Company Profile
Otterbein University
Company Overview
Otterbein University is a private university nationally-recognized for its intentional blending of liberal arts and professional studies through its renowned Integrative Studies curriculum and its commitments to experiential learning and community engagement.
Otterbein’s commitment to opportunity started with its founding in 1847 as one of the nation’s first universities to welcome women and persons of color to its community of teachers and learners. Otterbein remains committed to its relationship with the United Methodist Church and its spirit of inclusion, and to extending its legacy of recruiting a heterogeneous faculty, student body, and staff; to fostering a climate that doesn’t just accommodate differences, but engages with them; and to providing rich opportunities for learning from those differences.
Otterbein is a recipient of the 2015 Carnegie Community Service Classification; a finalist for the 2014 President’s Award for Economic Opportunity Community Service; and has been honored With Distinction by the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll since the list’s inception in 2006. It stands in its category’s top 10 percent in U.S. News & World Report’s guide to “America’s Best Colleges.” Otterbein’s student population includes 2,400 undergraduate and 500 graduate students.
The University offers more than 70 undergraduate majors; seven master’s programs; and a doctorate in nursing practice (DNP). In addition, Otterbein is home to The Point — a science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM) innovation center — which is a one-of-a-kind resource that combines academics with the business and manufacturing needs of our community.
Company History
Otterbein’s story begins in the mid-1800s, before the abolition of slavery, before the women’s right movement, before equality and inclusion were rights. In 1847, equality and inclusion actually laid the foundation of Otterbein.
We included women as faculty members and as students from our founding, and we were the first institution in the nation to do so. Otterbein admitted students of color before the Civil War, rescued fugitive slaves and welcomed Japanese-American students who had been sent to internment camps during World War II. And we gave students a voice in our story through our unique governance system beginning in the 1920s. Today, approximately 3,000 students come to Otterbein each year to experience that same spirit of inclusion.