Oakland University - Campus and Community

Campus and Community

In addition to its geographic location between the cities of Auburn Hills and Rochester Hills, Oakland University maintains an official hometown relationship with the neighboring city of Rochester, Michigan. University and city officials signed a partnership agreement in 2003 to officially recognize the relationship between Rochester and OU. In 2005, Rochester was ranked 39th in the CNN/Money Magazine list of the Top 100 American cities in which to live.

OU's campus, which encompasses 1,500 acres (6.1 km2), includes trails and biking paths and two nationally-ranked golf courses. In 2009, an 18-hole disc golf course opened. Grizzly Oaks was co-designed by student Jarrett Schlaff and licensed by the Professional Disc Golf Association.

Although many of Oakland's students commute from surrounding areas, there are more than 2,000 who live on campus in a variety of residence halls, student townhouses, and university apartments. The residence halls include Fitzgerald House, Hill House, Hamlin Hall, Van Wagoner House, and the East and West Towers of Vandenberg Hall. Residential learning communities on OU's campus include Scholars Tower and the Residential Honors College community. Eight additional buildings make up the Matthews Court student townhouses, and six major Tudor-style buildings house the University Student Apartments, which were completed in 2002.

The campus also offers recreational facilities for intramural sports and for OU's 16 NCAA Division I athletic teams, including the lighted Upper Athletic Fields, the indoor Sports Dome, fields for varsity baseball, softball, and soccer, facilities for basketball, handball, track and weight training. The campus Recreation Center houses OU's state-of-the-art natatorium, and the Athletics Center O'rena, a 4,000-seat field house, is the home court for OU basketball and volleyball.

OU's student union, the Oakland Center, was renovated and expanded in 2003. The Oakland Center houses the offices of student organizations, a large food court with multiple restaurants, the student bookstore, a cafe, a pool hall and gaming center, a Student Technology Center, the campus newspaper The Oakland Post, computer labs, conference rooms, as well as the offices of the university radio station, WXOU (88.3 FM). OU also has its own television station (OU TV) which is broadcast on-campus and to the local community. Campus life is enhanced by more than 200 registered student organizations, ranging from cultural and religious groups to Greek organizations. Fraternities represented at OU include Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Sigma Pi, Theta Chi, Tau Kappa Epsilon, Alpha Phi Alpha and Iota Phi Theta. Sororities include Alpha Delta Pi, Alpha Sigma Tau, Gamma Phi Beta, Phi Sigma Sigma, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, Zeta Phi Beta and Sigma Gamma Rho. The so-called Cottage District of campus, which consists of homes originally built for workers employed at the old Meadow Brook Estate, now contains fraternity and sorority houses. Only one(Theta Chi) has an official chapter house off-campus. Additionally, the university owns an adjoining tract of land to the east of the main university campus, which was developed into a neighborhood in which many OU faculty members currently live.

In 2009, OU created a bicycle sharing system called OU Bike Share. The program was started with 30 bicycles available for use free of charge on the honor system. The bicycles are labeled with a yellow "OU Bike Share" band.