The University of Utah (also referred to as the U, the U of U, or Utah) is a public coeducational space-grant research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. As the state's flagship university, the university offers more than 100 undergraduate majors and more than 92 graduate degree programs. Graduate studies include the S.J. Quinney College of Law and the School of Medicine, Utah's only medical school. As of Autumn 2012, there are 24,840 undergraduate students and 7,548 graduate students, for an enrollment total of 32,388; with 83% coming from Utah and 9% coming from foreign countries. Just over 10% of students live on campus.
The university's athletic teams, the Utes, participate in NCAA Division I athletics (FBS for football) as a member of the Pacific-12 Conference. Its football team has received national attention in recent years for winning the 2005 Fiesta Bowl and the 2009 Sugar Bowl.
The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (/d?z.?'r?t./) by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest institution of higher education. It received its current name in 1892, four years before Utah attained statehood, and moved to its current location in 1900.
History
A Board of Regents was organized by Brigham Young to establish a university in the Salt Lake Valley. The university was established on February 28, 1850, as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, and Orson Spencer was appointed as the first chancellor of the university. Early classes were held in private homes or wherever space could be found. The university closed in 1853 due to lack of funds and lack of feeder schools.
Following years of intermittent classes in the Salt Lake City Council House, the university began to be re-established in 1867 under the direction of David O. Calder, who was followed by John R. Park in 1869. The university moved out of the council house into the Union Academy building in 1876 and into Union Square in 1884. In 1892, the school's name was changed to the University of Utah, and John R. Park began arranging to obtain land belonging to the U.S. Army's Fort Douglas on the east bench of the Salt Lake Valley, where the university moved permanently in 1900. Additional Fort Douglas land has been granted to the university over the years, and the fort was officially closed on October 26, 1991. Upon his death in 1900, Dr. John R. Park bequeathed his entire fortune to the university.
The university grew rapidly in the early 20th century but was involved in an academic freedom controversy in 1915 when Joseph T. Kingsbury recommended that five faculty members be dismissed after a graduation speaker made a speech critical of Utah governor William Spry. One third of the faculty resigned in protest of these dismissals. Some felt that the dismissals were a result of the LDS Church's influence on the university, while others felt that they reflected a more general pattern of repressing religious and political expression that might be deemed offensive. The controversy was largely resolved when Kingsbury resigned in 1916, but university operations were again interrupted by World War I, and later The Great Depression and World War II. Student enrollment dropped to a low of 3,418 during the last year of World War II, but A. Ray Olpin made substantial additions to campus following the war, and enrollment reached 12,000 by the time he retired in 1964. Growth continued throughout the following decades as the university developed into a center for computer, medical, and other research.
During the 2002 Winter Olympics, the university hosted the Olympic Village, a housing complex for the Olympic and Paralympic athletes, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies. Prior to the events, the university received a facelift that included extensive renovations to the Rice-Eccles Stadium, a light rail track leading to downtown Salt Lake City, a new student center known as the Heritage Center, an array of new student housing, and what is now a 180-room campus hotel and conference center.
Campus
Campus takes up 1,534 acres (6.21 km2), including the Health Sciences complex, Research Park, and Fort Douglas. It is located on the east bench of the Salt Lake Valley, close to the Wasatch Range and approximately 2 miles east of downtown Salt Lake City.
Most courses take place on the west side of campus, known as lower campus due to its lower elevation. Presidents Circle is a loop of buildings named after past university presidents with a courtyard in the center. Major libraries on lower campus include the J. Willard Marriott Library and the S.J. Quinney Law Library. The primary student activity center is the A. Ray Olpin University Union, and campus fitness centers include the Health, Physical Education, and Recreation Complex (HPER) and the Nielsen Fieldhouse.
