[11] Undergraduate enrollment for all colleges combined averages over 32,000 while an additional 5,000 students are engaged in post-graduate coursework through the university.

The school's first administrator and teacher was John Wesley Johnson, a famous figure in Oregon higher education.

[19] Within a decade of its inception, college-level coursework was added to the academy's curriculum, making it the first public college in the region and a magnet for Oregon's young adults seeking a profession.

As with many land-grant colleges, name changes were common around the start of the 20th century and helped schools align with the period's largest available federal grants in agricultural research.

"...the board confined studies in engineering and commerce to the Corvallis campus and major work in the liberal arts and related subjects to the University of Oregon in Eugene.

[32] The name Oregon State University was adopted on March 6, 1961, by a legislative act signed into law by Governor Mark Hatfield.

[36][37] The Memorial Union was designed by OSU alum and renowned Oregon architect, Lee Arden Thomas.

This campus is called OSU-Cascades and offers students living in Oregon's central region an opportunity to attend select classes closer to their homes.

Oregon State offers more than 80 degree and certificate programs made up from a selection of over 1,500 online courses in more than 110 subjects.

In 2017, Oregon State University's Portland headquarters were relocated to the newly renovated Meier & Frank building.

The downtown building provides the university with a more central location, in the state's largest city, to maintain a base of operations.

The partnership brings members of private industry, from throughout the world, to Portland to discuss proposed commercialization initiatives.

[45][46][47] The campus serves as an oceanographic research base for six state and federal agencies and also a resource for K-12 educators and the public.

[53] At OSU's annual State of the University address in Portland on January 31, 2014, President Edward J. Ray announced that campaign contributions had passed $1 billion, making OSU one of 35 public universities to cross the billion-dollar fundraising mark and one of only two organizations in the Pacific Northwest to reach that milestone.

[58] It holds net assets exceeding $1 billion and manages most of the university's composite endowment, valued at more than $827 million.

[72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81] Most of OSU's research continues at the Corvallis campus, but an increasing number of endeavors are underway at locations throughout the state and abroad.

In 2006, Carnegie also recognized OSU as having "very high research activity", making it the only university in Oregon to attain these combined classifications.

[87] CEOAS is also leading the design and construction of the next class of ocean-faring research vessels for the National Science Foundation, which will be the largest grant or contract ever received by any Oregon university.

[89] In 1967 the Radiation Center was constructed at the edge of campus, housing a 1.1 MW TRIGA Mark II Research Reactor.

More recently, Oregon State University has partnered with a leading manufacturer of SMRs, NuScale (a company started in part by OSU Faculty), to provide continued research and development for commercial applications.

[92] The North and South PacWave Energy Test Facilities are located several miles off the coast of Newport and serviced by the university's Hatfield Marine Science Center.

OSU's Open Source Lab is a nonprofit founded in 2003 and funded in part by corporate sponsors that include Facebook, Google, and IBM.

[99][100][101] The organization's goal is to advance open source technology by hiring and training students in software development and operations for large-scale coding projects.

Providing officer training for both the US Navy and the US Marine Corps, it became one of the largest in the nation and has earned the unofficial title "Naval Academy of the Northwest.

The Oregon State Air Force ROTC draws more freshmen scholarships than any other AFROTC unit in the nation and has had over 1,000 officers commissioned.

These include the Cascade Range, a rugged coastline, several large forests, the high desert and numerous rivers and lakes.

The initiative "recognizes the compelling need to build a welcoming and inclusive university community and the direct relationship between excellence and diversity".

[9] In a 2008 national ranking of academics, athletic opportunity and overall performance, Oregon State was selected as one of America's "premier" universities.

The name of the course can be traced back to a locally famous tree near Community Hall on campus where student couples would meet to make dates.

OSU has several notable faculty members, including: Oregon State University has numerous nationally and internationally famous alumni who have contributed significantly to their professions.