intercollegiate Volleyball Association in the Great Midwest Men's Volleyball Conference. * The school mascot is a

polar bear The polar bear (''Ursus maritimus'') is a hypercarnivorous bear whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle, encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the largest extant bear spec ...

named Klondike. * The ONU varsity football team defeated

Mount Union College The University of Mount Union is a private university in Alliance, Ohio. Founded in 1846, the university was affiliated with the Methodist Church until the spring of 2019. In the fall of 2020, Mount Union had an enrollment of 1,958 undergraduate ...

in 2005 to snap the Purple Raiders 110-game regular season winning streak. * The ONU women's volleyball team had an NCAA All-Divisions record 36 consecutive winning Men's Sports *

Baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

* Cross country *

Football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

Golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

Lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensiv ...

Soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

Swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

Tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball cov ...

Track & field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

Wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat s ...

Women's Sports *

* Cross country *

Softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

Volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

National honors

NCAA Championship

* 1993 Men's Basketball

NCAA Division III NCAA Division III (D-III) is a division of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States. D-III consists of athletic programs at colleges and universities that choose not to offer athletic scholarships to their ...

Champions

NCAA Runner-up finishes

* 1989 Women's Volleyball NCAA Division III

Runners-up A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people (such as sporting teams and organizations) to recognize and reward their actions and achievements.

* 2012 Men's Soccer NCAA Division III Runners-up

NCAA Final Four appearances

* 2001 Men's Basketball NCAA Division III Final Four * 2008 Women's Volleyball NCAA Division III Final Four NCAA Elite Eight appearance * 2017 Women's Basketball NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearances * 1999 Football * 2000 Football * 2010 Football * 2015 Football * 2019 Women's Soccer

Club Sport Championship

* 2007 Men's Volleyball NIRSA Division II National Champions

Notable alumni

* Anthony Alaimo,

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the U ...

Frank T. Bow Frank Townsend Bow (February 20, 1901 – November 13, 1972) was a noted Ohio jurist and politician who served as a Republican Congressman in the United States House of Representatives from January 3, 1951, until his death from heart failur ...

and

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, ...

who was honored by naming the Frank T. Bow Federal Building in

Canton, Ohio Canton () is a city in and the county seat of Stark County, Ohio. It is located approximately south of Cleveland and south of Akron in Northeast Ohio. The city lies on the edge of Ohio's extensive Amish country, particularly in Holmes an ...

. * James Cloyd Bowman, a children's book author who received a

Newbery Honor Newbery is a surname. People * Chantelle Newbery (born 1977), Australian Olympic diver * David Newbery (born 1943), British economist *Eduardo Newbery (1878–1908), Argentine odontologist and aerostat pilot * Francis Newbery (disambiguation), s ...

in 1938 for ''Pecos Bill: The Greatest Cowboy of All Time''. *

Benjamin Brafman Benjamin Brafman (born July 21, 1948) is a prominent American criminal defense attorney and founder of the Manhattan-based firm Brafman & Associates, P.C.Amanda MayoLocal High-Profile Defense Attorney Ben Brafman: "If you do Great Work, People w ...

, a prominent criminal defense attorney based in New York. * William J. Brown, former Ohio Attorney General (1971–1983). * Anthony J. Celebrezze, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, the 49th Mayor of Cleveland, and a Sixth Circuit Appellate Judge *

George Washington Crile George Washington Crile (November 11, 1864 – January 7, 1943) was an American surgeon. Crile is now formally recognized as the first surgeon to have succeeded in a direct blood transfusion. He contributed to other procedures, such as neck di ...

, founder of the Cleveland Clinic and inventor of the system for blood transfusion *

Robert R. Cupp Robert R. Cupp (born November 9, 1950) is an American politician who served as the Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives until December 31, 2022. He served in the House of Representatives from 2015, representing District 4 ( Lima). He was e ...

, former Ohio Supreme Court Justice *

Mike DeWine Richard Michael DeWine (; born January 5, 1947) is an American politician and attorney serving as the 70th and current governor of Ohio. A member of the Republican Party, DeWine began his career as a prosecutor before being elected to the Oh ...

, a

who currently serves as the Governor of

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

. Served as a

Congressman A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivalen ...

from 1983 to 1991, and a

U.S. Senator The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and power ...

from

between 1995 and 2007, and was the Ohio Attorney General from 2011 to 2019 * Simeon Davison Fess, a

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

politician a former president of

Antioch College Antioch College is a private liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Founded in 1850 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1852 as a non-sectarian institution; politician and education reformer Horace Mann was its ...

