page_title: University of Louisville
section_title: As a public state university: 1970–present
hierarchical_section_title: University of Louisville / History / As a public state university: 1970–present
caption_attribution_description: Belknap Research Building.
context_page_description: The University of Louisville is a public research university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of the first universities chartered west of the Allegheny Mountains. The university is mandated by the Kentucky General Assembly to be a "Preeminent Metropolitan Research University". The university enrolls students from 118 of 120 Kentucky counties, all 50 U.S. states, and 116 countries around the world.
  Louisville is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". The University of Louisville School of Medicine is touted for the first fully self-contained artificial heart transplant surgery as well as the first successful hand transplantation in the United States. The University Hospital is also credited with the first civilian ambulance, the nation's first accident services, now known as an emergency department, and one of the first blood banks in the US.
  Louisville is also known for its Louisville Cardinals athletics programs.
context_section_description: Talk of Louisville  joining the public university system of Kentucky began in the 1960s. As a municipally funded school (meaning funding only came from the city of Louisville), the movement of people to the suburbs of Louisville created budget shortfalls for the school and forced tuition prices to levels unaffordable for most students. At the same time, the school's well established medicine and law schools were seen as assets for the state system. Still, there was opposition to the university becoming public, both from faculty and alumni who feared losing the small, close-knit feel of the campus, and from universities already in the state system who feared funding cuts. After several years of heated debate, the university joined the state system in 1970, a move largely orchestrated by then Kentucky governor and Louisville alumnus Louie Nunn.
  The first years in the public system were difficult, as enrollment skyrocketed while funding was often insufficient. Several programs were threatened with losing accreditation due to a lack of funding, although schools of nursing (1979) and urban & public affairs (1983) were added.
  John W. Shumaker was named the university's president in 1995. Shumaker was a very successful fund raiser, and quickly increased the school's endowment from $183 to $550 million. He developed the REACH program to encourage retention. In 1997, he hired athletics director Tom Jurich, who restored the athletics program and raised over $100 million to raze abandoned factories and old parking lots next to campus and replace them with on-campus athletic facilities, which vastly improved the aesthetics of the Belknap Campus. Academically, Louisville moved closer to parity with the state's flagship University of Kentucky as retention rates and research funding increased, and average GPAs and ACT scores were much higher for incoming freshman.
  James R. Ramsey, the university's 17th president, continued the endowment and fund raising growth started by Shumaker. However, Ramsey added more emphasis on improving the physical aspects of the Belknap Campus. To this end, he started a million dollar "campus beautification project" which painted six overpasses on the Belknap Campus with a University of Louisville theme and planted over 500 trees along campus streets, and doubled the number of on-campus housing units. The university's federal research funding also doubled under Ramsey, and three buildings were built for nanotechnology and medical research. The university's graduation rate also increased from 30 percent in 1999 to 52 percent in 2012.
  On June 17, 2016, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin announced that the entire Board of Trustees of the university would be immediately disbanded and replaced and that Ramsey would be stepping down, and this was confirmed in a statement issued by Ramsey on the same day. Ramsey offered his resignation at a Board of Trustees meeting on July 27, 2016, which was accepted by the board. In December 2016, the university was placed on academic probation by its accrediting agency, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, over concerns that Governor Matt Bevin's actions had "violated rules that require that universities be independent". The probation was lifted a year later. The governor's actions were initially blocked by a judge but supported by new legislation passed by the Kentucky legislature in early 2017.
  In the summer of 2017, the university again came into the national spotlight as a series of scandals became public. The university's foundation, the organization that manages its endowment and investments, reported "millions of dollars in unbudgeted spending, unapproved activities and endowment losses" in an audit. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) suspended the head coach of the men's basketball team, Rick Pitino, for five games after an investigation revealed that a university employee paid escorts to strip and have sex with players and recruits. Shortly after the NCAA announced its findings and penalties, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the office of
caption: The Belknap Research Building, completed in 2005
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