University of Utah Informations

The University of Utah (also referred to as the U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. As the state's flagship university, it offers more than 100 undergraduate majors and more than 92 graduate degree programs. The university is classified among "Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity" with "selective, higher transfer-in" admissions. Graduate studies include the S.J. Quinney College of Law and the School of Medicine, Utah's first medical school. As of Fall 2018, there are 24,735 undergraduate students and 8,251 graduate students, for an enrollment total of 32,994.

The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (/ˌdɛzəˈrɛt/ (listen)) 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.

The university ranks 61st among U.S. universities by total research expenditures with over $380 million spent in 2017. 22 Rhodes Scholars, four Nobel Prize winners, two Turing Award winners, eight MacArthur Fellows, various Pulitzer Prize winners, two astronauts,Gates Cambridge Scholars, and Churchill Scholars have been affiliated with the university as students, researchers, or faculty members in its history. In addition, the university's Honors College has been reviewed among 100 leading national Honors Colleges in the U.S.

The university's athletic teams, the Utes, participate in NCAA Division I athletics (FBS for football) as a member of the Pac-12 Conference. Its football team has received national attention for winning the 2005 Fiesta Bowl and the 2009 Sugar Bowl.

The university's health care system includes four hospitals, including the University of Utah Hospital and Huntsman Cancer Institute, along with twelve community clinics and specialty centers such as the Moran Eye Center.

Soon after the Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake valley in 1847, Brigham Young began organizing a Board of Regents to establish a university. 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[who?] felt that the dismissals were a result of the LDS Church's influence on the university, while others[who?] 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 in the following decades as the university developed into a research center for fields such as computer science and medicine.

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.

The University of Utah Asia Campus opened as an international branch campus in the Incheon Global Campus in Songdo, Incheon, South Korea in 2014. Three other European and American universities are also participating. The Asia Campus was funded by the South Korean government.

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 S. 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 and Sutherland,Sarcos, Idaho Technology, and Myriad Genetics.

Courses are also held at off-campus centers located in St. George and Sandy.

In July 2017, the Academic Senate bestowed the designation of tobacco-free campus on the university, but rules were not enforced until 2018. The rule prohibits students and faculty from "smoking or using chewing tobacco, electronic cigarettes and all other recreational nicotine-delivery products on any property owned, leased or controlled by the University of Utah."

The University of Utah provides student housing in a 33-building housing complex on campus. The complex consists of eight housing areas: Chapel Glen, Gateway Heights, Sage Point, Officer's Circle, Benchmark Plaza, Shoreline Ridge, the Donna Garff Marriott Honors Residential Scholars Community (MHC for short), and the Lassonde Studios. The MHC is a dormitory strictly for honors students and was completed in fall 2012. Built in 2016, the Lassonde Studios is part of the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute and houses 400 students; the studios also feature a "creative garage" with 3D printers and spaces for startups.

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.

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