| | First Black Male Student Enrolled: Fred D. Patterson, 1889-1892 (Also, first Black Varsity Football player - 1891, 1892, & 1893 teams). |
| | First Black Homecoming Queen: Marlene Owens, 1960 |
| | First Black Drum Major, OSU Marching Band: Dwight Hudson, 1977 - 1979 |
| | First Black Male Graduate: Sherman Hamlin Guss, BA, Liberal Arts 1892 |
| | First Black Female Graduate: Jessie Frances Stephens (Married name: Glover), BA, 1905 |
| | First Black Male Master's Degree Recipient: Alonzo Jessie Bowling, MA, 1908 |
| | First Black Female Master's Degree Recipient: Aletha Hebron Washington, MA 1925 (also First Female Doctorate) |
| | First Black Male Doctorate Degree Recipient: General Lamar Harrison, Ph.D., 1936 |
| | First Black Female Doctorate Degree Recipient: Aletha Hebron Washington, Ph.D., 1928 (also First Female Master's) |
| | First Black Male M.D. from OSU:From the OSU College of Medicine: Clarence Alphonso Lindsay, Rudolph Finley, & Charles Robert Lewis, 1916 |
| | From Starling Loving (predecessor to the OSU College of Medicine): William Frederick Ebert, 1893 |
| | First Black Female M.D. from OSU: Clotilde Dent Bowen, 1947 (Also, the first Black Female Physician in the U.S. Army and the first Black Female to attain the rank of Colonel.) |
| | First Black Male to Graduate from OSU's College of Law: Dr. Leon A. Ransom, Law Degree with Honors (Phi Beta Kappa, as well as being one of the legendary "Laurel Wreath Holders" of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity), J.D., 1927 |
| | First Black Female to earn a Ph.D. in Bacteriology: Ruth Ella Moore, 1933 |
| | First Black Fraternity: Alpha Phi Alpha, Inc., 1911 |
| | First Black Sorority: Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., 1919 |
| | First Black Teacher: George Carter (Doctoral student in Math & Physics - took over an algebra class in his professor's absence in 1938.) |
| | First Black Office Staff Person: Ruth Harrison , Secretary, Political Science Department, 1949 |
| | First Black Male Tenured Faculty Member: George David Boston, Asst. Prof. of Anatomy, 1957 |
| | First Black Female Tenured Faculty Member: Alvia Bozeman, Asst. Prof., College of Education, 1960 |
| | First Black Member of the Board of Trustees: Peter H. Clark, 1884 |
| | First Black Female Librarian: Jane Gatliff, 1953 |