Timeline/History of Student Engagement
Feb. 17, 1809 – Miami University is chartered by the Ohio Legislature as Ohio’s second university and the 10th oldest public university in the United States.
Nov. 1, 1824 – The first 20 Miami students meet President Robert Hamilton Bishop and the university’s other two faculty members in the chapel for Miami’s first day of class.
1825-26 – The Erodelphian and Union literary societies become Miami’s first two students organizations.
1827 – The first edition of the Miami Student – the nation’s oldest university newspaper – is compiled. It was initially known as the Literary Focus.
Jan. 12-13, 1848 – Students rebel against what they perceived as an increasingly autocratic University administration by blockading Old Main with packed snow, firewood, chairs, benches, and tables, in the Snowball Rebellion. In the wake of the event, two solid weeks of trials resulted in numerous students being expelled.
1855 – Sigma Chi fraternity is founded in a student room above a store in Uptown Oxford, completing the famed Miami Triad of fraternities founded at Miami (Beta Theta Pi, 1839; Phi Delta Theta, 1848; Sigma Chi, 1855).
April 13, 1861 – The first day of the Civil War. Soon Miami’s northern students form a Union volunteer rifle company. Nine days later, they board the train to Hamilton with a number of southern classmates and head to war. Some good friends and former roommates would meet a year later on opposite sides of the conflict at the Battle of Shiloh.
June 21, 1887 –The Board of Trustees approves a resolution permitting the admission of women to Miami. Within the year, five women were admitted as “special students.” The first women would not graduate from Miami until 1900.
Dec. 8, 1888 – Miami plays its first intercollegiate football game against the University of Cincinnati, ending in a 0-0 tie, it was the first contest of what would become the oldest college football rivalry west of the Alleghenies.
Oct. 24, 1902 – Delta Zeta becomes the first sorority founded on Miami’s campus. By the 1930s, nearly one-sixth of all fraternity and sorority members in the U.S. and Canada were connected to organizations founded at Miami.
1905 – Nellie Craig, the first African-American woman admitted to Miami, earns her teaching certificate. In 1925, William Hargraves and Eleanor Reece become the first African-Americans to earn bachelor’s degrees from Miami.
1909 – Miami launches its first alumni campaign, raising $40,000 to match a grant from the Carnegie Foundation for the construction of Alumni Library – Miami’s first dedicated library.
1946 – The G.I. Bill allowed thousands of former veterans to attend Miami in the years following the war. Veterans Village, rows of temporary housing on south campus, are erected to house World War II veterans and their families. A battalion recreational hall was brought here from Camp Perry to serve as a temporary student union, Miami’s first.
1957 – The University Center, today known as the Shriver Center, opens on Miami’s campus. There were approximately 6,000 students on campus at this time.
1964 – Training for the Mississippi Summer Project is hosted on the campus of Western College For Women, in which more than 1,000 college students were trained to assist in voter registration of African-Americans in Mississippi. Three of these volunteers would be murdered during what became known as Freedom Summer.
April 15, 1970 – A student sit-in is staged at Rowan Hall, home of Miami’s Naval ROTC program, in opposition to the Vietnam War. It resulted in 176 students being arrested and foreshadowed the Kent State violence just two weeks later.
1974-75 – Women’s athletics were integrated into Miami’s Department of Intercollegiate Athletics with the sponsorship of nine sports.
1994 – The Recreational Sports Center is completed, providing Miami students with a 10,000 square-foot fitness center, climbing wall, and world-class aquatic center. The facility is open 113 hours a week and is visited by more than 3,000 users a day.
Fall 2003 – Miami’s football, ice hockey, and men’s cross country programs all find themselves ranked among the nation’s Top 25 in their respective sports. Football finishes No. 10, winning the MAC Championship and GMAC Bowl on the arm of Ben Roethlisberger.
April 25, 2008 – The Miami University Board of Trustees approve planning for the student center. The first and only facility on Miami’s campus designed specifically with the students in mind.