University of Texas

The University of Texas at Austin (informally University of Texas, UT Austin, or simply UT) is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is approximately 0.25 miles (400 m) from the Texas State Capitol in Austin. The institution has the fifth-largest single-campus enrollment in the nation as of fall 2010 (and had the largest enrollment in the country from 1997 to 2003), with over 50,000 undergraduate and graduate students and over 24,000 faculty and staff. It currently holds the largest enrollment of any college in Texas.

The University of Texas at Austin was named one of the original eight Public Ivy institutions and was inducted into the American Association of Universities in 1929. The university is a major center for academic research, with research expenditures exceeding $640 million for the 2009–2010 school year. The university houses seven museums and seventeen libraries, including the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum and the Blanton Museum of Art, and operates various auxiliary research facilities, such as the J. J. Pickle Research Campus and the McDonald Observatory. Among university faculty are recipients of the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, the Wolf Prize, and the National Medal of Science, as well as many other awards.

UT Austin student athletes compete as the Texas Longhorns and are members of the Big 12 Conference. The university has won four NCAA Division I National Football Championships, and has claimed more titles in men's and women's sports than any other school in the Big 12 since the league was founded in 1996. Current and former UT Austin athletes have won 117 Olympic medals, including 14 in Beijing in 2008. The university was recognized by Sports Illustrated as "America's Best Sports College" in 2002.

History

Establishment

The first mention of a public university in Texas can be traced to the 1827 constitution for the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. Although an article promised to establish public education in the arts and sciences, no action was taken by the Mexican government. But after Texas obtained its independence from Mexico in 1836, the Congress of Texas adopted the Constitution of the Republic, which included a provision to establish public education in the republic, including two universities or colleges. On January 26, 1839, the Congress of Texas agreed to eventually set aside fifty leagues of land towards the effort; in addition, 40 acres (160,000 m²) in the new capital of Austin were reserved and designated "College Hill."

In 1845, Texas was annexed into the United States of America. The state legislature passed the Act of 1858, which set aside $100,000 in United States bonds towards construction of a university. In addition, the legislature designated land, previously reserved for the encouragement of railroad construction, toward the universities' fifty leagues. But Texas's secession from the Union and the American Civil War prevented further action on these plans.

After the war, the 1862 Morrill Act facilitated the creation of what is now Texas A&M University, which was established in 1876 as the Agricultural & Mechanical College of Texas. The Texas Constitution of 1876 mandated that the state establish a university "at an early day," calling for the creation of a "university of the first class," styled "The University of Texas." It revoked the endowment of the railroad lands of the Act of 1858 but appropriated 1,000,000 acres (4,000 km²) in West Texas. In 1883, another two million were granted, with income from the sale of land and grazing rights going to The University of Texas and Texas A&M.

In 1881, Austin was chosen as the site of the main university, and Galveston was designated the location of the medical department. On the original "College Hill," an official ceremony began construction on what is now referred to as the old Main Building in late 1882. The university opened its doors on September 15, 1883.

Expansion and growth

The old Victorian-Gothic Main Building served as the central point of the campus's 40-acre (160,000 m²) site, and was used for nearly all purposes. But by the 1930s, discussions arose about the need for new library space, and the Main Building was razed in 1934 over the objections of many students and faculty. The modern-day tower and Main Building were constructed in its place.

In 1910, George Brackenridge donated 500 acres (2.0 km²) on the Colorado River to the university . A vote by the regents to move the campus to the donated land was met with outrage, and the land has only been used for auxiliary purposes such as graduate student housing. Part of the tract was sold in the late-1990s for luxury housing, and there are controversial proposals to sell the remainder of the tract. The Brackenridge Field Laboratory was established on 82 acres (330,000 m²) of the land in 1967.

As a result of the controversy, in 1921, the legislature appropriated $1,350,000 for the purchase of land adjacent to the main campus. But expansion was hampered by the constitutional restriction against funding the construction of buildings. With the discovery of oil on university-owned grounds in 1923, the institution was able to put its new wealth towards its general endowment fund. These savings allowed the passing of amendments to make way for bond issues in 1931 and 1947, with the latter expansion necessary from the spike in enrollment following World War II. The university built 19 permanent structures between 1950 and 1965, when it was given the right of eminent domain. With this power, the university purchased additional properties surrounding the original 40 acres (160,000 m²).

During World War II, the University of Texas was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission.

1966 shooting spree

On August 1, 1966, Texas student Charles Whitman barricaded the observation deck in the tower of the Main Building. With two rifles, a sawed-off shotgun and various other weapons, he killed 16 people on campus from the observation deck, below the clocks on the tower and three more in the tower, as well as wounding two more inside the observation deck. Whitman had been a patient at the University Health Center, and on March 29, preceding the shootings, had conveyed to psychiatrist Maurice Heatley his feelings of overwhelming hostilities and that he was thinking about "going up on the tower with a deer rifle and start shooting people." Following the Whitman event, the observation deck was closed until 1968, and then closed again in 1975 following a series of suicide jumps during the 1970s. In 1999, after installation of security fencing and other safety precautions, the tower observation deck reopened to the public.

Recent history

The first presidential library on a university campus was dedicated on May 22, 1971 with former President Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson and then-President Richard Nixon in attendance. Constructed on the eastern side of the main campus, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum is one of 12 presidential libraries administered by the National Archives and Records Administration.

