University of Texas at Austin
Encyclopedia
The University of Texas at Austin (informally University of Texas, or simply UT) is a state research university located in Austin
, Texas
, USA
, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System
. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately 0.25 miles (402.3 m) from the Texas State Capitol
in Austin. The institution has the fifth-largest single-campus enrollment in the nation as of fall 2010 (and had the largest enrollment in the country from 1997 to 2003), with over 50,000 undergraduate and graduate students and 16,500 faculty and staff. It currently holds the largest enrollment of all colleges in the state of Texas.
The University of Texas at Austin was named one of the original eight Public Ivy
institutions and was inducted into the American Association of Universities in 1929. The university is a major center for academic research, with research expenditures exceeding $640 million for the 2009-2010 school year. The university houses seven museums and seventeen libraries, including the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum
and the Blanton Museum of Art
, and operates various auxiliary research facilities, such as the J. J. Pickle Research Campus and the McDonald Observatory
. Among university faculty are recipients of the Nobel Prize
, Pulitzer Prize
, the Wolf Prize, and the National Medal of Science
, as well as many other awards.
UT Austin student athletes compete as the Texas Longhorns and are members of the Big 12 Conference
. The university has won four NCAA Division I National Football Championships, and has claimed more titles in men's and women's sports than any other school in the Big 12 since the league was founded in 1996. Current and former UT Austin athletes have won 117 Olympic medals, including 14 in Beijing in 2008. The university was recognized by Sports Illustrated
as "America's Best Sports College" in 2002.
can be traced to the 1827 constitution for the Mexican
state of Coahuila y Tejas
. Although an article promised to establish public education in the arts and sciences, no action was taken by the Mexican government. But after Texas obtained its independence
from Mexico in 1836, the Congress of Texas adopted the Constitution of the Republic
, which included a provision to establish public education in the republic
, including two universities or colleges. On January 26, 1839, the Congress of Texas agreed to eventually set aside fifty league
s of land towards the effort; in addition, 40 acres (161,874.4 m²) in the new capital of Austin were reserved and designated "College Hill."
In 1846, Texas was annexed
into the United States
. The state legislature passed the Act of 1858, which set aside $100,000 in United States bonds
towards construction of a university. In addition, the legislature designated land, previously reserved for the encouragement of railroad construction, toward the universities' fifty leagues. However, Texas's secession
from the Union and the American Civil War
prevented further action on these plans.
After the war, the 1862 Morrill Act
facilitated the creation of what is now Texas A&M University
, which was established in 1876 as the Agricultural & Mechanical College of Texas. The Texas Constitution of 1876
mandated that the state establish a university "at an early day," calling for the creation of a "university of the first class," styled "The University of Texas." It revoked the endowment of the railroad lands of the Act of 1858 but appropriated 1000000 acres (4,046.9 km²) in West Texas. In 1883, another two million were granted, with income from the sale of land and grazing rights
going to The University of Texas and Texas A&M.
In 1881, Austin was chosen as the site of the main university, and Galveston was designated the location of the medical department. On the original "College Hill," an official ceremony began construction on what is now referred to as the old Main Building in late 1882. The university opened its doors on September 15, 1883.
The old Victorian
-Gothic
Main Building served as the central point of the campus's 40 acres (161,874.4 m²) site, and was used for nearly all purposes. But by the 1930s, discussions arose about the need for new library space, and the Main Building was razed in 1934 over the objections of many students and faculty. The modern-day tower and Main Building were constructed in its place.
In 1910, George Brackenridge donated 500 acres (2 km²) located on the Colorado River
to the university . A vote by the regents to move the campus to the donated land was met with outrage, and the land has only been used for auxiliary purposes such as graduate student housing. Part of the tract was sold in the late-1990s for luxury housing, and there are controversial proposals to sell the remainder of the tract. The Brackenridge Field Laboratory
was established on 82 acres (331,842.5 m²) of the land in 1967.
As a result of the controversy, in 1921, the legislature appropriated $1,350,000 for the purchase of land adjacent to the main campus. But expansion was 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 (161,874.4 m²).
During World War II
, 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.
barricaded the observation deck in the tower of the Main Building. With two rifles, a sawed-off shotgun
and various other weapons, he killed 10 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." 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.
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 12 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
. 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.
On the morning of September 28, 2010, 19-year-old Colton Tooley opened fire on campus with a semi-automatic rifle, resulting in a lockdown of the university campus. He then walked into the Perry-Castañeda Library and committed suicide.
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 will cover the university's intercollegiate athletics, music, cultural arts and academics programs. The channel is scheduled to air in September 2011.
One of the university's most visible features is the Beaux-Arts Main Building, including a 307 feet (93.6 m) tower designed by Paul Philippe Cret
. Completed in 1937, the Main Building is located 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. At the top of the tower is a carillon
of 56 bells, the largest in Texas. Songs are played on weekdays by resident carillonneur Tom Anderson, in addition to the usual pealing of Westminster Quarters every quarter hour between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. In 1998, after the installation of security and safety measures, the observation deck reopened to the public indefinitely for weekend tours.
The university's seven museums and seventeen libraries hold over nine million volumes, making it the seventh-largest academic library in the country. 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
. The newest museum, the 155000 square feet (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.
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. 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 1.1 megawatt TRIGA
nuclear reactor at the J.J. Pickle Research Campus.
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 slated to open in 2012. The new LEED
gold-certified, 110000 square feet (10,219.3 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.
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.
UT Austin is consistently ranked as one of the top public universities in the country, with highly regarded programs in a variety of fields. Nationally, the university ranked 45th according to U.S. News and World Report, 13th among public universities in 2010. The McCombs School of Business
was ranked seventh among undergraduate business programs in 2010, and the Cockrell School of Engineering was ranked ninth among undergraduate engineering programs in 2009. Internationally, UT Austin was ranked 67th in the "World's Best Universities" ranking presented by U.S. News and World Report, and ranked 35th in the world by Shanghai Jiao Tong University
, based on factors such as Nobel laureate affiliation and number of highly cited researchers. In 2009, The Economist
ranked the school 49th worldwide, while Human Resources & Labor Review ranked the university 44th internationally. In 2011, Times Higher Education ranked the university 29th in the world.
As of 2010, U.S. News and World Report ranked forty-three UT graduate programs and specialties in the top ten nationally, and another fifty-three others ranked in the top 25. Among these programs include the number two-ranked College of Education, the fourth-ranked College of Pharmacy, the eighth-ranked Cockrell School of Engineering, the and the 14th-ranked School of Law
. Four UT graduate programs were ranked first in the nation, including Accounting and Petroleum Engineering. The MBA program in the McCombs School of Business was ranked 16th nationally in 2010. A 2005 Bloomberg
survey ranked the school 5th among all business schools and first among public business schools for the largest number of alumni who are S&P 500
CEO
s. Similarly, a 2005 USA Today
report ranked the university as "the number one source of new Fortune 1000
CEOs."
In addition, the university has six honors programs that span a variety of academic fields: Liberal Arts Honors, the Business Honors Program, the Turing Scholars Program in Computer Sciences, Engineering Honors, the Dean's Scholars Honors 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.
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 degree
s, 22.0% master's degree
s, 6.4% doctoral degree
s, and 3.9% Professional degrees.
, 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. 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.
For others who go through the traditional application process, selectivity is deemed "more selective" according to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For Fall 2009, 31,362 applied and 45.6% were accepted, and of those accepted, 51.0% enrolled. The university's freshman retention rate in 2009 was 92.5% and the six-year graduation rate was 81.0%. The Fall 2011 entering class had an average ACT composite score of 28 and an average SAT composite score of 1844.
In Fall 2009, the school employed 2,770 full-time
faculty members (88.3% of whom hold the terminal degree in their field), with a student-to-faculty ratio of 17.3 to 1. The university's faculty includes 63 members of the National Academy, winners of the Nobel Prize
, the Pulitzer Prize
, the National Medal of Science
, the National Medal of Technology
, the Turing Award
and other various awards. Nine Nobel Laureates are or have been affiliated with UT Austin.
Except for MIT, UT Austin attracts more federal research grants than any American university without a medical school. For the 2009-2010 school year, the university exceeded $640 million in research funding (up from $590 million the previous year) and has earned more than 300 patents since 2003. UT Austin houses the Office of Technology Commercialization, a technology transfer
center which serves as the bridge between laboratory research and commercial development. In 2009, UT Austin created nine new start-up companies to commercialize technology developed at the university and has created 46 start-ups in the past seven years. UT Austin license agreements generated $10.9 million in revenue for the university in 2009.
Research at UT Austin is largely focused in the engineering and physical sciences, and is a world-leading research institution in fields such as computer science. Energy is a major research thrust of the university, with major federally funded projects on biofuels, battery and solar cell technology, and geological carbon dioxide storage, among others. In 2009, UT founded the Energy Institute, led by former Under Secretary for Science Raymond L. Orbach
, to organize and advance multi-disciplinary energy research at the university. While the university does not have a medical school, it houses medical programs associated with other campuses and allied health professional programs, as well as major research programs in pharmacy, biomedical engineering, and neuroscience and others. UT Austin opened the $100 million Dell Pediatric Research Institute in 2010 as part of an effort to increase medical research at the university and establish a medical research complex, and associated medical school, in the city of Austin.
UT Austin operates several major auxiliary research centers. The world's third-largest telescope, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope
, and three other large telescopes are part of UT's McDonald Observatory
, located 450 miles (724.2 km) west of Austin. The university manages nearly 300 acres (1.2 km²) of biological field laboratories, including the Brackenridge Field Laboratory
in Austin. The Center for Agile Technology
focuses on software development
challenges. The J.J. Pickle Research Campus
(PRC) is home to the Texas Advanced Computing Center which operates the Ranger supercomputer, one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, as well as the Microelectronics Research Center which houses micro- and nanoelectronics research and features a 15000 sqfoot cleanroom for device fabrication. Founded in 1946, UT's Applied Research Laboratories at the PRC has been responsible for the development or testing of the vast majority of high-frequency sonar equipment used by the Navy, and in 2007, was granted a research contract by the Navy funded up to $928 million over ten years.