Lower campus is also home to most public venues, such as the Rice-Eccles Stadium, the Jon M. Huntsman Center, and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, a museum with rotating exhibitions and a permanent collection of American, European, African, and Asian art. Venues for performing arts include Kingsbury Hall, used for touring companies and concerts, Pioneer Memorial Theatre, used by the professional Pioneer Theatre Company, David P. Gardner Hall, used by the School of Music and for musical performances, and the Marriott Center for Dance. Red Butte Garden, with formal gardens and natural areas, as well as the new site of the Utah Museum of Natural History, is located on the far east side of campus.
The health sciences complex, at the northeast end of campus, includes the University of Utah Medical Center, Primary Children's Medical Center, the Huntsman Cancer Institute, the Moran Eye Center, and the Spencer Eccles Health Sciences Library. South of the health sciences complex, several university residence halls and apartments are clustered together near Fort Douglas and the Heritage Center, which serves as a student center and cafeteria for this area. In addition, there are 1,115 university apartments for students, staff, and faculty across three apartment complexes on campus. At the southeast end of campus is Research Park, which is home to research companies including ARUP Laboratories, Evans & Sutherland, Sarcos, Idaho Technology, and Myriad Genetics.
Courses are also held at off-campus centers located in Bountiful, Murray, Park City, downtown Salt Lake City, and Sandy.
Student housing
The University of Utah provides student housing in a 32-building housing complex on campus. The complex consists of seven housing areas: Chapel Glen, Gateway Heights, Sage Point, Officer's Circle, Benchmark Plaza, Shoreline Ridge, and the Donna Garff Marriott Honors Residential Scholars Community. The Donna Garff Marriott Honors Residential Scholars Community, a dormitory for honors students, was completed in fall 2012.
Transportation
A number of campus shuttles, running on biodiesel and used vegetable oil, circle the campus on six different routes. The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) runs several buses through the university area as well as the TRAX Red Line (light rail), which runs to South Jordan. Riders can travel downtown, to FrontRunner (commuter rail), to West Valley, to the Salt Lake City International Airport, or to Sandy by transferring to the TRAX Green or Blue lines. Students and staff can use their university IDs to ride UTA buses, TRAX, and FrontRunner.
The University has recently unveiled a new plan for a friendlier campus for bicyclers called the "Bicycle Master Plan" which aims to transform the campus into a safer and more accessible place for bicyclers and to promote the increase of bicycle ridership. The plan emphasizes both campus pathways and on-street facilities that connect the core campus area with surrounding neighborhoods. The Bicycle Master Plan gives guidelines for facilities and programs that are within the University's jurisdiction. It also provides recommendations for the University to work with external entities such as UDOT, UTA, and Salt Lake City to improve bicycling conditions in locations that are important to the campus environment, but which are not under the University's direct control.
Sustainability
The university is ranked 3rd by the EPA for annual green power usage among universities, with 31% of its power coming from wind and solar sources. Other sustainability efforts include a permanent sustainability office, a campus cogeneration plant, building upgrades and energy efficient building standards, behavior modification programs, purchasing local produce, and student groups including a bicycle collective. Sustainability and transportation are also a large part of the university's campus master plan. The Sustainable Endowments Institute gave the university a "B+" in its College Sustainability Report Card 2011, with A's for climate change and energy, food and recycling, student involvement, and transportation.
The expanded recycling program launched on July 1, 2007. Since its launch, the program has continued to grow and refine its procedures to better accommodate a growing campus' needs. Currently there are programs in place for paper, cardboard, aluminum, batteries, printer cartridges, wooden pallets and plastics #1 and #2.
Renewable energy
On July 7, 2011 the university unveiled its plans to be the first location in the United States to install solar ivy. Unlike rooftop panels, solar ivy panels are small and shaped like ivy so that they can be installed in an attractive arrangement that will scale walls, much like ivy growing over a building's surface. These panels were designed by Sustainably Minded Interactive Technology of New York.
