Denison University history

The school's first Commencement, which graduated three classical scholars, was held in 1840.

In 1845 the school became Granville College.

The school met at two different locations in its early years, before moving to a hill overlooking the community of Granville in 1854.

The seminary was superseded by the Young Ladies' Institute, founded in 1859 by Doctor and Mrs.

In Denmark coeducation extends back to the 18th century, and in Norway coeducation was adopted by law in 1896.

The new free public elementary, or common, schools, which after the American Revolution supplanted church institutions, were almost always coeducational, and by 1900 most public high schools were coeducational as well.

In 1916, the famed landscape architectural firm of Frederick Law Olmsted Sons, whose founder was the designer of New York City’s Central Park, some of the great Chicago lakefront parks, and distinguished college campuses such as Stanford and Wellesley, produced an innovative design for Denison.

In 1926, the board of trustees formalized a new curriculum that would make Denison University an exclusively undergraduate institution.

Focus upon leadership in undergraduate education and commitment to the residential principle led the college to develop concrete plans for the physical expansion of the campus and measured growth, with the college reaching its present size of about 2,000 students by 1970.