University of Utah
| University of Utah | |
|---|---|
 Surviving a GOP Legislature since 1896 | |
| Motto | Contridictio in terminis |
| Established | February 28, 1853 |
| School type | State Research University |
| Head | Michael Young |
| Location | Salt Lake City, Utah, United States |
| Campus | Urban |
| Enrollment | 28,000 6,000 |
| Endowment | Generous |
| Faculty | 13,760 |
| Mascot | Utes[1] |
The University of Utah is a publicly-funded[2] research institution that has the supreme misfortune of being located in the state of Utah.
Universally despised by Utahns[3], over the years the University has conducted research, stupified younger generations, beat ass in every sport imaginable, and worst of all, inspired several dozen of its students to think apart from their Book of Mormons. Though the University's President is an active Mormon and it is an officially dry campus, this does little to ease the fears of housewives who fear their teenage daughters may attend "the U" and become free-loving, dope-smoking Communists who commit the ultimate sin of learning in college, effectively denying Christendom in one fell swoop[4] and ensuring nothing higher than terrestrial glory for their likely Lamanitish posterity, a point of pride when comparing themselves to the dry soft-headed denizens of BYU.
History[edit]
Originally established February 28, 1850 by Latter-day Saint leader Brigham Young as "a place for friends," it was initially named "University of Deseret." Unfortunately the vast influx of intelligent students forced the campus to expand into a second school farther south for the "special" students. It reopened as a proselyting commercial school in 1867. The University was renamed University of Utah in 1894 and classes were first held on the present campus on the east side of Salt Lake City in 1900. The University of Utah is undeniably the most lauded research University in the state, even allowing the free thinking of professors who would otherwise be removed from their positions at other institutions the ability to pursue scientific and historical research without needing to run it by their bishop first. Mario Capecchi's winning of the Nobel Prize in 2007 greatly angered the students of the Brigham Young University, perturbed at the inability of their own research staff to receive more than a blurb in the Deseret News or stake newsletter.
Academics[edit]
The university offers seventy-six undergraduate majors, over fifty-five minors and certificates and ninety-six major fields of studies at the graduate level. It draws its 28,000-plus student population from all fifty states and 111 foreign countries. The university, one of the state’s largest employers, has the only medical, social work, and architecture schools between Denver and San Francisco, Phoenix and the Canadian border. It should thus come as no surprise that the "U" receives the financial equivalent of a shit sandwich from the State Budget Office.
The School of Computing has made several important contributions to the field. The University of Utah was one of the original four nodes of ARPANET, the world's first series of tubes and embryo of the current world-wide Interwebs. Within weeks, the school became one of the first to be sued by the RIAA for allowing its students to listen to music. The School has made connections with the aerospace and high tech industries, and it was a U. graduate who invented Atari. When it comes to the inanity of Postmodernity, the U has been a significant player since the beginning.
The School of Medicine is one of the finest in the nation, owing largely to its location in the only site of civilization between California and Omaha. In 1970, the school established the first Cerebrovascular Disease Unit west of the Mississippi River, only to spend most of its budjet attempting to explain to its retarded students what exactly that was. Such innovations as the artificial heart, pacemaker, and Death Star have been developed by Utah bioengineers. When Utahns do something stupid (a frequent occurence) the staff of the U's medical center are always there to lend a helping hand.
The University of Utah's Political Science department hosts one of nation's leading schools of politics and government and is home to an isolated, severely inbred colony of liberals. Aside from regular course work, the college provides its students the opportunity to volunteer as interns in state and federal government offices, providing prudish Republicans what may be their only opportunity to get head. The college is often visited by local and national leaders, who mistake it for the University of Chicago. The University of Utah also has the Hinckley Institute of Politics, which hosts forums, debates, and orgies on campus.
Student Life[edit]
There are numerous things to do on campus and they have a huge institute building for the Latter-Day Saints where they meet and converse, have parties and do stuff (as long as we're home by eleven, avoid the appearance of evil, and limit coed interactions to groups no less than four).
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑ The Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation gets five cents each time that word is said.
- ↑ Despite the work of State Senators Buttars and Stevenson.
- ↑ from the copper tycoons, creationists and ambulance-chasers of the State Legislature to the suburban homebodies of Davis County, the severely underpayed un-unionized coal miners of the east to the meth addicted working class jack Mormons of the West.
- ↑ Interestingly enough, swoop is the name of the school's hawkish mascot, adopted to prevent lawsuits from American Indians.