The
University of Kansas (often referred to as
KU or just Kansas) is a public
research university with campuses located in Lawrence
, Kansas
City
, and Overland Park
, Kansas
with the
main campus being located atop Mount Oread
in Lawrence. The University was founded in
1865 by the citizens of Lawrence under a charter from the Kansas
Legislature. It also received assistance from former Kansas
Governor
Charles L. Robinson and his wife Sara, who donated
40 acres (160,000 m²) of Mount Oread land, and philanthropist
Amos Adams Lawrence, who made
sizable monetary donations.
It is the Flagship university of the state of
Kansas.
The
University's Medical
Center and Hospital are located in
Kansas City,
Kansas. The Edwards Campus is in Overland Park,
Kansas in the Kansas City metro area. There are also
educational/research sites in Parsons
, Topeka
and a branch of the University of Kansas School of
Medicine in Wichita
.
Enrollment at the Lawrence and Edwards campuses was 26,342 students
for the 2007-2008 academic year; an additional 2,918 students were
enrolled at the KU Medical Center for a total enrollment of 29,260
students across the three campuses. The Lawrence campus and KU
Medical Center combined employ 2,201 faculty members.
Along with 43 nationally recognized programs,
U.S. News & World Report stated
that the University of Kansas ranked as the 18th most popular
University in the United States as of 2008. It also ranks 11th in
the nation for study abroad involvement with nearly one-third of
students participating.
KU is home to the
Robert J. Dole Institute of
Politics, the Beach Center on Disability
, and radio station KJHK.
The
university is host to several notable museums including the
University of Kansas Natural History
Museum
, the KU Museum of Anthropology, and the Spencer Museum
of Art
. The University is one of 60 members of the
prestigious
Association of American
Universities.
Academics
The University is a large, state-sponsored
university. In addition to a large
liberal arts college, it has schools of Allied
Health, Architecture, Design, and Planning,
Business,
Education,
Engineering, Arts,
Music,
Journalism and Mass
Communication,
Law,
Medicine,
Nursing,
Pharmacy, and
Social
Welfare. (The study of academic
sociology originated at the University in 1890.)
The University also operates a selective Honors Program, with
approximately 300 undergraduate students admitted each year,
offering classes in many of these areas.
According to the journal
DesignIntelligence, which annually publishes
"America's Best Architecture and Design Schools," the
School of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of
Kansas was named the best in the
Midwest and
ranked 6th among all undergraduate architecture programs in the U.S
in 2007.
In 2007, the City Management and Urban Policy program at the
University of Kansas was ranked 1st in the nation by
U.S. News & World Report's
"America's Best Graduate Schools". The report also recognized
several programs for ranking in the top 25 among public
universities.
The most recent edition of
Peterson's Guide to Competitive
College calls KU "one of America's premier universities."
For more than a decade,
The Fiske Guide to Colleges has
awarded KU a four-star rating for academics, social life, and
overall quality of university life.
In its 2009 list,
U.S. News & World Report
ranked KU as tied for 89th place in its ranking of the Best
National Universities and #349 in its ranking of the World's Best
Colleges and Universities. In 2006, the
Report ranked
Kansas as tied for 45th place in Public Universities. The
Report surveys over 1,400 institutions of higher education
in the United States.
Memorial Campanile, the University of
Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas
School of Business
The University of Kansas School of Business is a public business
school located on the main campus of the University of Kansas in
Lawrence, Kansas. The KU School of Business was founded in 1924 and
currently has more than 80 faculty members and approximately 1500
students.
Named one of the best business schools in the Midwest by Princeton
Review, the KU School of Business has been continually accredited
by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business
(AACSB) for both its undergraduate and graduate programs in
business and accounting. KU is one of only three universities in
the Kansas City region to offer an MBA degree with this highest and
most prestigious level of accreditation.
School of Law
The University of Kansas School of Law, in Lawrence, Kansas, is the
top law school in the state of Kansas according to the 2008
U.S. News & World Report. The magazine also
ranked KU Law as a top-tier law school at 73rd and rated it a "best
buy." Classes are held in Green Hall at W 15th St and Burdick Dr,
which is named after former dean James Green.
School of Engineering
Medical Center
The
University of Kansas Medical Center, in Kansas City,
Kansas, treats over 19,000 patients per year. KU
Med, as it is commonly known, consists of three basic schools: The
School of Medicine, School of Nursing, and School of Allied Health.
Furthermore, each of the three schools has its own programs of
graduate study. As of the Spring 2007 semester, there were 2,769
students enrolled at KU Med.
