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UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
The University of Kansas (often referred to as KU or Kansas) is an institution of higher learning located in Lawrence, Kansas. 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 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.
As of 2006, the University had 29,624 students enrolled and 2,201 faculty members on staff.
The University's Medical Center and hospital is located in Kansas City, Kansas. The KU Edwards Campus is located 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.
KU is home to the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics as well as Kansas Public Radio. 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. 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 elected members of the prestigious Association of American Universities.
The chancellor of the University of Kansas is Robert Hemenway. He has served as chancellor since 1995. He has taken an active approach towards improving academics.
Academics
The University is a large state sponsored university. In addition to a large liberal arts college, it has schools of Allied Health, Architecture and Urban Design, Business, Education, Engineering, Fine Arts, Journalism and Mass Communication, Law, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Social Welfare. The study of academic sociology originated at this university, in 1890, for the first time in America.
The most recent edition of Peterson's Guide to Competitive College calls KU "one of America's premier universities." The Fiske Guide to Colleges, for more than a decade has awarded KU a four-star rating for academics, social life, and overall quality of university life.
The 2006 Edition of U.S. News & World Report ranked KU as tied for 97th place in the Best National Universities category. The Report also ranked Kansas as tied for 45th place in Public Universities. The Report surveys over 1,400 institutions of higher education in the United States.
Medical Center
The University of Kansas Medical Center, located in Kansas City, Kansas, treats over 19,000 patients per year [1]. KU Med, as it is commonly known, houses the university's medical school as well as degree programs in audiology, dietetics, nursing, occupational therapy, pharmacology, public health, speech-language pathology, and many other health-related fields. As of 2006, there were 2,615 students enrolled at KU Med. [2] KU Med also offers third and fourth year students an opportunity to do rotations at the Wichita campus.
Edwards Campus
KU's Edwards Campus is located in Overland Park, Kansas. It was established in 1993 with the goal of providing adults with the opportunity to complete college degrees. Roughly 2,100 students are enrolled at the Edwards Campus, with an average age of 32. [3] Programs available at the Edwards Campus include developmental psychology, public administration, social work, and systems analysis and design.
Notable staff
- Steven A. Epstein, Distinguished Professor of Medieval History. Ph.D. from Harvard (1981). Multiple book publications to his name concerning late-medieval Genoa and Renaissance Italy.
- Don W. Green, Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering – editor of Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook, the world's most widely used reference by chemical and petroleum engineers.
- James Gunn – Hugo Award-winning science fiction author and creative writing professor.
- Kenneth Irby – poet and creative writing professor.
- Stanley Lombardo – Classics professor and translator of numerous Classical works into English, including Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid.
- Charles D. Michener (retired) Ex-chairman of KU Entomology Department, Ex-director of the Snow Entomological Museum, Watkins Distinguished Professor of Entomology, member of the National Academy of Sciences. The Association of American Publishers gave its R.R. Hawkins Award for the Outstanding Professional Reference or Scholarly Work of 2000 to Michener's opus, The Bees of the World.
- Kevin Willmott, writer and director of the film C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and in 2005 was nominated for Best Film at the Festival Internacional de Cinema do Porto in Porto, Portugal.
- Paul E. Wilson, (deceased) distinguished emeritus professor of law. Wilson argued Brown v. Board of Education on behalf of the State of Kansas.
Computing
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.[4]
Athletics
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The school's sports teams, wearing crimson and royal blue, are called the Jayhawks. They participate in the NCAA's Division I (I-A for football) and in the Big 12 Conference. KU has won nine NCAA National Championships. Two in men's basketball, three in men's indoor track and field, three in men's outdoor track and field, and one in men's cross country.
KU football dates from 1890, and has played in the Orange Bowl twice: 1948 and 1968. They are currently coached by Mark Mangino, who was hired in 2002. The team plays at Memorial Stadium, the oldest NCAA football stadium west of the Mississippi River.
