Miami University (Oxford, Ohio)

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The tenth public college founded in the United States, Miami University dates back to a grant of land made for its support by the United States Congress and signed by George Washington on May 5, 1792. The university's first president, Robert Hamilton Bishop, envisioned Miami as the "Yale of the West" and planned the first several buildings accordingly. Its motto is Prodesse Quam Conspici, Latin for "To accomplish without being conspicuous".

Miami is located in southwestern Ohio approximately thirty miles (50 km) northwest of Cincinnati. The Miami in this school's name refers to the Miami River valley, cut by two medium-sized rivers, the Little Miami River and the Great Miami River, that flow through southwestern Ohio; the rivers were in turn named after the Miami Indians who lived in the area before European settlement.

Miami ranks in the first tier of the U.S. News & World Report college rankings at 66th among 252 "National Universities". In this same report the university ranks, tied with Purdue University, as 26th among public National Universities. BusinessWeek ranks the undergraduate business program for the Farmer School of Business at 24th among U.S. business schools, 8th among public business schools, and 1st among Ohio business schools.

Miami University is reputed to be one of the most beautiful university campuses, as poet Robert Frost described Miami as "the most beautiful college there ever was." The campus features modified Georgian revival red brick buildings on an open, tree-shaded campus void of high rise skyscraper dormitories. Miami is also striking in that the entire campus is consistent in design and appearance except for the buildings on the former Western College campus and the Miami University Art Museum. Parts of the campus can be seen in the 1991 film Little Man Tate with Jodie Foster, which was largely filmed on the Oxford campus.

Miami was named one of eight original "Public Ivys" in Richard Moll's 1985 book, The Public Ivys: America's Flagship Undergraduate Colleges. Miami is known as the "Cradle of Coaches" because several prominent football coaches were student/athletes and/or coaches at Miami before achieving greater fame at more prominent college programs or the National Football League. Among these coaches were Earl Blaik, Paul Brown, Sid Gillman, Woody Hayes, Ara Parseghian, Weeb Ewbank, Bo Schembechler, Randy Walker, Ron Zook, Joe Novak, and Jim Tressel.

Miami graduated an American President, Benjamin Harrison, placing the school in a prestigious category of Presidential alma maters. Miami is only one of four colleges (Stanford, Michigan, and the U.S. Naval Academy) to produce both a U.S. President and a Super Bowl winning quarterback (Ben Roethlisberger). It is also the alma mater of many U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, U.S. military leaders, State Governors and Fortune 500 business executives.

For many years, the athletic teams at Miami were nicknamed Redskins, but in 1997 the nickname was changed to RedHawks. Some controversy surrounded this change and some aspects of the old identity persist. The RedHawks compete in NCAA Division I in all sports (I-A in football). Miami's primary conference is the Mid-American Conference; its hockey program is a member of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association.

Miami is also known for its School of Education, housed in McGuffey Hall, named for Professor William Holmes McGuffey (called the "Schoolmaster to the Nation"), who was a Miami Classics professor and wrote America's most widely used pioneer text books - the McGuffey Readers - while on faculty at Miami University.

Miami also was the first U.S. public university to have an "Artist-in-Residence" program, with Percy MacKaye as the first poet in residence.

The Miami Student claims to be the oldest university newspaper, tracking its founding to 1826, although Dartmouth College's student newspaper contests this claim.

Freedom Summer training took place at Western College (which was then a separate campus) in the summer of 1964.

miamioh.edu