The University of Texas has experienced a wave of new construction recently with several significant buildings. On April 30, 2006, the school opened the Blanton Museum of Art. In August 2008, the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center opened, with the hotel and conference center forming part of a new gateway to the university. Also in 2008, Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium was expanded to a seating capacity of 100,119, making it the largest stadium (by capacity) in the state of Texas.

On the morning of September 28, 2010, 19-year-old Colton Tooley opened fire on campus with an AK-47 semi-automatic rifle, resulting in a lockdown of the university campus. He then walked into the Perry-Castañeda Library and committed suicide.

On January 19, 2011, the university announced the creation of a 24-hour television network in partnership with ESPN, dubbed the Longhorn Network. ESPN will pay a $300 million guaranteed rights fee over 20 years to the university and to IMG College, UT Austin's multimedia rights partner. The network covers the university's intercollegiate athletics, music, cultural arts and academics programs. The channel first aired in September 2011.

Campus

The University's property totals 1,438.5 acres (582.1 ha), comprising the 423.5 acres (171.4 ha) for the Main Campus in central Austin and other the J. J. Pickle Research Campus in north Austin and the other properties throughout Texas. The main campus has 150 buildings totalling over 18,000,000 square feet (1,700,000 m²).

One of the University's most visible features is the Beaux-Arts Main Building, including a 307-foot (94 m) tower designed by Paul Philippe Cret. Completed in 1937, the Main Building is in the middle of campus. The tower usually appears illuminated in white light in the evening but is lit orange for various special occasions, including athletic victories and academic accomplishments; it is conversely darkened for solemn occasions. At the top of the tower is a carillon of 56 bells, the largest in Texas. Songs are played on weekdays by student carillonneurs, in addition to the usual pealing of Westminster Quarters every quarter hour between 6 am and 9 pm In 1998, after the installation of security and safety measures, the observation deck reopened to the public indefinitely for weekend tours.

The university's seven museums and seventeen libraries hold over nine million volumes, making it the seventh-largest academic library in the country. The holdings of the university's Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center include one of only 21 remaining complete copies of the Gutenberg Bible and the first permanent photograph, View from the Window at Le Gras, taken by Nicephore Niepce. The newest museum, the 155,000-square-foot (14,400 m²) Blanton Museum of Art, is the largest university art museum in the United States and hosts approximately 17,000 works from Europe, the United States, and Latin America.

The University of Texas has an extensive underground tunnel system that links all of the buildings on campus. Constructed in the 1930s under the supervision of creator Carl Eckhardt, then head of the physical plant, the tunnels have grown along with the university campus. They currently measure approximately six miles in total length. The tunnel system is used for communications and utility service. It is closed to the public and is guarded by silent alarms. Since the late 1940s the university has generated its own electricity. Today its natural gas cogeneration plant has a capacity of 123 MW. The university also operates a 1.1 megawatt TRIGA nuclear reactor at the J.J. Pickle Research Campus.

The university continues to expand its facilities on campus. In 2010, the university opened the state-of-the-art Norman Hackerman building (on the location of the former Experimental Sciences Building) housing chemistry and biology research and teaching laboratories. In 2010, the university broke ground on the $120 million Bill & Melinda Gates Computer Science Complex and Dell Computer Science Hall and the $51 million Belo Center for New Media, both of which are slated to open in 2012. The new LEED gold-certified, 110,000-square-foot (10,000 m²) Student Activity Center (SAC) opened in January 2011, housing study rooms, lounges and food vendors. The SAC was constructed as a result of a student referendum passed in 2006 which raised student fees by $65 per semester.

The university operates a public radio station, KUT, which provides local FM broadcasts as well as live streaming audio over the Internet. The university uses Capital Metro to provide bus transportation for students around the campus and throughout Austin.

Academic profile

UT Austin is consistently ranked as one of the top public universities in the country, with highly prestigious programs in a variety of fields. Nationally, UT Austin ranked 45th amongst all universities according to U.S. News and World Report, and tied for 13th place among public universities in 2011. The University of Texas School of Architecture was ranked second among national undergraduate programs in 2012. Additionally, the McCombs School of Business was ranked seventh among undergraduate business programs in 2010, and the Cockrell School of Engineering was ranked ninth among undergraduate engineering programs in 2009. Internationally, UT Austin was ranked 67th in the "World's Best Universities" ranking presented by U.S. News and World Report, and ranked 35th in the world by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, based on factors such as Nobel laureate affiliation and number of highly cited researchers. In 2009, The Economist ranked the school 49th worldwide, while Human Resources & Labor Review ranked the university 44th internationally. In 2011, Times Higher Education ranked the university 29th in the world.

As of 2010, U.S. News and World Report ranked forty-three UT graduate programs and specialties in the top ten nationally, and another fifty-three others ranked in the top 25. Among these programs include the number two-ranked College of Education, the fourth-ranked College of Pharmacy, the eighth-ranked Cockrell School of Engineering, the and the 14th-ranked School of Law. Four UT graduate programs were ranked first in the nation, including Accounting and Petroleum Engineering. The MBA program in the McCombs School of Business was ranked 16th nationally in 2010. A 2005 Bloomberg survey ranked the school 5th among all business schools and first among public business schools for the largest number of alumni who are S&P 500 CEOs. Similarly, a 2005 USA Today report ranked the university as "the number one source of new Fortune 1000 CEOs."

A "payback" analysis published by SmartMoney in 2011 comparing graduates' salaries to tuition costs concluded that the school was the second-best value of all colleges in the nation, behind only Georgia Tech.