A renewable energy partnership was entered into by the university, Rocky Mountain Power and 3Degrees on September 28, 2011 allowing the purchase of renewable wind power that in its first year will produce 98,233,000 kilowatt-hours of wind energy, which is 36% of the university's total power usage, with plans for an additional two-year renewable energy commitment. The university's first-year renewable energy purchase through Blue Sky and 3Degrees has the combined environmental benefit of taking more than 13,200 cars off the road for one year or planting 1.7 million trees. The university's support for renewable energy is made possible through a student fee-funded sustainability program established in 2005.
The university unveiled the addition of a new solar array system on April 16, 2012 on the rooftop of the Natural History Museum of Utah. This is the second system installed on the university's campus, the other being at the HPER East building. The Natural History Museum of Utah's system is a 330-kilowatt system, while the HPER East system is a 263-kilowatt system. The combined arrays consist of 2,470 Sharp photovoltaic panels covering 40,000 square feet of rooftop space and together they will annually produce 802,240 kilowatt hours
Organization
The university is part of the Utah System of Higher Education. As of 2009, the university's endowment is US$668 million. The colleges at the university are:
In addition to the departments in these colleges, there are a number of interdisciplinary academic programs.
Academics
The university offers 72 undergraduate majors, more than 70 minors and certificates, more than 40 teaching majors and minors, and 95 major fields of study at the graduate level. Students at the undergraduate level can also create an individualized major under the direction of the Bachelor of University Studies program and the supervision of a tenure-track faculty member. The university has three semesters a year: spring, summer, and fall. Undergraduate tuition and fees for 2012-2013 were US$3,008 for Utah residents and $9,485 for non-residents per 12-credit-hour semester.
The university is classified as a research university with very high research activity by the Carnegie Foundation, with research and training awards for 2010-2011 amounting to US$410,563,908. The university's research expenditures were the 67th highest in the nation in the Center for Measuring University Performance's 2008 report. Additionally, the university was the 58th highest for federal research expenditures, 52nd for National Academy of Sciences membership, 50th for faculty awards, 51st for doctorates awarded, and 42nd for postdoctoral appointees.
Admissions and demographics
In 2007-2008, the university accepted 94% and admitted 80% of its 16,200 domestic undergraduate applicants; accepted 94% and admitted 66% of its 1,017 international undergraduate applicants; accepted 80% and admitted 44% of its 6,773 domestic graduate applicants; and accepted 70% and admitted 38% of its 1,992 international graduate applicants.
Of admitted freshmen, the average GPA was 3.4 and the average ACT score was 23.5. The university uses an admissions index number that gives equal weight to GPA and ACT/SAT scores. If a freshman applicant's index number is at or above the current cutoff, they are guaranteed admission, assuming the student has or will graduate from an accredited high school, has satisfactorily completed all course requirements, has a cumulative high school GPA of at least 2.6, and has an ACT score of at least 18 or SAT score of at least 860. Special requirements apply to non-accredited high schools.
In 2010, the undergraduate and graduate student body was 30,819, with 23,371 undergraduate students and 7,448 graduate students. 71% of students were full-time, 56% were male and 44% female, 84% were Utah residents, and 6% were foreign students. The student body was 77% white, 6% non-resident alien, 5% Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander, 5% Hispanic, 1% black, and 1% Native American. Ethnicity or citizenship was unknown for 6% of the student body. The university was ranked 20th by The Princeton Review for having the most religious students in the nation in 2009.
Notable programs
The University of Utah has the only accredited architecture program in Utah, as well as the only medical school. The medical school has made several notable contributions to medicine, such as establishing the first Cerebrovascular Disease Unit west of the Mississippi River in 1970 and administering the world's first permanent artificial heart, the Jarvik-7, to Barney Clark in 1982.
The university has made unique contributions to the study of genetics due in part to long-term genealogy efforts of the LDS Church, which has allowed researchers to trace genetic disorders through several generations. The relative homogeneity of Utah's population also makes it an ideal laboratory for studies of population genetics. The university is home to the Genetic Science Learning Center, a resource which educates the public about genetics through its website.
