The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of higher education in the United States. Pitt evolved into the Western University of Pennsylvania with an alteration to its charter in 1819, and upon relocating to its current campus in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh in 1908, the school received its current moniker, the University of Pittsburgh. For most of its history Pitt was a private institution, until it became part of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education in 1966.
Pitt has consistently placed in the top cluster of U.S. public research universities and among the overall top 25 research universities according to the Center for Measuring University Performance, is listed as one of U.S. News & World Report's top 20 public universities, and has been listed among the best colleges for the quality of life of its students. Pitt has also been named as a "best value" by various publications, and has appeared in multiple rankings of the world's top universities.
Pitt is among the nation's and world's most active research institutions as evidenced by its $822 million in annual research expenditures, its standing among the top five schools in the amount of National Institutes of Health research allocations, and its election as one of the 61 North American members of the Association of American Universities. Pitt and its medical school are also closely affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, one of the nation's leading academic medical centers.
Pitt is popularly recognized for its centerpiece building, the Cathedral of Learning, for its central role in developing the first polio vaccine, and for fielding nationally competitive NCAA Division I athletic programs.
Read more about University Of Pittsburgh: Location and Campus, Education, Community, Athletics, Regional Campuses
Famous quotes containing the words university of, university and/or pittsburgh:
“Television ... helps blur the distinction between framed and unframed reality. Whereas going to the movies necessarily entails leaving one’s ordinary surroundings, soap operas are in fact spatially inseparable from the rest of one’s life. In homes where television is on most of the time, they are also temporally integrated into one’s “real” life and, unlike the experience of going out in the evening to see a show, may not even interrupt its regular flow.”
—Eviatar Zerubavel, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, ch. 5, University of Chicago Press (1991)
“The university must be retrospective. The gale that gives direction to the vanes on all its towers blows out of antiquity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The largest business in American handled by a woman is the Money Order Department of the Pittsburgh Post-office; Mary Steel has it in charge.”
—Lydia Hoyt Farmer (1842–1903)