University of Vermont
The University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, commonly referred to as the University of Vermont, is a public land-grant research university in Burlington, Vermont, United States. Founded in 1791, UVM is the oldest university in Vermont and the fifth-oldest in New England. Roughly coinciding with Vermont's statehood, the plans for and development of the university date back to the days of the Vermont Republic, making it unique among public universities in the US to be at least planned and organized outside of an admitted state in the nation.
UVM comprises ten colleges and schools, including the Robert Larner College of Medicine, and offers more than 100 undergraduate majors along with various graduate and professional programs. The University of Vermont Medical Center, has its primary facility on the UVM campus. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities—Very high research activity".
In athletics, UVM's teams, known as the Catamounts, compete in NCAA Division I, primarily in the America East Conference and Hockey East Association.
History
The University of Vermont was founded as a private university in 1791, the same year Vermont became the fourteenth U.S. state. The university enrolled its first students ten years later. Its first president, Daniel C. Sanders, was hired in 1800, and served as the sole faculty member for seven years. Instruction began in 1801, and the first class graduated in 1804. In 1865, the university merged with Vermont Agricultural College, emerging as the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College. The university was granted 150,000 acres, which it sold for $122,626. Much of the initial funding and planning for the university was undertaken by Ira Allen, who is honored as UVM's founder. Allen donated a parcel of land for establishment of the university. Most of this land has been maintained as the university's main green, where stands a statue of Allen.The citizens of Burlington helped fund the university's first edifice. When it was destroyed by fire in 1824, they also paid for its replacement. This building came to be known as "Old Mill" for its resemblance to New England mills of the time. The Marquis de Lafayette, a French general who became a commander in the American Revolution, while in Vermont laid the cornerstone of Old Mill, which stands on University Row along with Ira Allen Chapel, Billings Library, Williams Hall, Royall Tyler Theatre, and Morrill Hall. A statue of Lafayette stands at the north end of the main green.
UVM was the first American institution of higher education with a charter declaring that the "rules, regulations, and by-laws shall not tend to give preference to any religious sect or denomination whatsoever".
In 1871, UVM defied custom and admitted two women as students. It was the first American university to admit women and African Americans into Phi Beta Kappa, the country's oldest collegiate academic honor society.
Justin Smith Morrill, a U.S. Representative, and Senator from Vermont, author of the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act that created federal funding for establishing the U.S. land-grant colleges and universities, served as a trustee of the university from 1865 to 1898.
In 1924, UVM's WCAX, now called WVMT, sent out the first radio broadcast in Vermont. It was run by UVM students and faculty before being sold in 1931. WCAX is now the call sign of a commercial television station. A new radio station was set up in 1955, dubbed WRUV. It currently runs an FM broadcast at 90.1 MHz and an internet stream at . The station, run by students, faculty, and local community members, dubs itself Burlington's Better Alternative''.'' It is known for playing a wide range of music, boasting "the largest catalog in the State of Vermont" at over 50,000 albums.
In the second half of the 20th century, UVM gained a reputation for its political activism, and struggles ensued on campus between student and faculty activists and the university administration. In 1953, the university's board of trustees ousted Alex B. Novikoff, a tenured professor and cell biologist in the College of Medicine, over his association with the Communist Party. In March 1957, student protests against a motel owner who refused service to an African-American woman led the Vermont General Assembly to outlaw discrimination in public accommodations. For 73 years, UVM held an annual "Kake Walk" where students wore blackface, until the practice was abolished in 1969 under pressure from the student body and the community.
In 1972, the board of trustees intervened again to deny tenure to Michael Parenti, a popular Marxist political science professor who drew ire from the authorities due to his participation in anti-war demonstrations. The board overrode the recommendation of the faculty, the deans' council and the administration. Parenti later brought a federal suit against the university, which was settled out of court for $15,000.
In the 1980s, the university faced increasing pressure from the student body to divest from companies doing business in apartheid South Africa. Student protests against investment in apartheid culminated in the construction of a "shantytown" on the green across from the Waterman building on October 12, 1985. On December 6, the board voted 12-7 to divest.
UVM has undertaken several other divestment actions due to advocacy from student groups, including divestment from "Sudan-friendly" companies in 2006, during the Darfur genocide, and divestment from cluster munitions and depleted uranium weapons in 2009, during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In 2013 and 2016, trustees rejected calls to divest from fossil fuels.
On July 1, 2019, Suresh Garimella was appointed UVM's 27th president. Under his tenure, the university faced record enrollment and a 50 percent increase in research funding to $250 million; however, he has been criticized for his public relations with students and faculty. In 2021, the university administration imposed budget cuts that terminated three departments, 12 majors, 11 minors and four master's degree programs in the College of Arts and Sciences.
In 2020, under pressure from a student campaign, UVM trustees voted unanimously to divest from fossil fuels by July 2023.
In 2022, the U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation into the university's response to antisemitism on campus based on a Title VI complaint filed by The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Jewish on Campus. The investigation concluded in April 2023, after the university and the Office of Civil Rights settled in a voluntary resolution. A press release from the Department of Education stated that the university failed to adequately respond to incidents. University administrators denied the allegations, insisting that they responded appropriately. The university agreed to adopt new practices around bias reporting, edit their discrimination and harassment policies, and provide extra training to staff and students, but it did not adopt the demands of the complainant. The Department of Education did not make a finding of guilt or wrongdoing or create new federal policy in closing the investigation.
In October 2023, UVM's Division of Safety and Compliance abruptly canceled a planned guest lecture by Palestinian author Mohammed El-Kurd, citing an inability to provide adequate "safety and security" for the event. An investigative report by Seven Days found no evidence of threats related to the event.
The university's graduate students voted to unionize with the UAW in March 2024. In April 2024, UVM's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine established a protest encampment on the Andrew Harris Commons, demanding transparency in the university's endowment and divestment from "all weapons manufacturers, Israeli companies, and companies involved in the occupation of historic Palestine." They also demanded that the university cancel a planned commencement speech by Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
Seal
The university first adopted an official seal in 1807. The seal depicts the sun rising over the Green Mountains with the original college edifice, now the remodeled Old Mill. It includes a diagram of Euclid's "windmill proof" of the Pythagorean theorem, a globe, and a sextant. It includes the motto "Universitas V. Montis. A.D. 1791" in the outer ring "Collegiumque Agriculturae" in the inner one, noting the establishment of the College of Agriculture in 1865.Academics
Offering over 100 undergraduate majors, the university comprises seven undergraduate colleges, an honors college, a graduate college, and a medical college. The University of Vermont is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. Bachelors, masters, and doctoral programs are offered through the Robert Larner College of Medicine, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Education and Social Services, the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, the Graduate College, the Grossman School of Business, and the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources. The Patrick Leahy Honors College does not confer its own degrees; instead, students concurrently enroll in one of the university's seven undergraduate colleges.Rankings and reputation
As of, U.S. News & World Reports annual university rankings place UVM as tied for 61st among public universities and tied for 121st nationally.In, Forbes ''America's Top Colleges list ranked UVM 181st overall out of 500 private and public colleges and universities in America, and also ranks it 79th among public universities and 129th among research universities.
The university was named a Public Ivy by Richard Moll in his 1985 book The Public Ivies: A Guide to America's Best Public Undergraduate Colleges and Universities''.