University of Virginia
Public university in Charlottesville, Virginia, US / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his Academical Village, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The original governing Board of Visitors included three U.S. presidents: Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, the latter as sitting president of the United States at the time of its foundation. As its first two rectors, Presidents Jefferson and Madison played key roles in the university's foundation, with Jefferson designing both the original courses of study and the university's architecture. Located within its historic 1,135-acre central campus, the university is composed of eight undergraduate and three professional schools: the School of Law, the Darden School of Business, and the School of Medicine.[10]
Type | Public research university |
---|---|
Established | January 25, 1819; 205 years ago (January 25, 1819)[1] |
Founder | Thomas Jefferson |
Accreditation | SACS |
Academic affiliations | |
Endowment | $13.6 billion (2022)[2] |
Budget | $1.91 billion (2020)[3][lower-alpha 1] |
President | James E. Ryan |
Provost | Ian Baucom |
Academic staff | 3,265 (Fall 2019)[4]
|
Administrative staff | 6,292 (Fall 2019)[4][lower-alpha 2]
|
Students | 25,944 (Fall 2023)[5] |
Undergraduates | 17,618 (Fall 2023)[5] |
Postgraduates | 8,326 (Fall 2023)[5] |
Location | , , United States 38°02′08″N 78°30′12″W |
Campus | Small suburb[6], 1,135 acres (459 ha)[7] |
Other campuses[8] | |
Newspaper | The Cavalier Daily |
Colors | Orange and blue[9] |
Nickname | |
Sporting affiliations | NCAA Division I FBS – ACC |
Mascot | Cavalier |
Website | virginia.edu |
Official name | Monticello and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville |
Type | Cultural |
Criteria | i, iv, vi |
Designated | 1987 (11th session) |
Reference no. | 442 |
Region | Europe and North America |
Official name | University Of Virginia Historic District |
Designated | 1971-11-11 |
Reference no. | 70000865 |
The University of Virginia's scholars have played a major role in the development of many academic disciplines, including economics,[lower-alpha 3] law,[lower-alpha 4] literary art,[lower-alpha 5] visual art,[lower-alpha 6] and the sciences.[11] The university is referred to as a "Public Ivy" for offering an academic experience similar to that of an Ivy League university. Admission to UVA is among the most selective of public universities in the United States,[12] its endowment is among the largest,[13] and the university is known in part for its historic foundations, student-run honor code, and secret societies.[14][15][16] The university has been a member of the Association of American Universities for 120 years.
In athletic competition, the university teams are called the Cavaliers and lead the Atlantic Coast Conference in team NCAA Championships for men's sports, also ranking second in women's and overall titles. In 2015, and again in 2019, the University of Virginia was presented with the Capital One Cup for fielding the nation's best overall athletics programs for men's sports.[17][18]
The university's alumni, faculty, and researchers have included several U.S. presidents, heads of state, Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, Rhodes Scholars, Marshall Scholars, and Fulbright Scholars. Thirty governors of U.S. states have attended the university, as have numerous U.S. senators and members of Congress. UVA has produced 56 Rhodes Scholars, eighth most in the United States, while its students and alumni have founded companies such as Reddit, CNET, VMware, and Space Adventures.
1800s
In 1802, while serving as president of the United States, Thomas 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," and it might even attract talented students from "other states to come, and drink of the cup of knowledge."[19] Virginia was already home to the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, but Jefferson lost all confidence in his alma mater, partly because of its religious nature—it required all its students to recite a catechism—and its stifling of the sciences.[20][21] Jefferson had flourished under William & Mary professors William Small and George Wythe decades earlier, but the college was in a period of great decline and his concern became so dire by 1800 that he expressed to British chemist Joseph Priestley, "we have in that State, a college just well enough endowed to draw out the miserable existence to which a miserable constitution has doomed it." These words would ring true some seventy years later when William & Mary fell bankrupt after the Civil War and the Williamsburg college was shuttered completely in 1881, later being revived as primarily a small college for teachers until it regained university status later in the twentieth century.[22] Jefferson envisioned his new university would "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."[23]
In 1817, three presidents (Jefferson, James Monroe, and James Madison) and Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court John Marshall joined 24 other dignitaries at a meeting held in the Mountain Top Tavern at Rockfish Gap. After some deliberation, they selected nearby Charlottesville as the site of the new University of Virginia.[24] The UVA Board of Visitors purchased just outside Charlottesville a farm that had once been owned by James Monroe.[25] The Commonwealth of Virginia chartered a new flagship university to be based on the site in Charlottesville on January 25, 1819.
