Oklahoma State University was founded in 1889--18 years before statehood--as Oklahoma A&M College (OAMC), under the Morrill Land Grant Acts that allowed for the creation of land grant colleges. By midcentury, OAMC had a statewide presence with five campuses and a public educational system established to improve the lives of people in Oklahoma, the nation, and the world by adhering to its land grant mission of high-quality teaching, research, and outreach. On July 1, 1957, Oklahoma A&M College became Oklahoma State University (OSU). With more than 350 undergraduate and graduate degrees, OSU and its nine different colleges provide an unmatched diversity of academic offerings. Today, OSU has students enrolled from all 50 states and nearly 120 nations. There are more than 200,000 OSU alumni throughout the world.
Charles L.W. Leider, PhD, is professor and director emeritus of the landscape architecture program at Oklahoma State University. Prior to coming to OSU, he served as urban planning director for several leading US consulting firms. He earned a bachelor's degree in landscape architecture from Michigan State University, a master's of city planning from Yale University, and a doctorate from Oklahoma State University in environmental science with an emphasis on the preservation of cultural landscapes.