The Medical Center also offers third and
fourth year students an opportunity to do rotations at the Wichita campus.
Edwards Campus
KU's
Edwards Campus is in Overland Park, Kansas. Established in 1993, its goal is to provide
adults with the opportunity to complete college degrees. About
2,100 students attend the Edwards Campus, with an average age of
32. Programs available at the Edwards Campus include developmental
psychology, public administration, social work, systems analysis,
engineering management and design.
Tuition and costs
The University of Kansas is repeatedly listed as one of the best
buys in higher education by such publications as Kiplinger’s, the
Fiske Guide to Colleges, Kaplan’s and the
Princeton Review. Tuition at KU is 13
percent below the national average, according to the
College Board, and the University remains a
best buy in the region. Its 2004-05 in-state tuition and fees of
$4,737 were lower than the University of Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri,
and most other public universities.
Beginning in the 2007-2008 academic year, first-time freshman at KU
will pay a fixed tuition rate for 48 months according to the
Four-Year Tuition Compact passed by the Kansas Board of Regents.
According to the compact, tuition will be $213 per credit hour for
in-state freshman and $560 for out-of-state freshmen. For students
who do not take part in the compact, current per-credit-hour
tuition is $194.80 for in-state undergraduates and $511.70 for
out-of-state undergraduates; these rates are subject to annual
increases. The schools of architecture, business, engineering, fine
arts, journalism, law, and pharmacy charge additional fees.
Computing innovations
KU's
School
of Business launched
interdisciplinary management science graduate studies in
operations research during Fall
Semester 1965.
This innovative
program provided the foundation for decision science applications supporting
NASA
Project Apollo
Command Capsule Recovery Operations.
KU's academic computing department was an active participant in
setting up the
Internet and is the
developer of the seminal
Lynx text
based
web browser. Lynx itself provided
hypertext browsing and navigation prior to
Tim Berners Lee's invention of
HTTP and
HTML.
Student activities
Student Government
The
University of
Kansas Student Senate represents
KU students
to University administrators, and to the government locally,
state-wide, and nationally. Senate oversees student services
including the Student Recreation Fitness Center, Watkins Health
Center, Safe Ride, and more.
Student Senate allocates a budget of more than $21 million each
year paid for by required campus fees(each KU student enrolled in
more than 6 credit hours pay around $420 per semester). It is up to
the Student Senate to decide how to allocate this money based on
how best to represent student needs.
The members of Student Senate are elected in Student Senate
elections each April. In the elections, coalitions form plans on
what student services they will focus on as well as propose new
ideas they want to see happen at KU. The David A. Ambler Recreation
Fitness Center and the Multicultural Resource Center, for example,
were Student Senate-initiated projects.
The 1983-1984 Student Senate election was marred by vote tampering
on the part of the administration. Dennis "Boog" Highberger
(running on the Costume Party ticket, was the Mayor of Lawrence in
2008) was only able to take office in January following a legal
challenge.
Athletics
The school's sports teams, wearing crimson and royal blue, are
called the
Kansas Jayhawks. They
participate in the
NCAA's
Division I and in the
Big 12 Conference. KU has won twelve
National Championships: five in men's basketball (two
Helms Foundation championships and three
NCAA championships), three in men's indoor track and field, three
in men's outdoor track and field, and one in men's cross country.
Home course for KU Cross Country is
Rim
Rock Farm. Their most recent championship came on April 7, 2008
when they defeated Memphis 75-68 in overtime to win the 2008 NCAA
Men's Basketball Championship.
KU football dates from
1890, and has played in the
Orange
Bowl three times: 1948, 1968, and 2008. They are currently
coached by
Mark Mangino, who was hired
in 2002. Under his leadership, the #7 Jayhawks emerged victorious
in their first BCS bowl game, the 2008 FedEx Orange Bowl, with a
24-21 victory over the #3
Virginia
Tech Hokies. This capstone victory marked the end of the most
successful season in school history, in which the Jayhawks went
12–1 (.923).
The team plays at Memorial
Stadium
. Memorial Stadium is currently undergoing
renovation, begun in the summer of 2007, to add a $30 million
football practice faciltiy complete with indoor practice field and
weight room along with improving the locker room facilities.
Current NFL alumni include Moran Norris of the
San Francisco 49ers, David McMillan of
the
Cleveland Browns, Charles
Gordon of the
Minnesota Vikings,
Adrian Jones of the
Kansas City
Chiefs, Justin Hartwig of the
Pittsburgh Steelers, and Aqib Talib of
the
Tampa Bay Buccaneers. NFL
Hall of Fame alumni include
Gale Sayers
and
John Riggins among others.