John Hartwell Cocke collaborated with James Madison, Monroe, and Joseph Carrington Cabell to fulfill Jefferson's dream to establish the university. Cocke and Jefferson were appointed to the building committee to supervise the construction.[26] The UVA Office of Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights is continuing to "seek opportunities to engage and acknowledge with respect that we live, learn, and work on [what once was] the territory of the Monacan Indian Nation."[27] Like many of its peers,[28] the university owned slaves who helped build the campus.[29] They also served students and professors.[29] The university's first classes met on March 7, 1825.[30]
In contrast to other universities of the day, at which one could study in either medicine, law, or divinity, the first students at the University of Virginia could study in one or several of eight independent schools – medicine, law, mathematics, chemistry, ancient languages, modern languages, natural philosophy, and moral philosophy.[31] Another innovation of the new university was that higher education would be separated from religious doctrine. UVA had no divinity school, was established independently of any religious sect, and the Grounds were planned and centered upon a library, the Rotunda, rather than a church, distinguishing it from peer universities still primarily functioning as seminaries for one particular strain of Protestantism or another.[32] Jefferson opined to philosopher Thomas Cooper that "a professorship of theology should have no place in our institution",[33] and never has there been one. There were initially two degrees awarded by the university: Graduate, to a student who had completed the courses of one school; and Doctor to a graduate in more than one school who had shown research prowess.[34]
Jefferson was intimately involved in the university to the end, hosting Sunday dinners at his Monticello home for faculty and students. Jefferson viewed the university's foundation as having such great importance and potential that he counted it among his greatest accomplishments and 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. Thus, he eschewed mention of his national accomplishments, such as the Louisiana Purchase and any other aspects of his presidency, in favor of his role with the young university.
Initially, some of the students arriving at the university matched the then-common picture of college students: wealthy, spoiled aristocrats with a sense of privilege which often led to brawling, or worse. This was a source of frustration for Jefferson, who assembled the students during the school's first year, on October 3, 1825, to criticize such behavior; but was too overcome to speak. He later spoke of this moment as "the most painful event" of his life.[35]
Although the frequency of such irresponsible behavior dropped after Jefferson's expression of concern, it did not die away completely. Like many universities and colleges, it experienced periodic student riots, culminating in the shooting death of Professor John A. G. Davis, Chairman of the Faculty, in 1840. This event, in conjunction with the new UVA Honor System and the growing popularity of temperance and a rise in religious affiliation in society in general, seems to have resulted in a permanent change in student attitudes toward reporting the bad behavior, and thus such behavior among students that had so greatly bothered Jefferson finally vanished.[35]
In the year of Jefferson's death in 1826, poet Edgar Allan Poe enrolled at the university, where he excelled in Latin.[36] The Raven Society, an organization named after Poe's most famous poem, continues to maintain 13 West Range, the room Poe inhabited during the single semester he attended the university.[37] He left because of financial difficulties. The School of Engineering and Applied Science opened in 1836, making UVA the first comprehensive university to open an engineering school.
Unlike the majority of Southern colleges, the university was kept open throughout the Civil War, despite its state seeing more bloodshed than any other and the near 100% conscription of the American South.[38] After Jubal Early's total loss at the Battle of Waynesboro, Charlottesville was willingly surrendered to Union forces to avoid mass bloodshed, and UVA faculty convinced George Armstrong Custer to preserve Jefferson's university.[39] Although 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 mission. However, an extremely high number of officers of both Confederacy and Union were alumni.[40] UVA produced 1,481 officers in the Confederate Army alone, including four major-generals, twenty-one brigadier-generals, and sixty-seven colonels from ten different states.[40] John S. Mosby, the infamous "Gray Ghost" and commander of the lightning-fast 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry ranger unit, had also been a UVA student.
Thanks to a grant from the Commonwealth of Virginia, tuition became free for all Virginians in the year 1875.[41] During this period, the University of Virginia remained unique in that it had no president and mandated no core curriculum from its students, who often studied in and took degrees from more than one school.[41] However, the university was also experiencing growing pains. As the original Rotunda caught fire and was gutted in 1895, there would soon be sweeping changes, much greater than merely reconstructing the Rotunda in 1899.
