The college participates in NJCAA Division III sports, with the men's and women's tennis teams having won national championships multiple times.

In 1833, the Georgia Methodist Conference considered establishing a church-sponsored manual labor school where students would combine farm work with a college preparatory curriculum.

[5] In 1836, the new school, Emory College, was established on a tract of land in Newton County, one mile north of Covington, Georgia.

[10] On 17 September 1838, two years after the college's chartering, President Ignatius Few and three faculty members welcomed fifteen freshmen and sophomores into its inaugural class.

The two halls oppose each other across the quad, and both buildings are variations of two-story Greek Revival structures with temple form designs and columned porticos.

[1] In 1880, the school's fortunes reversed when College President Atticus G. Haygood delivered a Thanksgiving Day sermon expressing gratitude for the end of slavery and calling on the South to put the past behind it to "cultivate the growth of industry".

Cast in 1796, the bell was a gift from Alexander Means, the fourth President of Emory College, who had received it from Queen Victoria.

[21] Dumas Malone went on to become the head of Harvard University Press, one of the nation's leading academic publishers, and completed a Pulitzer Prize-winning six-volume study of Thomas Jefferson when he was over 90 years of age.

Wilbur A. Carlton, a student at Emory College in 1910, described his experiences at the school at the time:At that time, half-a century ago, Oxford was completely without pavement, plumbing in the homes, and electric lights except for the Williams Gymnasium and the Young J. Allen Memorial Church, which were furnished electricity by a dynamo in the boiler room of the gym.

Such was our beloved Oxford in 1910.Soon, the Georgia Methodist Conference began discussing transforming Emory College into a university, with Birmingham and Atlanta bidding to host the proposed institution.

[33] Oxford College is located on 56 acres (23 hectares) of land in Newton County,[34] approximately 38 miles (61 km) east of Emory's Atlanta campus.

It is in the center of Oxford, a town located about half a mile north of Interstate 20, and is directly bounded by Georgia State Route 81 (signed as Emory Street) to the east and the Fleming Woods to the west.

[36] Today, much of the college is organized around a pedestrian-only quadrangle in the center, surrounded by a few nearby streets[37] and hiking trails that make up the Fleming Woods.

[39] It is utilized as both an educational environment for related courses, and as a functioning farm that sells its produce at local farmers' markets.

Directly south of the monument is Seney Hall, a five-story Victorian Gothic-style building topped by a clock tower and bell.

[46] For example, students enrolled in the Sociology of Food course dedicate certain hours a week working at the school's organic farm.

William Shapiro, a professor of political science who has taught at Oxford since 1979, formerly worked at the American Enterprise Institute and was a registered conscientious objector during the Vietnam War.

[56] These are students who applied to Emory University and chose to begin their studies for four semesters at Oxford College before automatically continuing to the School of Arts and Science in Atlanta.

[47] In terms of recreation, Williams Gymnasium houses a hybrid basketball, volleyball, and badminton court, in addition to a track, pool, weight room, and aerobic studio.

[68] Today, social clubs use the Greek alphabet system and mimic[b] the functions of fraternities and sororities, with the exception of Dooley's Dolls.

Senior Honor Society, which was founded in 1902 and remains active today,[70] student clubs at Oxford have not functioned reliably for long periods of time because the two-year structure of the school leads to high membership turnover.

[71] As of 2017[update], there are over seventy-five registered student organizations which cover a variety of interests, including academic, social, cultural, religious, leisure, arts, and volunteer service.

[73] According to a survey conducted by the college prior to 2012, ninety-two percent of Oxford students participated in community service, contributing over 10,000 hours in one year.

Because Oxford was his original home, Dooley's appearances there tries to symbolize his advanced age, with characteristics such as a crouched stance, slow walk, and his signature bent crane topped with a brown skull.

[76] Additionally, his habit of making public appearances at Oxford by emerging out of a coffin differ from the conventions of his counterpart at the Atlanta campus.

The article was purportedly written by a skeleton in a science lab who complained of his dull and silent existence observing the comings and goings of the students.

[19] In 1901, the Dooley mythology resurfaced, this time in a second editorial where he claims to have been the son of a wealthy Virginia planter who fought in the Revolutionary War and later died from alcohol abuse.

[77] These messages relate to events on campus, ranging from critical rebukes of misdeeds, to praise for individual student accomplishments.

[78] In the 1930s to 1950s, students began bringing larger farm animals such as goats and cows up to the upper floors of Seney Hall.

The tradition culminated in 2008 when a group of unidentified students led a local zebra to the third floor of Seney and barricaded the windows, doors, and elevator.