University of Rochester

The University of Rochester is a private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River, in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full-time employees, the university is the largest private employer in Upstate New York and the seventh-largest in all of New York State.

With over 12,000 students, the university offers 160 undergraduate and 30 graduate programs across seven schools spread throughout five campuses. The College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering is the largest school, and it includes the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The Eastman School of Music, founded by and named after George Eastman, is located in Downtown Rochester.

The university is also home to the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a national laboratory supported by the US Department of Energy. The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and is a member of the Association of American Universities, which emphasizes academic research. The university's sports teams, the Rochester Yellowjackets, compete in NCAA Division III. The school is a founding member of the University Athletic Association (UAA).

History

Early history

The University of Rochester traces its origins to The First Baptist Church of Hamilton, New York, which was founded in 1796. The church established the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York, later renamed the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, in 1817. This institution gave birth to both Madison University and the University of Rochester. Its function was to train clergy in the Baptist tradition. When it aspired to grant higher degrees, it created a collegiate division separate from the theological division.

The collegiate division was granted a charter by the State of New York in 1846, after which its name was changed to Madison University. John Wilder and the Baptist Education Society urged that the new university be moved to Rochester, New York. However, legal action prevented the move. In response, dissenting faculty, students, and trustees defected and departed for Rochester, where they sought a new charter for a new university. Madison University was eventually renamed Colgate University.

Founding

Asahel C. Kendrick, professor of Greek, was among the faculty that departed Madison University for Rochester. Kendrick served as acting president while a national search was conducted. He reprised this role until 1853, when Martin Brewer Anderson of the Andover Newton Theological Seminary in Massachusetts was selected to fill the inaugural posting.

The University of Rochester's new charter was awarded by the Regents of the State of New York on January 31, 1850. The charter stipulated that the university have $100,000 in endowment within five years, upon which the charter would be reaffirmed. An initial gift of $10,000 was pledged by John Wilder, which helped catalyze significant gifts from individuals and institutions.

Classes began that November, with approximately 60 students enrolled, including 28 transfers from Madison. From 1850 to 1862, the university was housed in the old United States Hotel in downtown Rochester on Buffalo Street near Elizabeth Street (now West Main Street near the I-490 overpass).

For the next 10 years, the college expanded its scope and secured its future through an expanding endowment, student body, and faculty. In parallel, a gift of 8 acres of farmland from local businessman and Congressman Azariah Boody secured the first campus of the university, upon which Anderson Hall was constructed and dedicated in 1862. Over the next sixty years, this Prince Street Campus grew by a further 17 acres and was developed to include fraternities houses, dormitories, and academic buildings including Anderson Hall, Sibley Library, Eastman and Carnegie Laboratories, the Memorial Art Gallery, and Cutler Union.

Administration

The university is headed by a board of trustees, with alumnus Chris Boehning as the chairman. The board appoints the president of the university. As of 2019, eleven people have held the role of regularly-appointed president. On four occasions, the board of trustees has called upon members of the faculty to serve as an executive officer (Kendrick), acting president (Lattimore and Burton), or interim president (Feldman) during periods of transition.

Campuses

River Campus

The River Campus is in a bend of the Genesee River about 2 miles (3 km) south of downtown Rochester and covers around 200 acres (81 ha). It is bounded by Bausch & Lomb Riverside Park, an 18-acre (7.3 ha) public park along the east bank of the Genesee River formerly known as the Olmstead River Walk, and Mount Hope Cemetery, where the grave sites of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass can be found. The River Campus was acquired in the late 1920s from the Oak Hill Country Club through a land swap deal orchestrated in part by Edwin Sage Hubbell and funded largely by George Eastman.