* George Getty, American lawyer, father of industrialist J. Paul Getty and patriarch of the Getty family * John W. Grabiel, Arkansas Republican gubernatorial nominee in 1922 and 1924; Ohio native, attorney in Fayetteville, Arkansas, until his death in 1928 * Stephanie L. Haines, United States federal judge * Stacey Hairston, former Cleveland Browns player * Thomas Hutson, doctor and medical researcher * Robert Franklin Jones, served as Allen County (Ohio) prosecuting attorney, 1935–1939. Elected in 1938 to the Seventy-sixth U.S. Congress, and elected for three subsequent terms to Congress, serving from 1939 to 1947. Appointed commissioner of the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

, serving from 1947 to 1952 * J.E. Keeny, studied music at Ohio Northern. Served as president of

Louisiana Tech University Louisiana Tech University (Louisiana Tech, La. Tech, or simply Tech) is a public research university in Ruston, Louisiana. It is part of the University of Louisiana System and classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research act ...

, 1908–1926 *

George E. Killian George Ernest Killian (April 6, 1924 – December 6, 2017) was an American sports administrator, president of the International University Sports Federation (FISU) and the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) After receiving his Bachelor of ...

, a sports administrator and a president of the

International University Sports Federation The Fédération Internationale du Sport Universitaire (FISU, en, International University Sports Federation) is responsible for the organization and governance of worldwide sports competitions for student-athletes between the ages of 17 and 25 ...

* Cassius Jackson Keyser, a

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

Carla F. Kim Carla Faith Bender Kim is a professor at the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and a Principal Investigator at the Stem Cell Program at Boston Children’s Hospital. She is also a Principal Faculty member at the Harvard Stem Cell In ...

, Associate Professor of Genetics at

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is cons ...

and Principal Investigator at the Stem Cell Program at

Boston Children's Hospital Boston Children's Hospital formerly known as Children's Hospital Boston until 2012 is a nationally ranked, freestanding acute care children's hospital located in Boston, Massachusetts, adjacent both to its teaching affiliate, Harvard Medical Scho ...

* George Lonz, vintner who operated the Lonz Winery on

Middle Bass Island Middle Bass Island is an island of the U.S. state of Ohio, located in Lake Erie. A small town, Middle Bass, lies on the island. The 805-acre (3.258 km²) island is shaped like the Big Dipper and is one of three Bass Islands located at ...

, one of the largest wineries following prohibition * Cheryl L. Mason,

Chairman of the Board of Veterans' Appeals The Chairman of the Board of Veterans' Appeals is a senior position within the United States Department of Veterans Affairs that is responsible for the operation and policies of the Board of Veterans' Appeals, which is the administrative tribunal wi ...

, US Department of Veterans' Affairs (first woman appointed to the position) * Clay Mathile, former owner of Iams pet food * Harry McNeal, Major League baseball player *

Bill Peterson William E. Peterson (May 15, 1920 – August 5, 1993) was an American football player, coach, and college athletics administrator. His career included head coaching stops at Florida State University, Rice University and with the Houston Oilers of ...

, former head football coach at Florida State, Rice University, and with the Houston Oilers * Bob Peterson, story artist, animator and voice actor *

Tom Reed Thomas or Tom Reed may refer to: Politicians and military * Thomas Buck Reed (1787–1829), senator from Mississippi * Thomas Reed (British Army officer) (1796–1883), British general * Thomas Brackett Reed (1839–1902), Speaker of the House of R ...

, United States Congressman from

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Joseph Banks Rhine Joseph Banks Rhine (September 29, 1895 – February 20, 1980), usually known as J. B. Rhine, was an American botanist who founded parapsychology as a branch of psychology, founding the parapsychology lab at Duke University, the ''Journ ...

, founder of the

parapsychology Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena ( extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related t ...

lab at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist Jam ...

* Nate Riles, retired

CFL The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...

player *

Jamal Robertson Jamal Robertson (born January 10, 1977) is a former American and Canadian football running back and kick returner. He played college football at Ohio Northern and played professionally in the National Football League (NFL) and Canadian Footb ...

, retired NFL football player * Ralph L. Ropp (class of 1923), president of Louisiana Tech University from 1949 to 1962 *

Baldemar Velasquez Baldemar Velásquez (born February 15, 1947)''Hispanic Americans Information Directory,'' 1991, p. 408. is an American labor union activist. He co-founded and is president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO. He was named a MacArthur ...

, is president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee,

AFL–CIO The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 12 million ac ...

* Jason Trusnik, retired NFL football player. Owner of Pro Sports Performance in Strongsville, OH * Steve Vagedes, former

Arena Football League The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...

player * Jim Wilson, Los Angeles city council member, studied pharmacy

References

External links

*
WONB "The Beat" (now a webcaster)
{{Coord, 40.7669, N, 83.8249, W, source:placeopedia, display=title Private universities and colleges in Ohio

Ohio Northern University Ohio Northern University (Ohio Northern or ONU) is a private United Methodist Church–affiliated university in Ada, Ohio. Founded by Henry Solomon Lehr in 1871, ONU is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. It offers over 60 programs to ...

Universities and colleges affiliated with the United Methodist Church Educational institutions established in 1871 Buildings and structures in Hardin County, Ohio Tourist attractions in Hardin County, Ohio 1871 establishments in Ohio Ada, Ohio