University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate and 11,075 [179] graduate students and 3133 teaching faculty and staff, it is also the largest institution in the system.[11]
The university is a major center for academic research, with research expenditures totaling $679.8 million for fiscal year 2018.[12][13] It joined the Association of American Universities in 1929. The university houses seven museums and seventeen libraries, including the LBJ Presidential Library and the Blanton Museum of Art, and operates various auxiliary research facilities, such as the J. J. Pickle Research Campus and the McDonald Observatory. As of November 2020, 13 Nobel Prize winners, 4 Pulitzer Prize winners, 2 Turing Award winners, 2 Fields Medal recipients, 2 Wolf Prize winners, and 2 Abel Prize prize winners have been affiliated with the school as alumni, faculty members, or researchers. The university has also been affiliated with 3 Primetime Emmy Award winners, and as of 2021 its students and alumni have earned a total of 155 Olympic medals.[14]
Student-athletes compete as the Texas Longhorns. The Longhorns have won four NCAA Division I National Football Championships, six NCAA Division I National Baseball Championships, thirteen NCAA Division I National Men's Swimming and Diving Championships, and the school has claimed more titles in men's and women's sports than any other member in the Big 12.
The first mention of a public university in Texas can be traced to the 1827 constitution for the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. Although Title 6, Article 217 of the Constitution promised to establish public education in the arts and sciences,[15] no action was taken by the Mexican government. After Texas obtained its independence from Mexico in 1836, the Texas Congress adopted the Constitution of the Republic, which, under Section 5 of its General Provisions, stated "It shall be the duty of Congress, as soon as circumstances will permit, to provide, by law, a general system of education."[16]
On April 18, 1838, "An Act to Establish the University of Texas" was referred to a special committee of the Texas Congress, but was not reported back for further action.[17] On January 26, 1839, the Texas Congress agreed to set aside fifty leagues of land—approximately 288,000 acres (117,000 ha)—towards the establishment of a publicly funded university.[18] In addition, 40 acres (16 ha) in the new capital of Austin were reserved and designated "College Hill".[1] (The term "Forty Acres" is colloquially used to refer to the University as a whole. The original 40 acres is the area from Guadalupe to Speedway and 21st Street to 24th Street.[19])
In 1845, Texas was annexed into the United States. The state's Constitution of 1845 failed to mention higher education.[20] On February 11, 1858, the Seventh Texas Legislature approved O.B. 102, an act to establish the University of Texas, which set aside $100,000 in United States bonds toward construction of the state's first publicly funded university[21] (the $100,000 was an allocation from the $10 million the state received pursuant to the Compromise of 1850 and Texas's relinquishing claims to lands outside its present boundaries). The legislature also designated land reserved for the encouragement of railroad construction toward the university's endowment. On January 31, 1860, the state legislature, wanting to avoid raising taxes, passed an act authorizing the money set aside for the University of Texas to be used for frontier defense in west Texas to protect settlers from the alleged attacks of Native peoples.[22]