30% of the university's endowment comes from Permanent University Fund
(PUF), with nearly $15 billion in assets as of 2007. Proceeds from lands appropriated in 1839 and 1876, as well as oil monies, comprise the majority of PUF. At one time, the PUF was the chief source of income for Texas's two university systems, The University of Texas System and the Texas A&M University System
; today, however, its revenues account for less than 10 percent of the universities' annual budgets. This has challenged the universities to increase sponsored research and private donations. Privately funded endowments contribute over $2 billion to the University's total endowment value.
The university is one of only two public universities in the U.S. that have a triple-A credit rating from all three major credit rating agencies, along with the University of Virginia
.
, followed by the People's Republic of China
, India
, Mexico
and Taiwan
. For Fall 2010, the undergraduate student body was 48.7% male and 51.3% female. The three largest undergraduate majors in 2009 were Biological Sciences, Unspecified Business, and Psychology, while the three largest graduate majors were Business Administration (MBA), Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Pharmacy (PharmD).
is the largest residence hall with its capacity of 2,945. Academic enrollment exceeds the capacity of on-campus housing; as a result, most students must live in private residence halls, housing cooperative
s, apartments, or with Greek organization
s and other off-campus residences. The Division of Housing and Food Service, which already has the largest market share of 7,000 of the estimated 27,000 beds in the campus area, plans to expand to 9,000 beds in the near future.
serves as the oldest honor society at the university. The Texas 4000 for Cancer
student organization is the longest annual charity bicycle ride in the world and has raised over $1.4 million dollars for cancer research from its founding in 2004 to April, 2009.
, National Pan-Hellenic Council
, Texas Asian Pan-Hellenic Council, Latino Pan-Hellenic Council, Multicultural Greek Council and University Panhellenic Council. Other registered student organizations also name themselves with Greek letters and are called affiliates. They are not a part of one of the six councils but have all of the same privileges and responsibilities of any other organization. According to the Office of the Dean of Students' mission statement, Greek Life promotes the principles of cultural appreciation, scholarship, leadership, and service
. The majority of Greek houses are located west of the Drag in the neighborhood called West Campus
.
, The Daily Texan
(the most award-winning daily college newspaper in the United States), and the Texas Travesty
. Over the airwaves students' voices are heard through K09VR
and KVRX.
The Computer Writing and Research Lab of the university's Department of Rhetoric and Writing also hosts the Blogora, a blog
for "connecting rhetoric, rhetorical methods and theories, and rhetoricians with public life" by the Rhetoric Society of America
.
The university has a yearbook. In the 1980s it annually sold 14,000 copies. In 1997 it sold 1,700, an all-time low. Kathy Lawrence, the media adviser at UT Austin, said that yearbook sales declined once the school switched from in-person registration to telephone-based registration. During in-person registrations, the university often asked students to buy student yearbooks. Lawrence said that other factors leading to a decline in yearbook sales at UT Austin included increasing numbers of students and a decline in participation in campus life. As of 2008 about 2,500 copies sell annually. To salvage the yearbook, Lawrence introduced personalized pages. When Lawrence concluded that social networking sites lead to a decline in yearbook sales, Sarah Viren of the Houston Chronicle
said that Lawrence "eventually opted to hold off on the personalized pages."
Traditions at the University of Texas are perpetuated through several school symbols and mediums. At athletic events, students frequently sing "Texas Fight
", the university's fight song while displaying the Hook 'em Horns
hand gesture—the gesture mimicking the horns of the school's mascot, Bevo
the Texas longhorn
.
The University of Texas offers a wide variety of varsity and intramural sports programs. As of 2008, the university's athletics program ranked fifth in the nation among Division I schools, according to the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics
. Due to the breadth of sports offered and the quality of the programs, Texas was selected as "America's Best Sports College" in a 2002 analysis performed by Sports Illustrated
. Texas was also listed as the number one Collegiate Licensing Company
client for the second consecutive year in regards to the amount of annual trademark royalties received from the sales of its fan merchandise. However, this ranking is based only on clients of the Collegiate Licensing Company, which does not handle licensing for approximately three dozen large schools including Ohio State
, USC
, UCLA
, Michigan State
, and Texas A&M
.
of the NCAA's Division I-FBS. Texas has won 47 total national championships, 39 of which are NCAA national championships.
The University of Texas has traditionally been considered a college football
powerhouse. At the start of the 2007 season, the Longhorns were ranked third in the all-time list of both total wins and winning percentage. The team experienced its greatest success under coach Darrell Royal
, winning three national championships in 1963, 1969, and 1970. It won a fourth title under head coach Mack Brown
in 2005 after a 41-38 victory over previously undefeated Southern California
in the 2006 Rose Bowl
.
In recent years, the men's basketball
team has gained prominence, advancing to the NCAA Tournament
Sweet Sixteen in 2002, the Final Four in 2003, the Sweet Sixteen in 2004, and the Elite Eight
in 2006 and 2008.
The University's baseball
team is considered to be one of the best in the nation with more trips to the College World Series
(33) than any other school, with wins in 1949, 1950, 1975, 1983, 2002 and 2005.
Additionally, the University's highly successful men's and women's swimming and diving teams lay claim to sixteen NCAA Division I titles. The swim team was first developed under Coach Tex Robertson
. In particular, the men's team is under the leadership of Eddie Reese
, who served as the head men's coach at the 1992 Summer Olympics
in Barcelona
, the 2004 Games
in Athens
and the 2008 Games
in Beijing
.
. The two schools have acknowledged the importance of this rivalry by creating the State Farm Lone Star Showdown
series, which encompasses all sports where both schools field a varsity team. The football game played between the two schools is the third longest-running rivalry in the nation and is the longest-running rivalry for both schools. It finished in 2011 with their 118th game. The Longhorns led the "showdown," 76-37-5. The game was traditionally played on Thanksgiving
day. Both schools held a rally before the annual football game — Texas hosted the Hex Rally
, and students at Texas A&M hosted the Aggie Bonfire (although it is no longer an officially sanctioned Texas A&M event after the deaths of 12 students in 1999).
The Longhorns also have a long standing football rivalry with the Oklahoma Sooners
and hold a 59-41-5 edge in that series. Since 1932, the teams have played annually at the Cotton Bowl
in Dallas, Texas, in the Red River Rivalry
game. The rivalry has grown in recent years, as the winner has gone to the Big 12 Conference championship and BCS National championship games.
Other schools, such as University of Arkansas
and Texas Tech
, also count Texas among their rivals; however, each of these schools also trail Texas by significant margins in overall series records, 56-21-0 and 45-15-0, respectively.
Texas Exes
is the official alumni organization of UT.
Over 15 graduates have served in the U.S. Senate
and U.S. House of Representatives
, such as Lloyd Bentsen
'42, who served as both a U.S. Senator and U.S. Representative, as well as being the 1988 Democratic Party
Vice Presidential nominee. Cabinet members of American presidents include former United States Secretary of State
James Baker
'57, former United States Secretary of Education
William J. Bennett, and former United States Secretary of Commerce
Donald Evans
'73. Former First Lady
Laura Bush
'73 and daughter Jenna
'04 both graduated from Texas, as well as former First Lady
Lady Bird Johnson
'33 & '34 and her eldest daughter Lynda
. In foreign governments, the university has been represented by Fernando Belaúnde Terry
'36 (42nd President of Peru
), Mostafa Chamran
(former Minister of Defense for Iran
), and Abdullah al-Tariki
(co-founder of OPEC
). Additionally, the Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, Salam Fayyad
, graduated from the university, earning a PhD in economics.
Alumni in academia include the 26th President of The College of William & Mary Gene Nichol '76, the 10th President of Boston University
Robert A. Brown
'73 & '75, and the 8th President of the University of Southern California
John R. Hubbard
. The University also graduated Alan Bean
'55, the fourth man to walk on the Moon. Additionally, alumni of the university who have served as business leaders include ExxonMobil Corporation CEO Rex Tillerson
'75, Dell
founder and CEO Michael Dell
, and Gary C. Kelly
, CEO of Southwest Airlines
.
In literature and journalism, the school has produced Pulitzer Prize
winners Gail Caldwell
and Ben Sargent
'70. Walter Cronkite
, the former CBS Evening News
anchor once called the most trusted man in America, attended The University of Texas at Austin, as did CNN
anchor Betty Nguyen
'95. Alumnus J. M. Coetzee also received the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature
. Novelist Raymond Benson
('78) was the official author of James Bond novels between 1996–2002, the only American to be commissioned to pen them. Donna Alvermann
, a distinguished research professor at the University of Georgia, Department of Education also graduated from the University of Texas, as did Wallace Clift
('49) and Jean Dalby Clift
('50, J.D. '52), authors of several books in the fields of psychology of religion and spiritual growth.
Several musicians and entertainers attended the university, though most dropped out to pursue their respective careers. Janis Joplin
, the American singer who was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
and who received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
attended the university, as did February 1955 Playboy
Playmate of the Month and Golden Globe recipient Jayne Mansfield
. Composer Harold Morris is a 1910 graduate. Noted film director, cinematographer, writer, and editor Robert Rodriguez
is a Longhorn, as are actors Eli Wallach
and Matthew McConaughey
. Rodriguez dropped out of the university after two years to pursue his career in Hollywood, but he officially completed his degree from the Radio-Television-Film department on May 23, 2009. Rodriguez also gave the keynote address at the university-wide commencement ceremony. Radio-Television-Film alumni Mark Dennis and Ben Foster took their award winning feature film, Strings, to the American film festival circuit in 2011. Actress Renée Zellweger
also attended the university and graduated with a BA in English. Farrah Fawcett
, one of the original Charlie's Angels
, left after her junior year to pursue a modeling career. Actor Owen Wilson
and writer/director Wes Anderson
each attended the university. There they wrote Bottle Rocket
together which became Anderson's first feature film. Another notable writer, Rob Thomas
graduated with a BA in History in 1987 and went on to write the young adult novel Rats Saw God
and created the series Veronica Mars
.