1900s
Jefferson had originally decided the University of Virginia would have no serving president. Rather, this power was to be shared by a rector and the Board of Visitors. But as the 19th century waned, it became obvious this cumbersome arrangement was incapable of adequately handling the many administrative and fundraising tasks of the growing university.[42] Edwin Alderman, who had only recently moved from his post as president of UNC-Chapel Hill since 1896 to become president of Tulane University in 1900, accepted an offer as president of the University of Virginia in 1904. His appointment was not without controversy, and national media such as Popular Science lamented the end of one of the things that made UVA unique among universities.[43]
Alderman stayed 27 years, and became known as a prolific fund-raiser, a well-known orator, and a close adviser to U.S. president and UVA alumnus Woodrow Wilson.[42] He added significantly to the University Hospital to support new sickbeds and public health research, and helped create departments of geology and forestry, the School of Education and Human Development (originally the Curry School of Education), the McIntire School of Commerce, and the summer school programs in which young Georgia O'Keeffe took part.[44] Perhaps his greatest ambition was the funding and construction of a library on a scale of millions of books, much larger than the Rotunda could bear. Delayed by the Great Depression, Alderman Library was named in his honor in 1938. Alderman, who seven years earlier had died in office en route to giving a public speech at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, is still the longest-tenured president of the university.
In 1904, UVA became the first university south of Washington, D.C. to be elected to the Association of American Universities. After a gift by Andrew Carnegie in 1909 the University of Virginia was organized into twenty-six departments across six schools including the Andrew Carnegie School of Engineering, the James Madison School of Law, the James Monroe School of International Law, the James Wilson School of Political Economy, the Edgar Allan Poe School of English and the Walter Reed School of Pathology.[34] The honorific historical names for these schools – several of which have remained as modern schools of the university – are no longer used.
In December 1953, the University of Virginia joined the Atlantic Coast Conference for athletics. At the time, UVA had a football program that had just broken through to be nationally ranked in 1950, 1951, and 1952, and consistently beat its rivals North Carolina and Virginia Tech by scores such as 34–7 and 44–0. Other sports were very competitive as well. However, the administration of Colgate Darden de-emphasized athletics, defunding the department and declining to join the ACC before being overruled by the Board of Visitors on that decision. It would take until the 1980s for the bulk of athletics programs to fully recover but approaching the year 2000 UVA was again one of the most successful all-around sports programs with NCAA national titles achieved in an array of different sports; by 2020, it had twice won the Capital One Cup for overall athletics excellence in men's sports programs.
UVA established a junior college in 1954, known today as the University of Virginia's College at Wise. George Mason University and Mary Washington University used to similarly exist as UVA's satellite campuses, but those are now wholly independent universities no longer administered by the University of Virginia.
The Academical Village and nearby Monticello became a joint World Heritage Site in 1987. Simultaneously with Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park and Chaco Culture National Historical Park, they were the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth U.S. sites designated as culturally significant to the collective interests of global humanity, coming after the Statue of Liberty and Yosemite National Park three years earlier. As such, UVA possesses the only U.S. collegiate grounds to be internationally protected by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Integration, coeducation, and student dissent
The University of Virginia first admitted a few selected women to graduate studies in the late 1890s and to certain programs such as nursing and education in the 1920s and 1930s.[45] In 1944, Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia, became the Women's Undergraduate Arts and Sciences Division of the University of Virginia. With this branch campus in Fredericksburg exclusively for women, UVA maintained its main campus in Charlottesville as near-exclusively for men, until a civil rights lawsuit in the 1960s forced it to commingle the sexes.[46] In 1970, the Charlottesville campus became fully co-educational, and in 1972 Mary Washington became an independent state university.[47] When the first female class arrived, 450 undergraduate women entered UVA, comprising 39 percent of undergraduates, while the number of men admitted remained constant. By 1999, women made up a 52 percent majority of the total student body.[45][48]
The university admitted its first black student when Gregory Swanson sued to gain entrance into the university's law school in 1950.[49] Following his successful lawsuit, a handful of black graduate and professional students were admitted during the 1950s, though no black undergraduates were admitted until 1955, and UVA did not fully integrate until the 1960s.[49] When Walter Ridley graduated with a doctorate in education, he was the first black person to graduate from UVA.[49] UVA's Ridley Scholarship Fund is named in his honor.[49]
