KU at a glance

Opened in 1866, the University of Kansas is a comprehensive educational and research institution with 30,644 students and more than 2,200 faculty members. KU includes the main campus in Lawrence, a city of about 90,000 in northeastern Kansas; the medical center in Kansas City, Kan.; the Edwards Campus in Overland Park; a clinical campus of the School of Medicine in Wichita; and educational and research facilities throughout the state.
Learn more:   Lawrence Visitor's Bureau Fast Facts for Media

29,260 total enrollment (20,298 undergraduates and 6,044 graduate students) at the Lawrence and Edwards campuses; 2,918 students at the medical center

2,201 faculty members at the main campus and the medical center combined.

96 percent of full-time faculty with Ph.D. or equivalent in their fields.

More than 170 fields of study.

More than 100 opportunities to study abroad.

14 schools: College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; the Graduate School; and the schools of allied health, architecture and urban planning, business, education, engineering, fine arts, journalism and mass communications, law, medicine, nursing, pharmacy and social welfare.

KU awards about $180 million in financial aid and scholarships to more than 15,000 students. The average award is almost $8,500.

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Students from all 50 states; percentage of students from Kansas is 69.1

More than 1,500 international students from more than 110 countries.

Average age of undergraduate students: 21

Average age of graduate students: 31

Percentage of men to women: 49 to 51

Percentage of multicultural students: 13

Average ACT score for freshmen: 24.6 (31.3% above score of 27)

Freshman retention rate: 82.4

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Considered one of the most beautiful campuses in the nation, KU's main campus occupies 1,000 acres on and around Mount Oread in Lawrence, a community of 88,500 among the forested hills of eastern Kansas. The KU Medical Center, home of the KU Hospital and the schools of medicine, nursing and allied health, occupies 55 acres in nearby Kansas City, Kan. The Edwards Campus is sited on 38 acres in a suburban Kansas City corridor known for its high-tech manufacturers and laboratories.

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KU students have built an impressive record of scholastic achievement. Two of the nation's most prestigious honorary societies, Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi, chartered at KU their first chapters west of the Mississippi. A total of 25 KU students have won Rhodes scholarships since that award's inception.

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The university enjoys a growing national reputation as one of the top research and teaching universities. In fact, Indiana University's nationwide Documenting Effective Educational Practice Report in 2004 lauded KU as an "engaging public research university" and noted that "many other colleges and universities will benefit from learning about KU's policies and practices."

"KU has a distinctive 'sense of place' that instills school pride and an excitement about learning," the DEEP Report stated.

KU has more than 40 nationally ranked academic programs, including 24 in the top 25 among public universities, according to U.S. News & World Report. Two graduate programs — special education and city management/urban policy — are No. 1 in their fields among public universities.

KU is rated in the top 50 public national universities in academic reputation in U.S. News and World Report's America's Best Colleges issue for 2007.

The Fiske Guide to Colleges, which USA Today called "the best college guide you can buy," praises KU's "solid academics, outstanding extracurricular programs, winning athletics and stellar social life." KU was the only Kansas university ranked by the Fiske guide.

In 2006, KU's law school jumped 16 places in U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Graduate Schools."

Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education magazine named KU 17th in the nation for the number of doctoral degrees awarded to Hispanic students. Hispanic Business magazine, one of the leading Hispanic magazines in the country, has named KU's School of Medicine one of its "Top 10 Medical Schools for Hispanics." The medical school ranked sixth.

"Choosing the Right College 2006: The Whole Truth about America's Top Schools," a college guide book for conservatives, lauds KU for offering "one of the best state-school educations now available" and "one of the more highly regarded public schools in the nation."

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Research is an integral part of the university's educational activity. KU’s total research expenditures in fiscal year 2005 for all projects, including sponsored research, training and service grants in all fields, were $281 million, a 3 percent increase over 2004. KU’s total research expenditures funded from grants and contracts reached $187.6 million in 2005. KU is cited among 21 public research universities in the book "The Rise of American Research Universities: Elites and Challengers in the Postwar Era" to belong to the Association of American Universities, a select group of higher-education institutions in the United States and Canada. Members are chosen on the basis of national significance in graduate studies and research.

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Library collections on the Lawrence campus contain more than 4 million volumes and thousands of microforms, manuscripts, maps and photographs. Scholars from all over the world use the Kenneth Spencer Research Library's valuable collections of rare and historic material. At the medical center, the Archie R. Dykes Library for Health Sciences and Clendening History of Medicine Library and Museum are major resources for health professionals.

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The largest of the Kansas regents institutions, KU annually awards one-third of the bachelor's and master's degrees and two-thirds of the doctorates granted at regents schools. The university awards more than 1,000 graduate degrees a year; 200 of those are doctoral degrees.

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KU Endowment is the official organization for raising and managing private funds on behalf of KU. Founded in 1891, KU Endowment is the oldest foundation of its type at a U.S. public university and one of the largest. In 2006, with net assets of more than $1.049 billion, the endowment per student ranked 20th among public universities.

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KU continues to enhance and improve its facilities and technology so it can provide students, faculty and staff with the most advanced tools and best possible environment for teaching and research.