A number of alumni have found success in professional sports. Legendary pro football coach Tom Landry
'49 attended the University as an industrial engineering major but interrupted his education after a semester to serve in the United States Army Air Corps
during World War II
. Following the war, he returned to the University and played fullback and defensive back on the Texas Longhorns' bowl game winners on New Year's Day of 1948 and 1949. Seven-time Cy Young Award
-winner Roger Clemens
entered the MLB after helping the Longhorns win the 1983 College World Series
. Several Olympic medalists have also attended the school, including 2008 Summer Olympics
athletes Ian Crocker
'05 (swimming world record holder and two-time Olympic gold medalist) and 4x400m relay defending Olympic gold medalist Sanya Richards
'06. Mary Lou Retton
(the first female gymnast outside Eastern Europe to win the Olympic all-around title, five-time Olympic medalist, and 1984 Sports Illustrated
Sportswoman of the Year) also attended the university. Also an alumnus is Dr. Robert Cade
, the inventor of the sport drink Gatorade
.
Other notable alumni include prominent businessman Red McCombs
and Diane Pamela Wood
, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
. Also an alumnus is Admiral William H. McRaven
, credited for organizing and executing Operation Neptune's Spear, the special ops raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden
.
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System
University of Texas System
The University of Texas System encompasses 15 educational institutions in Texas, of which nine are academic universities and six are health institutions. The system is headquartered in Austin and has a total enrollment of over 190,000 students...
. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately 0.25 miles (402.3 m) from the Texas State Capitol
Texas State Capitol
The Texas State Capitol is located in Austin, Texas, and is the fourth building to be the house of Texas government in Austin. It houses the chambers of the Texas Legislature and the office of the governor of Texas. It was designed originally during 1881 by architect Elijah E. Myers, and was...
in Austin. The institution has the fifth-largest single-campus enrollment in the nation as of fall 2010 (and had the largest enrollment in the country from 1997 to 2003), with over 50,000 undergraduate and graduate students and 16,500 faculty and staff. It currently holds the largest enrollment of all colleges in the state of Texas.
The University of Texas at Austin was named one of the original eight Public Ivy
Public Ivy
Public Ivy is a term coined by Richard Moll in his 1985 book Public Ivies: A Guide to America's best public undergraduate colleges and universities to refer to universities which "provide an Ivy League collegiate experience at a public school price." Public Ivies are considered, according to the...
institutions and was inducted into the American Association of Universities in 1929. The university is a major center for academic research, with research expenditures exceeding $640 million for the 2009-2010 school year. The university houses seven museums and seventeen libraries, including the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum
Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum
The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum is one of 13 presidential libraries administered by the National Archives and Records Administration. The library houses 45 million pages of historical documents, including the papers of Lyndon Baines Johnson and those of his close associates and others...
and the Blanton Museum of Art
Blanton Museum of Art
The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art is the art museum and research center of the University of Texas at Austin. Formerly under the College of Fine Arts, the museum director now reports to the University's...
, and operates various auxiliary research facilities, such as the J. J. Pickle Research Campus and the McDonald Observatory
McDonald Observatory
The McDonald Observatory is an astronomical observatory located near the unincorporated community of Fort Davis in Jeff Davis County, Texas, United States. The facility is located on Mount Fowlkes and Mount Locke in the Davis Mountains of West Texas...
. Among university faculty are recipients of the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
, Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
, the Wolf Prize, and the National Medal of Science
National Medal of Science
The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and...
, as well as many other awards.
UT Austin student athletes compete as the Texas Longhorns and are members of the Big 12 Conference
Big 12 Conference
The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference of ten schools located in the Central United States, with its headquarters located in Las Colinas, a community in the Dallas, Texas suburb of Irving...
. The university has won four NCAA Division I National Football Championships, and has claimed more titles in men's and women's sports than any other school in the Big 12 since the league was founded in 1996. Current and former UT Austin athletes have won 117 Olympic medals, including 14 in Beijing in 2008. The university was recognized by Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...
as "America's Best Sports College" in 2002.
Establishment
The first mention of a public university in TexasTexas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
can be traced to the 1827 constitution for the Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
state of Coahuila y Tejas
Coahuila y Tejas
Coahuila y Tejas was one of the constituent states of the newly established United Mexican States under its 1824 Constitution.It had two capitals: first Saltillo, and then Monclova...
. Although an article promised to establish public education in the arts and sciences, no action was taken by the Mexican government. But after Texas obtained its independence
Texas Declaration of Independence
The Texas Declaration of Independence was the formal declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico in the Texas Revolution. It was adopted at the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 2, 1836, and formally signed the following day after errors were noted in the...
from Mexico in 1836, the Congress of Texas adopted the Constitution of the Republic
Constitution of the Republic of Texas
The Constitution of the Republic of Texas was written in 1836 between the fall of the Alamo Mission in San Antonio and Sam Houston's stunning victory at San Jacinto. The constitution was written quickly and while on the run from Santa Anna....
, which included a provision to establish public education in the republic
Republic of Texas
The Republic of Texas was an independent nation in North America, bordering the United States and Mexico, that existed from 1836 to 1846.Formed as a break-away republic from Mexico by the Texas Revolution, the state claimed borders that encompassed an area that included all of the present U.S...
, including two universities or colleges. On January 26, 1839, the Congress of Texas agreed to eventually set aside fifty league
League (unit)
A league is a unit of length . It was long common in Europe and Latin America, but it is no longer an official unit in any nation. The league originally referred to the distance a person or a horse could walk in an hour...
s of land towards the effort; in addition, 40 acres (161,874.4 m²) in the new capital of Austin were reserved and designated "College Hill."
In 1846, Texas was annexed
Texas Annexation
In 1845, United States of America annexed the Republic of Texas and admitted it to the Union as the 28th state. The U.S. thus inherited Texas's border dispute with Mexico; this quickly led to the Mexican-American War, during which the U.S. captured additional territory , extending the nation's...
into the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The state legislature passed the Act of 1858, which set aside $100,000 in United States bonds
Bond (finance)
In finance, a bond is a debt security, in which the authorized issuer owes the holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to pay interest to use and/or to repay the principal at a later date, termed maturity...
towards construction of a university. In addition, the legislature designated land, previously reserved for the encouragement of railroad construction, toward the universities' fifty leagues. However, Texas's secession
Secession
Secession is the act of withdrawing from an organization, union, or especially a political entity. Threats of secession also can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.-Secession theory:...
from the Union and the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
prevented further action on these plans.
Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act
The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are United States statutes that allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges, including the Morrill Act of 1862 and the Morrill Act of 1890 -Passage of original bill:...
facilitated the creation of what is now Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University is a coeducational public research university located in College Station, Texas . It is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. The sixth-largest university in the United States, A&M's enrollment for Fall 2011 was over 50,000 for the first time in school...
, which was established in 1876 as the Agricultural & Mechanical College of Texas. The Texas Constitution of 1876
Texas Constitution
The Constitution of the State of Texas is the document that describes the structure and function of the government of the U.S. State of Texas.Texas has had seven constitutions: the constitution of Coahuila y Tejas, the 1836 Constitution of the Republic of Texas, the state constitutions of 1845,...
mandated that the state establish a university "at an early day," calling for the creation of a "university of the first class," styled "The University of Texas." It revoked the endowment of the railroad lands of the Act of 1858 but appropriated 1000000 acres (4,046.9 km²) in West Texas. In 1883, another two million were granted, with income from the sale of land and grazing rights
Grazing rights
Grazing rights is a legal term referring to the right of a user to allow their livestock to feed in a given area.- United States :...
going to The University of Texas and Texas A&M.
In 1881, Austin was chosen as the site of the main university, and Galveston was designated the location of the medical department. On the original "College Hill," an official ceremony began construction on what is now referred to as the old Main Building in late 1882. The university opened its doors on September 15, 1883.
Expansion and growth
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
-Gothic
Gothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...
Main Building served as the central point of the campus's 40 acres (161,874.4 m²) site, and was used for nearly all purposes. But by the 1930s, discussions arose about the need for new library space, and the Main Building was razed in 1934 over the objections of many students and faculty. The modern-day tower and Main Building were constructed in its place.
In 1910, George Brackenridge donated 500 acres (2 km²) located on the Colorado River
Colorado River (Texas)
The Colorado River is a river that runs through the U.S. state of Texas; it should not be confused with the much longer Colorado River which flows from Colorado into the Gulf of California....
to the university . A vote by the regents to move the campus to the donated land was met with outrage, and the land has only been used for auxiliary purposes such as graduate student housing. Part of the tract was sold in the late-1990s for luxury housing, and there are controversial proposals to sell the remainder of the tract. The Brackenridge Field Laboratory
Brackenridge Field Laboratory
The Brackenridge Field Laboratory is an urban research station owned by the University of Texas at Austin. Established officially in 1967, it contains 82 acres of land and research infrastructure. It is dedicated to studies in biology. The extensive historical data kept about its diverse habitats...
was established on 82 acres (331,842.5 m²) of the land in 1967.
As a result of the controversy, in 1921, the legislature appropriated $1,350,000 for the purchase of land adjacent to the main campus. But expansion was hampered by the constitutional restriction against funding the construction of buildings. With the discovery of oil
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
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
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The university built 19 permanent structures between 1950 and 1965, when it was given the right of eminent domain
Eminent domain
Eminent domain , compulsory purchase , resumption/compulsory acquisition , or expropriation is an action of the state to seize a citizen's private property, expropriate property, or seize a citizen's rights in property with due monetary compensation, but without the owner's consent...
. With this power, the university purchased additional properties surrounding the original 40 acres (161,874.4 m²).
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, University of Texas was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
V-12 Navy College Training Program
The V-12 Navy College Training Program was designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the United States Navy during World War II...
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
Recent history
On August 1, 1966, Texas student Charles WhitmanCharles Whitman
Charles Joseph Whitman was a student at the University of Texas at Austin and a former Marine who killed 16 people and wounded 32 others during a shooting rampage on and around the university's campus on August 1, 1966....
barricaded the observation deck in the tower of the Main Building. With two rifles, a sawed-off shotgun
Sawed-off shotgun
A sawed-off shotgun also called a sawn-off shotgun and a short-barreled shotgun , is a type of shotgun with a shorter gun barrel and often a shorter or absent stock....
and various other weapons, he killed 10 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." Following the Whitman event, the observation deck was closed until 1968, and then closed again in 1975 following a series of suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
jumps during the 1970s. In 1999, after installation of security fencing and other safety precautions, the tower observation deck reopened to the public.
