page_title: Ohio Wesleyan University
section_title: Organizations and activities
hierarchical_section_title: Ohio Wesleyan University / Student life / Organizations and activities
caption_attribution_description: Hamilton Williams Campus Center at Ohio Wesleyan University
context_page_description: Ohio Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts university in Delaware, Ohio. It was founded in 1842 by Methodist leaders and Central Ohio residents as a nonsectarian institution, and is a member of the Ohio Five – a consortium of Ohio liberal arts colleges. Ohio Wesleyan has always admitted students irrespective of religion or race and maintained that the university "is forever to be conducted on the most liberal principles."
  The 200-acre site is 27 miles north of Columbus, Ohio. It includes the main academic and residential campus, the Perkins Observatory, and the Kraus Wilderness Preserve.
  In 2010, Ohio Wesleyan had the eleventh highest percentage of international students among liberal arts colleges for the seventeenth straight year. In its 2015 edition of U.S. college rankings, Niche ranked Ohio Wesleyan the 56th most politically liberal college in the U.S. U.S. News & World Report ranked Ohio Wesleyan 95th among U.S. liberal arts colleges in its 2018 edition.
context_section_description: Ohio Wesleyan University has 95 student clubs and organizations. The university offers three chapels as well as several Christian and other religious groups for its students. Its social organizations cover a wide range of interests, including chess, ultimate, finance, and medieval sword fighting. There are two a cappella singing groups on campus, "The OWtsiders," a student-run group formed in 1999, and the all-female "Pitch Black" established in 2005. Another entertainment-related club is "The Babbling Bishops", an improvisational comedy troupe. The "Babbling Bishops" started in the fall of 1990 when a group of theatre concentration students formed a performance-oriented project for their theatre degrees. The project became an improv comedy troupe, rehearsing in Stuyvesant Hall and performing with other college improv troupes since 1996.
  Socially conscious students can join organizations such as the activist group "Young Democratic Socialists" or participate in student government groups, such as the Campus Programming Board and the Wesleyan Council on Student Affairs.  The "PRIDE" organization offers support to OWU's LGBT students.
  Fewer than a third of Ohio Wesleyan's students are involved in Greek life, but that percentage has fluctuated significantly throughout the university's history. All six fraternities and five sororities on campus are currently involved in many philanthropic and community programs.
  Ohio Wesleyan has four religious chaplains: A Protestant minister, a Roman Catholic priest, and a Jewish rabbi. In addition to student groups and services associated with these three religions, there are groups associated with Islam, Buddhism and Unitarian Universalism, and even a group which holds services that are simply "spiritual" and separate from any organized religion. Services are also available for Quakers, Christian Scientists, Hindus, and Baha'is, and there are many local religious groups in Delaware, Ohio.
  OWU's oldest student organizations are its literary clubs, including a number of student journals, magazines, and newspapers. The school's student-run weekly newspaper, The Transcript, is the oldest continuously published, independent, college newspaper in the United States. The OWL, an annual literary publication, features students' work and is one of the nation's oldest college literary magazines. Other student publications include The Civic Arts Review, the electronic Connect2OWU bulletin, and @Wesleyan, a quarterly online magazine. OWU Radio, formerly WSLN, broadcasts from Phillips Hall, and offers show times to students, faculty, and local citizens of Delaware.
  The university also has a student government, the Wesleyan Council on Student Affairs (WCSA).
caption: The Hamilton-Williams Campus Center is the campus hub for student activities.
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