University of Texas | |
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City: | Austin, Texas |
Type: | Public |
Sports: | football, baseball, basketball, golf, swimming & diving, tennis, track & field · XC, rowing, soccer, softball, volleyball[1] |
Colors: | orange, white |
Mascot: | Longhorns |
Endowment: | $17.1 billion[2] |
Website: | https://www.utexas.edu/ |
The University of Texas is a doctoral and research facility located in Austin, Texas. It is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System and currently holds the largest enrollment of all colleges in the state of Texas. It is known to be a quite liberal university.
The University of Texas is a major center for academic research and operates various auxiliary facilities such as the J. J. Pickle Research Campus. It also hosts the Harry Ransom Center, which collects many major historical items; notable items include the complete set of documents of Woodward and Bernstein from the Watergate scandal, the first photograph in human history, and one of a very few known complete copies of a Gutenberg Bible.
The University of Texas originated in 1839, when the Congress of the Republic of Texas, in an act locating the seat of government, ordered a site set aside for a university. A subsequent act the same year allocated fifty leagues (231,400 acres) of land to the establishment and the endowment of two colleges or universities.
On March 6, 1967, the Sixtieth Texas Legislature changed the official name of the main university to University of Texas at Austin. The Austin campus is the largest of fifteen component institutions in the University of Texas System. In 1992 the university was one of only three southwestern members of the Association of American Universities, an organization of fifty-eight universities of the highest academic standing in the United States and Canada. UT Austin led all other institutions in the South in the number of doctoral degrees granted.
In 1999-2000 the university received more than $309 million in research grants and contracts, 59 percent of which was from the federal government.[3]
In August 2017, prior to the start of the fall semester, UT removed during the night without notice, presumably at taxpayer expense, several statues of Confederate figures on campus. The UT action paralleled Robert E. Lee High School, established in 1958 in San Antonio, which removed General Robert E. Lee's name and statue at the entrance to its campus.[4]
The University of Texas sixteen colleges each listed with its founding date:
UT has numerous undergraduate honors programs, such as Dean's Scholars, Turing Scholars, Business Honors, Plan II, and Liberal Arts Honors.