The University of Wyoming is a nationally recognized educational and research institution that boasts accomplished faculty and world-class facilities.
The University of Wyoming was founded in 1886, when Wyoming was still a territory. In September 1887, UW opened its doors to 42 students and 5 faculty members-as befitted the university of "The Equality State" both the students and faculty included women from the first day. Built on the outskirts of town in Laramie's city park, Old Main was UW's first building and held classes, the library, and administrative offices during the first years of the University's existence.
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The first university president, John Wesley Hoyt, established a curriculum focused on arts and humanities and created a graduate and normal school. Additionally, as Wyoming's land-grant institution, the University taught courses in agriculture, engineering, and military tactics.
UW has since grown into a major teaching and research university with approximately 13,000 students and over 700 faculty members. Throughout its existence, UW has been the only four year university in the state of Wyoming, though it has maintained a close and cordial relationship with the state's community colleges. Programs such as athletics, agricultural extension, state and federal partnerships-and more recently such initiatives as the School of Energy Resources and the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center-have played important roles in the lives of many Wyoming residents and communities for more than 125 years.
(March 2009): The University of Wyoming aspires to be one of the nation's finest public land-grant research universities. We serve as a statewide resource for accessible and affordable higher education of the highest quality; rigorous scholarship; technology transfer; economic and community development; and responsible stewardship of our cultural, historical, and natural resources. In the exercise of our primary mission to promote learning, we seek to provide academic and co-curricular opportunities that will:
- Expose students to the frontiers of scholarship and creative activity and the complexities of an interdependent world;
- Ensure individual interactions among students, faculty, and staff;
- Nurture an environment that values and manifests diversity, free expression, academic freedom, personal integrity, and mutual respect; and
- Promote opportunities for personal growth, physical health, athletic competition, and leadership development for all members of the university community.
As Wyoming's only university, we are committed to outreach and service that extend our human talent and technological capacity to serve the people in our communities, our state, the nation, and the world. The primary vehicles for identifying the specific actions and resource allocations needed to accomplish this complex mission are the university's strategic plans, revised periodically.
Higher Education
