The University of Iowa: A History of Innovation and Academic Excellence

The University of Iowa (UIowa), often referred to as U of I or Iowa, stands as a prominent public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded on February 25, 1847, a mere 59 days after Iowa's admission to the Union, it holds the distinction of being the state's oldest and largest university. The institution's history is marked by groundbreaking achievements, a commitment to inclusivity, and a dedication to fostering a vibrant academic community.

Early Years and Foundational Principles

Instruction at the University of Iowa commenced in March 1855, within the Old Mechanics Building. In September of the same year, the university boasted a student body of 124, with 41 of them being women. The curriculum in 1856-57 comprised nine departments, encompassing ancient languages, modern languages, intellectual philosophy, moral philosophy, history, natural history, mathematics, natural philosophy, and chemistry.

The original campus was centered around the Iowa Old Capitol Building and the surrounding 10 acres (40,000 m2). The building had previously served as the first capitol building of the State of Iowa on December 28, 1846, and before that, the third capitol of the Territory of Iowa.

Pioneering Achievements in Education and Inclusion

The University of Iowa has consistently been at the forefront of educational innovation and inclusivity. Among public universities in the United States, UI was the first to become coeducational and establish a department of religious studies. It further distinguished itself by opening the first coeducational medical school.

The university was also one of the first institutions in America to grant a law degree to a woman (Mary B. Hickey Wilkinson, 1873), to grant a law degree to an African American (Alexander G. Clark, Jr. in 1879), and to include an African American on a varsity athletic squad (Frank Holbrook in 1895). The University of Iowa established the first law school and dental school west of the Mississippi River.

In 1922, under the leadership of Carl Seashore, Iowa broke new ground by accepting creative projects as theses for advanced degrees. This innovative approach allowed graduate students to submit collections of poems, musical compositions, or series of paintings in lieu of traditional scholarly theses, setting a creative standard for the Master of Fine Arts degree and solidifying the place of writers and artists within the academic realm.

The Iowa Writers' Workshop and Literary Legacy

The university's Program in Creative Writing, globally recognized as the Iowa Writers' Workshop, was established in 1936. As the first creative writing program in the country, it served as a model for over 300 subsequent writing programs, many of which were founded by Workshop alumni. Since 1947 it has produced thirteen Pulitzer Prize winners. Twenty-five people affiliated with the Writers' Workshop have won a Pulitzer Prize.

Campus Developments and Architectural Landscape

The University of Iowa's main campus is situated in Iowa City, bordered by Highway 6 to the north and Dubuque and Gilbert streets to the east. The Pentacrest, comprising five significant buildings-Old Capitol, Schaeffer Hall, MacLean Hall, Macbride Hall, and Jessup Hall-forms the heart of the campus and showcases Beaux-Arts, Greek Revival, and Collegiate Gothic architectural styles.

The east side of campus houses several residence halls (Burge, Daum, Stanley, Currier, Mayflower, and Catlett), the Iowa Memorial Union, the Women's Resource & Action Center, the Pappajohn Business Building, Seamans Center for the Engineering Arts and Sciences, the Lindquist Center, Phillips Hall, Van Allen Hall, Trowbridge Hall, the English-Philosophy Building, the Becker Communication Building, the Adler Journalism Building, Voxman Music Building, and buildings for biology, chemistry, and psychology.

The Colleges of Law, Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry, Pharmacy, and Public Health, along with the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Art Building West and Visual Arts Building, and the Theatre Building, are located on the west side of the Iowa River.

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A flood in 2008 caused significant damage to several campus buildings, leading to temporary or permanent closures. The arts campus, including Art Building West, Old Art Building, Hancher Auditorium, Voxman Music Building, Clapp Recital Hall, and the Theatre Building, was severely affected. Art Building West reopened in 2012 after repairs, while parts of Old Art Building were razed, preserving the historic WPA-era structure.

The new Visual Arts Building opened in 2016, and Hancher Auditorium was rebuilt near its original site. Voxman Music Hall was constructed adjacent to downtown Iowa City and the main campus.

Governance and Administration

The University of Iowa, along with Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa, is governed by the Iowa Board of Regents, a statewide body created by the Iowa General Assembly in 1909. The board consists of nine volunteer members appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Iowa Senate, serving staggered six-year terms. The Iowa Board of Regents hires the president of the University of Iowa, who then reports to the board. The current president of the University of Iowa is Barbara J.

Academics and Rankings

U.S. News & World Report classifies UIowa as "more selective." For the Class of 2025 (enrolled fall 2021), UIowa received 22,434 applications and accepted 19,340 (86.2%). Of those accepted, 4,521 enrolled, a yield rate of 23.4%. The University of Iowa is a college-sponsor of the National Merit Scholarship Program and sponsored 24 Merit Scholarship awards in 2020. The University of Iowa is a member of the Association of American Universities.

