University to Celebrate Founder’s Day on Oct. 28

The University of the Ozarks will celebrate its 191^st birthday with several activities on Tuesday, Oct. 28, as part of Founder's Day 2025.

The day will include a special Chapel Service with Dr. Steve Oatis, assoicate vice president for academic affairs and professor of history, at 11:30 a.m. In Munger-Wilson Chapel. There will also be a tree-planting ceremony and picnic on the campus mall, giveaways for students, and a volleyball match against Lyon College at 6 p.m.

On October 28, in 1834, a group of Cumberland Presbyterians met at the Cane Hill meeting house in the small Northwest Arkansas frontier community for the purpose of establishing a school. That one-room school, one of the first west of the Mississippi River, would eventually move to Clarksville and become University of the Ozarks. Throughout its rich and storied 191-year history, Ozarks has honored its founders by pushing boundaries and blazing new trails in higher education, setting the curve in areas such as accessibility, equality, service and justice.

"On this special day, let's all take a moment to remember our founders and to offer our gratitude for their commitment to education and to creating generations of confident, prepared and empowered young men and women who have a made a consequential difference in our world," said U of O President Richard Dunsworth.

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