University of Iowa Informations

The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and the second largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 11 colleges offering more than 200 areas of study and seven professional degrees.

Located on an urban 1,880 acre campus on the banks of the Iowa River, the University of Iowa is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity." The university is best known for its programs in health care, law, and the fine arts, with programs ranking among the top 25 nationally in those areas. The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and the Stead Family Children's Hospital are ranked nationally by U.S. News and World Report in eleven specialties. The university was the original developer of the Master of Fine Arts degree and it operates the Iowa Writer's Workshop, which has produced 17 of the university's 46 Pulitzer Prize winners. Iowa is a member of the Association of American Universities, the Universities Research Association, and the Big Ten Academic Alliance.

Among American universities, the University of Iowa was the first public university to open as coeducational, opened the first coeducational medical school, and opened the first Department of Religious Studies at a public university. The University of Iowa's 33,000 students take part in nearly 500 student organizations. Iowa's 22 varsity athletic teams, the Iowa Hawkeyes, compete in Division I of the NCAA and are members of the Big Ten Conference. The University of Iowa alumni network exceeds 250,000 graduates.

The University of Iowa was founded on February 25, 1847, just 59 days after Iowa was admitted to the Union. The Constitution of the State of Iowa refers to a State University to be established in Iowa City "without branches at any other place." The legal name of the university is the State University of Iowa, but the Board of Regents approved using "The University of Iowa" for everyday usage in October 1964.

The first faculty offered instruction at the university beginning in March 1855 to students in the Old Mechanics Building, located where Seashore Hall is now. In September 1855, there were 124 students, of whom forty-one were women. The 1856–57 catalogue listed nine departments offering ancient languages, modern languages, intellectual philosophy, moral philosophy, history, natural history, mathematics, natural philosophy, and chemistry. The first president of the university was Amos Dean.

The original campus consisted of the Iowa Old Capitol Building and the 10 acres (40,000 m2) (4.05 hectares) of land on which it stood. Following the placing of the cornerstone July 4, 1840, the building housed the Fifth Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Iowa (December 5, 1842) and then became the first capitol building of the State of Iowa on December 28, 1846. Until that date, it had been the third capitol of the Territory of Iowa. When the capitol of Iowa was moved to Des Moines in 1857, the Old Capitol became the first permanent "home" of the University.

In 1855, The university became the first public university in the United States to admit men and women on an equal basis. In addition, Iowa was the world's first university to accept creative work in theater, writing, music, and art on an equal basis with academic research.

The university was one of the first institutions in America to grant a law degree to a woman (Mary B. Hickey Wilkinson, 1873), to grant a law degree to an African American (Alexander G. Clark, Jr. in 1879), and to put an African American on a varsity athletic squad (Frank Holbrook in 1895). The university offered its first doctorate in 1898.

The university was the first state university to recognize the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Allied Union (in 1970).

The University of Iowa established the first law school west of the Mississippi River. It was the first university to use television in education, in 1932, and it pioneered in the field of standardized testing. Also, the University of Iowa was the first Big Ten institution to promote an African American to the position of administrative vice president. (Phillip Hubbard, promoted in 1966)

Under the leadership of Carl Seashore in 1922, Iowa became the first university in the United States to accept creative projects as theses for advanced degrees. Traditionally, graduate study culminates in the writing of a scholarly thesis, but Iowa accepted creative works including a collection of poems, a musical composition, or a series of paintings to be presented to the graduate college in support of a degree. In so doing, Iowa established a creative standard in qualifying for the Master of Fine Arts degree and secured a place for writers and artists in the academy. The university's Program in Creative Writing, known worldwide as the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, was founded in 1936 with the gathering together of writers of both poetry and fiction. It was the first creative writing program in the country, and it became the prototype for more than 300 writing programs, many of which were founded by Workshop alumni. The workshop remains the most prestigious creative writing program in the country and one of the most selective graduate programs of any kind, typically admitting fewer than five percent of its applicants.

A shooting took place on campus on November 1, 1991. Six people died in the shooting, including the perpetrator, and one other person was wounded. This was one of the deadliest university campus shootings in United States history.

In the summer of 2008, flood waters breached the Coralville Reservoir spillway, damaging more than 20 major campus buildings. Several weeks after the flood waters receded university officials placed a preliminary estimate on flood damage at $231.75 million. Later, the university estimated that repairs would cost about $743 million. The reconstruction and renovation work took a decade, but the university has recovered and taken a number of preventive measures with the hope of avoiding a tragic repeat of the event.

Later in 2008, UNESCO designated Iowa City the world's third City of Literature, making it part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.

In 2015, the Iowa Board of Regents selected Bruce Harreld, a business consultant with limited experience in academic administration, to succeed Sally Mason as president. The regents' choice of Harreld provoked criticism and controversy on the UI campus due to his corporate background, lack of history in leading an institution of higher education, and the circumstances related to the search process. The regents said they had based their decision on the belief that Harreld could limit costs and find new sources of revenue beyond tuition in an age of declining state support for universities.

The University of Iowa's main campus, located in Iowa City, was originally designed by architect D. Elwood Cook. The campus is roughly bordered by Park Road and U.S. Highway 6 to the north and Dubuque and Gilbert Streets to the east. The Iowa River flows through the campus, dividing it into west and east sides.

Of architectural note is the Pentacrest which comprises five major buildings—Old Capitol, Schaeffer Hall, MacLean Hall, Macbride Hall, and Jessup Hall—at the center of the University of Iowa Campus. The Pentacrest reflects the Beaux-Arts in addition to Greek Revival architectural styles and the Collegiate Gothic architecture which is dominant in sections of the campus west of the Iowa River. The Old Capitol was once the home of the state legislature and the primary government building for the State of Iowa, but is now the symbolic heart of the university with a restored ceremonial legislative chamber and a museum of Iowa history.

Also on the eastern side of campus are six residence halls (Burge, Daum, Stanley, Currier, Mayflower, and Catlett), the Iowa Memorial Union, the Women's Resource and Action Center, the Pappajohn Business Building, Seamans Center for the Engineering Arts and Sciences, the Lindquist Center (home of the College of Education), Phillips Hall (the foreign language building), Van Allen Hall (home to physics and astronomy), Trowbridge Hall (home to Earth and Environmental Sciences, as well as the Iowa Geological Survey), the English-Philosophy Building, the Becker Communication Building, the Adler Journalism Building, Voxman Music Building, and the buildings for biology, chemistry, and psychology. The Main Library can also be found on the east side.

The Colleges of Law, Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry, Pharmacy, and Public Health are on the western side of the Iowa River, along with the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, and the Theatre Building. Additionally, five residence halls (Hillcrest, Slater, Rienow, Parklawn, and Petersen), Kinnick Stadium, and Carver-Hawkeye Arena are located on the west campus.

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