Institutional Overview
Founded in 1881, the University of Connecticut is the state’s flagship institution of higher education. In addition to the main campus in Storrs, UConn has regional campuses in Hartford, Stamford, Waterbury, and Avery Point, a Law School in Hartford, and a Health Center Campus in Farmington, which includes the Medical and Dental Schools.
UConn has approximately 10,000 faculty and staff and almost 32,700 students. In 2011, the state of Connecticut signed into law Bioscience Connecticut, which provided funding to UConn to enhance its health center facilities, support greater research innovation, and grow the number of scientists and students in UConn’s medical and dental schools. In 2013, the state legislature passed the Governor’s proposal called Next Generation Connecticut, a ten-year capital investment that will increase the size of UConn’s student body, dramatically enhance physical infrastructure for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) programs, and create premiere STEM programs. In addition, the university is implementing one of the most ambitious faculty-hiring plans in U.S. higher education to strategically expand its faculty in key research and teaching areas and to increase the number of classes offered.
The university has approximately 270,000 alumni worldwide, over 140,000 of whom live in Connecticut. Student diversity continues to increase, as does the number of honor students, valedictorians, and salutatorians who consistently make UConn their top choice. UConn’s retention rate is among the best for public universities in the nation, with 93 percent of students returning for their sophomore year.
The University of Connecticut is dedicated to excellence demonstrated through national and international recognition. Through freedom of academic inquiry and expression, UConn creates and disseminates knowledge by means of scholarly and creative achievements, graduate, and professional education, and outreach. With a focus on teaching and learning, the university helps every student grow intellectually and become a contributing member of the state, national, and world communities.
Through research, teaching, service, and outreach, UConn embraces diversity and cultivates leadership, integrity, and engaged citizenship in its students, faculty, staff, and alumni. As the state’s flagship public university, and as a land and sea grant institution, UConn promotes the health and well-being of citizens by enhancing the social, economic, cultural, and natural environments of the state and beyond.
The university serves as a beacon of academic and research excellence as well as a center for innovation and social service to communities. UConn is a leader in many scholarly, research, and innovation areas. Today, the path forward includes exciting opportunities and notable challenges. Record numbers of undergraduate applications and support for student success have enabled the university to become extraordinarily selective.
In just 15 years, the university’s ranking by U.S. News & World Report among public universities has risen from 38 in 1998 to 23 today. Many initiatives, including the plan to hire many new faculty over the next few years, emerging programs in partnership with The Jackson Laboratory, as well as the nearly $1.6 billion investment in Next Generation Connecticut and the $900 million investment in Bioscience Connecticut present exciting opportunities and unique challenges for the University’s research endeavors. UConn’s partnerships with United Technologies, General Electric, Northeast Utilities, and other industries through UConn’s Technology Park also will help to secure its place as an institution of the highest rank among public research universities.