University of Dayton
university in Dayton, Ohio, USA
The University of Dayton (UD) is a private, Catholic research university in Dayton, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1850 by the Society of Mary, it is one of three Marianist universities in the US and the second-largest private university in Ohio. Its campus is located in southern Dayton and spans 388 acres on both sides of the Great Miami River. The campus is noted for the Immaculate Conception Chapel and the University of Dayton Arena.
As of 2026, the university enrolls students from a variety of religious, ethnic and geographic backgrounds, totaling approximately 10,506 undergraduates and postgraduates combined, making UD the eleventh largest Catholic university in terms of enrollment in the U.S. It offers more than 80 academic programs in the arts, sciences, business, education, health sciences, engineering, and law. In 2009, UD offered what it believes to be one of the first undergraduate degree programs in human rights. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".
History
Founding
In 1849, on a mission to establish a presence for the Society of Mary in America, Leo Meyer journeyed from Alsace in France to Cincinnati. But with a cholera epidemic raging to the north, Bishop John Baptist Purcell of the Cincinnati diocese sent Meyer to Emmanuel parish in Dayton to tend to the sick. In Dayton, Meyer met local farmer John Stuart, who had lost his infant daughter Mary Louisa to cholera the year before.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “University of Dayton” is university in Dayton, Ohio, USA. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through University, Dayton and university, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “university in Dayton, Ohio, USA” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2092392. VIAF identifies the subject as 143914224. The Library of Congress control number is n50039365. Authority coordinates are 39.741, -84.180. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1850, 2026, 2009 and 1849.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “University of Dayton” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.