UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, founded by Thomas Jefferson at Charlottesville, gained statutory existence in 1819. Developed from an academy charter of 1803, construction began on its buildings in 1817, and eight schools opened in 1825. Its foundation was one of the landmarks in the development of higher public education in America. Jefferson, who was also the architect, spoke of himself as its "father," and in writing the inscription for his tombstone, mentioned his connection with its foundation as one of the three achievements of his life by which he wished to be remembered.

A chairman of the faculty administered the university until 1904, when Edward A. Alderman became the first president. The university has made three specific contributions to American education. First, the University of Virginia secularized scientific thought. The university's devotion to secularism is clear even in the first architectural plans that Jefferson drew up for the institution in which a library rather than a chapel stood at the center of the campus. Second, in 1842 Henry St. George Tucker and his colleagues installed a system of student self-government along lines suggested by Jefferson in 1818. Third, it established, as part of larger tenets of freedom in teaching and learning, an elective system of study. In 1944 Mary Washington College for women, established in 1908 at Fredericksburg, combined with the University of Virginia. Two community colleges, Clinch Valley College and George Mason College, are also associated with the university. In the early 1950s, the previously racially segregated University of Virginia enrolled its first black students. In 1970 the school became coeducational at the undergraduate level.

Outstanding features are its beautiful grounds and neoclassical buildings, its honor system, and its association with Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Famous students have included Edgar Allan Poe, Woodrow Wilson, and Walter Reed. As of 2002, the university enrolled just under 19,000 students with an operating budget of $816.3 million for the academic division and $575.6 million for the medical center. It consistently ranks as one of the top public universities in the United States. Because the quality of its instruction compares favorably with that of the finest private schools in the country, it has earned the unofficial label of a "public ivy" school. Currently, ten schools make up the University of Virginia: the School of Architecture, the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the McIntire School of Commerce, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the School of Nursing, the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, the School of Law, the School of Medicine, the Curry School of Education, and the School of Continuing and Professional Studies.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brawne, Michael. University of Virginia, the Lawn: Thomas Jefferson. London: Phaidon, 1994.

Dabney, Virginius. Mr. Jefferson's University: A History. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1981.

Hellenbrand, Harold. The Unfinished Revolution: Education and Politics in the Thought of Thomas Jefferson. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1990.

Lucas, Christopher J. American Higher Education: A History. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994.

John CookWyllie/a. e.

See alsoArchitecture ; Education, Higher: Colleges and Universities ; Ivy League ; Universities, State ; Virginia .