[14][15] The first financial gift, $4,000, was given by Julia Tarrant Barron and both she and her son also gave land to establish the college.

[18] In those early years, the graduation addresses of several distinguished speakers were published, including those by Thomas G. Keen of Mobile, Joseph Walters Taylor, Noah K. Davis and Samuel Sterling Sherman.

[20] During this time, the college's remaining faculty offered basic instruction to soldiers recovering at the hospital.

[18] For a short period after the war, federal troops occupied the college and sheltered freed slaves on its campus.

Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, an attorney, former US Congressman and Confederate military officer, served as president from 1865 to 1868.

In 1887, Howard College's board of trustees accepted an offer of land from the East Lake Land Company owned by Robert Jemison, Sr. and relocated to the newly developing community of East Lake, six miles from the center of Birmingham, Alabama, and moved the institution there.

[28] On September 21, 1989, a Samford University professor, William Lee Slagle, fatally stabbed one of his debating team students and escaped.

[32] As a private, segregated institution, Samford University was to some degree insulated from the activities of leaders and protesters of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and early 1960s.

[41] That year, the Jane Hollock Brock Recital Hall was dedicated as part of the university’s fine arts complex.

This ended key aspects of Samford's formal connection to the state convention that had existed for decades.

In 2017, President Westmoreland rejected Samford Together, an organization that sought to create a space for students to discuss topics related to sexual orientation and gender identity “in an open-minded and accepting environment,” even though the organization had been approved by both the Student Government Association and the faculty.

In justifying the move, Vice President of Student Affairs Phil Kimrey stated, “Throughout its history, the university has consistently subscribed to and practiced biblically orthodox beliefs," and "the university has a responsibility to formally partner with ministry organizations that share our beliefs.”[55] On-campus protests against the change included a silent vigil outside a university-wide worship service on September 20.

[58] In October, Taylor declined university recognition to a chapter of OUTLaw at Samford's Cumberland School of Law.

Originally, Howard College was located in Marion, Alabama, a black-belt town between Selma and Tuscaloosa; it was later the birthplace of Coretta Scott King.

[69] The campus location was chosen in consultation with Olmsted Brothers, the famous Massachusetts-based landscape design firm.

Named the Daniel House, the center is located at 12 Ashburn Gardens in South Kensington and hosts 15-24 students each semester.

The three huge buildings on the former Southern Progress campus are strikingly modern in their architecture and nestled among trees.

[66] The university fields 17 varsity sports and participates in the NCAA at the Division I level as a member of the Southern Conference.

[79] Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, tennis and indoor and outdoor track and field.

Women's sports include basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, tennis, indoor and outdoor track and field and volleyball.

In the NCAA's 2013 report, Samford student-athletes achieved an average Academic Progress Rate of 990, the highest in Alabama.

[80] It marked the eighth consecutive year that Samford has been a leader in APR measures, beginning in 2005 when it placed 7th in the nation in the inaugural ranking.

[80] The university is one of only 61 schools to have received an NCAA Public Recognition Award for academic excellence in the past eight years.

[81] Past student-athletes include national-championship football coaches Bobby Bowden[83] and Jimbo Fisher[84] All-Pro defensive back Cortland Finnegan,[85] NFL standouts include James Bradberry (Carolina Panthers), Michael Pierce (Baltimore Ravens) and Jaquiski Tartt (San Francisco 49ers), and baseball’s Phillip Ervin, who has had success with the Cincinnati Reds.

The university has more than 57,000 living alumni, including U.S. congressmen, seven state governors, two U.S. Supreme Court justices, four Rhodes Scholars, multiple Emmy and Grammy award-winning artists, two national championship football coaches, and recipients of the Pulitzer and Nobel Peace prizes.