In March 2012, the university received unanimous approval from the board of trustees to create a new academic college, the College of Dentistry, which is the university's first new college in sixty years. The new college has received funding for a new structure and has started as a debt-free program. The new school will start enrolling students for the fall semester of 2013 and is expected to average the same cost as the university's medical school tuition.
The University of Utah was one of the original four nodes of ARPANET, the world's first packet-switching computer network and embryo of the current worldwide Internet. Notable innovations of engineering faculty and alumni include the first method for representing surface textures in graphical images, the Gouraud shading model, magnetic ink printing technology, the Johnson counter logic circuit, the oldest algebraic mathematics package still in use (REDUCE), the Phong reflection model, the Phong shading method, and the rendering equation. The school has pioneered work in asynchronous circuits, computer animation, computer art, digital music recording, graphical user interfaces, and stack machine architectures. The School of Computing also takes part in the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute, which continues to make advances in visualization, scientific computing, and image analysis.
The S.J. Quinney College of Law, founded in 1913, was the only law school in Utah until the 1970s.
In August 2012, the University of Utah announced plans to close its Center for American Indian Languages, which has been home to linguists such as Lyle Campbell and Wick Miller. "The College of Humanities instead will concentrate language-preservation efforts on Utah's tribal tongues," according to one article. This closure, said to be for purposes focusing efforts on the language of Utah tribes, "has shocked many in the language conservation world. Linguists, including Ives Goddard of the Smithsonian have expressed serious concern about the negative impact on efforts to preserve indigenous languages throughout the Americas.
The University of Utah College of Pharmacy is 4th in the nation for NIH research grants. The department of Pharmacology and Toxicology within the School of Pharmacy is world renowned for research in epilepsy treatment with their Anticonvulsant Drug Development (ADD) program.
The university is host to the Neal A. Maxwell Lecture Series in Political Theory and Contemporary Politics, a forum for political theorists to share their newest theoretical work.
Athletics
The university has 7 men's and 11 women's varsity teams. Athletic teams include men's baseball, basketball, football, golf, skiing, swimming/diving, and tennis and women's basketball, cross country, gymnastics, skiing, soccer, softball, swimming/diving, tennis, track and field, and volleyball. The school's sports teams are called the Utes, though some teams have an additional nickname, such as "Runnin' Utes" for the men's basketball team. The university participates in the NCAA's Division I (FBS for football) as part of the Pac-12 Conference. There is a fierce Utah-BYU rivalry, and the Utah-BYU football game, traditionally a season finale, has been called the "Holy War" by national broadcasting commentators. The university fight song is "Utah Man", commonly played at athletic games and other university events. In 1996, Swoop was introduced as the new mascot of the University of Utah. Because of relationships with the local Ute Indians, Utah adopted a new mascot. While still known as the Utes, Utah is now represented by the Red-tailed Hawk known for the use of his tail feathers in Ute head-dresses, and said he "Reflects the soaring spirit of our state and school"
In 2002, the university was one of 20 schools to make the U.S. News & World Report College Sports Honor Roll. In 2005, Utah became the first school to produce No. 1 overall draft picks in both the NFL draft and NBA draft for the same year. Alex Smith was picked first overall by the San Francisco 49ers in the 2005 NFL Draft, and Andrew Bogut was picked first overall by the Milwaukee Bucks in the 2005 NBA Draft. The university has won ten NCAA Skiing Championships, most recently in 2003, as well as the 1977 AIAW National Women's Skiing Championship.
Men's basketball
The men's basketball team won the NCAA title in 1944 and the NIT crown in 1947. Arnie Ferrin, the only four-time All-American in Utah basketball history, played for both the 1944 and 1947 teams. He also went on to help the Minneapolis Lakers win NBA Championships in 1949 and 1951. Wat Misaka, the first person of Asian descent to play in the NBA, also played for Utah during this era.
