Oglethorpe University is a Liberal Arts university located in the Brookhaven suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. If you are new to the world of the stormy petrel – welcome! Here are some quick facts about Oglethorpe to catch you up to speed:
- Oglethorpe is home to approximately 1,200 students.
- The sixteenth and current president of Oglethorpe University is President Lawrence “Larry” Schall.
- The mascot for Oglethorpe University is the Stormy Petrel. In 2002, ESPN claimed the Petrel – or “Petey”, for short – was one of the “most memorable mascot names of all time”.
- The school motto is “Nescit Cedere”, which translates to “He does not know how to give up”. The alma mater, written by Dr. Linda Taylor, reiterates these words, and its relation to the petrel, which flies into the storm, just as we all must weather and rise above the negative events in each of our lives.
- Oglethorpe has been chartered twice: once in 1835, in Milledgeville, but it soon had to shut its doors when it lost all its students and endowment to the Civil War, and again, in 1913, at its current location on Peachtree Road.
- Above the library is the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, or OUMA. The museum hosts everything from Japanese pottery to the works of Dali, working closely with the other museums of Atlanta, and beyond.
- Oglethorpe University is home to several unique and exciting traditions, such as the “Boar’s Head Ceremony” and “The Battle of Bloody Marsh”.
- The Tower, Oglethorpe’s Literary Magazine, has been in print for over fifty years.
- Although they are no longer, around the time of World War II, Oglethorpe had a football team. In fact, Oglethorpe’s football team has legacy of defeating both Georgia Tech and University of Georgia.
- It is also home to the oldest millennial time capsule, as well as the oldest in the world. Named the Crypt of Civilization, the capsule was buried by Oglethorpe president Dr. Thornwell Jacobs in 1936. It is to be opened in six thousand years!
- There are some Barnum & Bailey Circus elephants buried somewhere beneath the library. During the 40’s, faculty member Dr. John Bernard took advantage of the opportunity that came when some elephants were accidentally poisoned. He took these elephant bodies and allowed the students of a medical school - which no longer exists on campus - to conduct medical experiments. The exact site of which they were buried was never specifically marked, so no one knows for sure exactly where they are located.
- Oglethorpe University is home to several sororities and fraternities, of both social and non-social distinctions. Such organizations include: Alpha Kappa Alpha, Epsilon Iota Psi, Chi Omega, Alpha Sigma Tau, Sigma Sigma Sigma, Chi Phi, Alpha Phi Alpha, Delta Sigma Phi, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Alpha Phi Omega, Phi Delta Epsilon, Omicron Delta Kappa, Alpha Psi, and Psi Chi.
- Some of Oglethorpe University’s more notable alumni are Sidney Lanier, Vincent Sherman, Ali Keeter, and Luke Appling.
- Oglethorpe University is home to the Core program, a new educational method whose twin aims were “to make a life and to make a living”. This goal, when first created, was deemed the “Oglethorpe Idea”, and has been used in the education curriculum of all students ever since.
- Oglethorpe University is undoubtedly the best school in the whole wide world. Not that I’m biased, or anything. Pe trels trels trels.
