Sunday, November 24, 2013
As a state public university, The University of Texas at Austin was, until recently, subject to Texas House Bill 588, which guarantees graduating Texas high school seniors in the top 10% of their class admission to any public Texas university. A new state law granting UT (but no other state university) a partial exemption from the top 10% rule, Senate Bill 175, was passed by the 81st Legislature in 2009. It modifies this admiss
College of Education(1905)
College of Fine Arts (1938)
College of Liberal Arts (1883)
College of Natural Sciences (1883)
College of Pharmacy
Continuing Education (1909)
Graduate Studies (1910)
Jackson School of Geosciences (2005)
LBJ School of Public Affairs (1970)
McCombs School of Business (1922)
Moody College of Communication (1965)
School of Architecture (1948)
School of Information (1948)
School of Law (1883)
School of Nursing (1976)
School of Social Work (1950)
School of Undergraduate Studies (2008)
Academics[edit]
Proctor's Mustangs (1948) overlooking the Engineering Sciences buildings
The University of Texas at Austin offers more than 100 undergraduate and 170 graduate degrees. In the 2009–2010 academic year, the university awarded a total of 13,215 degrees: 67.7% bachelor's degrees, 22.0% master's degrees, 6.4% doctoral degrees, and 3.9% Professional degrees.[38]
In addition, the university has eight honors programs that span a variety of academic fields: Liberal Arts Honors, the Business Honors Program, the Turing Scholars Program in Computer Science, Engineering Honors, the Dean's Scholars Program in Natural Sciences, the Health Science Scholars Program in Natural Sciences, the Polymathic Scholars Program in Natural Sciences, and the interdisciplinary Plan II Honors program. The university also offers innovative programs for promoting academic excellence and leadership development such as the Freshman Research Initiative and Texas Interdisciplinary Plan.
Admission[edit]
As a state public university, The University of Texas at Austin was, until recently, subject to Texas House Bill 588, which guarantees graduating Texas high school seniors in the top 10% of their class admission to any public Texas university. A new state law granting UT (but no other state university) a partial exemption from the top 10% rule, Senate Bill 175, was passed by the 81st Legislature in 2009. It modifies this admissions policy by limiting automatically admitted freshmen to 75% of the entering in-state freshman class, starting in 2011. The university will admit the top one percent, the top two percent and so forth until the cap is reached; the university expects to automatically admit students in the top 8% of their graduating class for 2011.[39] Furthermore, students admitted under Texas House Bill 588 are not guaranteed their choice of college or major, but rather only guaranteed admission to the university as a whole. Many colleges, such as the Cockrell School of Engineering, have secondary requirements that must be met for admission.[40]
For others who go through the traditional application process, selectivity is deemed "more selective" according to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.[41] For Fall 2009, 31,362 applied and 45.6% were accepted, and of those accepted, 51.0% enrolled.[42] The university's freshman retention rate in 2009 was 92.5% and the six-year graduation rate was 81.0%.[42] The Fall 2011 entering class had an average ACT composite score of 28 and an average SAT composite score of 1858.[4][43]
Rankings[edit]
University rankings
National
ARWU[44] 27
Forbes[45] 66
U.S. News & World Report[46] 52
Washington Monthly[47] 19
Global
ARWU[48] 35
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 TRIGA nuclear reactor at the J.J. Pickle Research Campus.[32][32][33]
2.14 ha), comprising the 423.5 acres (171.38 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).
Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum
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.[22] 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.[23] 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[24] In 1998, after the installation of security and safety measures, the observation deck reopened to the public indefinitely for weekend tours.[25]
The university's seven museums and seventeen libraries hold over nine million volumes, making it the seventh-largest academic library in the country.[26] 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 Nicéphore Niépce.[27] 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.[28][29]
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.[30][31] 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 TRIGA nuclear reactor at the J.J. Pickle Research Campus.[32][32][33]
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 now complete.[34][35] 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.[36]
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.
Organization and administration[edit]
McCombs School of Business
Colleges and schools[edit]
The university contains eighteen colleges & schools and one academic unit, each listed with its founding date:[37]
Cockrell School of Engineering (1894)
Dell Medical School (2013)
Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum
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.[22] 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.[23] 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[24] In 1998, after the installation of security and safety measures, the observation deck reopened to the public indefinitely for weekend tours.[25]
The university's seven museums and seventeen libraries hold over nine million volumes, making it the seventh-largest academic library in the country.[26] 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 Nicéphore Niépce.[27] 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.[28][29]
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.[30][31] 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 TRIGA nuclear reactor at the J.J. Pickle Research Campus.[32][32][33]
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 now complete.[34][35] 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.[36]
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.
Organization and administration[edit]
McCombs School of Business
Colleges and schools[edit]
The university contains eighteen colleges & schools and one academic unit, each listed with its founding date:[37]
Cockrell School of Engineering (1894)
Dell Medical School (2013)
ed 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[edit] The first presidential library o
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.[15] UT Austin was inducted into the American Association of Universities in 1929,[16]
1966 shooting spree[edit]
The Tower, completed in 1937, stands 307 ft (94 m) tall and dons different colors of lighting on special occasions.
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."[17] 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[edit]
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 13 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.[18] 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 at the time, now surpassed by Cowboy Stadium.[19]
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.[20]
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.[21]
Campus[edit]
See also: List of University of Texas at Austin buildings
The University's property totals 1,438.5 acres (58
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.[15] UT Austin was inducted into the American Association of Universities in 1929,[16]
1966 shooting spree[edit]
The Tower, completed in 1937, stands 307 ft (94 m) tall and dons different colors of lighting on special occasions.
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."[17] 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[edit]
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 13 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.[18] 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 at the time, now surpassed by Cowboy Stadium.[19]
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.[20]
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.[21]
Campus[edit]
See also: List of University of Texas at Austin buildings
The University's property totals 1,438.5 acres (58
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