The first presidential library
Presidential library
In the United States, the Presidential library system is a nationwide network of 13 libraries administered by the Office of Presidential Libraries, which is part of the National Archives and Records Administration...
on a university campus was dedicated on May 22, 1971 with former President Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
, Lady Bird Johnson
Lady Bird Johnson
Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor Johnson was First Lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 during the presidency of her husband Lyndon B. Johnson. Throughout her life, she was an advocate for beautification of the nation's cities and highways and conservation of natural resources and made that...
and then-President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
in attendance. Constructed on the eastern side of the main campus, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum
Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum
The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum is one of 13 presidential libraries administered by the National Archives and Records Administration. The library houses 45 million pages of historical documents, including the papers of Lyndon Baines Johnson and those of his close associates and others...
is one of 12 presidential libraries administered by the National Archives and Records Administration
National Archives and Records Administration
The National Archives and Records Administration is an independent agency of the United States government charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records and with increasing public access to those documents, which comprise the National Archives...
.
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
Blanton Museum of Art
The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art is the art museum and research center of the University of Texas at Austin. Formerly under the College of Fine Arts, the museum director now reports to the University's...
. 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.
On the morning of September 28, 2010, 19-year-old Colton Tooley opened fire on campus with a semi-automatic rifle, resulting in a lockdown of the university campus. He then walked into the Perry-Castañeda Library and committed suicide.
On January 19, 2011, the university announced the creation of a 24-hour television network in partnership with ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
, dubbed the Longhorn Network
Longhorn Network
The Longhorn Network is an American regional sports network focusing on sports-related programming for The University of Texas at Austin...
. 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 will cover the university's intercollegiate athletics, music, cultural arts and academics programs. The channel is scheduled to air in September 2011.
Campus
The university's property totals 1438.5 acres (582.1 ha), comprising the 423.5 acres (171.4 ha) for the main campus and other land for the J. J. Pickle Research Campus in north Austin and the other properties throughout Texas. The main campus has 150 buildings totalling over 18000000 square feet (1,672,254.7 m²).Paul Philippe Cret
Paul Philippe Cret was a French-American architect and industrial designer. For more than thirty years, he headed the Department of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.- Biography :...
. Completed in 1937, the Main Building is located 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. At the top of the tower is a carillon
Carillon
A carillon is a musical instrument that is typically housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are played serially to play a melody, or sounded together to play a chord...
of 56 bells, the largest in Texas. Songs are played on weekdays by resident carillonneur Tom Anderson, in addition to the usual pealing of Westminster Quarters every quarter hour between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. In 1998, after the installation of security and safety measures, the observation deck reopened to the public indefinitely for weekend tours.
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
The Harry Ransom Center is a library and archive at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the United States and Europe. The Ransom Center houses 36 million literary manuscripts, 1 million rare books, 5 million photographs, and more...
include one of only 21 remaining complete copies of the Gutenberg Bible
Gutenberg Bible
The Gutenberg Bible was the first major book printed with a movable type printing press, and marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of the printed book. Widely praised for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities, the book has an iconic status...
and the first permanent photograph, View from the Window at Le Gras
View from the Window at Le Gras
View from the Window at Le Gras was the first successful permanent photograph, created by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 at Saint-Loup-de-Varennes....
, taken by Nicéphore Niépce
Nicéphore Niépce
Nicéphore Niépce March 7, 1765 – July 5, 1833) was a French inventor, most noted as one of the inventors of photography and a pioneer in the field.He is most noted for producing the world's first known photograph in 1825...
. The newest museum, the 155000 square feet (14,400 m²) Blanton Museum of Art
Blanton Museum of Art
The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art is the art museum and research center of the University of Texas at Austin. Formerly under the College of Fine Arts, the museum director now reports to the University's...
, is the largest university art museum in the United States and hosts approximately 17,000 works from Europe, the United States, and Latin America.
The University of Texas has an extensive underground tunnel
Tunnel
A tunnel is an underground passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for egress, commonly at each end.A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers...
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. The tunnel system is used for communications and utility service. It is closed to the public and is guarded by silent alarms
Burglar alarm
Burglar , alarms are systems designed to detect unauthorized entry into a building or area. They consist of an array of sensors, a control panel and alerting system, and interconnections...
. 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 1.1 megawatt TRIGA
TRIGA
TRIGA is a class of small nuclear reactor designed and manufactured by General Atomics. The design team for TRIGA was led by the physicist Freeman Dyson.TRIGA is the acronym of Training, Research, Isotopes, General Atomics.-Design:...
nuclear reactor at the J.J. Pickle Research Campus.
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 slated to open in 2012. The new LEED
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design consists of a suite of rating systems for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings, homes and neighborhoods....
gold-certified, 110000 square feet (10,219.3 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.
The university operates a public radio station, KUT
Kut
Al-Kūt is a city in eastern Iraq, on the left bank of the Tigris River, about 160 kilometres south east of Baghdad. the estimated population is about 374,000 people...
, which provides local FM broadcasts
FM broadcasting
FM broadcasting is a broadcasting technology pioneered by Edwin Howard Armstrong which uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. The term "FM band" describes the "frequency band in which FM is used for broadcasting"...
as well as live streaming audio over the Internet. The university uses Capital Metro
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or Capital Metro, is a public transportation provider located in Austin, Texas. It operates bus, paratransit services and a commuter rail/light rail system known as Capital MetroRail for Austin and several suburbs in Travis and Williamson counties...
to provide bus transportation for students around the campus and throughout Austin.
Academic profile
McCombs School of Business
The McCombs School of Business, also referred to as the McCombs School or simply McCombs, is a business school at The University of Texas at Austin. In addition to the main Austin campus, McCombs offers classes outside Central Texas in Dallas, Houston and internationally in Mexico City...
was ranked seventh among undergraduate business programs in 2010, and the Cockrell School of Engineering was ranked ninth among undergraduate engineering programs in 2009. Internationally, UT Austin was ranked 67th in the "World's Best Universities" ranking presented by U.S. News and World Report, and ranked 35th in the world by Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University or SJTU), sometimes referred to as Shanghai Jiaotong University , is a top public research university located in Shanghai, China. Shanghai Jiao Tong University is known as one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China...
, based on factors such as Nobel laureate affiliation and number of highly cited researchers. In 2009, The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
ranked the school 49th worldwide, while Human Resources & Labor Review ranked the university 44th internationally. In 2011, Times Higher Education ranked the university 29th in the world.
As of 2010, U.S. News and World Report ranked forty-three UT graduate programs and specialties in the top ten nationally, and another fifty-three others ranked in the top 25. Among these programs include the number two-ranked College of Education, the fourth-ranked College of Pharmacy, the eighth-ranked Cockrell School of Engineering, the and the 14th-ranked School of Law
University of Texas School of Law
The University of Texas School of Law, also known as UT Law, is an ABA-certified American law school located on the University of Texas at Austin campus. The law school has been in operation since the founding of the University in 1883. It was one of only two schools at the University when it was...
. Four UT graduate programs were ranked first in the nation, including Accounting and Petroleum Engineering. The MBA program in the McCombs School of Business was ranked 16th nationally in 2010. A 2005 Bloomberg
Bloomberg L.P.
Bloomberg L.P. is an American privately held financial software, media, and data company. Bloomberg makes up one third of the $16 billion global financial data market with estimated revenue of $6.9 billion. Bloomberg L.P...
survey ranked the school 5th among all business schools and first among public business schools for the largest number of alumni who are S&P 500
S&P 500
The S&P 500 is a free-float capitalization-weighted index published since 1957 of the prices of 500 large-cap common stocks actively traded in the United States. The stocks included in the S&P 500 are those of large publicly held companies that trade on either of the two largest American stock...
CEO
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
s. Similarly, a 2005 USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
report ranked the university as "the number one source of new Fortune 1000
Fortune 1000
Fortune 1000 is a reference to a list maintained by the American business magazine Fortune. The list is of the 1000 largest American companies, ranked on revenues alone...
CEOs."
Colleges and schools
The university contains sixteen colleges & schools and two academic units, each listed with its founding date:
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In addition, the university has six honors programs that span a variety of academic fields: Liberal Arts Honors, the Business Honors Program, the Turing Scholars Program in Computer Sciences, Engineering Honors, the Dean's Scholars Honors 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
Freshman Research Initiative
The Freshman Research Initiative , developed at the University of Texas at Austin, is an innovative model in undergraduate education that offers hundreds of first-year students in the College of Natural Sciences the opportunity to advance academically while doing cutting-edge, authentic,...
and Texas Interdisciplinary Plan.
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 degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
s, 22.0% master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
s, 6.4% doctoral degree
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
s, and 3.9% Professional degrees.
Admission
As a state public university, the University of Texas at Austin was, until recently, subject to Texas House Bill 588Texas House Bill 588
Texas House Bill 588, commonly referred to as the "Top 10% Rule", is a Texas law passed in 1997.The law guarantees Texas students who graduated in the top ten percent of their high school class automatic admission to all state-funded universities. The bill was created as a means to avoid the...
, 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. Furthermore, students admitted under Texas House Bill 588
Texas House Bill 588
Texas House Bill 588, commonly referred to as the "Top 10% Rule", is a Texas law passed in 1997.The law guarantees Texas students who graduated in the top ten percent of their high school class automatic admission to all state-funded universities. The bill was created as a means to avoid the...
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.
For others who go through the traditional application process, selectivity is deemed "more selective" according to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For Fall 2009, 31,362 applied and 45.6% were accepted, and of those accepted, 51.0% enrolled. The university's freshman retention rate in 2009 was 92.5% and the six-year graduation rate was 81.0%. The Fall 2011 entering class had an average ACT composite score of 28 and an average SAT composite score of 1844.