Utah basketball rose again to national prominence when head coach Rick Majerus took his team, including guard Andre Miller, combo forward Hanno Möttölä, and post player Michael Doleac, to the NCAA Final Four in 1998. After eliminating North Carolina to advance to the final round, Utah lost the championship game to Kentucky, 78-69.
Football
In 2004-2005, the football team, coached by Urban Meyer and quarterbacked by Alex Smith, along with defensive great Eric Weddle, went 11-0 during the regular season and defeated Pittsburgh 35-7 in the 2005 Fiesta Bowl, becoming the first team from a conference without an automatic Bowl Championship Series (BCS) bid to go to a BCS bowl game. The team ended its perfect 12-0 season ranked 4th in AP polling.
2008-2009 was another undefeated year for the football team, coached by Kyle Whittingham, as they finished the season 13-0 and defeated Alabama 31-17 in the 2009 Sugar Bowl. Utah finished the season 2nd in AP polling, their highest rank ever. At the end of the season, the Utes were the only unbeaten team in the country, with the nation's longest active streak of bowl victories (8).
The Utah Utes moved to the Pac-12 Conference for the start of the 2011-2012 football season. They are in the South Division with University of Colorado, University of Arizona, Arizona State University, UCLA and University of Southern California. Their first game in the Pac-12 was at USC on September 10, 2011, and resulted in a 23-14 Utah loss.
Gymnastics
The women's gymnastics team, coached by Greg Marsden, the Red Rocks, has won ten national championships, including the 1981 AIAW championship, and placed 2nd nationally eight times. As of 2013, it has qualified for the NCAA championship every year since 1976, the only program to do so. The program has averaged over 11,000 fans per meet 1992-2010 and has been the NCAA gymnastics season attendance champions 16 of these 19 years. In 2010, there was an average of 14,213 fans per meet, the largest crowd being 15,030.
Marching band
The university marching band, known as the "Pride of Utah", perform at all home football games, as well as some away games and bowl games. They performed at the 2005 BCS Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, the 2009 BCS Allstate Sugar Bowl, and the Inaugural Parade of President Barack Obama.
The band began as a military band in the 1940s. In 1948, university president A. Ray Olpin recruited Ron Gregory from Ohio State University to form a collegiate marching band. Support for the band dwindled in the 60s, and ASUU (the Associated Students of the University of Utah) discontinued its funding in 1969. The band was revived in 1976 after a fund raising effort. under the direction of Gregg I. Hanson As of 2011, the band is under the direction of Dr. Brian Sproul.
Men's rugby club
In the year of 2012, Utah's men's rugby club got suspended for unspecified alcohol 'incident' for the 2012-2013 rugby year.
Student life
A large portion of university students live off-campus, as the university is located in a large metropolitan area and has beds for less than 10% of its undergraduate population in residence halls and single student apartments. An additional 1,115 family apartments are available to students, staff, and faculty. One of the university's primary four goals for long-term campus growth is to increase student engagement through the addition of on-campus housing, intramural fields, athletic centers, and a new student activity center.
The current student activity center, the A. Ray Olpin University Union, is a common gathering place for university-wide events such as Crimson Nights, roughly monthly student activity nights; PlazaFest, a fair for campus groups at the start of the school year; and the Grand Kerfuffle, a concert at the end of the school year. The building includes a cafeteria, computer lab, recreational facilities, and a ballroom for special events. The Union also houses the Lowell Bennion Community Service Center and ASUU (the Associated Students of the University of Utah), which is responsible for appropriating funds to student groups and organizations on campus. ASUU holds primary and general elections each year for student representatives, typically with 10-15% of the student population voting.
Due to the large number of LDS Church members at the university, there is an LDS Institute of Religion building near main campus, as well as several LDS student groups and 46 campus wards. Approximately 650 students are part of 6 sororities and 8 fraternities at the university, most of which have chapter houses on "Greek Row" just off campus.
