University of Virginia
From The UCSC Wikipedia Trust Project
Template:Infobox UniversityThe University of Virginia (also called U.Va., UVA, Mr. Jefferson's University, or The University[2]) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, established by Thomas Jefferson. It is the only North American university designated as a World Heritage Site. Conceived by 1800, and established in 1819, it is notable in U.S. history for being the first to offer specializations in subjects now common, such as Architecture, Astronomy, and Philosophy, as well as for being the first to separate church and education. Its School of Engineering and Applied Science was the first engineering school in the United States associated with a university. Officially, U.Va. is incorporated as The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia.
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History
On January 18, 1800, Thomas Jefferson, then Vice President of the United States, alluded to plans for a new college in a letter written to British scientist Joseph Priestley: "We wish to establish in the upper country of Virginia, and more centrally for the State, a University on a plan so broad and liberal and modern, as to be worth patronizing with the public support, and be a temptation to the youth of other States to come and drink of the cup of knowledge and fraternize with us."[1] In 1802, then serving as President of the United States, Jefferson wrote to artist Charles Willson Peale that his concept of the new university would be "on the most extensive and liberal scale that our circumstances would call for and our faculties meet."[3] Although Virginia was already home to one university, the College of William and Mary, Jefferson had lost confidence in his alma mater, partly because of its religious biases and lack of education in the sciences.[4]
The University of Virginia stands on land purchased in 1788 by an American Revolutionary War veteran, James Monroe. The farmland just outside Charlottesville was purchased from Monroe by the Board of Visitors of what was then Central College in 1817; Monroe was beginning the first of his own two terms in the White House. Guided by Jefferson, the school laid its first building's cornerstone later in 1817 and the Commonwealth of Virginia would charter the new university on January 25, 1819.
In the presence of James Madison, the Marquis de Lafayette toasted Jefferson as "father" of the University of Virginia at the school's inaugural banquet in 1824. The University's first classes met in March 1825. Other universities of the day allowed only three choices of specialization: Medicine, Law, and Religion, but under Jefferson's guidance, the University of Virginia became the first in the United States to allow specializations in such diverse fields as Astronomy, Architecture, Botany, Philosophy, and Political Science. Jefferson explained, "This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."[5]
An even more controversial direction was taken for the new university based on a daring vision of higher education, completely separated from religious doctrine. One of the largest construction projects in North America up to that time, the new Grounds were centered upon a library (then housed in the Rotunda) rather than a church—further distinguishing it from peer universities of the United States, virtually all of which were still primarily functioning as seminaries for one particular religion or another.[6] Jefferson even went so far as to ban the teaching of Theology altogether. In a letter to Thomas Cooper in October 1814, Jefferson stated, "a professorship of theology should have no place in our institution" and, true to form, the University never had a Divinity school or department, and was established independent of any religious sect. Replacing the then-standard specialization in Religion, the University undertook groundbreaking specializations in more "scientific" subjects such as Astronomy and Botany. (A non-denominational University chapel, notably absent from Jefferson's original plans, was constructed in 1890.)
Jefferson was intimately involved in the University, hosting Sunday dinners at his Monticello home for faculty and students, until his death. So taken with the import of what he viewed the University's foundations and potential to be and counting it amongst his greatest accomplishments, Jefferson eschewed mention of his political posts, and instead insisted his grave mention only his status as author of the Declaration of Independence and Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.
In 1826, the nation's fourth President James Madison became Rector of the University of Virginia, at the same time America's fifth President James Monroe made his home on the Grounds (at Monroe Hill) and was a member of the Board of Visitors. Both former Presidents stayed at the University until their deaths in the 1830s.
The School of Engineering and Applied Science opened in 1836, making it the oldest engineering school in the United States associated with a university.
At the onset of the American Civil War, the University of Virginia was the largest in the Southern United States and second nationwide only to Harvard University in its scope.[7] Unlike many other colleges in the South, the University was kept open throughout the conflict, an especially remarkable feat with its state being the site of more battles than any other. In March 1865, Union General George Armstrong Custer marched troops into Charlottesville, whereupon faculty and community leaders convinced him to spare the University. Though Union troops camped on the Lawn and damaged many of the Pavilions, Custer's men left four days later without bloodshed and the University was able to return to its educational routines.
