"

That makes sense to me. As I reflect on this, I think that part of the potential for confusion is that the point, as I understand it, is that UVA's E-School was the first one that was associated with a university AT THE TIME OF ITS FOUNDING, as opposed to one that became associated later (or one that was part of a school that expanded its mission). Perhaps another idea would be to say ""... the first to be founded as part of a university"" or something similar to that? (I like the idea of the footnote with the stronger source either way, though. I recall there was a to-do about the Jefferson Society a while back and there was a question about whether their site was a sufficient source due to the notion that they have a conflict of interest in that they consider it prestigious to be the oldest debating society. The same argument might apply to the E-School's site insofar as they claim to be the oldest for prestige reasons.)   "