University of Kentucky

The University of Kentucky (UK) is a public co-educational university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky,[7] the university is one of the state's two land-grant universities, the largest college or university in the state, with 29,385 students as of Fall 2013, and the highest ranked research university in the state according to U.S. News and World Report.
The institution comprises 16 colleges, a graduate school, 93 undergraduate programs, 99 master programs, 66 doctoral programs, and four professional programs.[9] The University of Kentucky has fifteen libraries on campus. The largest is William T. Young Library, a federal depository, hosting subjects related to social sciences, humanities, and life sciences collections. In recent years, the university has focused expenditures increasingly on research, following a compact formed by the Kentucky General Assembly in 1997. The directive mandated that the university become a Top 20 public research institution, in terms of an overall ranking to be determined by the university itself, by the year 2020.
University origins
In the early commonwealth of Kentucky, higher education was limited to a number of children from prominent families, disciplined apprentices, and those young men seeking entry into clerical, legal, and medical professions. As the first university in the territory that would become Kentucky, Transylvania University was the primary center for education, and became the mother of what would become the University of Kentucky.The early campus: Barker Hall in the center, the Main Building to the right, and a lake in the foreground where the Student Center now stands.John Bryan Bowman founded the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky (A&M), a publicly chartered department of Kentucky University, after receiving federal support through the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act in 1865. Courses were offered at Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate.[11] Three years later, James Kennedy Patterson became the first president of the land-grant university and the first degree was awarded. In 1876, the university began to offer Master's degree programs. Two years later, A&M separated from Kentucky University, which is now Transylvania University. For the new school, Lexington donated a 52 acre (210,000 m²) park and fair ground, which became the core of UK's present campus. A&M was initially a male-only institution, but began to admit women in 1880.
In 1892, the official colors of the university, royal blue and white, were adopted. An earlier color set, blue and light yellow, was adopted earlier at a Kentucky-Centre College football game on December 19, 1891. The particular hue of blue was determined from a necktie, which was used to demonstrate the color of royal blue.
On February 15, 1882, Administration Building was the first building of three completed on the present campus. Three years later, the college formed the Agricultural Experiment Station, which research issues relating to agribusiness, food processing, nutrition, water and soil resources and the environment.] This was followed up by the creation of the university's Agricultural Extension service in 1910, which was one of the first in the United States. The extension service became a model of the federally mandated programs that were required beginning in 1914.

Coeducational school: Modern period
Patterson Hall, shortly after its 1904 opening
Patterson Hall, the school's first women's dormitory, was constructed in 1904. Residents had to cross a swampy depression, where The Student Center now stands, to reach central campus. Four years later, the school's name was changed to the "State University, Lexington, Kentucky" upon reaching university status, and then to the "University of Kentucky" in 1916. The University led to the creation of the College of Home Economics in 1916, and Mary E. Sweeney was promoted from chair of the Department of Home Economics to Dean of the College. (Later renamed the College of Human Environmental Sciences, this educational unit was folded into the College of Agriculture in 2003 as the School of Human Environmental Sciences). The College of Commerce was established in 1925, known today as the Gatton College of Business and Economics.
In 1929, Memorial Hall was completed, dedicated to the 2,756 Kentuckians who died in World War I. This was followed up by the new King Library, which opened in 1931 and was named for a long-time library director, Margaret I. King. The university became racially integrated in 1949 when Lyman T. Johnson, an African American, won a lawsuit to be admitted to the graduate program.
In 1939, Governor Happy Chandler appointed the first woman trustee on the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees, Georgia M. Blazer of Ashland. She served from 1939 to 1960. In 1962, Blazer Hall was opened as the Georgia M Blazer Hall [dormitory] for Women in tribute to her twenty-one years of service as a University of Kentucky trustee.
Ground was broken for the Albert B. Chandler Hospital in 1955,when Governor of Kentucky Happy Chandler recommended that the Kentucky General Assembly appropriate $5 million for the creation of the University of Kentucky College of Medicine and a medical center at the university. This was completed after a series of studies were conducted that highlighted the health needs of the citizens, as well as the need to train more physicians for the state. Five years later, the College of Medicine and College of Nursing opened, followed by the College of Dentistry in 1962.
Nine years after the founding of The Northern Extension Center in Covington, representing the Ashland Independent School Board of Education, Ashland Oil & Refining Company founder and CEO Paul G. Blazer presented a proposal to President Dickey and the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees for the University to take over the day-to-day operations and curriculum of the Ashland [municipal] Junior College, creating the Ashland Center of the University of Kentucky in 1957. University of Kentucky Extension Centers in Fort Knox (1958), Cumberland (1960), and Henderson (1960) followed.
In 1959, the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce opened and began training professionals at the masters and doctoral level for careers in international affairs. The program was the vision of UK's first president James Kennedy Patterson who had identified the need for the United States to develop a cadre of professionals to advance its diplomatic and commercial interests around the globe. Patterson bequeathed his entire estate to establish this entity.
Authorized by the Kentucky General Assembly and signed by Governor Bert Combs on March 6, 1962, a mandate was placed upon the University of Kentucky to form a community college system.[11] Two years later, the Board of Trustees implements the legislation and established the Community College System, creating centers in Covington, Ashland, Fort Knox, Cumberland, Henderson and Elizabethtown. In 1969, the Patterson Office Tower was completed, currently the tallest building on campus.

Miller Hall
In May 1970, students at the university began protesting the shootings at Kent State University. In response, Governor Louie Nunn deferred to the National Guard in an attempt to disperse the protesters. An outdated ROTC building was destroyed by fire. The Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries has 13 oral history interviews with participants in the protests, university officials as well as former governor Nunn. Nine years later, the Singletary Center for the Arts opened, named in honor of former university president Otis Singletary.[11] In 1979, the University of Kentucky hosted the first Kentucky Women Writers Conference, which is now the longest-running conference of its kind. The Kentucky Women Writers Conference is now in its 31st year.[when?]
Campus

Completed in 1998, the William T. Young Library serves both the university campus and the Commonwealth of Kentucky.The University of Kentucky offers seven main dining facilities, 23 residence halls, and numerous recreation facilities spread between three distinct campuses: north,south, and central. It is also home to more than 250 student-run organizations. The annual cost per student to reside in the dormitories at the University of Kentucky in 2012 was $4,135.
The university campus is home to numerous notable structures, such as Main Building, a four-story administration building dating to 1882, which was gutted by fire on May 15, 2001. The cause of the blaze was attributed to a welders torch during repairs to the building's roof. Total costs for reconstruction after the fire exceeded $17 million. The Patterson Office Tower is the tallest building on campus. The university is also home to several major construction projects, including the Albert B. Chandler Hospital expansion.
The University of Kentucky once operated 14 community colleges with more than 100 extended sites, centers and campuses under the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, but relinquished control under the Postsecondary Education Improvement Act of 1997.[68] The network of community colleges is now known as the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS). Adjoining Lexington Community College, despite the reorganization of the community colleges, remained integrated with the university, but separated from the University of Kentucky in 2004 and became a part of KCTCS.