The University of Pittsburgh

A Place to Discover

Founded in a log cabin in 1787, the University of Pittsburgh is among the oldest institutions of higher education in the United States. The University has nearly 169,000 alumni living in all 50 states and 4 territories and 117 foreign countries whose accomplishments range from winning Olympic gold medals to unlocking the secrets of DNA. From University laboratories have come Jonas Salk's polio vaccine and the identification of Vitamin C. Today, this former frontier University is an internationally recognized center of learning and research, strong in the arts and sciences and the professions.

Campuses

The University's Pittsburgh campus consists of more than 90 buildings on 132 acres in Oakland, the city's cultural and medical center. Pitt also has four regional campuses in Bradford, Greensburg, Johnstown, and Titusville, Pennsylvania.

Enrollment

Pitt's total enrollment for its five campuses is 33,898 students. Of this total, 28,713 are full-time and 5,185 are part-time: 24,086 are undergraduates and 9,812 are graduate students. More than 27,000 of the students are enrolled at the Pittsburgh campus. Click here to go to the University of Pittsburgh web site.

Faculty

The Pitt faculty totals 3,782 full-time and 703 part-time. The University has 38 endowed chairs and professorships. Each year the University honors faculty excellence with Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching, and Research, and Public Service Awards.

Governance

The University is a state-related institution serving the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the nation and the international community through its missions of instruction, research, and public service. Its Board of Trustees has 50 members, 12 of whom are appointed by the state. Mark A. Nordenberg was named Pitt's 17th chancellor on June 20, 1996. Nordenberg, 57, previously held positions as dean of Pitt's Law School, and interim provost and senior vice chancellor. He served as the interim chancellor from Aug. 1, 1995, until his current appointment.

Research

Pitt was selected to membership in the Association of American Universities (AAU), in acknowledgement of its position as one of the top research universities in North America. University researchers bring in more than $232 million annually for sponsored research and other sponsored programs, and Pitt ranks in the top ten nationally in terms of research funds received from the National Institute of Health.

Pitt Facts

Pitt is 221 years old, making it one of the nation's oldest educational institutions, established in 1787, just after the original colonial colleges.

Pitt has several programs ranked in the top 26 in their field nationally including anthropology, art history, history and philosophy of science, industrial engineering, and linguistics. Pitt also has many other highly ranked programs including chemistry, economics, English language and literature, music, pharmacology, physics, political science and psychology, among others.

The University Honors College allows highly motivated undergraduate students to pursue exceptionally challenging honors courses and degrees and to conduct independent research. Pitt students have won a number of prestigious awards in recent years, including Rhodes, Marshall, and Truman scholarships, and National Mellon Fellowships in the Humanities.

Pitt athletes have won national championships in football, conference titles in many sports, national rankings in basketball, wrestling and volleyball, and individual national championships in gymnastics, swimming, wrestling, and track and field. Former Pitt track and field star Roger Kingdom is a two-time Olympic gold medalist.

Pitt's University Center for International Studies offers an extensive study-abroad program, and the opportunity to spend an entire semester aboard the SS Universe, the world's only floating campus. UCIS also offers area studies programs in Asian, East Asian, Latin American, East European, Russian, Soviet Studies and West European Studies. Pitt was ranked as one of the 100 "best college values" in higher education among national universities in a 1996 Money Magazine report.