The fight for integration and coeducation came to the foreground particularly in the late 1960s, leading up to the May Strike of 1970, in which students protested for higher black enrollment, equal access to UVA admission by undergraduate women, unionization of employees, and against the presence of armed university police and recruiters of government agencies such as the CIA and FBI on Grounds.[50]
21st century
Due to a continual decline in state funding for the university, today only 6 percent of its budget comes from the Commonwealth of Virginia.[51] A Charter initiative was signed into law by then-Governor Mark Warner in 2005, negotiated with the university to have greater autonomy over its own affairs in exchange for accepting this decline in financial support.[52][53]
The university welcomed Teresa A. Sullivan as its first female president in 2010.[54] Just two years later its first woman rector, Helen Dragas, engineered a forced-resignation to remove President Sullivan from office.[55][56] The attempted ouster elicited a faculty Senate vote of no confidence in Rector Dragas, and demands from student government for an explanation.[57][58] In the face of mounting pressure including alumni threats to cease contributions, and a mandate from then-Governor Robert McDonnell to resolve the issue or face removal of the entire Board of Visitors, the Board unanimously reinstated President Sullivan.[59][60][61] In 2013 and 2014, the Board passed new bylaws that made it harder to remove a president and possible to remove a rector.[62]
In November 2014, the university suspended fraternity and sorority functions pending investigation of an article by Rolling Stone concerning an alleged rape story, which was later determined to be a hoax after the story was confirmed to be false through investigation by The Washington Post.[63][64][65] The university nonetheless instituted new rules banning "pre-mixed drinks, punches or any other common source of alcohol" such as beer kegs and requiring "sober and lucid" fraternity members to monitor all parties.[66] In April 2015, Rolling Stone fully retracted the article after the Columbia School of Journalism released a scathing and discrediting report on the "anatomy of a journalistic failure" by its author.[67][68] Even before release of the Columbia University report, the Rolling Stone story was named the "Error of the Year" by the Poynter Institute.[69] The UVA chapter of Phi Kappa Psi settled a defamation suit against Rolling Stone and received $1.65 million.[70]
In August 2017, the night before the infamous Unite the Right rally, a group of non-student and mostly non-Virginian white nationalists marched on the university's Lawn bearing torches and chanting antisemitic and Nazi slogans after the city of Charlottesville decided to remove all remaining Confederate statues from the city including one depicting Robert E. Lee.[71][72] They were met by student counter-protesters near the statue of Thomas Jefferson in front of the Rotunda, where a fight broke out.
James E. Ryan, a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, became the university's ninth president in August 2018.[73] His first act upon his inauguration was to announce that in-state undergraduates from families making less than $80,000 per year would receive full scholarships covering tuition, and those from families making under $30,000 would also receive free room and board.[74] Ryan was previously dean of the Harvard School of Education.
On the night of November 13, 2022, three students were killed and two others injured in a shooting on a charter bus that was returning to the campus from a play for a class trip in Washington, D.C.[75] All three fatalities were current members of the Virginia Cavaliers football team[76] and the alleged shooter was briefly a member of the team during the 2018 season.[77]
The UVA campus, referred to as the Grounds,[78] straddles the border between the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County.[79] The university also maintains 562 acres north of the campus at North Fork and 2,913 acres southeast of the city at Morven Farm.[80][81][7][16] It also is in the process of building a campus in Northern Virginia within Fairfax, Virginia.[82]
Academical Village
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 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."[83] 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."[84] The Academical Village, together with Jefferson's home at Monticello, which he also designed, is a World Heritage Site. The first collegiate architecture and culture World Heritage Site in the world, it was listed by UNESCO in 1987.[16][85]
Jefferson's original architectural design revolves around the Academical Village, and that name remains in use today to describe both the specific area of the Lawn, a grand, terraced green space surrounded by residential and academic buildings, the gardens, the Range, and the larger university surrounding it. The principal building of the design, the Rotunda, stands at the north end of the Lawn, and is the most recognizable symbol of the university. It is half the height and width of the Pantheon in Rome, which was the primary inspiration for the building. The Lawn and the Rotunda were the models for many similar designs of "centralized green areas" at universities across the country. The space was designed for students and professors to live in the same area. The Rotunda, which symbolized knowledge, showed hierarchy. The south end of the Lawn was left open to symbolize the view of cultivated fields to the south, as reflective of Jefferson's ideal for an agrarian-focused nation.
