University of Pittsburgh

The University of Pittsburgh, also called Pitt, is a public university in the neighborhood of Oakland, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Pittsburgh campus is made up of sixteen Pitt schools and colleges. The university runs an additional four regional campuses in the cities of Bradford, Greensburg, Johnstown, and Titusville. Pitt also owns hundreds of centers and institutes, mainly medical research facilities. The Pittsburgh campus spans a total of 132 acres. In fall 2020, the University of Pittsburgh had an undergraduate enrollment of over 19,000. The acceptance rate is between approximately 57 to 64 percent.

The university is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU). As classified by The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, the University of Pittsburgh is an R1 Doctoral University, meaning it participates in "very high research activity." In 2021, the University of Pittsburgh was ranked as the number one university in the Northeast United States by the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings. The university is a top producer of Fulbright scholars. Famous alumni of Pitt include Fred Rogers, Gene Kelly, Rick Santorum, and Joe Manganiello.

The original Pittsburgh Academy.

The University of Pittsburgh was founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 by Hugh Henry Brackenridge. Brackenridge was an author, lawyer, and justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He created the newspaper the Pittsburgh Gazette, later renamed the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In 1819, Pittsburgh Academy was renamed Western University of Pennsylvania, and in 1908 it was renamed again to the University of Pittsburgh.

The Great Fire of Pittsburgh in 1845 destroyed a third of the city of Pittsburgh, including the Western University of Pennsylvania campus and all of its records dating back to 1787. A new campus was built in a different location the next year. Unfortunately, the new campus was also destroyed in a fire just years later, in 1849. The university's operations were then suspended; this lasted until 1855, when the new building opened. Many more campus buildings were constructed throughout the late 1800s, including the Allegheny Observatory. By the turn of the century, the university had established departments for engineering, medicine, law, dentistry, and pharmacy. In 1966, Pitt became a public university.

The University of Pittsburgh offers 646 degree and certificate programs as of 2022. Over one hundred majors are available in graduate and undergraduate programs. The university's Pittsburgh campus has sixteen schools and colleges in various fields of study, including the Swanson School of Engineering, Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, and David C. Frederick Honors College.

Pitt's research efforts over the years have culminated in several revolutionary breakthroughs in the science and medical fields, one of the most notable being the polio vaccine, developed by Pitt professor Jonas Salk in 1955. With just a few years of development, polio cases in the United States dropped from a high of 57,900 to almost zero. In 1964, a group of scientists at Pitt completed the first ever synthesis of insulin, which was previously only able to be extracted from animals.

In April 2020, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine partnered with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to expedite the testing of COVID-19 treatments. Research efforts consisted of testing combinations of various immunomodulators, such as the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine. Immunomodulators alter the responsiveness of the immune system.