The men's basketball team, currently coached by Bill Self, is a perennial national contender whose last national championship was in 1988. The team plays at Allen Fieldhouse, one of the oldest current basketball facilities in the NCAA. Kansas has counted among its coaches Dr. James Naismith (the inventor of basketball), Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Phog Allen (sometimes dubbed "Father of basketball coaching"), Roy Willams of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and former New York Knicks coach Larry Brown.
In 2004, the KU Men's Bowling Team won the Intercollegiate Bowling Championships. The Women's Team placed 5th that same year.
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 $40.8 million (projected) in 2005 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:[2]
- a Hall of Athletics addition to Allen Fieldhouse;
- new offices and lounges for the women's basketball program;
- a new scoreboard and batting facility for the baseball field;
- a proposed new $35 million football facility adjacent to Memorial Stadium.
Distinguished alumni
Nobel laureates
Honorary alumni
Politics, government, and education
- William H. Avery (1934), 37th Governor of Kansas (1965–1967) [6]
- Brian Barker, Judge and Queen's Counsel in England
- George Brown, First African-American elected lieutenant governor in the U.S, (1974) and first African-American elected to statewide office in Colorado
- George Docking (1925), 35th Governor of Kansas (1957–1961)[7]
- Robert Docking (1948), 38th Governor of Kansas (1967–1975) [8]
- Bob Dole, former U.S. Senate majority leader and Senator from Kansas (1969–1996), presidential and vice-presidential nominee, WWII combat veteran
- Thomas Frank, author, What's the Matter with Kansas?
- Jane Dee Hull (1957), 24th Governor of Arizona (1997–2003) [9] (KU and Harvard are the only universities with 2 women alumni elected governors, see also Kathleen Sebelius)
- Nancy Landon Kassebaum (1954), First female U.S. senator (1979-1997) elected in own right without having been preceded in office by her husband.
- Kenton Keith, U.S. ambassador to Qatar, 1992-1995.
- Phill Kline (JD 1986), current Attorney General of Kansas (2003–present)
- Lee Kyung-sook, president of Sookmyung Women's University, South Korea.
- Alf Landon (1908), 26th Governor of Kansas (1933–1937) and Republican nominee in the 1936 presidential election
- Deane Waldo Malott (1921), former Chancellor of KU and 6th president of Cornell University (1951–1963)
- David McClain, President, University of Hawaii
- John H. McClendon, an African-American scholar at Bates College
- Dennis Moore, current U.S. Congressman for Kansas District 3 (1999–present)
- Franklin David Murphy (B.S. 1936), Chancellor of the University of Kansas and Chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles
- Jim Ryun, current U.S. Congressman for Kansas District 2 (1997–present), three-time U.S. Olympic runner and silver medalist
- Kathleen Sebelius, 44th Governor of Kansas (2003–present) (KU and Harvard are the only universities with 2 women alumni elected governors, see also Jane Dee Hull)
- Deanell Reece Tacha (BA 1968), current chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (2001–present)
Media and the arts
- Stewart Bailey, television producer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
- Scott Bakula, actor, star of Quantum Leap and Star Trek: Enterprise
- Etta Moten Barnett, actress and singer, was the first black artist to perform at the White House, and was Bess in the Broadway production of Porgy and Bess
- Danni Boatwright, former Miss Teen USA and Miss USA contestant, winner of Survivor: Guatemala
- Bob Dotson, documentarian and NBC reporter, 4-time Emmy Award winner
- Moses Gunn, actor, was in the TV mini-series Roots
- Ann Hamilton (BFA 1979), sculptor, installation artist and 1993 MacArthur Fellow recipient
- Kevin Harlan, broadcaster for CBS and TNT sports
- Herk Harvey, Academy Award-winning director of over 400 industrial and educational short films as well as cult feature film Carnival of Souls
- Kevin Helliker, Chicago bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, awarded the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting
