University of Mississippi

Main article: History of the University of Mississippi Founding and early history Frederick A. P. Barnard , the last antebellum chancellor, and the Lyceum in 1861 The Mississippi Legislature chartered the University of Mississippi on February 24, 1844. [ 3 ] Planners selected an isolated, rural site in Oxford as a "sylvan exile" that would foster academic studies and focus. [ 4 ] In 1845, residents of Lafayette County donated land west of Oxford for the campus and the following year, architect William Nichols oversaw construction of an academic building called the Lyceum , two dormitories, and faculty residences. [ 3 ] On November 6, 1848, the university, offering a classical curriculum, opened to its first class of 80 students, [ 4 ] [ 5 ] most of whom were children of elite slaveholders, all of whom were white, and all but one of whom were from Mississippi. [ 4 ] [ 6 ] For 23 years, the university was Mississippi's only public institution of higher learning, [ 7 ] and for 110 years, its only comprehensive university. [ 8 ] In 1854, the University of Mississippi School of Law was established, becoming the fourth state-supported law school in the United States. [ 9 ] Early president Frederick A. P. Barnard sought to increase the stature of the university, placing him in conflict with the more conservative board of trustees. [ 10 ] His hundred-page 1858 report to the trustees on his proposals resulted in little besides the university head's title being changed to "chancellor". [ 11 ] Barnard's northern background—he was born in Massachusetts and graduated from Yale —and Union sympathies resulted in heightened tensions: a student assaulted his slave and the state legislature investigated him. [ 10 ] Following the presidential election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, Mississippi became the second state to secede, with the articles of secession drafted by the university's mathematics professor Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar .

[ 12 ] Students organized themselves into a military company called the "University Greys", which merged with the Confederate States Army . [ 13 ] Within a month of the Civil War 's outbreak, only 5 students remained at the University of Mississippi, and, by fall 1861, the university closed. In its final action, the board of trustees awarded Barnard a doctorate of divinity . [ 13 ] Within six months, Confederates converted the campus into a hospital. It was evacuated in November 1862 as General Ulysses S. Grant 's Union forces approached. Although Kansan troops destroyed much of the medical equipment, a lone remaining professor persuaded Grant against burning the campus. [ 14 ] [ note 1 ] After three weeks, Grant and his forces left, and the campus returned to being a Confederate hospital. Throughout the war, over 700 wounded died and were buried on campus. [ 16 ]

The University of Mississippi was the first college in the Southeast to hire a female faculty member: Sarah McGehee Isom in 1885. The University of Mississippi reopened in October 1865. [ 16 ] To avoid rejecting veterans, the university lowered admission standards and decreased costs by eliminating tuition and allowing students to live off-campus. [ 5 ] The student body remained entirely white: in 1870 the chancellor declared that he and the entire faculty would resign rather than admit "negro" students. [ 17 ] In 1882, the university began admitting women [ 18 ] but they were not permitted to live on campus or attend law school. [ 5 ] In 1885, the University of Mississippi hired Sarah McGehee Isom , becoming the first southeastern US college to hire a female faculty member. [ 5 ] [ 19 ] Nearly 100 years later, in 1981, the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies was established in her honor. [ 5 ] [ 19 ] The university's byname "Ole Miss" was first used in 1897, when it won a contest of suggestions for a yearbook title. [ 20 ] The term originated as a title domestic slaves used to distinguish the mistress of a plantation from "young misses". [ 21 ] Fringe origin theories include it coming from a diminutive of "Old Mississippi", [ 22 ] [ 23 ] [ 24 ] or from the name of the "Ole Miss" train that ran from Memphis to New Orleans . [ 20 ] [ 25 ] Within two years, students and alumni were using "Ole Miss" to refer to the university. [ 26 ] Between 1900 and 1930, the Mississippi Legislature introduced bills aiming to relocate, close, or merge the university with Mississippi State University . All such legislation failed. [ 27 ] During the 1930s, the governor of Mississippi Theodore G. Bilbo was politically hostile toward the University of Mississippi, firing administrators and faculty, and replacing them with his friends [ 28 ] in the "Bilbo purge".

[ 29 ] Bilbo's actions severely damaged the university's reputation, leading to the temporary loss of its accreditation. Consequently, in 1944, the Constitution of Mississippi was amended to protect the university's board of trustees from political pressure. [ 28 ] During World War II , the University of Mississippi was one of 131 colleges and universities that participated in the national V-12 Navy College Training Program , which offered students a path to a Navy commission. [ 30 ]