The University of Utah has a dry campus, meaning that alcohol is banned on campus. In 2004, Utah became the first state with a law expressly permitting concealed weapons on public university campuses. The University of Utah tried to uphold its gun ban but the Utah Supreme Court rejected the ban in 2006.
Media
The university has several public broadcasting affiliations, many of which utilize the Eccles Broadcast Center. These stations include KUED channel 7, a PBS member station and producer of local documentaries; KUEN channel 9, an educational station for teachers and students from the Utah Education Network; KUER 90.1 FM, a public radio affiliate of National Public Radio, American Public Media, and Public Radio International; and K-UTE 1620
NewsBreak is the student-run television newscast on campus. During 2011, the program celebrated its 40th anniversary. Broadcasts air every Thursday night at 10 pm during the fall and spring semesters on KUEN.
The Daily Utah Chronicle, also referred to as the Chrony, has been the university's independent, student-run paper since 1890. It publishes daily on school days during fall and spring semesters and weekly during summer semester. The paper typically runs between eight and twelve pages, with longer editions for weekend game guides. The paper converted to a broadsheet format in 2003 when the Newspaper Agency Corporation began printing it. The Society of Professional Journalists selected the newspaper as one of three finalists for best all-around daily student newspaper in the nation in both 2007 and 2008. Staff from the Chronicle feed into Utah journalism circles, some of them rising to considerable prominence, such as former editor Matt Canham, whose work with The Salt Lake Tribune earned him the Don Baker Investigative Reporting Award from the Utah Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
The University of Utah Press, the oldest press in Utah and now part of the J. Willard Marriott Library, publishes books on topics including the outdoors, anthropology and archaeology, linguistics, creative nonfiction, Mesoamerica, Native American studies, and Utah, Mormon, and Western history. The university is also home to a national literary journal, Quarterly West.
Notable alumni and faculty
Notable alumni include politicians Rocky Anderson, Bob Bennett, E. Jake Garn, Jon Huntsman, Jr., Karen Morgan, Frank E. Moss, and Karl Rove; recent LDS Church presidents Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas S. Monson; authors Orson Scott Card, Stephen Covey, and Wallace Stegner; R Adams Cowley, William DeVries, Russell M. Nelson, and Robert Jarvik in medicine; historian Richard Foltz; educators Gordon Gee and Ann Weaver Hart; reporter Martha Raddatz; historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich; and speed reading innovator Evelyn Nielsen Wood.
Notable science and engineering alumni include Jim Blinn; Jim Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape Communications Corporation, myCFO, and Healtheon; Henri Gouraud; John C. Cook who played a crucial role in establishing the field of ground-penetrating radar; Ralph Hartley; Alan Kay; Simon Ramo; and John Warnock, co-founder of Adobe Systems.
Notable entrepreneur and business leader alumni include Alan Ashton, co-founder of WordPerfect and Thanksgiving Point; Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese; Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar; J. Willard Marriott, founder of Marriott International; Robert A. "Bob" McDonald, CEO of Procter & Gamble; and David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue.
In athletics, notable alumni include baseball player Chris Shelton; basketball players Andrew Bogut, Andre Miller and Keith Van Horn; football players Jamal Anderson, Kevin Dyson, Alex Smith, and Steve Smith; and football coach LaVell Edwards.
Notable faculty in science and engineering include David Evans and Ivan Sutherland, founders of Evans and Sutherland; Henry Eyring, known for studying chemical reaction rates; Stephen Jacobsen, founder of Sarcos; Jind?ich Kope?ek and Sung Wan Kim, pioneers of polymeric drug delivery and gene delivery; Suhas Patil, founder of Cirrus Logic; Stanley Pons, who claimed to have discovered "cold fusion" in 1989; Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, later co-winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; and Thomas Stockham, founder of Soundstream. In medicine, notable faculty include Mario Capecchi, the co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; Willem Johan Kolff; and Russell M. Nelson.
References
External links
- Official website
- Official athletics website
- "Utah, University of". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.
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