Among the projects completed in 2006:

• The Booth Family Hall of Athletics, on the east side of Allen Fieldhouse, highlights the storied history of KU athletics and also houses a ticket office; www.kustore.com; and donor, alumni and recruiting meeting rooms. Its $8 million cost, about half of which was donated by the children and grandchildren of staunch KU supporters Gilbert and Betty Booth, was part of more than $14 million in fieldhouse improvements that include a video scoreboard and new basketball-court floor.
• The Docking Family Gateway, at 13th Street and Jayhawk Boulevard, opened in August 2006. Alumna Jill Docking and her husband, former Kansas Lt. Gov. Tom Docking, donated $500,000 of the $600,000 cost of the fountain, stone pylon and signage between Kansas Union and Smith Hall at the north entrance to campus. It is complemented by the Borden Family Plaza at the Adams Alumni Center on the northeast corner of the intersection. A wrought-iron fence and brick pillars were removed and new landscaping that includes roses, crabapples and boxwood was added. A $100,000 gift from alumnus Larry J. Borden and his wife, Nancy, financed the improvements.
• The Library Annex on west campus can house up to 1.6 million volumes from the KU Libraries’ collections. The climate-controlled storage area has nearly 7,900 square feet of shelving and other storage.
• The $40 million Multidisciplinary Research Building west of 21st and Iowa streets was dedicated March 6, 2006. The 106,000-square-foot building houses more than 200 scientists, students, researchers and support staff from the departments of chemistry, geology and pharmaceutical chemistry and other areas. They will work on complementary projects in drug discovery and delivery, bioinformatics, nanoscience, stable isotope geology and other fields.
• A 1,500-stall Park and Ride lot northwest of Clinton Parkway and Iowa Street opened at the start of the fall 2006 semester. The lot is served by the Park and Ride Express, a free shuttle service for students, staff and visitors that will make about a dozen stops on a looping route through the center of the main campus and west campus.

Continuing or planned projects include:

• Groundbreaking for the Anderson Family Football Complex adjacent to Memorial Stadium was held Oct. 6. At halftime of the homecoming game Oct. 7 the football field was named Kivisto Field, in honor of former basketball team captain Tom Kivisto and his wife, Julie, major donors to the complex campaign. Other major donors to the $31-million project are Dana, Sue, Justin and Jean Anderson; Charles and Sharon Lynch Campbell; Frank Sabatini and family; and Ken Wagnon. The complex is to include academic areas; locker rooms; facilities for weight and cardio training, hydrotherapy, audio-visual screenings and nutrition; and practice fields. Completion is expected by July 2008.
• Ground has been broken for the 7,000-square foot Sabatini Multicultural Resource Center, to be built north of the Kansas Union. The new center will feature updated technology, more programming space and academic resources for students and organizations. The $2.7-million facility was made possible by a donation from the Sabatini family of Topeka.
• Construction began in fall 2006 on a $20-million addition to the Structural Biology Center near the Simons Biosciences Research Laboratories on west campus. The 45,000-square-foot addition, Phase III of the center’s construction, will house the High Throughput Screening Lab and the KU Center of Excellence in Chemical Methodologies and Library Development, both now in the Life Sciences Research Laboratory at 15th Street and Wakarusa Drive.
• A $3.5-million renovation of Wescoe Hall began in May. The project will enclose two levels of the south-side terrace and create 24,000 square feet of space for about 80 offices and meeting rooms for faculty and staff members in the departments of history and of Spanish and Portuguese. Completion is expected in March 2007.
• The Wilna "Willie" Crawford Community Center will be a commons for the scholarship halls surrounding it near 14th and Louisiana streets. The 1892 home was bequeathed to KU by Juanita Strait in 2002. A $300,000 gift from Tom and Jann Rudkin, alumni from Sunnyvale, Calif., who lived in scholarship halls while students, supports renovations that include foundation, plumbing and wiring repairs; a new roof, windows and porches; and a fountain and patio. When it is completed in spring 2007, the center is to be named for Jann Rudkin’s mother.

See the Campus Buildings Directory for a complete list of academic, research, athletic and residence facilities.

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The Lawrence campus offers a rich cultural life.

Lecturers, scholars, artists, concert musicians, actors and dancers perform at the university's beautiful Lied Center of Kansas, a 2,020-seat performing arts hall. The adjacent 250-seat Bales Organ Recital Hall provides cathedral-like acoustics for its three-manual pipe organ, built by Wolff and Associés of Quebec

The University Theatre programs provide active learning opportunities for students of acting, directing and technical theatre. Committed to presenting classics of world dramatic literature as living theatre, it is also developing new dramatic texts and forms.

The Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics features limestone walls, soaring stained-glass windows and a large reflecting pool reminiscent of Washington's Tidal Basin. The $11-million, 28,000-square-foot facility houses dynamic exhibits and the world's largest congressional archive as well as meeting spaces and KU's first satellite uplink.

The Spencer Museum of Art, with more than 23,000 works of art, has long been considered one of the top teaching museums in the nation.

About 50,000 people a year visit the Natural History Museum. The fossil exhibits of extinct mammals, dinosaurs, reptiles and fishes are especially popular. The panorama of North American plants and animals, the centerpiece exhibit, contains realistic scenes of animal and plant life from Alaska to Mexico. It's the world's largest diorama.

Metropolitan Kansas City offers attractive cultural resources, including the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Jazz Museum, the Lyric Opera, the Kansas City Ballet and the Linda Hall Library, one of the largest engineering, science and technology libraries in the world. Dinolab, KU's fossil preparation laboratory, is a public exhibit at Kansas City's Science City museum in Union Station.

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