Jefferson, ever the skeptic of central authority and bureaucracy, had originally decided the University of Virginia would have no President. Rather, this power was to be shared by a Rector and a Board of Visitors. As the nineteenth century waned, it became obvious this arrangement was incapable of adequately handling the many administrative and fundraising tasks which had become regrettably but unavoidably necessary amid the inner-workings of the growing University.
In 1904, Edwin Alderman resigned as President of Tulane University to take the same position at the University of Virginia. As the University's first President, he embarked on a number of reforms for both the University and the state of Virginia's public educational systems in general. A reform specific to the University of Virginia was one of the first school-sponsored financial aid programs in all of higher learning and, though primitive by today's standards, it included a loan provision for those "needy young men" who were unable to pay. Initially controversial and opposed by many at what had become a very traditional school, Alderman's progressive ideas stood the test of time and he today remains the longest-serving President in the University's history, having served for nearly thirty years until his death in 1931. Alderman Library, a popular landmark among today's students, is his namesake.
Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner became writer-in-residence at the University in 1957, keeping open office hours until his death in 1962. He was also a lecturer at the school, as well as taking the title "Consultant on American Literature to the Alderman Library". Faulkner had a large collection of his manuscripts and typesets given to and made available (the request reaffirmed by his wife and daughter) at the library upon his death.
In 2004, the University of Virginia became the first public university in the United States to receive more of its funding from private sources than from the state with which it is associated. Thanks to a Charter initiative that recently passed the Virginia legislature, the University—and any other public universities in the state that choose to do so—will have greater autonomy over its own affairs.
In the same year, the 100th anniversary of Alderman becoming President, the University announced the AccessUVa financial aid program. This program guarantees the University will meet 100% of a student's demonstrated need. It also provides low-income students (up to 200% of the poverty line – as of 2006, about $40,000 for a family of four) with full grants to cover all of their educational needs, and it caps the level of need-based loans for all other students. This program is the first to guarantee full grants to students of low-income families at any public university in the United States.
Though all-white until 1950 and generally all-male until 1970 (women had for many years prior been admitted to the education and nursing schools), the University of Virginia is now more diverse. The makeup of the Class of 2008 was 10% African-American, 14% Asian-American, 5% Hispanic, 5% Other and 5% International. Fewer than two-thirds identified themselves as being white. Eighty-five percent of the University's entering Class of 2009 were ranked in the top 10% of their graduating high school class and 56% were female.
Today, minority students are particularly successful at the University of Virginia. According to the Fall 2005 issue of Journal of Blacks in Higher Education [8], the University "has the highest black student graduation rate of the Public Ivies at 86 percent." The journal goes on to state that "by far the most impressive is the University of Virginia with its high black student graduation rate and its small racial difference in graduation rates."
The University of Virginia joined with Harvard University and Princeton University as the three universities announced the end of their Early Decision programs in September 2006, stating that such policies limit low-income and middle class students from competing on an equal footing with applicants from wealthy families.[9][10] Early Decision programs force a student to accept an offer of admission before evaluating the financial aid offers of various universities. For its part, U.Va. noted that of 947 Early Decision acceptances for the Class of 2010, fewer than 20 of those students had applied for aid.[11]
Grounds
:Main articles: The Lawn, The Rotunda, and The Range
Throughout its history, the University of Virginia has won praise for its unique Jeffersonian architecture. In January 1895 (less than a year before the Great Rotunda Fire) The New York Times said that the design of the University of Virginia "was incomparably the most ambitious and monumental architectural project that had or has yet been conceived in this century".[12] In the United States Bicentennial issue of their AIA Journal, the American Institute of Architects called it "the proudest achievement of American architecture in the past 200 years".[13] Today, the University of Virginia remains an architectural landmark and popular tourist destination.
The University, together with Jefferson's home at Monticello, is a World Heritage Site, one of only three modern sites so listed in the 50 states. The others are the Statue of Liberty and Independence Hall. It was the first collegiate campus worldwide to be awarded the designation.
