The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States."Campus Map & Visitor's Guide." University of Arkansas. Zoomable Map. . Retrieved April 7, 2010. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System. Founded as Arkansas Industrial University in 1871, classes were first held in 1872, with its present name adopted in 1899.
The university campus consists of 378 buildings spread across of land in Fayetteville, Arkansas. As of the fall of 2025, total enrollment was 34,175. The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and had spent $164.4 million on research in FY 2021.
The University of Arkansas's athletic teams, the Arkansas Razorbacks, compete in NCAA Division I as members of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) with eight men's teams and eleven women's teams in thirteen sports.
History
Early developments The University of Arkansas was founded in 1871 on the site of a hilltop farm that overlooked the Ozark Mountains, giving it the nickname "The Hill"."Overview and Points of Pride." Profile. Retrieved on May 10, 2009.
The university was established under the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act of 1862. The university's founding also satisfied the provision in the Arkansas Constitution of 1868 that the General Assembly was to "establish and maintain a State University."Reynolds, History of the University of Arkansas
Bids from state towns and counties determined the university's location. The citizens of Fayetteville and Washington County pledged the most: $130,000 toward securing the university. Classes started on January 22, 1872.
Notable landmarks Completed in 1875, Old Main, a two-towered brick building designed in the Second Empire style, was the primary instructional and administrative building. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Its design was based on the plans for the main academic building at the University of Illinois, which has since been demolished.Robert A. Leflar, The First 100 Years: Centennial History of the University of Arkansas,(Fayetteville, Arkansas: University of Arkansas Foundation, Inc., 1972) At Arkansas, the taller tower is the bell tower, and the shorter tower is the clock tower. In addition to the regular chimes of the clock, the university's Alma Mater plays at 5 pm every day.
Old Main contains classrooms, the restored Giffels Auditorium, as well as the administrative offices of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. The lawn at Old Main serves as an arboretum.
Beginning with the class of 1876, the names of students at University of Arkansas are inscribed in "Senior Walk" and wind across campus for more than four miles. More recently, the names of all the recipients of honorary degrees were added, including J. Edgar Hoover, Queen Noor, President Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton.
One unusual structure at Arkansas is the Chi Omega Greek Theatre, a gift to the school by the sorority's national headquarters. It marked the first time a national sorority presented a memorial of its foundation to the institution where it was founded. Chi Omega was organized in 1895, at the University of Arkansas, and is the mother (Psi) chapter of the national organization. The largest crowd ever assembled in the theatre was for a concert by the Army Air Corps Band during World War II. From 1934 to 1991, the space under the stage was used for a rifle range by the Army ROTC.
African American history and African studies program The first African American student, James McGahee, attended the University of Arkansas in 1872, following the university's opening in 1871 during the Reconstruction era, to "prepare for the ministry of the Episcopal Church". He is noted as having a grade average deemed excellent. Alongside McGahee, two other African American men, Mark W. Alexander and Isom Washington, are noted as having attended Arkansas Industrial College, however no record of their enrollment has been found. Following the end of Reconstruction, the racial dynamic shifted at the university and it is unknown if McGahee was able to continue his education following 1873.
Former state senator and U.S. congressman John N. Tillman served as president of the University of Arkansas from 1905 to 1912. In the Arkansas State Senate he proposed the Separate Coach Law of 1891, a Jim Crow law to segregate African American passengers. The bill became law and was enforced for many decades.
The University of Arkansas admitted Silas Herbert Hunt of Texarkana, an African American veteran of World War II to the university's School of Law in 1948. Hunt's enrollment was regarded as the first successful school integration below the Mason–Dixon line of that era. While Hunt was admitted into the university, his attendance was not met without controversy. African American students were permitted to attend the university, under the condition that they enroll as graduate or law students, and be taught in segregated classes. Unfortunately, Silas Hunt was only able to complete one year of education. In April 1949, Hunt was admitted to the VA hospital, where he later died of tuberculosis, aggravated by injuries he had sustained in the war.