After a period of landscaping, grading, and construction, the original buildings of the campus were dedicated in 1930 when the first class of River Campus was welcomed to the Men's college. The main academic buildings are examples of the Greek Revival style in 20th-century collegiate architecture. The main buildings situated upon the Eastman Quadrangle are Rush Rhees Library at the head, flanked by the Morey Hall, Bausch & Lomb Hall, Lattimore Hall, and Dewey Hall. The Rush Rhees Library, the unofficial symbol of the university, is also home to the Hopeman Memorial Carillon, the largest carillon in New York State, featuring 50 bells that chime on the quarter-hour. Todd Union, constructed in 1930, has been recommended by New York State's Board for Historic Preservation to be added to the State and National Registers of Historic Places as "a key site associated with Rochester's LGBTQ+ history". Todd Union has an early and significant association with the University of Rochester's Gay Liberation Front (UR GLF), an organization that worked to advance the gay liberation movement on campus and in the city of Rochester in the 1970s.

River Campus is home to a number of student exhibition spaces. The AsIs Gallery in the Sage Art Center showcases rotating exhibitions of student works from studio classes. As a work-in-progress critique space, this exhibition space provides students the opportunity to develop their work in a semi-professional space. The Gallery at the Art and Music Library features work from students and local artists in the highly trafficked Rush Rhees Art and Music Library. Hartnett Gallery, in Wilson Commons, is a student-supported gallery that showcases international and professional contemporary artists as well as an annual juried student exhibition. The pasSAGE is an annex of the Sage Art Center which features a long-term exhibition selected by a faculty committee. There is also a Senior Thesis Gallery in the Sage Arts Center that features senior undergraduate works.

Academics

The University of Rochester's undergraduate enrollment includes approximately 6,400 full-time and about 330 part-time students from across the U.S. and over 115 countries. Graduate enrollment includes approximately 3,750 full-time and about 1,600 part-time graduate students. The university has more than 103,000 living alumni and employs nearly 2,300 tenure-track faculty, with more than 20,000 faculty and staff across the university and the Strong Health System. The only required undergraduate course is the first-year writing seminar. In lieu of a core curriculum, undergraduates complete coursework in each of three disciplines: humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Students choose a major, consisting of more than ten courses, and a cluster, consisting of three related courses. The student must ensure at least a cluster is met in each discipline; however, second majors and minors are often used to fulfill these requirements. Students who pursue accredited engineering fields are exempt from this system and are required to have only one humanities or social science cluster.

Research

The University of Rochester is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity". The university had a research expenditure of $481 million in 2023. In 2008, it ranked 44th nationally in research spending, but this ranking has declined gradually to 70 in 2023. Some of the major research centers include the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a laser-based nuclear fusion facility, and the extensive research facilities at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Recently, the university has also engaged in a series of new initiatives to expand its programs in biomedical engineering and optics, including the construction of the new $37 million Robert B. Goergen Hall for Biomedical Engineering and Optics on the River Campus. Other new research initiatives include a cancer stem cell program and a Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. The university also has the ninth highest technology revenue among U.S. higher education institutions, with $46 million being paid for commercial rights to university technology and research in 2009.

Notable patents include Zoloft and Gardasil. WeBWorK, a web-based system for checking homework and providing immediate feedback for students, was developed by University of Rochester professors Gage and Pizer. The system is now in use at over 800 universities and colleges, as well as several secondary and primary schools. University of Rochester scientists work in diverse areas. For example, physicists developed a technique for etching metal surfaces, such as platinum, titanium, and brass, with powerful lasers, enabling self-cleaning surfaces that repel water droplets and will not rust if tilted at a 4-degree angle and medical researchers are exploring how brains rid themselves of toxic waste during sleep.

Rankings

The University of Rochester is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. In 2025, Forbes magazine's America's Top Colleges series ranked the university 69th in the United States overall. The 2025-26 U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Ranking placed the university 46th in the country overall, while Washington Monthly placed the University of Rochester 48th in the country (best college for research) and The Wall Street Journal ranked it 58th in the United States overall.