Jefferson's original architectural design revolves around The Lawn, a grand, terraced green-space surrounded by residential and academic buildings. He called it the "Academical Village", and that name remains in use today to describe both the specific area of the Lawn and the larger University surrounding it. The principal building of the design, The Rotunda (RotundaCam), stands at the north end of the Lawn, and is the most recognizable symbol of the University. It is half the height of the Pantheon in Rome, which was the primary inspiration for the building. The Lawn and the Rotunda were the model for many similar designs of "centralized green areas" at universities across the country (most notably those at Duke University in 1892, Johns Hopkins University in 1902, Rice University in 1910, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University in 1915, and Killian Court at MIT in 1916 — the last of which was coincidentally founded by William Barton Rogers, who immediately prior to founding MIT was a Natural Philosophy professor at the University of Virginia for 19 years). Frank E. Grizzard, Jr., a scholar at the University, has written the definitive book on the original academic buildings at the University.[14]
Flanking both sides of the Rotunda and extending down the length of the Lawn are 10 Pavilions interspersed with student rooms. Each has its own classical architectural style, as well as its own walled garden separated by uniquely Jeffersonian Serpentine walls. These walls are called "serpentine" because they run a sinusoidal course, one that lends strength to the wall and allows for the wall to be only one brick thick, one of many innovations by which Jefferson attempted to combine aesthetics with utility.
On October 27, 1895, the Rotunda burned to the ground with the unfortunate help of overzealous faculty member William "Reddy" Echols, who attempted to save it by throwing roughly 100 pounds (~45 kg) of dynamite into the main fire in the hopes that the blast would separate the burning Annex from the main building. His last-ditch effort ultimately failed. (Perhaps ironically, one of the University's main honors student programs is named for him.) University officials swiftly approached celebrity architect Stanford White to rebuild the Rotunda. White took the charge further, redesigning the Rotunda interior — making it two floors instead of three, adding three buildings to the foot of the Lawn, and designing a President's House. He did omit rebuilding the Rotunda Annex, which had been built in 1853 to house classroom space. The classes formerly occupying the annex were now moved to the South Lawn in White's new buildings.
In concert with the United States Bicentennial in 1976, Stanford White's changes to the Rotunda were removed and the building was returned to Jefferson's original design. Renovated according to original sketches and historical photographs, a three-story Rotunda opened on Jefferson's birthday, April 13, 1976.
Though student enrollment has grown well beyond the original Lawn facilities, the University further distinguishes itself by extending the original Academical Village ideal with two exclusively First-Year living areas, The Old Dorms, located on McCormick Road, and The New Dorms, adjacent to Scott Stadium, both situated wholly on Grounds and considered integral to establishing peer discourse. The common bonding experience proves such a fixture to the University experience, students often identify themselves by individual "Old" or "New" dormitory.
In 2001, John Kluge donated 7,378 acres (30 km²) of additional lands to the University. Kluge wished for the core of the land to be developed by the University, and the surrounding land to be sold to fund an endowment supporting the core. A large part of the gift was soon sold to musician Dave Matthews, of the Dave Matthews Band, to be utilized in an organic farming project. It is unknown what the University will do with its "core" portion of the land.
The Virginia Department of Transportation maintains the roads through the University grounds as State Route 302.[15]
Modern luminary gatherings and events
On June 10, 1940, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt came to the University's Memorial Gymnasium to watch his son Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. graduate, and to give the commencement address. Instead, "in this university founded by the first great American teacher of democracy" he made his impromptu "Stab in the Back"[16] speech denouncing the act of Italy joining beside Nazi Germany to invade France on that day.[16] (Graduation ceremonies are traditionally held on the Lawn, but rain had forced a move to "Mem Gym" for the Class of 1940.)
Nearly two decades later, in 1958, Senator John F. Kennedy visited and spoke in the same space with brothers Robert Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, the latter of whom was managing JFK's 1958 Senatorial re-election campaign from his dormitory at the University of Virginia.
To commemorate the anniversary of America's independence, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II strolled The Lawn and lunched in the Dome Room of The Rotunda, one of five American sites she publicly visited.
The Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu stayed on Grounds for one week in 1998 while attending the University's Nobel Laureates Conference.