Forbes ranked the University of Iowa 155th out of the top 500 rated private and public colleges and universities in America for the 2024-25 report. The University of Iowa was also ranked 68th among public colleges and 20th in the Midwest.

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Research and Innovation

The University of Iowa is home to several renowned research centers and institutes, including:

Institute of Agricultural Medicine: Established in 1955 to study rural public health issues.
IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering (Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research): A world-renowned center for education, research, and public service focusing on hydraulic engineering and fluid mechanics.

Library System and Collections

The University of Iowa library system, the state's largest, comprises the Main Library, the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, five branch libraries, and the Law Library. The University Libraries' holdings include more than five million bound volumes, more than 200,000 rare books, and 1000 historical manuscript collections. Significant holdings include Hardin Library's John Martin Rare Book Room, the Iowa Women's Archives, the Louis Szathmary culinary arts collections, the Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, science fiction collections, and works of Walt Whitman.

The Iowa Digital Library features more than a million digital objects created from the holdings of the University of Iowa Libraries and its campus partners. Included are illuminated manuscripts, historic maps, fine art, historic newspapers, scholarly works, and more.

In support of the Libraries’ Conservation Laboratory, the University of Iowa Center for the Book, and other Iowa book arts programs, the Department collects vigorously in the areas of fine printing, typography and graphic design, artist’s books, calligraphy, bookbinding, paper history, papermaking, paper marbling and other techniques of paper decoration, and publishing and printing history.

Student Life and Activities

The University of Iowa offers a vibrant student life with over 500 student organizations, catering to diverse interests such as politics, sports, games, lifestyles, dance, song, and theater. The university also sponsors events that provide students with alternatives to the typical drinking scene.

Students have opportunities to participate in various student media organizations, including The Daily Iowan newspaper.

Athletics: The Iowa Hawkeyes

The University of Iowa boasts 22 varsity athletic teams, known as the Hawkeyes, competing in the Big Ten Conference of the NCAA's Division I. Iowa's most successful team is men's wrestling, with 24 NCAA championships. Other sports include basketball, soccer, baseball, softball, gymnastics, golf, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field, volleyball, cross country, and rowing. The largest venue is Kinnick Stadium, home to the football program.

Notable Alumni

The University of Iowa has produced numerous distinguished alumni, including:

George Gallup, founder of the Gallup Poll
Tennessee Williams, playwright
Gene Wilder, actor
James Van Allen, physicist
Mauricio Lasansky, Latin American artist
Albert Bandura, psychologist
(Mary) Flannery O'Connor, novelist
John Irving, novelist
Andre Tippett, NFL Hall of Fame linebacker
Don Nelson, NBA coach
Luka Garza, NBA player
Jewel Prestage, the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in political science

Sesquicentennial Celebration

Students, faculty, alumni, and citizens of the state came together during the 1996-97 academic year to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the February 25, 1847, founding of The University of Iowa.