Roy Wilkins, administrator of the NAACP, wrote in 1950 that Arkansas was the "very first of the Southern states to accept the new trend without fighting a delaying action or attempting to... limit, if not nullify, bare compliance." In the fall of 1948, changes were made to the university's segregation policy, which allowed for the admittance of African American students into regular classes. The first to follow Hunt was a law school student by the name of Jackie L. Shropshire, would later go on to become the university's first black graduate in 1951. 1952 University of Arkansas Medical School graduate Edith Irby Jones, who was also admitted to the University of Arkansas in 1948, would be the first African American to be admitted in any Southern school. Several African American students followed in his footsteps, attending various graduate programs at the university. Arkansas was freely admitting African American students as early as 1957, while many southern states still prohibited black students from attending all white universities. The events in Little Rock at this time did some damage to race relations at the university that would not be fixed for some time.
The desegregation of the University of Arkansas was the first time a place of higher education in the south integrated African American students. It was the first to have black students enroll in any former confederate state since reconstruction. Fayetteville where the University of Arkansas is located was also the first southern city to implement an integration policy voluntarily. This is suggested to have been done from legal pressures to avoid litigation. This was also due to growing discontent with the separate but equal laws that were in place.
In 1969, the university created the Black Studies Advisory Committee to facilitate the creation of a Black Studies program, which began in the fall semester of 1968 with 19 courses offered.
In 1968 a group called Black Americans for Democracy or BAD was the first organization at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville specifically founded to raise black awareness and advocate for African American students. Even though African American students had been admitted to the school in previous years they were still the minority, "Fewer than 150 out of the 9,000 students at the Fayetteville campus were African American" (in 1969). Since there were so few black students this organization created a space for community and expression when they were still small in numbers. They started their newspaper because they felt black students were not covered well in the campus wide paper The Arkansas Traveler. The group organized a choir and drama club, developed black fraternities and sororities, as well as closely followed the hiring of black professors and administrators. By the end of the 1970s the black student population at the school had increased by four times its original amount.Moore, M. T. (1972). Black student unrest at the university of arkansas: A case study (Order No. EP10455). Available from Dissertations & Theses @ University of Arkansas Fayetteville; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (302666034). Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/black-student-unrest-at-university-arkansas-case/docview/302666034/se-2 Then in 1979 BAD changed their name to Students Taking a New Dimension or STAND. They kept their student programs they created and Black Emphasis Week, a week dedicated to black culture and student life on campus.
In 2004, the university provided resources to help support the program, establishing the John White Scholarship, Sankofa Registered Student Organization, and Ghana study abroad tour. In 2008, The Black Studies program was renamed the African and African American Studies (AAST) program and expanded its course offerings and student enrollment. In 2014, the program moved to a new space in Memorial Hall and was added to the University Core. A year later, an online minor and graduate certificate in African and African American Studies was established. The university hosted its first annual AAST Graduate Fellows search symposium in 2016 and established the Roy S. Bryce-Laporte scholarship later in 2018. In 2019, the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees voted to rename halls B and C of the Northwest Quad in honor of Gordon Morgan and Margaret Clark, respectively. The university has also hosted guest lectures by Aldon D. Morris, Carol Anderson, and Nikole Hannah-Jones related to African and African American studies.
Notable people in African and African American history at the university Gordon Daniel Morgan – an alumnus and one of the first Black professors at the University of Arkansas, and was hired to teach sociology Margaret Clark – one of the first Black professors at the University of Arkansas, and was hired to teach world languages Gerald Jordan – attended the University of Arkansas School of Journalism and Media, and is the university's current Faculty and Athletics Representative to NCAA and SEC
Campus
The University of Arkansas campus sweeps across hilltops on the western side of Fayetteville, Arkansas. Among the 378 buildings on the campus, 11 buildings have been added to the National Register of Historic Places individually, with most buildings in the historic core being named as contributing properties to the University of Arkansas Campus Historic District.
Construction began on Old Main in 1873 and was completed by 1875 in the Second Empire architectural style. Built with local brick and sandstone, Old Main serves as the university's signature building. The building has remained on campus despite its recommended removal in the 1925 master plan from the architects of Jamieson and Spearl. This plan included destruction of all existing campus buildings and reconstruction in the Collegiate Gothic style. Several buildings were built in this style near the core of campus, including the Vol Walker Hall, Engineering Hall, Chemistry Building, Agriculture Building, and Home Economics Building. The plan ran out of funds and was never completed, leading to a somewhat haphazard arrangement of buildings after the 1930s.
The university's oldest tradition is Senior Walk, which contains the names of graduates from each class of the university. Beginning at the front steps of Old Main and running along the sidewalks across campus, Senior Walk is adorned with more than 170,000 names of former students. This tradition is unique to American universities.