Faculty and research
In Fall 2009, the school employed 2,770 full-time
Full-time equivalent
Full-time equivalent , is a unit to measure employed persons or students in a way that makes them comparable although they may work or study a different number of hours per week. FTE is often used to measure a worker's involvement in a project, or to track cost reductions in an organization...
faculty members (88.3% of whom hold the terminal degree in their field), with a student-to-faculty ratio of 17.3 to 1. The university's faculty includes 63 members of the National Academy, winners of the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
, the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
, the National Medal of Science
National Medal of Science
The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and...
, the National Medal of Technology
National Medal of Technology
The National Medal of Technology and Innovation is an honor granted by the President of the United States to American inventors and innovators who have made significant contributions to the development of new and important technology...
, the Turing Award
Turing Award
The Turing Award, in full The ACM A.M. Turing Award, is an annual award given by the Association for Computing Machinery to "an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community. The contributions should be of lasting and major technical importance to the...
and other various awards. Nine Nobel Laureates are or have been affiliated with UT Austin.
Except for MIT, UT Austin attracts more federal research grants than any American university without a medical school. For the 2009-2010 school year, the university exceeded $640 million in research funding (up from $590 million the previous year) and has earned more than 300 patents since 2003. UT Austin houses the Office of Technology Commercialization, a technology transfer
Technology transfer
Technology Transfer, also called Transfer of Technology and Technology Commercialisation, is the process of skill transferring, knowledge, technologies, methods of manufacturing, samples of manufacturing and facilities among governments or universities and other institutions to ensure that...
center which serves as the bridge between laboratory research and commercial development. In 2009, UT Austin created nine new start-up companies to commercialize technology developed at the university and has created 46 start-ups in the past seven years. UT Austin license agreements generated $10.9 million in revenue for the university in 2009.
Research at UT Austin is largely focused in the engineering and physical sciences, and is a world-leading research institution in fields such as computer science. Energy is a major research thrust of the university, with major federally funded projects on biofuels, battery and solar cell technology, and geological carbon dioxide storage, among others. In 2009, UT founded the Energy Institute, led by former Under Secretary for Science Raymond L. Orbach
Raymond L. Orbach
Raymond Lee Orbach is an American physicist and administrator. He served as Under Secretary for Science in the United States Department of Energy from 2006 until 2009, when he was replaced by Steven E. Koonin...
, to organize and advance multi-disciplinary energy research at the university. While the university does not have a medical school, it houses medical programs associated with other campuses and allied health professional programs, as well as major research programs in pharmacy, biomedical engineering, and neuroscience and others. UT Austin opened the $100 million Dell Pediatric Research Institute in 2010 as part of an effort to increase medical research at the university and establish a medical research complex, and associated medical school, in the city of Austin.
UT Austin operates several major auxiliary research centers. The world's third-largest telescope, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope
Hobby-Eberly Telescope
The Hobby-Eberly Telescope is a 9.2-meter aperture telescope located at the McDonald Observatory. It combines a number of features that differentiate it from most telescope designs, resulting in greatly lowered construction costs...
, and three other large telescopes are part of UT's McDonald Observatory
McDonald Observatory
The McDonald Observatory is an astronomical observatory located near the unincorporated community of Fort Davis in Jeff Davis County, Texas, United States. The facility is located on Mount Fowlkes and Mount Locke in the Davis Mountains of West Texas...
, located 450 miles (724.2 km) west of Austin. The university manages nearly 300 acres (1.2 km²) of biological field laboratories, including the Brackenridge Field Laboratory
Brackenridge Field Laboratory
The Brackenridge Field Laboratory is an urban research station owned by the University of Texas at Austin. Established officially in 1967, it contains 82 acres of land and research infrastructure. It is dedicated to studies in biology. The extensive historical data kept about its diverse habitats...
in Austin. The Center for Agile Technology
Center for Agile Technology
The Center for Agile Technology is an applied research unit of the University of Texas at Austin. Its director is David A. Brant....
focuses on software development
Software development
Software development is the development of a software product...
challenges. The J.J. Pickle Research Campus
J.J. Pickle Research Campus
The J. J. Pickle Research Campus in Austin, Texas, United States is owned and operated by the University of Texas at Austin. It is located in northwest Austin, approximately nine miles north of the main UT campus and just south of the The Domain...
(PRC) is home to the Texas Advanced Computing Center which operates the Ranger supercomputer, one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, as well as the Microelectronics Research Center which houses micro- and nanoelectronics research and features a 15000 sqfoot cleanroom for device fabrication. Founded in 1946, UT's Applied Research Laboratories at the PRC has been responsible for the development or testing of the vast majority of high-frequency sonar equipment used by the Navy, and in 2007, was granted a research contract by the Navy funded up to $928 million over ten years.
Endowment
The university has an endowment of $7.2 billion, out of the $16.11 billion (according to 2008 estimates) available to the University of Texas System. This figure reflects the fact that the school has the largest endowment of any public university in the nation.30% of the university's endowment comes from Permanent University Fund
Permanent University Fund
The Permanent University Fund is one of the methods by which the State of Texas funds public higher education within the state. A portion of the returns from the PUF are annually directed towards the Available University Fund , which distributes the funds according to provisions set forth by the...
(PUF), with nearly $15 billion in assets as of 2007. Proceeds from lands appropriated in 1839 and 1876, as well as oil monies, comprise the majority of PUF. At one time, the PUF was the chief source of income for Texas's two university systems, The University of Texas System and the Texas A&M University System
Texas A&M University System
The Texas A&M University System is one of the largest systems of higher education in the United States. Through a statewide network of eleven universities, eight state agencies and a comprehensive health science center, the Texas A&M System educates over 100,000 students, conducts more than $600...
; today, however, its revenues account for less than 10 percent of the universities' annual budgets. This has challenged the universities to increase sponsored research and private donations. Privately funded endowments contribute over $2 billion to the University's total endowment value.
The university is one of only two public universities in the U.S. that have a triple-A credit rating from all three major credit rating agencies, along with the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
.
Student profile
For Fall 2011, the university enrolled 38,437 undergraduate, 11,497 graduate and 1,178 law students. Out-of-state and international students comprised 9.1% of the undergraduate student body and 20.1% of the total student body, with students from all 50 states and more than 120 foreign countries—most notably, South KoreaSouth Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
, followed by the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. For Fall 2010, the undergraduate student body was 48.7% male and 51.3% female. The three largest undergraduate majors in 2009 were Biological Sciences, Unspecified Business, and Psychology, while the three largest graduate majors were Business Administration (MBA), Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Pharmacy (PharmD).
| Undergraduate | Graduate | Texas | U.S. Census | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| African American African American African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States... |
4.6% | 3.0% | 12.6% | 12.9% |
| Asian American Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,... |
17.9% | 7.2% | 4.4% | 4.6% |
| Non-Hispanic White White people White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin... |
50.4% | 53.0% | 45.3% | 65.1% |
| Hispanic American | 20.0% | 10.0% | 37.6% | 15.8% |
| Native American Native Americans in the United States Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as... |
0.3% | 0.2% | 1.3% | 1.0% |
| Foreign Foreign Foreign may refer to:*Foreign corporation, a corporation that can do business outside its jurisdiction*Foreign key, a constraint in a relational database*Foreign language, a language not spoken by the people of a certain place... |
4.7% | 22.4% | N/A | N/A |
Residential life
The campus is currently home to fourteen residence halls, the newest of which opened for residence in Spring 2007. On-campus housing can hold more than 7,100 students. Jester CenterJester Center
Jester Center or Jester Residence Hall is a co-educational residence hall at The University of Texas at Austin, built in 1969. The residence hall was named after Beauford H...
is the largest residence hall with its capacity of 2,945. Academic enrollment exceeds the capacity of on-campus housing; as a result, most students must live in private residence halls, housing cooperative
Housing cooperative
A housing cooperative is a legal entity—usually a corporation—that owns real estate, consisting of one or more residential buildings. Each shareholder in the legal entity is granted the right to occupy one housing unit, sometimes subject to an occupancy agreement, which is similar to a lease. ...
s, apartments, or with Greek organization
Fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In Latin, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in the United States, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...
s and other off-campus residences. The Division of Housing and Food Service, which already has the largest market share of 7,000 of the estimated 27,000 beds in the campus area, plans to expand to 9,000 beds in the near future.
Student organizations
The university recognizes more than 1,000 student organizations. In addition, it supports three official student governance organizations that represent student interests to faculty, administrators, and the Texas Legislature. Student Government, established in 1902, is the oldest governance organization and represents student interests in general. The Senate of College Councils represents students in academic affairs and coordinates the college councils, and the Graduate Student Assembly represents graduate student interests. The University Unions Student Events Center serves as the hub for student activities on campus. The Friar SocietyFriar Society
The Friar Society is the oldest honor society at the University of Texas at Austin.-Origins:The Friar Society was founded in 1911 by Curtice Rosser and Marion Levy. Eight members were initially selected in the charter group...
serves as the oldest honor society at the university. The Texas 4000 for Cancer
Texas 4000 for Cancer
The Livestrong Texas 4000 for Cancer or Texas 4000 is a 501 Federally registered non-profit organization and the longest annual charity bicycle ride in the world. Each year a new group of almost 60 University of Texas at Austin students make a 70 day, 4,687 mile bike trek from the Texas campus in...
student organization is the longest annual charity bicycle ride in the world and has raised over $1.4 million dollars for cancer research from its founding in 2004 to April, 2009.
Greek life
The University of Texas at Austin is home to an active Greek community. Approximately 14 percent of undergraduate students are in fraternities or sororities. With more than 65 national chapters, the university's Greek community is one of the largest in the nation. These chapters are under the authority of one of the school's six Greek council communities, Interfraternity CouncilNorth-American Interfraternity Conference
The North-American Interfraternity Conference , is an association of collegiate men's fraternities that was formally organized in 1910, although it began on November 27, 1909. The power of the organization rests in a House of Delegates where each member fraternity is represented by a single delegate...
, National Pan-Hellenic Council
National Pan-Hellenic Council
The National Pan-Hellenic Council is a collaborative organization of nine historically African American, international Greek lettered fraternities and sororities. The nine NPHC organizations are sometimes collectively referred to as the "Divine Nine"...
