The University of Virginia

The University of Virginia, located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains 110 miles southwest of Washington, D.C., is in many ways a unique institution. Perhaps more than any other major American university, it bears the stamp of one individual- its founder, Thomas Jefferson. In the last decade of his life (1816 -1825), Mr. Jefferson conceived the idea of a state-supported college in Virginia, selected the site near his home, Monticello, persuaded the state legislature to provide funds, cajoled his friends for financial support, designed the original buildings and supervised their construction, hired the first faculty, and prepared the first curriculum. His concept was a radical one for the United States at that time: students and faculty living together in an academic village consisting of a number of buildings arranged around an open grassy area (The Lawn) and connected by a roofed, colonnaded walkway at one end of which stands the famous rotunda modeled on the Roman Pantheon. The University opened in 1825 with three U.S. Presidents among its founders: James Madison, James Monroe and Thomas Jefferson, and in more recent times another President, Woodrow Wilson, studied here.

The original Jeffersonian buildings and Lawn are still intact and, remarkably, continue to be used as residences by some faculty members and by a select group of students. There are few higher honors for a student than to be selected to live on the Lawn, despite rather spartan living arrangements.

The University has long since grown far beyond its original 68 students and 8 faculty and today numbers about 19,000 students and 1,900 full-time faculty. The beauty and historic significance of the Lawn remains intact today. In 1976, the American Institute of Architects selected the University as the finest achievement of American architecture in the 200-year history of the nation. The student-operated Honor System, initiated in 1842, following a series of faculty-student confrontations, lends a unique atmosphere of mutual trust to the University community. Despite strains and changes over the years, the Honor System remains as one the few successful operations of its kind in the U.S., perhaps because it is entirely in the hands of students.

Although a state institution, the University in many respects resembles a private school. Its endowment and trusts total over two billion dollars, third highest in the U.S. among public universities. Also of significance are the high admission standards (the highest of any state university in the U.S. at the undergraduate level) and the national character of the University, 40% of the student body coming from outside Virginia. In recent years U.S. News and World Report has ranked the University as the top public University in the nation.

The proximity of the University to the nation's capital (a two-hour drive or half-hour commercial flight away) provides stimulus for many seminars and events involving prominent figures in government and academe. Indeed, many past and present members of Congress are U.Va. alumni. The University has schools of law, medicine, commerce, business, engineering, architecture, nursing, education, and arts and sciences, the last named being the largest and oldest. The curriculum at the University currently offers more than 50 bachelors degrees, 90 masters degrees, 6 educational specialist degrees, and 55 doctoral degrees. The concentration of all major schools of the University on one central campus facilitates many types of interdisciplinary activity involving the Department of Chemistry. Moreover, the department's close proximity to two major University research parks provides special opportunities for both faculty and students.