University of Virginia
Background
The University of Virginia (UVA) ranks as one of the leading Universities in the nation. A vibrant and student-centric institution, UVA is animated by the forward-looking spirit of its founder, Thomas Jefferson. In 2023, the University was ranked third best public university by U.S. News & World Report. In the 20 plus years since U.S. News began ranking public universities as a separate category, UVA has been in the top four, and it has consistently ranked in the Top 30 among the best of all national universities, public and private. UVA remains one of the only public universities to meet 100% of every undergraduate student’s financial need and offers admission to students with no consideration of a family’s income.
UVA brings together a diverse global community of approximately 25,000 students, hailing from virtually every state in the nation and 111 countries. UVA encompasses twelve schools in Charlottesville, as well as the College at Wise, a small, liberal-arts college in Southwest Virginia, and its newest campus in Northern Virginia. In Charlottesville, the University employs nearly 30,000 people, including approximately 16,000 faculty and staff and approximately 12,000 UVA Health employees.
In 1987, UNESCO named the University (in conjunction with Monticello) a World Heritage Site. This rare distinction has been bestowed upon only the world’s most culturally significant landmarks, and UVA is the only U.S. university and one of only four worldwide designated as such. As a proud recipient of this honor, UVA is one of only two such sites still being used for its original purpose. Today, the original Academical Village continues to bring Jefferson’s vision to life every day. The Rotunda – originally the University’s library – still serves as the heart of the University. The eastern and western sides of the Lawn retain the unique pavilions and student living quarters as originally sketched. These buildings continue to play a major role in the University’s community, housing our most honored faculty and student leaders and enabling them to live and learn together. The University is more deeply exploring the critical and previously unrecognized role of the enslaved laborer in the construction of this historic landscape. The Memorial to the Enslaved Laborers, 2020 winner of The Architect’s Newspaper’s Project of the Year, sits within the borders of the World Heritage Site and seeks to formally acknowledge the work and the individual lives of the enslaved Black Americans who built and sustained the every-day life of the University.
In August 2018, Jim Ryan became the 9th President of the University of Virginia. A respected and accomplished educator and legal scholar, Ryan earned his law degree from UVA and then served on the University’s School of Law faculty for 15 years. From 2013 to 2018, he acted as dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Charles William Eliot Professor of Education. The President is advised by the academic deans and the cabinet. This leadership team is dedicated to advancing the University’s academic mission, research enterprise, and strategic vision.
After President Ryan’s inauguration in 2018, the University set out on an inclusive process to define our strategic direction, which resulted in a new forward vision for the University.
The 2030 Strategic Plan—also known as The Great and Good Plan—provides a roadmap for the future of UVA as it enters its third century. The plan outlines our vision of becoming the best public university by 2030—and one of the very best in the world, whether public or private—and how we will achieve this. To succeed, we believe we must be great, but also good, recognizing that in the not-too-distant future, it will likely be impossible for a university to be truly great if it is not also good. To accomplish this, we must strive not just for excellence, but excellence for the purpose of advancing the common good within our community, Commonwealth, and world.
Three years have passed since the University of Virginia Board of Visitors approved UVA’s freshly minted strategic plan. A glance at the timeline of accomplishments from the past 36 months confirms that UVA has maintained a brisk pace when it comes to accomplishing strategic priorities.
The “Great and Good” plan, of course, is a 10-year roadmap designed to make UVA the best public university in the country by 2030, and one of the best anywhere, public or private. So, there’s lots of work ahead, even with early momentum that hardly slowed during the COVID-19 pandemic. UVA Today recently caught up with President Ryan to find out how he thinks things are going so far, and what’s to come.
A Carnegie Research 1 university, UVA has strong partnerships with leading federal and state agencies and some of the world’s largest companies across a wide range of industries. Sponsored research awards total $441 million from all sources, including federal and state agencies, industry, and private foundations. In 2020, UVA researchers made 241 invention disclosures, with 56 patents issued. UVA’s Licensing and Ventures Group helps bring innovative companies and products to market, making Charlottesville one of the most vibrant venture capital markets in the country. UVA has a large research park located near the Charlottesville airport.
The UVA student experience is unique. That experience is punctuated by many distinct aspects of University life: the elegance of the architecture; the Honor System and the resulting community of trust; the Lawn and its residential community for faculty and students; the primacy of student self-governance; the diversity of the student body; the emphasis on service; and the beauty and history of the surrounding area. Founded on long-held values of academic excellence, this experience is also marked by retention (97% for first-years) and graduation (six-year rate of 94%) rates, which are among the highest in the country. These dimensions of the student experience—along with many others—shape our graduates to be driven, intellectually curious, and community-minded citizens of integrity and purpose. The current student body is made up more than 16,000 undergraduate and nearly 8,000 graduate students.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
UVA believes strongly that diversity, equity, and inclusion are foundational pillars of excellence in delivering our academic and healthcare missions. The University implemented the Inclusive Excellence framework in 2020 to materially advance key components of the 2030 Great and Good plan. The Board of Visitors endorsed goals in 2020 with specific actions to advance racial equity at the University. Through these institutional initiatives and many others at the school and unit level we are collectively committed to the ongoing work necessary to build the culture of care, respect, and community we all deserve.