A Timeline of Key Moments

1855: The University receives 50 books, the basis for its library that will open in 1857.
1858: The University awarded its first degree to Mr. Dexter Smith, who received the Bachelor of Science degree and The Cabinet (later Museum) of Natural History is established - the first university museum west of the Mississippi.
1870: The University’s Medical Department, which will become one of the nation’s premier public medical colleges, holds its first sessions.
1873: The first woman to graduate from the University’s Law Department, Mary B. Wilkinson, receives her Bachelor of Laws diploma.
1890: The father of modern dentistry, G. V.
1896: The first five-player basketball game west of the Mississippi River was held at the UI against the University of Chicago in Close Hall on January 18.
1897: Carl E. Seashore, a professor of psychology who will become the Graduate College dean, arrives at Iowa.
1898: Iowa begins accepting candidates for the Ph.D. and University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics opens - the first university-based teaching hospital west of the Mississippi.
1905: Jacob Van der Zee becomes the first UI student to receive a Rhodes Scholarship, three years after the first awards were presented.
1909: The University appoints to the faculty its first professional artist, Charles A.
1925: E.F. Lindquist joins the College of Education as a research assistant.
1927: Psychology, previously part of the philosophy department curriculum, becomes a separate department. Dean Carl E.
1932: W9XK, the world’s first educational television station, airs its premiere telecasts.
1935: A University of Iowa medical laboratory is one of the first in the nation to record human electroencephalography (EEG) activity, led by pioneering investigator Professor Lee E. and David A. Armbruster, the first Hawkeye swimming coach, originates the butterfly stroke and the flip turn.
1936: America’s first University-sponsored program in creative writing, the Writers’ Workshop, is established.
1938: Partly through the efforts of Louis C.
1939: Nile C.
1939: Frank Luther Mott received a Pulitzer Prize in history for his book History of American Magazines.
1955: Ophthalmology Department doctors are the first in the nation to enlist state highway patrol officers to rush donor eyes to them for corneal transplantation.
1956: Nursing Dean Myrtle E. Public Health Service.
1958: Using data from America’s first earth satellite, Explorer 1, UI physics Professor James A. Van Allen discovers belts of radiation surrounding the earth, a phenomenon that eventually will be called the Van Allen belts.
1961: With Injun 1, Iowa becomes the first university to completely design, assemble, and operate an entire spacecraft.
1964: Paul Conrad received the first of three Pulitzer Prizes he would receive during his distinguished career as a political cartoonist.
1965: Pharmacy faculty member William W.
1971: Muscatine industrialist Roy J.
1975: Dentistry Professor George F. Andreasen first uses nitinol wire on orthodontic patients.
1978: James A. McPherson received a Pulitzer Prize for fiction with his book, Elbow Room.
1979: With instruments similar to those he used on Explorer 1 to discover the Van Allen radiation belts, James A. and Using data gathered by UI plasma wave instruments aboard Voyager 1, physics Professor Donald A. and Using a special camera designed and built at the UI and carried aboard the Dynamics Explorer satellite, physics Professor Louis A.
1979, 1980, 1981: Original University Theatres plays by students in the Playwrights Workshop are selected three years in a row for performance at the American College Theatre Festival at Kennedy Center in Wash-ington, D.C.
1980: Author James A.
1981: William R.
1983: The 15,450-seat Carver-Hawkeye Arena, one of the nation’s 10 largest university-owned sports arenas, opens after private contributors provide more than $10 million for the $17 million facility in less than 12 months.
1984: A College of Medicine research team headed by Dr.
1985: The Museum of Art adds to its permanent holdings one of the world’s most important collections of African art: the Stanley Collection, a gift from Elizabeth and C. Army-funded clinical trials at Baxter Healthcare Corporation.
1986: UI-built instruments aboard Voyager 2 fly through the atmosphere of Uranus, giving science its first close encounter with the mysterious planet and The new Law Building, a $25-million facility, is named for president emeritus Willard L.
1987: President James O. Freedman announces he is leaving the University to become president of Dartmouth College. Richard D. and Nancy Andreasen, professor of psychiatry, wins the Foundation’s Fund Prize for Research in Psychiatry, the highest award for research given by the American Psychiatric Association and Interim President Richard D. and The International Writing Program celebrates its 20th year, attracting $30,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation and earning praise from The New York Times and Assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering Konstantine P. Georgakakos receives a five-year, $100,000-per-year National Science Founda-tion Presidential Young Investigator Award for re-search in predicting rainfall.
1988: The University of Iowa Foundation receives more than $4 million from the estate of distinguished alumnus Edwin B. and Coach C. Vivian Stringer leads the women’s basketball team through its fourth consecutive 20-victory season to a Big Ten championship and Hunter R. and Physics and astronomy professors James Van Allen, Louis A. Frank, Donald A. Gurnett, and Dwight R. and The University’s Arts Outreach Program, founded in 1979 and recognized as a model program in its field, receives a $10,000 grant from Target Stores.
1989: The University of Iowa Mental Health Clinical Research Center, dedicated to the study of schizophrenia, receives a grant of $3.6 million from the National Institute of Mental Health and NASA grants $10.5 million to Louis A. Frank, professor of physics and astronomy, to build and operate a state-of-the-art camera to study the earth’s aurora borealis, or northern lights. NASA also grants $7.1 million to Donald A. Gurnett to design, build, and operate a plasma wave instrument to study the northern lights and The College of Engineering establishes the Iowa Institute of Biomedical Engineering with a $650,000 grant from the Iowa Department of Eco-nomic Development (DED) and matching non-state funds and James A. Van Allen, Carver professor of physics emeritus, is awarded the Crafoord Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Science for his pioneering exploration of space and his 1958 discovery of the Earth’s radiation belts, named the Van Allen belts and Alumnus John Pappajohn and his wife, Mary, donate $3 million to help complete the final phase of the 20-year capital replacement program at The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and One hundred years of football is celebrated at the University and Three University of Iowa scientists are named Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investiga-tors: John E. Donelson, professor of biochemistry, for research on the tropical parasite that causes sleeping sickness; Michael J. Welsh, professor of internal medicine and physiology, for research on the lining in the airways of the lung that may shed light on the cellular defect in people with cystic fibrosis; and Kevin P. Campbell, professor of physiology, for isolating the protein dystrophin, whose absense has been shown to cause Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
