Why Miami?

We hear it all: Miami of Ohio, the University of Miami of Ohio, the University of Ohio at Miami. “Can I come by for a tour while I am visiting grandma in Boca Raton?” “Can I send my application to the Ohio campus of University of Miami for admission to the Coral Gables campus?” “Why are YOU Miami?”

The last one we hear the most. To begin the answer we quote noted historian and President Emeritus of Miami University, Philip Shriver, “Though the Miami name also belongs to a university in southeastern Florida, it belonged first to a small college on the American frontier." Miami University was chartered on February 17, 1809, by the Ohio legislature who chose the name Miami University for the second university in Ohio (Ohio University in Athens was founded in 1804). We were named for the Miami Indian Tribe that inhabited the area now known as the Miami Valley Region of Ohio. We also have two Miami Rivers (the Great and Little), Miamitown, Miami County, New Miami, and Miamisburg in this part of Ohio. We are in Oxford, Ohio, a town named for one of the world’s most famous college towns, Oxford, England. There was a university here before the town!

In 1809, Florida was still a colony of Spain; it became a state in 1845. The village that grew into the city of Miami was chartered in the mid 1840s and incorporated as a city in 1896. Local citizens founded a private university, the University of Miami, in 1926, fifteen years after Miami University’s Centennial celebration. We share a name, but are two independent and separate institutions, although the current President of the University of Miami, Donna Shalala, is an alumna of The Western College for Women. Western College was a private woman’s college that was also located in Oxford, Ohio. It merged with Miami University in the early 1970s. Today the Western Campus is one of the most beautiful and historic parts of Miami University, and you will find it on the eastern edge of campus! WHY WESTERN? That’s a story for another blog!