, Texas Asian Pan-Hellenic Council, Latino Pan-Hellenic Council, Multicultural Greek Council and University Panhellenic Council. Other registered student organizations also name themselves with Greek letters and are called affiliates. They are not a part of one of the six councils but have all of the same privileges and responsibilities of any other organization. According to the Office of the Dean of Students' mission statement, Greek Life promotes the principles of cultural appreciation, scholarship, leadership, and service
Community service
Community service is donated service or activity that is performed by someone or a group of people for the benefit of the public or its institutions....
. The majority of Greek houses are located west of the Drag in the neighborhood called West Campus
West Campus, Austin, Texas
West Campus is a neighborhood in central Austin, Texas west of Guadalupe Street and its namesake, The University of Texas at Austin. Due to its close proximity to the university, West Campus is heavily populated by college students...
.
Media
Students express their opinions in and outside of class through periodicals including Study Breaks MagazineStudy Breaks Magazine
Study Breaks Magazine is a monthly periodical aimed at college aged students. As a student entertainment magazine on many campuses around Texas, it has a circulation of over 50,000. Study Breaks was started in 1988 and is run by Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization , a professional registered...
, The Daily Texan
The Daily Texan
The Daily Texan is the student newspaper of the University of Texas at Austin. It is entirely student-run and independent from the university. It is one of the largest college newspapers in the United States with a daily circulation of roughly 30,000 during the fall and spring semesters and bills...
(the most award-winning daily college newspaper in the United States), and the Texas Travesty
Texas Travesty
The Texas Travesty is the largest student-produced humor publication in the United States.1 All production and creative work takes place at The University of Texas at Austin....
. Over the airwaves students' voices are heard through K09VR
K09VR
K29HW-D channel 29, known on-air as TSTV is the Student television station of The University of Texas at Austin, operated by Texas Student Media...
and KVRX.
The Computer Writing and Research Lab of the university's Department of Rhetoric and Writing also hosts the Blogora, a blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
for "connecting rhetoric, rhetorical methods and theories, and rhetoricians with public life" by the Rhetoric Society of America
Rhetoric Society of America
The Rhetoric Society of America is an academic organization for the study of rhetoric.The Society's constitution calls for it to research rhetoric in all relevant fields of study, identify new areas of study, encourage experimentation in teaching rhetoric, facilitate professional cooperation and...
.
The university has a yearbook. In the 1980s it annually sold 14,000 copies. In 1997 it sold 1,700, an all-time low. Kathy Lawrence, the media adviser at UT Austin, said that yearbook sales declined once the school switched from in-person registration to telephone-based registration. During in-person registrations, the university often asked students to buy student yearbooks. Lawrence said that other factors leading to a decline in yearbook sales at UT Austin included increasing numbers of students and a decline in participation in campus life. As of 2008 about 2,500 copies sell annually. To salvage the yearbook, Lawrence introduced personalized pages. When Lawrence concluded that social networking sites lead to a decline in yearbook sales, Sarah Viren of the Houston Chronicle
Houston Chronicle
The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. , it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States...
said that Lawrence "eventually opted to hold off on the personalized pages."
Traditions
Texas Fight
"Texas Fight" is the official fight song of the University of Texas at Austin and was written by Colonel Walter S. Hunnicutt in collaboration with James E. King, then director of the Marlin High School Band....
", the university's fight song while displaying the Hook 'em Horns
Hook 'em Horns
Hook 'em Horns is the slogan and hand signal of The University of Texas at Austin. Students and alumni of the university employ a greeting consisting of the phrase "Hook 'em" or "Hook 'em Horns" and also use the phrase as a parting good-bye or as the closing line in a letter or story.The gesture is...
hand gesture—the gesture mimicking the horns of the school's mascot, Bevo
Bevo (mascot)
Bevo is the name of the mascot of the sports teams at the University of Texas at Austin, a Texas longhorn steer with burnt orange coloring. The shape of the Longhorn's head and horns gives rise to the school's hand symbol and saying, Hook 'em Horns...
the Texas longhorn
Texas longhorn (cattle)
The Texas Longhorn is a breed of cattle known for its characteristic horns, which can extend to tip to tip for steers and exceptional cows, and tip to tip for bulls. Horns can have a slight upward turn at their tips or even triple twist. Texas Longhorns are known for their diverse coloring...
.
Athletics
National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics
The National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics is a professional organization for college and university athletic directors in the United States. NACDA boasts a membership of more than 6,100 individuals and more than 1,600 institutions throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico...
. Due to the breadth of sports offered and the quality of the programs, Texas was selected as "America's Best Sports College" in a 2002 analysis performed by Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...
. Texas was also listed as the number one Collegiate Licensing Company
Collegiate Licensing Company
The Collegiate Licensing Company is an American collegiate trademark licensing and marketing company. Founded in 1981 by Bill Battle in Selma, Alabama, CLC is the largest and oldest collegiate licensing company in the United States and currently provides its services to more than 200 colleges and...
client for the second consecutive year in regards to the amount of annual trademark royalties received from the sales of its fan merchandise. However, this ranking is based only on clients of the Collegiate Licensing Company, which does not handle licensing for approximately three dozen large schools including Ohio State
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
, USC
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
, UCLA
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
, Michigan State
Michigan State University
Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...
, and Texas A&M
Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University is a coeducational public research university located in College Station, Texas . It is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. The sixth-largest university in the United States, A&M's enrollment for Fall 2011 was over 50,000 for the first time in school...
.
Varsity sports
The University's men's and women's athletics teams are nicknamed the Longhorns. A charter member of the Southwest Conference until its dissolution in 1996, Texas now competes in the Big 12 ConferenceBig 12 Conference
The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference of ten schools located in the Central United States, with its headquarters located in Las Colinas, a community in the Dallas, Texas suburb of Irving...
of the NCAA's Division I-FBS. Texas has won 47 total national championships, 39 of which are NCAA national championships.
The University of Texas has traditionally been considered a college football
College football
College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...
powerhouse. At the start of the 2007 season, the Longhorns were ranked third in the all-time list of both total wins and winning percentage. The team experienced its greatest success under coach Darrell Royal
Darrell Royal
Darrell K Royal is a former American football player and coach. He served as the head coach at Mississippi State University , the University of Washington , and the University of Texas at Austin , compiling a career college football record of 184–60–5...
, winning three national championships in 1963, 1969, and 1970. It won a fourth title under head coach Mack Brown
Mack Brown
William Mack Brown is head coach of The University of Texas at Austin Longhorn football team.Prior to his head coach position at Texas, Brown was head coach at Appalachian State, Tulane, and North Carolina. Brown is credited with revitalizing the Texas and North Carolina football programs...
in 2005 after a 41-38 victory over previously undefeated Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
in the 2006 Rose Bowl
2006 Rose Bowl
The 2006 Rose Bowl Game, played on January 4, 2006, was a football game that served as the national championship of the 2005-2006 Bowl Championship Series...
.
In recent years, the men's basketball
College basketball
College basketball most often refers to the USA basketball competitive governance structure established by the National Collegiate Athletic Association . Basketball in the NCAA is divided into three divisions: Division I, Division II and Division III....
team has gained prominence, advancing to the NCAA Tournament
NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship
The NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship is a single-elimination tournament held each spring in the United States, featuring 68 college basketball teams, to determine the national championship in the top tier of college basketball...
Sweet Sixteen in 2002, the Final Four in 2003, the Sweet Sixteen in 2004, and the Elite Eight
Elite Eight
The term Elite Eight, or less commonly called "Great Eight", refers to the final eight teams in the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship or the NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship; and, thus, represents the national quarterfinals. In Division I, the Elite Eight consists of the...
in 2006 and 2008.
The University's baseball
College baseball
College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. Compared to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a less significant contribution to cultivating professional players, as the minor leagues primarily...
team is considered to be one of the best in the nation with more trips to the College World Series
College World Series
The College World Series or CWS is an annual baseball tournament held in Omaha, Nebraska that is the culmination of the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship, which determines the NCAA Division I college baseball champion. The eight teams are split into two, four-team, double-elimination brackets,...
(33) than any other school, with wins in 1949, 1950, 1975, 1983, 2002 and 2005.
Additionally, the University's highly successful men's and women's swimming and diving teams lay claim to sixteen NCAA Division I titles. The swim team was first developed under Coach Tex Robertson
Tex Robertson
Julian "Tex" Robertson was an Olympic bronze medalist for the 1932 US Water Polo team and former swimming coach for the University of Texas. He is best known for inventing the flip turn.-Swimming career:...
. In particular, the men's team is under the leadership of Eddie Reese
Eddie Reese
Edwin Charles "Eddie" Reese is an American college and Olympic swimming coach and former college swimmer. Reese has been the head coach of the Texas Longhorns men's swimming and diving team that represents the University of Texas in Austin, Texas since 1978, and previously served as the men's...
, who served as the head men's coach at the 1992 Summer Olympics
1992 Summer Olympics
The 1992 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event celebrated in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, in 1992. The International Olympic Committee voted in 1986 to separate the Summer and Winter Games, which had been held in the same...
in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, the 2004 Games
2004 Summer Olympics
The 2004 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, was a premier international multi-sport event held in Athens, Greece from August 13 to August 29, 2004 with the motto Welcome Home. 10,625 athletes competed, some 600 more than expected, accompanied by 5,501 team...
in Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
and the 2008 Games
2008 Summer Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...
in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
.
Rivalries
The Longhorns have a rivalry in all sports with the Texas A&M AggiesTexas A&M Aggies
Texas A&M Aggies refers to the students, graduates, and sports teams of Texas A&M University. The nickname "Aggie" is common at land-grant or "Ag" schools in many states. The teams compete in Division I of NCAA sports...