The University has developed an exceptionally strong financial foundation as exhibited by a $12.8 billion net position on June 30, 2021, and a consensus triple-A bond rating. The three major rating agencies have noted the University’s excellent reputation; student demand, highly selective admissions, and broad geographic reach; sponsored research prowess; superior wealth and liquidity management; exceptional strategic positioning supported by strong planning, risk management, and ongoing prospects to support programmatic investments; the Medical Center’s prominent clinical reputation and ability to compete for patient care revenue; and remarkable donor support, among other factors.
The $4.8 billion FY23 annual budget encompasses the Medical Center ($2.7 billion), the Academic Division ($2.1 billion), and the College at Wise ($71 million). Significant revenue sources for the Academic Division includes tuition and fees (36%), externally sponsored programs (22%), endowment distribution (13%), state appropriations (11%), expendable gifts (9%), and sales and services (9%). The University and its associated organization have approximately $13.6 billion invested in the University of Virginia Investment Management Company’s (UVIMCO) long-term pool as of June 30, 2022, boosted by the long-term performance of UVIMCO, which has achieved an 11.0% return over the past ten years, compared to a benchmark of 7.3%. In recent years, UVA has transformed significant parts of its operations (HR and Finance) and implemented new cloud-based systems that will enable best-in-class analysis, services, and support in a rapidly changing environment.
Making a World-Class Education Accessible to All
Now entering its third century, the University of Virginia offers an affordable, world-class education that is consistently ranked among the nation’s best. UVA admits talented students from across the Commonwealth, the nation, and the globe, without consideration of their financial situation. UVA is one of two public universities that has a need-blind admission process that meets 100 percent of admitted students’ demonstrated need. The University offers robust student scholarship support to attract the best and brightest students from all backgrounds, while protecting against excessive student debt.
UVA is a global University with a strategic focus on preparing its students to become globally engaged citizen leaders after graduation and supporting its faculty as they discover solutions to leading global challenges, ranging from mitigating climate change to managing migration through combating infectious diseases to supporting democracy around the world. The University aims to support at least one global experience for every undergraduate student before graduation, with rapidly expanding study abroad opportunities and increasingly globally oriented curriculum, internships, and programming, even as we grow resources available for faculty pursuing global objectives.
UVA has a strong history of athletic performance and is committed to developing our Cavaliers both academically and athletically. NCAA championships in women’s swimming and diving and men’s tennis propelled UVA to an 11th-place in the 2021-22 College Directors’ Cup. In the 2021-22 academic year, UVA placed in the top 25 for the 15th consecutive time and is one of 10 schools to rank in the top 30 of the final Directors’ Cup standings in the 29-year existence of the program. In addition, men’s lacrosse, and women’s tennis advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals, and rowing (ninth) and men’s swimming and diving (10th) added top-10 finishes. Men’s track and field placed 14th at the NCAA Championships and had a student-athlete capture the 2022 NCAA discus title. Women’s golf placed 15th, while women’s soccer, field hockey and women’s lacrosse each advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16. UVA now has 31 team NCAA national championships.
University Advancement and the Honor the Future Campaign
University Advancement is the primary driver of constituent engagement and fundraising efforts for UVA. It includes the Health System Development Office and comprises approximately 270 team members. University Advancement is charged with securing philanthropic support for pan-University priorities and strategic initiatives, and several UVA schools and units have established management partnerships with University Advancement for their development efforts. They work in close partnership with the independent foundations and fundraising offices associated with other UVA schools and units to form a holistic enterprise supporting shared strategic goals.
In support of its aspirations to be the best public university in the nation and among the best in the world, the University launched the Honor the Future capital campaign with a quiet phase beginning in the summer of 2017, followed by a public launch in October of 2019. UVA set an ambitious goal of $5 billion with a target completion date of June 30, 2025. As of September 2022, $4.3 billion has been committed to Honor the Future.
UVA Health is an academic health system that strives to provide excellence, innovation, and exceptional quality in the care of patients, the training of health professionals, and the creation and sharing of knowledge within a culture that promotes equity, diversity, and inclusivity. UVA Health is an expansive network comprising the UVA Medical Center, Novant Health / UVA Health System, UVA Transitional Care Hospital, University of Virginia Physician’s Group, UVA School of Medicine, UVA School of Nursing, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, and several other strategic partnerships and alliances.
UVA Health prides itself on providing exemplary clinical care to patients from across the Commonwealth of Virginia and the surrounding region. The UVA Medical Center has received national accolades for outstanding clinical services in several disciplines, including oncology, cardiovascular, and women and children's services. The Medical Center includes the flagship 696-bed Magnet® recognized University Hospital located in Charlottesville, Virginia, which houses a Level I trauma center, the UVA Children's Hospital, the Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center, the Charles Strickler Transplant Center, and more than 100 primary and specialty care clinics throughout Virginia. Physicians who work at UVA Medical Center are faculty in the School of Medicine's 21 clinical departments and are also employed by the UVA Physicians Group. UVA Health’s commitment to patient care and employee wellbeing is reflected in a comprehensive values system.
At UVA Health, faculty and staff ASPIRE to embody UVA’s values of Accountability, Stewardship, Professionalism, Integrity, Respect, and Excellence. UVA Health aims to create a safe, inclusive, and compassionate environment for faculty, staff, and patients.
For more information about UVA, visit https://www.virginia.edu/.