University of Utah

The University of Utah (the U, U of U, or simply Utah) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest institution of higher education. The university received its current name in 1892, four years before Utah attained statehood, and moved to its current location in 1900. It is the flagship university of the Utah System of Higher Education.

As of fall 2024, there were 28,064 undergraduate students and 8,817 graduate students, for an enrollment total of 36,881, making it the second-largest public university in Utah. Graduate and professional schools include the S.J. Quinney College of Law and the School of Medicine, Utah's first medical school. It is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU) and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".

According to the National Science Foundation, the university received $723.7 million in research and development funding in fiscal year 2023, ranking it 47th in the nation. 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. The university's athletic teams, the Utes, participate in NCAA Division I athletics (FBS for football) as a member of the Big 12 Conference.

In its history, twenty-two Rhodes Scholars, four Nobel Prize winners, three 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.

History

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 a 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 onto 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 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' 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 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. Multiple large improvements were made to the university prior to the events, including extensive renovations to the Rice–Eccles Stadium, a light rail line 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

The campus covers 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 Eccles Student Life Center.

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 & Sutherland, Sarcos, Biofire Diagnostics, 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."

Organization

The University of Utah is governed by a 10-member Board of Trustees, 8 of whom are appointed by the Governor of Utah with the consent of the Utah Senate. The President of the University of Utah Alumni Association serves as the 9th member, and the President of the Associated Students of the University of Utah (ASUU) serves as the 10th member. The 8 appointed members serve for four-year terms, four expiring on June 30 of each odd-numbered year. The two ex officio members serve for the terms of their respective offices.

The University of Utah and the other public colleges and universities of the Utah System of Higher Education are governed by the Utah Board of Higher Education (previously the Utah State Board of Regents) whose chief executive officer is the Commissioner of Higher Education.

The chief executive officer of the University of Utah is the president, who reports to the Board of Higher Education and, with the approval of the trustees, submits budgets, tuition adjustments, and academic program plans, appoints faculty, and develops policy initiatives.

Subject to the board of trustees, the university faculty have authority to legislate on matters of educational policy via the Academic Senate. The senate is composed of 100 faculty members proportionally representing and elected by their respective colleges, two elected deans, and 18 students from the ASUU, one from each college and the ASUU president. The senate also includes the university president, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Senior Vice President for Health Sciences, and all non-elected deans as ex officio members who may debate and present motions but do not vote. Much of the actual senate work is carried out by 12 senate-elected committees which work on the central academic issues of the institution. The committees report to the full senate, and the senate often acts on their proposals as well as on issues brought to its attention by the administration.

Academics and rankings

The University of Utah is accredited through the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities since 1933. The university organizes its 150 academic departments and programs into 17 colleges and schools. The School for Cultural and Social Transformation is the university's newest college, with its first graduating class in 2018.

The university operates on a semester calendar with the rest of the Utah higher education system. Undergraduate tuition and fees for 2015–2016 were $8,240 for Utah residents (about 325% the cost of tuition and fees in 2000, $2,534 for 13 credit hours per semester, 2 semesters), and $26,180 for non-residents per 12-credit-hour semester.

Admissions and demographics

For the Class of 2023 (enrolling fall 2019), Utah received 24,404 applications and accepted 15,159 (62%), with 4,249 enrolling. The middle 50% range of SAT scores for enrolling freshmen was 572.5-680 for evidence-based reading and writing, 570–700 for math, and 1150–1370 for the composite. The middle 50% ACT score range was 22–28 for math, 21–31 for English, and 22–29 for the composite. The average high school grade point average (GPA) was 3.66.

The university uses a holistic admissions process and weighs ACT/SAT standardized test scores, GPA, grade trend, rigorous AP/IB/Honors classes taken in high school, academic achievements, along with other "personal achievements and characteristics".

Ballet

The Department of Ballet offers the top ranked ballet and ballroom dance program in the United States and is one of the oldest and most reputable university ballet departments in the country. The department was founded by William F. Christensen in 1951, who also founded the San Francisco Ballet and Ballet West companies.

Biology

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.

Computer Science

The University of Utah was one of the original four nodes of ARPANET, the world's first packet-switched network and embryo of the current worldwide Internet. The School of Computing produced many of the early pioneers in computer science and graphics, including Turing Award winner Alan Kay, Pixar founder Ed Catmull, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, and Adobe founder John Warnock. Notable innovations of computer science 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. Through the movement of Utah graduates and faculty, research at the University spread outward to laboratories like Xerox Parc, JPL, and the New York Institute of Technology. Present graphics research is focused on biomedical applications for visualization, scientific computing, and image analysis at the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute.

Athletics

The university has nine men's and 11 women's varsity teams. Athletic teams include men's baseball, basketball, football, golf, hockey, lacrosse, 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 Big 12 Conference. There is a fierce BYU–Utah rivalry, and the Utah–BYU football game, traditionally the 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 headdresses, and which is said to reflect "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 fifteen NCAA Skiing Championships, most recently in 2023, 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.

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