. The two schools have acknowledged the importance of this rivalry by creating the State Farm Lone Star Showdown
State Farm Lone Star Showdown
The State Farm Lone Star Showdown was the official moniker for all varsity men's and women's athletics competitions between the University of Texas and Texas A&M University...
series, which encompasses all sports where both schools field a varsity team. The football game played between the two schools is the third longest-running rivalry in the nation and is the longest-running rivalry for both schools. It finished in 2011 with their 118th game. The Longhorns led the "showdown," 76-37-5. The game was traditionally played on Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving (United States)
Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a holiday celebrated in the United States on the fourth Thursday in November. It has officially been an annual tradition since 1863, when, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be celebrated on Thursday,...
day. Both schools held a rally before the annual football game — Texas hosted the Hex Rally
Hex Rally
Hex Rally was a pep rally at The University of Texas at Austin that occurred in the week prior to the annual football game between the Texas Longhorns and their in-state rivals, the Texas A&M Aggies.-History:...
, and students at Texas A&M hosted the Aggie Bonfire (although it is no longer an officially sanctioned Texas A&M event after the deaths of 12 students in 1999).
The Longhorns also have a long standing football rivalry with the Oklahoma Sooners
Oklahoma Sooners
The University of Oklahoma features 19 varsity sports teams. Both men's and women's teams are called the Sooners, a nickname given to the early participants in the land rushes which initially opened the Oklahoma Indian Territory to non-native settlement. They participate in the NCAA's Division I-A,...
and hold a 59-41-5 edge in that series. Since 1932, the teams have played annually at the Cotton Bowl
Cotton Bowl (stadium)
The Cotton Bowl is a stadium which opened in 1929 and became known as "The House That Doak Built" due to the immense crowds that former SMU running back Doak Walker drew to the stadium during his college career in the late 1940s. Originally known as Fair Park Stadium, it is located in Fair Park,...
in Dallas, Texas, in the Red River Rivalry
Red River Rivalry
The Red River Rivalry, commonly known as the OU-Texas Game or Texas-OU Game, is an American college football rivalry game played annually by the Oklahoma Sooners football team of the University of Oklahoma and the Texas Longhorns football team of the University of Texas. The series is considered...
game. The rivalry has grown in recent years, as the winner has gone to the Big 12 Conference championship and BCS National championship games.
Other schools, such as University of Arkansas
Arkansas Razorbacks
The Razorbacks, also known as the Hogs, are the names of college sports teams at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The term Arkansas Razorbacks properly applies to any of the sports teams at the university. The Razorbacks take their name from the feral pig of the same name...
and Texas Tech
Texas Tech Red Raiders
The Texas Tech Red Raiders are the athletic teams that represent Texas Tech University . The women's basketball team uses the name Lady Raiders; however, the school's other women's teams use the "Red Raiders" name. The university's athletic program fields teams in 15 varsity sports and 30 club sports...
, also count Texas among their rivals; however, each of these schools also trail Texas by significant margins in overall series records, 56-21-0 and 45-15-0, respectively.
Alumni
Texas Exes
The Ex-Students' Association of The University of Texas is the association of former students of the University of Texas at Austin....
is the official alumni organization of UT.
Over 15 graduates have served in the U.S. Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
and U.S. House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
, such as Lloyd Bentsen
Lloyd Bentsen
Lloyd Millard Bentsen, Jr. was a four-term United States senator from Texas and the Democratic Party nominee for Vice President in 1988 on the Michael Dukakis ticket. He also served in the House of Representatives from 1949 to 1955. In his later political life, he was Chairman of the Senate...
'42, who served as both a U.S. Senator and U.S. Representative, as well as being the 1988 Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
Vice Presidential nominee. Cabinet members of American presidents include former United States Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
James Baker
James Baker
James Addison Baker, III is an American attorney, politician and political advisor.Baker served as the Chief of Staff in President Ronald Reagan's first administration and in the final year of the administration of President George H. W. Bush...
'57, former United States Secretary of Education
United States Secretary of Education
The United States Secretary of Education is the head of the Department of Education. The Secretary is a member of the President's Cabinet, and 16th in line of United States presidential line of succession...
William J. Bennett, and former United States Secretary of Commerce
United States Secretary of Commerce
The United States Secretary of Commerce is the head of the United States Department of Commerce concerned with business and industry; the Department states its mission to be "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce"...
Donald Evans
Donald Evans
Donald Louis Evans was the 34th U.S. Secretary of Commerce. He was appointed by his longtime friend George W. Bush and sworn into office on January 20, 2001...
'73. Former First Lady
First Lady
First Lady or First Gentlemanis the unofficial title used in some countries for the spouse of an elected head of state.It is not normally used to refer to the spouse or partner of a prime minister; the husband or wife of the British Prime Minister is usually informally referred to as prime...
Laura Bush
Laura Bush
Laura Lane Welch Bush is the wife of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush. She was the First Lady of the United States from January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2009. She has held a love of books and reading since childhood and her life and education have reflected that interest...
'73 and daughter Jenna
Jenna Bush
Jenna Welch Bush Hager , is the younger of the sororal twin daughters of the 43rd U.S. President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush, and a granddaughter of the 41st U.S. President George H. W. Bush. She and her sister, Barbara, were the first twin children of a U.S. President...
'04 both graduated from Texas, as well as former First Lady
First Lady
First Lady or First Gentlemanis the unofficial title used in some countries for the spouse of an elected head of state.It is not normally used to refer to the spouse or partner of a prime minister; the husband or wife of the British Prime Minister is usually informally referred to as prime...
Lady Bird Johnson
Lady Bird Johnson
Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor Johnson was First Lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 during the presidency of her husband Lyndon B. Johnson. Throughout her life, she was an advocate for beautification of the nation's cities and highways and conservation of natural resources and made that...
'33 & '34 and her eldest daughter Lynda
Lynda Bird Johnson Robb
Lynda Bird Johnson Robb is the elder of the two daughters of United States President Lyndon Baines Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson...
. In foreign governments, the university has been represented by Fernando Belaúnde Terry
Fernando Belaúnde Terry
Fernando Belaúnde Terry was President of Peru for two non-consecutive terms . Deposed by a military coup in 1968, he was re-elected in 1980 after eleven years of military rule...
'36 (42nd President of Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
), Mostafa Chamran
Mostafa Chamran
Mostafa Chamran Savei was an Iranian scientist who served as first Defence Minister of post-revolutionary Iran and as member of parliament, as well as commander of paramilitary volunteers in Iran–Iraq War. He was killed during the war...
(former Minister of Defense for Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
), and Abdullah al-Tariki
Abdullah al-Tariki
Abdullah ibn Hamoud al-Tariki was a Saudi politician and government official. He was the first Saudi oil minister appointed by King Saud, and co-founder of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries along with Venezuelan Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo.-Early life:Tariki was born in 1918 in Al Zulfi...
(co-founder of OPEC
OPEC
OPEC is an intergovernmental organization of twelve developing countries made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. OPEC has maintained its headquarters in Vienna since 1965, and hosts regular meetings...
). Additionally, the Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, Salam Fayyad
Salam Fayyad
Salam Fayyad is a Palestinian politician and Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority of the Palestinian National Authority. His first appointment, on 15 June 2007, which was justified by President Mahmoud Abbas on the basis of "national emergency", has not been confirmed by the...
, graduated from the university, earning a PhD in economics.
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
Robert A. Brown
Robert A. Brown
Robert A. Brown is the 10th president of Boston University. He was formerly the provost of MIT.-External links:*...
'73 & '75, and the 8th President of the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
John R. Hubbard
John R. Hubbard
John Randolph "Jack" Hubbard was the eighth president of the University of Southern California between 1970-80. He succeeded Norman Topping and was succeeded by James Zumberge. He had served as USC vice president and provost in 1969 after spending four years in India as chief education adviser to...
. The University also graduated Alan Bean
Alan Bean
Alan LaVern Bean is a former NASA astronaut, engineer, and painter. Bean was selected to become an astronaut by NASA in 1963 as part of Astronaut Group 3. He made his first flight into space aboard Apollo 12, the second manned mission to land on the Moon, at the age of thirty-seven years in...
'55, the fourth man to walk on the Moon. Additionally, alumni of the university who have served as business leaders include ExxonMobil Corporation CEO Rex Tillerson
Rex Tillerson
Rex W. Tillerson is the current Chairman, President, and CEO of Exxon Mobil Corporation, positions previously held by Lee Raymond.-Education:...
'75, Dell
Dell
Dell, Inc. is an American multinational information technology corporation based in 1 Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest...
founder and CEO Michael Dell
Michael Dell
Michael Saul Dell is an American business magnate and the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Dell Inc. He is the 44th richest person in the world, with a net worth of US$14.6 billion in 2011, based primarily on the 243.35 million shares of Dell stock worth $3.5 billion that he owns,...
, and Gary C. Kelly
Gary C. Kelly
Gary C. Kelly is the chief executive officer and chairman of Southwest Airlines. He first joined the company in 1986 as Controller. In 1989, Gary was promoted to Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Finance. In 2001, he was promoted to Executive Vice President...
, CEO of Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines Co. is an American low-cost airline based in Dallas, Texas. Southwest is the largest airline in the United States, based upon domestic passengers carried,...
.
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
winners Gail Caldwell
Gail Caldwell
Gail Caldwell was the chief book critic for The Boston Globe, where she was on staff from 1985 to 2009. Caldwell was the winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. The award was for eight Sunday reviews and two other columns written in 2000...
and Ben Sargent
Ben Sargent
Ben Sargent is an American editorial cartoonist. He began drawing editorial cartoons for the Austin American-Statesman in 1974 and retired in 2009. His cartoons are also distributed nationally by Universal Press Syndicate....
'70. Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years . During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll...
, the former CBS Evening News
CBS Evening News
CBS Evening News is the flagship nightly television news program of the American television network CBS. The network has broadcast this program since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963....
anchor once called the most trusted man in America, attended The University of Texas at Austin, as did CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
anchor Betty Nguyen
Betty Nguyen
Betty Nguyen is an American news anchor with CBS News. Nguyen joined CBS News on March 11, 2010. She anchors the The CBS Morning News and is a correspondent for The Early Show. -Life and career:...
'95. Alumnus J. M. Coetzee also received the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
. Novelist Raymond Benson
Raymond Benson
Raymond Benson is an American author best known for being the official author of the adult James Bond novels from 1997 to 2003. Benson was born in Midland, Texas and graduated from Permian High School in Odessa in 1973...