The
KU men's
basketball team has fielded a team every year since 1898. The
Jayhawks are a perennial national contender currently coached by
Bill Self. The team has won five
NCAA tournament
championships in 1922, 1923,1952, 1988, and 2008. The
basketball program is currently the third winningest program in
college basketball history with an overall record of 1,943–785.
The team
plays at Allen
Fieldhouse
. Kansas has counted among its coaches Dr.
James Naismith (the inventor of
basketball and only coach in Kansas history to have a losing
record), Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Phog Allen ("the Father of basketball coaching"),
Roy Williams of the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill
, and former NBA Champion Detroit Pistons coach Larry Brown. In addition,
legendary University of Kentucky
coach Adolph Rupp played
for KU's 1922 and 1923 Helms National Championship teams.
In
addition, NCAA Hall of Fame University of North Carolina Coach Dean Smith played
for KU's 1952 NCAA Championship team. Both Rupp and Smith
played under Phog Allen.
Lew Perkins, previously at Connecticut
, replaced Al Bohl as the
university's athletic director in 2003. Under Perkins's
administration, the department's budget has increased from $27.2
million in 2003 (10th in the conference) to
currently over $50 million thanks in large part to money raised
from a new priority seating policy at Allen Fieldhouse, a new
$26.67 million eight-year contract with Adidas replacing an existing contract with Nike
, and a new $40.2 million seven-year contract with
ESPN Regional Television. The additional
funds have brought improvements to the university, including:
- The Booth Family Hall of Athletics addition to Allen
Fieldhouse;
- Brand new offices and lounges for the women's basketball
program;
- Brand new scoreboard and batting facility for the baseball
field;
- A new $35 million football facility adjacent to Memorial
Stadium;
- The $8 million dollar Anderson Family Strength Center
Fraser Hall, the University of Kansas,
Lawrence, Kansas
Debate
The University of Kansas has had more teams (70) compete in the
National Debate
Tournament than any other university. Kansas has won the
tournament 5 times (1954, 1970, 1976, 1983, and 2009) and had 12
teams make it to the final four.. Kansas trails only Northwestern
(13), Dartmouth (6), and Harvard (6) for most tournaments won.
Kansas also won the 1981-82
Copeland
Award.
Song
Notable among a number of songs commonly played and sung at various
events such as
commencement and
convocation, and athletic games are: “I’m a
Jayhawk", "Fighting Jayhawk”, "Crimson and Blue" and “Stand Up and
Cheer.”
Media
The school newspaper of the University of Kansas is
University Daily Kansan, which
placed first in the Intercollegiate Writing Competition of the
prestigious William Randolph Hearst Writing Foundation competition,
often called "The Pulitzers of College Journalism" in 2007. In
Winter 2008, a group of students created
KUpedia, a wiki about
all things KU. They have received student funding for operations in
2008-09. The KU Department of English publishes the
Coal City
Review, an annual literary journal of prose, poetry, reviews
and illustrations. The
Review typically features the work
of many writers, but periodically spotlights one author, as in the
case of 2006 Nelson Poetry Book Award-winner
voyeur poems by
Matthew Porubsky.
The
university houses the following public broadcasting stations:
KJHK, a student-run campus radio station, KUJH-LP, an independent station that primarily
broadcasts public affairs programs, and KANU
, the
NPR-affiliated radio station. Kansas
Public Radio station KANU was one of the first
public radio stations in the nation.
KJHK, the campus radio has roots back to 1952 and is completely run
by students.
Notable alumni and faculty
See also
Further reading
- University of Kansas Traditions: The Jayhawk
- Kirke Mechem, " The Mythical Jayhawk", Kansas Historical
Quarterly XIII: 1 (February 1944), pp. 3–15. A
tongue-in-cheek history and description of the Mythical
Jayhawk.
References
- http://chancellor.ku.edu/messages/2009/september14.shtml
- http://www.news.ku.edu/2008/march/28/usnews.shtml
- http://www.news.ku.edu/2008/february/25/popular.shtml
- http://distinction.ku.edu/index.php
- http://www.news.ku.edu/2007/june/4/architecture.shtml
- http://www.news.ku.edu/2007/march/30/usnews07.shtml
- King, Jason. "Hawk Market", The Kansas City Star (June
11, 2006), pp. C1, C14.
- KU Debate
- NDT Winners
- School Songs
- 2006 Award Winner Reviews ~ Kansas Authors
Club
- "Poet well-versed in voyeurism" ~ Lawrence.com,
December 2
2006
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