1990: Poet Jorie Graham receives one of the John D. and Catherine T. and The Iowa Political Stock Market (IPSM), which made its debut during the 1988 presidential elections, gains international notoriety when it pre-dicts the outcome of the first all-national elections in Germany.
1991: The Center for Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing is created with a $300,000 appropriation from the state legislature and John W. and Women’s athletics director Christine H.B. and The Center for New Music celebrates its 25th year with premiers of new works by Michael Eckert, associate professor of music composition and theory, Eric Ziolek, acting director of the center, and founding member Richard Hervig, now on the faculty at Juilliard and Professor of anthropology Russel Ciochon’s search for the remains of Gigantopithecus in the jungles of northern Vietnam earns worldwide attention and is the subject of a National Geographic special and On Friday, Nov. 1, physics and astronomy doctoral student Gang Lu shoots and kills fellow graduate student Linhua Shan, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Robert Alan Smith, Professor of Physics and Astronomy Christoph K. Goertz, Professor and Chair of Physics and Astronomy Dwight R. Nicholson, and Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs T. Anne Cleary.
1992: The Guided Correspondence Study program celebrates its 75th year and Department of Agriculture awards $1.85 million to the Biotechnology Byproducts Consortium (BBC) for continued research into the conversion of agribusiness and biotechnology byproducts into valuable materials and The Iowa Women’s Archives opens at University Libraries, through a proposal by Louise Rosenfield Noun and Mary Louise Smith and The University dedicates the T.
1993: Hancher Auditorium premieres Billboards, a collaborative effort with the Joffrey Balley and rock star Prince and Associate professor of pediatrics Jeffrey C. Murray participates in a four-year, $15-million Human Genome Project grant funded by the National Center for Human Genome Research and University faculty receive three National Science Foundation grants supporting curriculum research at Iowa, including $6 million for the five-year Core Plus Mathematics project; $716,191 for professor of science education Robert E. Yager’s “Iowa Chautauqua” project; and $300,000 for professor of science education James A. and Nora England, professor and chair of anthropology, is named recipient of a five-year, $285,000 “genius” grant from the John D. and Catherine T. and University facilities sustain more than $4 million in damage when record rainfall raises the Iowa River more than two feet above flood stage and The University of Iowa hospitals and Clinics establishes an outreach agreement with the Keokuk County Medical Clinic in Sigourney and Health sciences at the University are reorganized under a new vice president responsible for overseeing the Colleges of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy, as well as the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and statewide health service units and The University Honors Program receives a $1.7 million bequest from Rbodes Dunlap.
1994: The College of Business Administration opens its new John Pappajohn Business Administration Building, the largest classroom building on campus and University Hospitals and Clinics begins construction of the Pomerantz Family Pavilion, a $113-million addition to be completed in 1995 and Funds from a $7.3 million contract with the National Library of Medicine establish the National Library for the Study of Rural Telemedicine at the University and The University of Iowa Museum of Art celebrates its 25th year and NASA honors Regent Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy James A. and University faculty win a record $167.5 million in grants, gifts, and contracts and The State Board of Regents approves the establishment of the Iowa Spine Research Center, a unique effort involving the Colleges of Engineering and Medicine and Professor of biological sciences George Cain receives a four-year, $1 million Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant, to be combined with a previous $1.1 million Hughes grant, to give students and teachers greater access to tile biological sciences and University President Hunter R.
1995: Provost Peter G. and The University of Iowa and Iowa State University share the bulk of a $22 million estate left by F.W. and David C. and Iowa Gov. Terry E.
1996: The faculty of the College of Law is the fifth most productive among the nation’s public law schools and The Ophthalmology Department moves into the Eye Institute in the new Pomerantz Family Pavilion at University Hospitals and Clinics and The College of Medicine is awarded a four-year, $2.4 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to hire new faculty and to fund a series of initiatives in biomedical research and The World Council for Gifted and Talented Children chooses the College of Education as its new headquarters and Des Moines venture capitalist John Pappajohn and his wife, Mary, contribute $1.5 million to expand Iowa’s Institute for Entrepreneurial Management, which is then renamed the John Pappajohn Entrepre-neurial Center and As part of an on-going effort to strengthen East Asian studies, the Office of the President announces plans to create an endowed chair jointly funded by the Korea Foundation of Seoul, the Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization of Iowa City, and E & M Charities of Muscatine and Students interested in the history of the book and the art of book design and production can now earn credit for their studies in a new graduate-level program offered by the Center for the Book and The University of Iowa is listed as one of the strongly recommended universities for Latinos, according to the Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education and William P. Albre…

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