('78) was the official author of James Bond novels between 1996–2002, the only American to be commissioned to pen them. Donna Alvermann
Donna Alvermann
Donna Alvermann is a researcher and teacher educator whose work focuses on adolescents’ digital and media literacies and youth-initiated engagement with all kinds of texts both in and out of school. Currently she is University Appointed Distinguished Research Professor of Language and Literacy...
, a distinguished research professor at the University of Georgia, Department of Education also graduated from the University of Texas, as did Wallace Clift
Wallace Clift
Wallace Bruce Clift, Jr., the author of several books and articles in the field of psychology of religion, is professor emeritus at the University of Denver, where he chaired the Department of Religion for many years...
('49) and Jean Dalby Clift
Jean Dalby Clift
Jean Dalby Clift, an Episcopal priest and pastoral counselor in private practice, is the author of several books in the fields of psychology and spirituality. "Dr...
('50, J.D. '52), authors of several books in the fields of psychology of religion and spiritual growth.
Several musicians and entertainers attended the university, though most dropped out to pursue their respective careers. Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
, the American singer who was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
and who received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
The Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded by the Recording Academy to "performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording."...
attended the university, as did February 1955 Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
Playmate of the Month and Golden Globe recipient Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield was an American actress working both in Hollywood and on the Broadway theatre...
. Composer Harold Morris is a 1910 graduate. Noted film director, cinematographer, writer, and editor Robert Rodriguez
Robert Rodriguez
Robert Anthony Rodríguez is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and musician. He shoots and produces many of his films in his native Texas and Mexico. He has directed such films as Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn, The Faculty, Spy Kids, Sin City, Planet...
is a Longhorn, as are actors Eli Wallach
Eli Wallach
Eli Herschel Wallach is an American film, television and stage actor, who gained fame in the late 1950s. For his performance in Baby Doll he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe nomination. One of his most famous roles is that of Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...
and Matthew McConaughey
Matthew McConaughey
Matthew David McConaughey is an American actor.After a series of minor roles in the early 1990s, McConaughey gained notice for his breakout role in Dazed and Confused . He then appeared in films such as A Time to Kill, Contact, U-571, Tiptoes, Sahara, and We Are Marshall...
. Rodriguez dropped out of the university after two years to pursue his career in Hollywood, but he officially completed his degree from the Radio-Television-Film department on May 23, 2009. Rodriguez also gave the keynote address at the university-wide commencement ceremony. Radio-Television-Film alumni Mark Dennis and Ben Foster took their award winning feature film, Strings, to the American film festival circuit in 2011. Actress Renée Zellweger
Renée Zellweger
Renée Kathleen Zellweger is an American actress and producer. Zellweger first gained widespread attention for her role in the film Jerry Maguire , and subsequently received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her roles as Bridget Jones in the comedy Bridget Jones's Diary ...
also attended the university and graduated with a BA in English. Farrah Fawcett
Farrah Fawcett
Farrah Fawcett was an American actress and artist. A multiple Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominee, Fawcett rose to international fame when she first appeared as private investigator Jill Munroe in the first season of the television series Charlie's Angels, in 1976...
, one of the original Charlie's Angels
Charlie's Angels
Charlie's Angels is a television series about three women who work for a private investigation agency, and is one of the first shows to showcase women in roles traditionally reserved for men...
, left after her junior year to pursue a modeling career. Actor Owen Wilson
Owen Wilson
Owen Cunningham Wilson is an American actor and writer, known for his roles in the films The Haunting, The Royal Tenenbaums, Zoolander, Meet the Parents, Wedding Crashers, You, Me and Dupree, Bottle Rocket, the Cars series, The Darjeeling Limited, Marley & Me, Midnight in Paris, Shanghai Noon,...
and writer/director Wes Anderson
Wes Anderson
Wesley Wales Anderson is an American film director, screenwriter, actor, and producer of features, short films and commercials....
each attended the university. There they wrote Bottle Rocket
Bottle Rocket
Bottle Rocket is a 1996 comedy film directed by Wes Anderson. It was co-written by Anderson and Owen Wilson. As well as being Wes Anderson's directorial debut, Bottle Rocket was the debut feature for brothers Owen Wilson and Luke Wilson, who co-starred with James Caan and Robert Musgrave.The film...
together which became Anderson's first feature film. Another notable writer, Rob Thomas
Rob Thomas (writer)
Rob Thomas is an American author, producer, and screenwriter, best known as the author of the 1996 novel Rats Saw God and creator of the critically acclaimed television programs Veronica Mars and Party Down.-Education and early career:Thomas graduated from San Marcos High School in 1983 and went...
graduated with a BA in History in 1987 and went on to write the young adult novel Rats Saw God
Rats Saw God
Rats Saw God is a young adult novel written by Rob Thomas, published in 1996. It follows the main character Steve York, the son of an astronaut. Steve is a high school student who has had issues with marijuana and has found himself in the counselors office. The counselor tells him that he is...
and created the series Veronica Mars
Veronica Mars
Veronica Mars is an American television series created by Rob Thomas. The series premiered on September 22, 2004, during television network UPN's final two years, and ended on May 22, 2007, after a season on UPN's successor, The CW Television Network. Veronica Mars was produced by Warner Bros...
.
A number of alumni have found success in professional sports. Legendary pro football coach Tom Landry
Tom Landry
Thomas Wade "Tom" Landry was an American football player and coach. He is ranked as one of the greatest and most innovative coaches in National Football League history, creating many new formations and methods...
'49 attended the University as an industrial engineering major but interrupted his education after a semester to serve in the United States Army Air Corps
United States Army Air Corps
The United States Army Air Corps was a forerunner of the United States Air Force. Renamed from the Air Service on 2 July 1926, it was part of the United States Army and the predecessor of the United States Army Air Forces , established in 1941...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Following the war, he returned to the University and played fullback and defensive back on the Texas Longhorns' bowl game winners on New Year's Day of 1948 and 1949. Seven-time Cy Young Award
Cy Young Award
The Cy Young Award is an honor given annually in baseball to the best pitchers in Major League Baseball , one each for the American League and National League . The award was first introduced in 1956 by Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick in honor of Hall of Fame pitcher Cy Young, who died in 1955...
-winner Roger Clemens
Roger Clemens
William Roger Clemens , nicknamed "Rocket", is a former Major League Baseball pitcher who broke into the league with the Boston Red Sox, whose pitching staff he would help anchor for 12 years. Clemens won seven Cy Young Awards, more than any other pitcher. He played for four different teams over...
entered the MLB after helping the Longhorns win the 1983 College World Series
1983 College World Series
The 1983 College World Series was played at Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, NE from June 3 to June 11. The thirty-seventh tournament's champion was The University of Texas, coached by Cliff Gustafson...
. Several Olympic medalists have also attended the school, including 2008 Summer Olympics
2008 Summer Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...
athletes Ian Crocker
Ian Crocker
Ian Lowell Crocker is a former American swimmer and five-time Olympic medalist. He is a former world record holder in the 100 meter butterfly ....
'05 (swimming world record holder and two-time Olympic gold medalist) and 4x400m relay defending Olympic gold medalist Sanya Richards
Sanya Richards
Sanya Richards-Ross is a track and field athlete who competes internationally for the United States. She won an Olympic gold medal in the 4×400 meters relay at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, an individual bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics for the 400 m, and a gold medal in the 2009...
'06. Mary Lou Retton
Mary Lou Retton
Mary Lou Retton is an American gymnast and Olympic gold medalist. She was the first female gymnast from outside Eastern Europe to win the Olympic all-around title, after 14 Eastern Bloc countries boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.-Personal life:Retton was born in Fairmont, West...
(the first female gymnast outside Eastern Europe to win the Olympic all-around title, five-time Olympic medalist, and 1984 Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...
Sportswoman of the Year) also attended the university. Also an alumnus is Dr. Robert Cade
Robert Cade
James Robert Cade was an American physician, university professor, research scientist and inventor. Cade, a native of Texas, earned his undergraduate and medical degrees, and became a professor of medicine and nephrology at the University of Florida...
, the inventor of the sport drink Gatorade
Gatorade
Gatorade is a brand of sports-themed food and beverage products, built around its signature product: a line of sports drinks. Gatorade is currently manufactured by PepsiCo, distributed in over 80 countries...
.
Other notable alumni include prominent businessman Red McCombs
Red McCombs
Billy Joe "Red" McCombs is the founder of the Red McCombs Automotive Group, a co-founder of Clear Channel Communications, a former owner of the San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets, and the Minnesota Vikings, and the namesake of the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin...
and Diane Pamela Wood
Diane Pamela Wood
Diane Pamela Wood is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School....
, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the courts in the following districts:* Central District of Illinois* Northern District of Illinois...
. Also an alumnus is Admiral William H. McRaven
William H. McRaven
William Harry McRaven is a United States Navyfour-star admiral who currently serves as ninth Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command. He previously served...
, credited for organizing and executing Operation Neptune's Spear, the special ops raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden
Death of Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden, then head of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1 a.m. local time by a United States special forces military unit....
.
See also
- List of University of Texas at Austin presidents
- Institute for Computational Engineering and SciencesInstitute for Computational Engineering and SciencesThe Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences was created at the University of Texas at Austin to provide the infrastructure and intellectual leadership for strong interdisciplinary programs in computational engineering and sciences....
- ArchNetArchNetArchNet is the world’s largest online databank of international architecture. It was developed at the University of Texas at Austin and the MIT School of Architecture and Planning in co-operation with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture...
— A joint project between the university and MITMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
on Islamic architectureIslamic architectureIslamic architecture encompasses a wide range of both secular and religious styles from the foundation of Islam to the present day, influencing the design and construction of buildings and structures in Islamic culture.... - University of Texas Elementary SchoolUniversity of Texas Elementary SchoolUniversity of Texas Elementary School is a state charter primary school located at 2200 East 6th Street in Austin, Texas, United States. The school is affiliated with the University of Texas at Austin....
- Cactus CafeCactus CafeThe Cactus Café is a live music venue and bar on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin. Located in Austin, Texas, a city frequently referred to as "the live music capital of the world," a number of well-known artists have played in the Cactus, and Billboard Magazine named it as one of...