Most notably designed by inspiration of the Rotunda and Lawn are the expansive green spaces headed by similar buildings built at: Duke University in 1892; Columbia University in 1895; Johns Hopkins University in 1902; Carnegie Mellon University in 1904; Rice University in 1910; Peabody College of Vanderbilt University in 1915; Killian Court at MIT in 1916; the Grand Auditorium of Tsinghua University built in 1917 in Beijing, China; the Sterling Quad of Yale Divinity School in 1932; and the university's own Darden School in 1996.
Flanking both sides of the Rotunda and extending down the length of the Lawn are ten Pavilions interspersed with student housing rooms. Each has its own classical architectural style, as well as its own walled garden separated by 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.[86]
On October 27, 1895, the Rotunda burned to a shell because of an electrical fire that started in the Rotunda Annex, a long multi-story structure built in 1853 to house additional classrooms. The electrical fire was no doubt assisted by the 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 the blast would separate the burning Annex from Jefferson's own Rotunda. 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, disregarding Jefferson's design and 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, the remnants of which were used as fill and to create part of the modern-day Rotunda's northern-facing plaza. The classes formerly occupying the Annex were moved to the South Lawn in White's new buildings.[citation needed]
The White buildings have the effect of closing off the sweeping perspective, as originally conceived by Jefferson, down the Lawn across open countryside toward the distant mountains. The White buildings at the foot of the Lawn effectively create a huge "quadrangle", albeit one far grander than any traditional college quadrangle at the University of Cambridge or University of Oxford.
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. Queen Elizabeth II came to visit the Rotunda in that same year for the Bicentennial and had a well-publicized stroll of the Lawn. The university was listed by Travel + Leisure in September 2011 as one of the most beautiful campuses in the United States and by MSN as one of the most beautiful college campuses in the world.[87][88]
Libraries
The first library at the University of Virginia was the Rotunda. Rather than a chapel or other religious structure, the university was built around its own library. Thomas Jefferson was deeply engaged in selecting the materials that made up that library's original collection, and in developing the system by which it would be organized. The Rotunda served as the University Library for over a century, until Alderman Library was opened in 1937.[89]
The University of Virginia Library System consists of a dozen libraries and holds over 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. These e-texts are open to anyone and, as of 2002[update], were receiving 37,000 daily visits (compared to 6,000 daily visitors to the physical libraries).[90] Alderman Library holds the most extensive Tibetan collection in the world and holds ten floors of book "stacks" of varying ages and historical value. The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library features a collection of American literature as well as two copies of the original printing of the Declaration of Independence. It was in this library in 2006 that Robert Stilling, an English graduate student, discovered an unpublished Robert Frost poem from 1918.[91] Clark Hall is the library for SEAS (the engineering school), and one of its notable features is the Mural Room, decorated by two three-panel murals by Allyn Cox, depicting the Moral Law and the Civil Law. The murals were finished and set in place in 1934.[92] As of 2006[update], the university and Google were working on the digitization of selected collections from the library system.[93]
Since 1992, the University of Virginia also hosts the Rare Book School, a non-profit organization in the study of historical books and the history of printing that began at Columbia University in 1983.
Other areas
Housing for first-year students, Brown College, the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the University of Virginia Medical School are near the historic Lawn and Range area. The McIntire School of Commerce is on the actual Lawn, in Rouss-Roberston Hall.
Away from the historic area, UVA's architecture and its allegiance to the Jeffersonian design are controversial. The 1990s saw the construction of two deeply contrasting visions: the Williams Tsien post-modernist Hereford College in 1992 and the unapologetically Jeffersonian Darden School of Business in 1996. Commentary on both was broad and partisan, as the University of Virginia School of Architecture and The New York Times lauded Hereford for its bold new lines, while some independent press and wealthy donors praised the traditional design of the Darden school.[94][95] The latter group appeared to have the upper hand when the South Lawn Project was designed in the early 2000s.[95][96]
Billionaire John Kluge donated 7,379 acres (29.86 km2) of additional lands to the university in 2001. Kluge desired the core of the land, the 2,913-acre Morven, to be developed by the university and the surrounding land to be sold to fund an endowment supporting the core. Five farms totaling 1,261 acres (510 ha) of the gift were soon sold to musician Dave Matthews, of the Dave Matthews Band, to be used in an organic farming project to complement his nearby Blenheim Vineyards.[97] Morven has since hosted the Morven Summer Institute, a rigorous immersion program of study in civil society, sustainability, and creativity.[98] As of 2014[update], the university is developing further plans for Morven and has hired an architecture firm for the nearly three thousand acre property.[98] In addition, the UVA Foundation owns the building and grounds of the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection. The Collection itself is also owned by the University of Virginia.[99]
Student housing
The primary housing areas for first-year students are McCormick Road Dormitories, often called "Old Dorms", Alderman Road Dormitories, often called "New Dorms," and suite style dorms located off of Alderman road near the football stadium. The 1970s-era Alderman Road Dorms are being fully replaced with brand new dormitory buildings in the same area. The replacements feature hall-style living arrangements with common areas and many modern amenities. Instead of being torn down and replaced like the original New Dorms, the Old Dorms have seen a $105 million renovation project between 2017 and 2022.[100] They were constructed in 1950, and are also hall-style constructions but with fewer amenities. The Old Dorms are closer to the students' classes.