Academics
To receive a degree from the University of Virginia, it must be earned academically – there has never been an honorary degree offered.[17] The policy was instituted by Thomas Jefferson. When the Virginia Legislature's Committee of Schools and Colleges was reconsidering it in 1845, then U.Va. professor and future Massachusetts Institute of Technology founder William Barton Rogers wrote "the legislators of the University have, we think, wisely made their highest academic honor—that of Master of Arts of the University of Virginia—the genuine test of diligent and successful literary training, and, disdaining such literary almsgiving, have firmly barred the door against the demands of spurious merit and noisy popularity." Sixteen years later in 1861 when MIT was chartered, Rogers carried the U.Va. policy through to the new institute.[18]
The University of Virginia places #1 among state-supported universities in the United States[19] in the production of Rhodes Scholars. Its most recent winners were two awarded in 2004, bringing it to a cumulative total of 45.
Tuition is lower for both in-state and out-of-state students than at most other top universities. The student composition of the University is such that it was described in the 2006 America's Best Colleges edition of U.S. News and World Report as being "chock full of academic stars who turn down private schools like Duke, Princeton, and Cornell for, they say, a better value."[20]
In the popular U.S. News and World Report rankings, the University of Virginia consistently ranks in the top handful of public universities nationwide. In the 2007 edition, the undergraduate program at U.Va. ranked #2 out of roughly 200 public universities in the United States and #24 overall (including privates).[21] In every published edition of the report going back to 1983, the University of Virginia has retained its position as the highest ranking university, public or private, in its home state.
The Jefferson Scholars Foundation offers four year full-tuition scholarships based on regional, international, and at-large competitions. Students are nominated by their high schools, interviewed, then invited to weekend-long series of tests of character, aptitude, and general suitability. Approximately 3% of those nominated are successful.
Echols (College of Arts and Sciences) and Rodman (School of Engineering and Applied Sciences) Scholars, which include 6-7% of undergraduate students, receive no financial benefits, but are entitled to special advisors, priority course registration, and residence in designated dorms, and fewer curricular constraints than other students.
The University offers 48 bachelor's degrees, 94 master's degrees, 55 doctoral degrees, 6 educational specialist degrees, and 2 first-professional degrees (Medicine and Law) to its students.
The University of Virginia Library System holds 5 million volumes. Its Electronic Text Center, established in 1992, has put 70,000 books online as well as 350,000 images that go with them. No university in the world can claim more electronic texts. These e-texts are open to anyone and, as of 2002, were receiving 37,000 daily visits (compared to 6,000 daily visitors to the physical libraries).[22]
The University of Virginia hosts the headquarters of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (which owns the Very Large Array of radio telescopes made famous in the Carl Sagan television documentary Cosmos and film Contact) and the North American Atacama Large Millimeter Array Science Center. It also hosts the Rare Book School, a non-profit organization that studies the history of books and printing. The University is one of 60 elected members of the Association of American Universities, and the only member representing the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the United States' sole member of Universitas 21, an international consortium of research-intensive universities.
Faculty
The University of Virginia possesses a distinguished faculty, including a Nobel Laureate, 25 Guggenheim fellows, 26 Fulbright fellows, six National Endowment for the Humanities fellows, two Presidential Young Investigator Award winners, three Sloan award winners, and three Packard Foundation Award winners. The University's faculty were particularly instrumental in the evolution of Internet networking and connectivity. Physics professor James McCarthy was the lead academic liaison to the government in the establishment of SURANET, and the University has also participated in ARPANET, Abilene, Internet2, and Lambda Rail. On March 19, 1986 the University's address Virginia.edu became the first .EDU contribution to the Internet originating from the Commonwealth of Virginia.[23]
Faculty were originally housed in the Academical Village among the students, serving as both instructors and advisors, continuing on to include the McCormick Road Old Dorms, though this has been phased out in favor of undergraduate student resident advisors (RAs). Several of the faculty, however, continue the University tradition of living on Grounds, either on the Lawn in the various Pavilions, or as fellows at one of three residential colleges (Brown College at Monroe Hill, Hereford College, and the International Residential College).
Some of the University of Virginia's faculty have become well-known national personalities during their time in Charlottesville. Larry Sabato has, according to The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, become the most cited professor in the country by national and regional news organizations, both on the Internet and in print.[24] Julian Bond, a lecturer at the University since 1990, has been the Chairman of the NAACP since 1998.
The Cavalier Daily student newspaper posted faculty compensation for 2002 online.[25]
Endowment
With $3.5 billion as of April 30, 2006 for approximately 19,800 students, the University of Virginia