Student life

The university's seal features a book, representing arts and sciences, a lyre symbolizing music, and a modified symbol of medicine. The official flower of the university is the dandelion, purportedly prolific on the cow pasture that became the university's second campus.

The official mascot of the university is a predatory wasp found throughout Rochester, the yellowjacket. From 1983 to 2008, the mascot was named "URBee." However, when the university re-designed the mascot during the 2007–2008 academic year, a new name was chosen. As of February 1, 2008, the school's mascot is now known as "Rocky".

The university uses Rochester Blue and Dandelion Yellow as its official colors, which are the prominent colors on the official regalia. The motto of the university is "Meliora," which loosely translates to "better" with the connotation of "ever better," the meaning adopted by the university.

The image of Rush Rhees Library's main dome serves as an additional icon for the University of Rochester. Rush Rhees Library at The University of Rochester was featured on the cover of the "Princeton Review 373 Best Colleges 2011 Edition".

The song most often sung at college events, led often by the school's many a cappella groups, is The Genesee, written by former Rochester student Thomas Thackeray Swinburne (Class of 1892). Although less frequently used, the university also has an official Alma Mater, The Dandelion Yellow.

Student organizations

There are over 275 active groups on campus, which range from cultural dance groups to the university's improvisational comedy troupe In Between the Lines. Since 1873, the university has regularly printed its student newspaper, the Campus Times. There is also the student-run, online-only publication, The Rival Rochester. This is a source of opinion, commentary, and satire.

The university is well known for its a cappella groups, the YellowJackets, the Midnight Ramblers, Vocal Point, After Hours, and Trebellius, who have multiple local, state and national awards. The University of Rochester is also home to its own radio station, WRUR, that is located in Todd Union.

Activities and events

Wilson Commons Students Activities (WCSA) is a student-led group in charge of planning and organizing events for undergraduate students.

Annual events include the Celebrate Diversity concert and Yellowjacket Weekend during orientation week, Winterfest Weekend in February, Spirit Week, Springfest Weekend and Senior Day.

Meliora Weekend is the annual alumni reunion, usually held in October or September, bringing together thousands of alumni for a week of food, drink and dance.

Traditions

Boar's Head Dinner

The Boar's Head Dinner is an annual medieval student feast that was first celebrated on December 17, 1934. Students dress up in costumes, and the setting resembles a 16th Century English Court. The first dinners were held in Todd Union and are currently held at the Feldman Ballroom in Douglas Commons. Among the evening's events is an annual 'Reading of the Boar', a retelling of the Boar's Head legend by a member of the faculty.

Dandelion Day

Usually referred to as 'D-Day' or 'Drinking Day' by students, Dandelion Day is one of the university's longest standing traditions that celebrates the last full week of classes in the spring semester. Events usually include food trucks, a concert, and special parties held by fraternities and sororities. In 2008, Dandelion Day lost funding from the school administration but was eventually brought back due to student demand. Dandelion Day is usually held on the Friday of Springfest Weekend.

Athletics

The University of Rochester's athletics teams are collectively known as the Yellowjackets. The university is a member of the Division III of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), primarily competing in dual membership with the University Athletic Association (UAA) and the Liberty League. One exception to this is the men's squash team, which is consistently ranked top 5 in the NCAA Division I ranks.

University of Rochester athletes competes in 23 intercollegiate varsity sports: Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, soccer, squash, swimming & diving, tennis and track & field (indoor and outdoor); while women's sports include basketball, cross country, field hockey, lacrosse, rowing, soccer, softball, swimming & diving, tennis, track & field (indoor and outdoor) and volleyball.

Accomplishments

In 2009 women's soccer coach Terry Gurnett set records with over 400-lifetime wins. In March 2010 the women's basketball team made it to the NCAA's Final Four. The men's soccer team made it to the NCAA Elite Eight in 2017 and the NCAA Final Four in 2018. In 2021, the softball team reached the Division III women's college world series.

Эх сурвалж: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)