In the 1980s, in response to a housing shortage, the Stadium Road Residential Area was built to the south of the Alderman Road Dormitories.[101] The largest of the houses in this area are the Gooch Dillard Residence Halls which house 610 students and are suite style type dorms.
There are three residential colleges at the university: Brown College, Hereford College, and the International Residential College. These involve an application process to live there, and are filled with both upperclass and first-year students. The application process can be extremely competitive, especially for Brown because of its location in central Grounds near classroom buildings, libraries, and Newcomb Hall.
It is considered a great honor and privilege to be invited to live on the Lawn, and 54 fourth-year undergraduates do so each year, joining ten members of the faculty who permanently live and teach in the Pavilions there.[102] Similarly, graduate students may live on the Range. Edgar Allan Poe formerly lived in 13 West Range, and since 1904 the Raven Society has retrofitted and preserved his room much as it may have existed back in the 1820s.
The university has several affiliated centers including the Rare Book School, headquarters of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, University of Virginia Miller Center for Politics, Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, and Miller Center of Public Affairs. The Fralin Museum of Art is dedicated to creating an environment where both the university community and the general public can study and learn from directly experiencing works of different art. The university has its own internal recruiting firm, the Executive Search Group and Strategic Resourcing. Since 2013, this department has been housed under the Office of the President.
In 2006, President Casteen announced an ambitious $3 billion capital campaign to be completed by December 2011.[103] During the Great Recession, President Sullivan missed the 2011 deadline, and extended it indefinitely.[104] The $3 billion goal would be met a year and a half later, which President Sullivan announced at graduation ceremonies in May 2013.[105]
As of 2013[update], UVA's $1.4 billion academic budget is paid for primarily by tuition and fees (32%), research grants (23%), endowment and gifts (19%), and sales and services (12%).[106] The university receives 10% of its academic funds through state appropriation from the Commonwealth of Virginia.[106] For the overall (including non-academic) university budget of $2.6 billion, 45% comes from medical patient revenue.[106] The Commonwealth contributes less than 6%.[106]
UVA's endowment is among the highest among universities in the United States.[13] As of 2013, the University of Virginia was one of only two public universities in the United States that had a Triple-A credit rating from all three major credit rating agencies.[107]
UVA colleges and schools | |
---|---|
College/school | Year founded |
| |
School of Architecture | 1954 |
College of Arts & Sciences | 1824 |
Darden School of Business | 1954 |
McIntire School of Commerce | 1921 |
School of Continuing and Professional Studies | 1915 |
School of Data Science | 2019 |
School of Education and Human Development | 1905 |
School of Engineering and Applied Science | 1836 |
School of Law | 1819 |
Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy | 2007 |
School of Medicine | 1819 |
School of Nursing | 1901 |
Although UVA is the flagship university of Virginia, state funding has decreased for several consecutive decades.[51] Financial support from the state dropped by half from 12 percent of total revenue in 2001–02 to six percent in 2013–14.[51] The portion of academic revenue coming from the state fell by even more in the same period, from 22 percent to just nine percent.[51] This nominal support from the state, contributing just $154 million of UVA's $2.6 billion budget in 2012–13, has led President Sullivan and others to contemplate the partial privatization of the University of Virginia.[108] UVA's Darden School and Law School are already self-sufficient.
Hunter R. Rawlings III, President of the prominent Association of American Universities research group of universities, came to Charlottesville to make a speech to university faculty which included a statement about the proposal: "there's no possibility, as far as I can see, that any state will ever relinquish its ownership and governance of its public universities, much less of its flagship research university".[108] He encouraged university leaders to stop talking about privatization and instead push their state lawmakers to increase funding for higher education and research as a public good.[108]