Best Public University
1970s
 |
||
Queen Elizabeth II visits the University as part of America's Bicentennial |
||
The University of Virginia pulled through the 1970s with a newly won reputation—in the words of a national educational journal, "a first-rate institution according to all the traditional barometers of academic excellence." New buildings, new programs, and new advances in the arts and sciences, technology, engineering and architecture, athletics, and the library system helped the University of Virginia move from a school with regional stature into a full-scale university gaining national and international recognition.
With the nation's 1976 bicentennial in view, many argued that the Rotunda should be returned to Jefferson's original design. Students and alumni raised money for the cause. Renovated as closely as possible according to plans from the 1800s, a three-story Rotunda opened on the founder's birthday, April 13, 1976. To commemorate the anniversary of America's independence, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II strolled the University of Virginia Lawn and lunched in the Dome Room of the Rotunda, one of five American sites she visited publicly.
1980s
Alumni efforts and athletic success contributed to the growing excellence of the University of Virginia during the last decades of the 20th century. President Frank H. Hereford led a successful capital campaign in the 1980s, raising nearly $150 million. All eyes were on seven-foot-four Ralph Sampson as he led Virginia's basketball team to repeated successes during the early 1980s. Coach George Welsh turned Virginia's football team into a national power. Virginia's intercollegiate teams in men's soccer, women's basketball, men's baseball, and men's and women's lacrosse repeatedly attained national championship status. Students and faculty both received academic accolades. Application numbers rose, to the point that in 2001, out of 15,000 applications, 3,000 students entered the University, 82 percent of them placing in the top tenth of their high school class.
 |
|
Ralph Sampson |
|
Faculty achievements in academic departments and professional schools brought world recognition to the University of Virginia by the close of the 20th century. Programs in architecture, business, nursing, medicine, foreign languages, English, and religious studies have all received top-ten rankings in national polls in the past decade. Virginia has taken the lead in the academic application of computer technology, housing the highly regarded e-Text Center within the University Libraries, through which scholars worldwide electronically access digital versions of historical texts and images. Promising research is conducted in offices and laboratories throughout the University, seeking results as diverse as a contraceptive vaccine, nonintrusive laser brain surgery, atomic-level nuclear waste cleanup techniques, and super-light alloys for the aerospace and automotive industries.
In 1987, the University of Virginia Grounds were named a World Heritage site on UNESCO's prestigious World Heritage list, which includes the Taj Mahal, Versailles, and the Great Wall of China.
 |
A classroom at the Darden School |
1990s
In 1993, U.S. News and World Report ranked U.Va. the nation's best public university. It has remained at the top of that annual list ever since. The University of Virginia consistently ranks well in other published comparisons among Americas colleges and universities, whether judged by popularity with students, retention and graduation rates, best-buy status, or overall excellence. The University of Virginia moves confidently into the 21st century, progressing dynamically by striving still to fulfill the vision of its founder.
2000 to Present
In the August 2006 U.S. News & World Report's rankings of best colleges, the University of Virginia continued to hold its own and remains the No. 2 best public university. U.Va. continues to rank in the Top 25 among the best of all national universities, public and private, tying with the University of Michigan at No. 24. In the 20-year history of the rankings, U.Va. has never dropped out of the Top 25 listing, and in the ten years since U.S. News began ranking public universities as a separate category, U.Va. has ranked either No. 1 or No. 2. Read more.
Photo Credits Alumni Association: Striking students in front of Rotunda, Shannon portrait, Hereford portrait
Jack Mellott: Darden classroom
Special Collections, Alderman Library, U.Va.: Jefferson's design for the Rotunda, Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas Jefferson portrait, Corks & Curls cover, Rotunda fire, 1897 student, Class of 1861, James Rogers McConnell, students in uniform, surgery demonstration, first coed class, Walter Ridley, Homer on strike, Queen Elizabeth II, Alderman portrait, Newcomb portrait, Darden portrait.
Presidents of the University of Virginia
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| John T. Casteen III, 1990-present |
Robert M. O'Neil, 1985-1990 |
Frank L. Hereford, Jr., 1974-1985 |
Edgar F. Shannon, Jr., 1959-1974 |
Colgate W. Darden, Jr., 1947-1959 |
John Lloyd Newcomb, 1931-1947 |
Edwin Anderson Alderman, 1904-1931 |