- William Inge, a Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winning author/playwright
- Don Johnson, actor, co-star of Miami Vice
- Rebecca Kolls, gardening expert on ABC's Good Morning America and HGTV
- Neil LaBute, filmmaker/screenwriter, wrote and directed the award-winning In the Company of Men, nominated for Palme D'Or for Nurse Betty
- Sara Paretsky, novelist, best known for her frequent protagonist, V.I. Warshawski
- Mandy Patinkin, Emmy and Tony Award winning actor and singer (Yentl, The Princess Bride; TV's Chicago Hope)
- Artur Pizarro, concert pianist
- Maurice Prather, motion picture and still photographer and film director
- Betsy Randle, actress best known as the mother on Boy Meets World
- Paul Rudd, actor from TV's "Friends," "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," "Clueless," "The Cider House Rules," "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet," and "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy"
- Gerald Seib, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist
- William Stafford (BA 1937), poet and pacifist, winner of the National Book Award for Travelling Through the Dark
- Dee Wallace-Stone, actress (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Howling)
- William Allen White, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author
- Catherine Warren, Miss Illinois USA 2006
Science and technology
- Paul R. Ehrlich (MA/PhD 1957), entomologist, population researcher and author of The Population Bomb, and 1990 MacArthur Fellow recipient
- Joe Engle (BS 1955), former NASA astronaut and a retired U.S. Air Force colonel [10]
- Ronald E. Evans (BS 1956), former NASA astronaut and a retired U.S. Navy captain [11]
- Steve Hawley (BA 1973), current NASA director and former astronaut [12]
- David Hillis, evolutionary biologist and 1999 MacArthur Fellow recipient
- Wes Jackson (MA 1960), environmental historian and founder of the Land Institute, a 1992 MacArthur Fellow recipient
- Bill James, noted Baseball sabermatrician and author of The Bill James Baseball Abstract in 1971
- Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering for Google Earth, formerly Keyhole
- Douglas Shane, director of flight operations for SpaceShipOne, which made the first privately-funded human spaceflight
- Walter Sutton, pioneer of cellular biology and genetics, physician, inventor
- Clyde Tombaugh, astronomer, discoverer of the planet Pluto
- Kent Whealy, co-founder of the Seed Savers Exchange, and 1988 MacArthur Fellow recipient
Business
- Kenneth S. "Boots" Adams (1921), former President and CEO of Phillips 66 Petroleum Company [13]
- Philip Anschutz, billionaire, founder of Qwest [14]
- Linda Z. Cook (1980), executive director of Shell Gas & Power, part of Royal Dutch Shell
- Richard Davis, founder, K.C. Masterpiece Barbecue Products Inc. [15]
- David Dillon, Chairman and CEO, Kroger Co.
- Robert Eaton, former CEO of Chrysler Corporation
- Robert Kleist, founder and CEO of Printronix
- Delano E. Lewis (1960), former CEO for National Public Radio, U.S. ambassador to South Africa (1999–2001)
- Lou Montulli, co-founder of Netscape [16]
- Alan Mulally (BS/MS), executive vice president of The Boeing Company, and president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes[17]
- Christopher A. Sinclair (1971), former CEO of Pepsi-Cola, Co.
- Kent McCarthy (1980)
- David Wittig, (1977) Former President and CEO of Westar Energy. [18]
Sports
For athletes and coaches, see the relevant section in Kansas Jayhawks
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.
As of the fall 2006 semester, undergraduate tuition for Kansas residents is $183.75 per credit hour. For students who are not residents of Kansas, undergraduate tuition is $482.75 per credit hour. [21] The schools of architecture, business, engineering, fine arts, journalism, law, and pharmacy charge additional fees. [22]
See also
References
- ^ "2005 NACUBO Endowment Study". National Association of College and University Business Officers.
- ^ King, Jason. "Hawk Market", The Kansas City Star (June 11, 2006), pp. C1, C14.
Bibliography
- 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.
- Noted Alumni - KU.edu
External links
- Official sites
- General
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