, the main library on campus
Early history The University of Rochester traces its origins to The First Baptist Church of
Hamilton, New York, which was founded in 1796. The church established the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York, later renamed the
Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, in 1817. This institution gave birth to both Madison University and the University of Rochester. Its function was to train clergy in the Baptist tradition. When it aspired to grant higher degrees, it created a collegiate division separate from the
theological division. The collegiate division was granted a charter by the State of New York in 1846, after which its name was changed to
Madison University. The University of Rochester's new charter was awarded by the Regents of the State of New York on January 31, 1850. The charter stipulated that the university have $100,000 in endowment within five years, upon which the charter would be reaffirmed. An initial gift of $10,000 was pledged by John Wilder, which helped catalyze significant gifts from individuals and institutions. For the next 10 years, the college expanded its scope and secured its future through an expanding endowment, student body, and faculty. In parallel, a gift of 8 acres of farmland from local businessman and Congressman
Azariah Boody secured the first campus of the university, upon which Anderson Hall was constructed and dedicated in 1862. Over the next sixty years, this Prince Street Campus grew by a further 17 acres and was developed to include fraternities houses, dormitories, and academic buildings including Anderson Hall, Sibley Library, Eastman and Carnegie Laboratories, the
Memorial Art Gallery, and Cutler Union. of
Rush Rhees Library 20th century The first female students were admitted in 1900, the result of an effort led by famous suffragist
Susan B. Anthony and
Helen Barrett Montgomery. During the 1890s, a number of women took classes and labs at the university as "visitors" but were not officially enrolled nor were their records included in the college register. President
David Jayne Hill allowed the first woman, Helen E. Wilkinson, to enroll as a normal student, although she was not allowed to matriculate or pursue a degree. Thirty-three women enrolled among the first class in 1900, and Ella S. Wilcoxen was the first to receive a degree, in 1901. The first female member of the faculty was
Elizabeth Denio who retired as professor emeritus in 1917. Male students moved to River Campus upon its completion in 1930 while the female students remained on the Prince Street campus until 1955. Anthony's work left a lasting impression on the university, with multiple awards, buildings and centers being named after her.
Expansion Major growth occurred under the leadership of
Benjamin Rush Rhees over his 1900–1935 tenure. During this period,
George Eastman, innovator and entrepreneur who founded the
Eastman Kodak Company, became a major donor, giving more than $50 million to the university during his life. Under the patronage of Eastman, the Eastman School of Music was created in 1921. In 1925, at the behest of the
General Education Board and with significant support from
John D. Rockefeller, George Eastman, and
Henry A. Strong's family, medical and dental schools were created. The university awarded its first
PhD that same year. During
World War II, the institution was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the
V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission. In 1942, the university was invited to join the
Association of American Universities as an affiliate member and it was made a full member by 1944. Between 1946 and 1947, in infamous
uranium experiments, researchers at the university injected
uranium-234 and
uranium-235 into six people to study how much uranium their kidneys could tolerate before becoming damaged. In 1955, the separate colleges for men and women were merged into the college on the River Campus. In 1958, three new schools were created in engineering, business administration, and education. With guidance provided by
Lewis White Beck at this time, the university also acquired widespread international recognition for the excellence of its Ph.D. program in Philosophy as well as close research collaborations with
Kantian scholars throughout Germany and the United States. The Graduate School of Management was named after
William E. Simon, former
Secretary of the Treasury in 1986. He committed significant funds to the school because of his belief in the school's free market philosophy and grounding in economic analysis. Under the leadership of
William Riker, the Department of Political Science went from a six-person faculty with no graduate program to one of the most exciting political science departments in the United States. Riker established a new undergraduate program and trained an extraordinary number of graduate students. What emerged at the university, in the words of
University of Georgia's
Keith T. Poole and Princeton's
Howard Rosenthal, was "the best doctoral program in political science in the world." According to
Berkeley professors
Nelson Polby and
Eric Shickler, Rochester professor
Richard Fenno "contributed more to the understanding of the U.S. Congress than any other scholar in the more than 200 years since the founding of the American nation".
Name change controversy Following the princely gifts given throughout his life, George Eastman left the entirety of his estate to the university after his death by suicide. The total of these gifts surpassed $100 million, before inflation, and, as such, the university enjoyed a privileged position amongst the most well-endowed universities. During the expansion years between 1936 and 1976, the University of Rochester's financial position ranked third, near
Harvard University's endowment and the
University of Texas System's
Permanent University Fund. Due to financial mismanagement combined with a decline in the value of large investments and a lack of portfolio diversity, the university's place dropped to the top 25 by the end of the 1980s. In response, university president
Thomas H. Jackson announced the launch of a "Renaissance Plan" for the college that reduced enrollment from 4,500 to 3,600, creating a more selective admissions process. The plan also revised the undergraduate curriculum significantly, creating the current system with only one required course and only a few distribution requirements, known as clusters. Part of this plan called for the end of graduate doctoral studies in chemical engineering, comparative literature, linguistics, and mathematics, The plan was largely scrapped and mathematics exists as a graduate course of study to this day.
21st century Shortly after taking office, university president
Joel Seligman commenced the private phase of the Meliora Challenge, a $1.2 billion capital campaign, in 2005. The campaign reached its goal in 2015, a year before the campaign was slated to conclude. After and during the completion of the challenge, the university embarked on a new phase of construction, resulting in the addition of significant campus facilities. This expansion included the construction of two new student dormitories, O'Brien Hall (2013) and Genesee Hall (2017). Furthermore, other additions included Wegmans Hall (2016), a new building for the Computer and Data Science Departments, LeChase Hall (2013), designed to host the Warner School of Education, and Rettner Hall (2013). The university also expanded the Medical Center, constructing a new
Children's Hospital, cancer center and research building. On September 1, 2017, a complaint was filed by eight current and former faculty members at the University of Rochester with the United States
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The complaint includes allegations of sexual misconduct/harassment by a tenure track faculty member, and condemnation of the response of the university administration. The university's initial public response to the complaint was a claim that the allegations were thoroughly investigated and could not be substantiated. A new, independent investigation found the individuals covered in the report had not violated policy; however, significant recommendations were made to push the university towards leadership in policy regarding relationships between faculty, staff, employees, and students. On the same day as the release of the report, university president
Joel Seligman publicly announced his previously tendered resignation. In 2019, federal judge
Lawrence Vilardo ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on 15 of 16 legal claims, allowing their lawsuit to proceed. After a mediation process, the lawsuit was settled in 2020 when the university agreed to pay the plaintiffs $9.4 million, and thanked them for their efforts. As of January 2026, the individual accused in the above matters remains a member of the university's faculty.
Sarah C. Mangelsdorf succeeded Feldman as president of the university in 2019. Mangelsdorf is the first woman to serve as president of the university. In 2021, the Sloan Performing Arts Center opened, providing space for theatrical programs, dance programs, concerts, and other activities and serves as a home for the Institute for the Performing Arts. In 2023, the university completed the $51.5m purchase of College Town, a 312,000-square-foot, mixed-use complex near the Medical Center and began work on a $42m expansion of the Laboratory for Laser Energetics. After student protests against the Israel–Hamas war in November 2023, University of Rochester students
joined other campuses across the United States in setting up encampments on campus. The university suspended and banned several students from campus for participating in the protests. The Department of Public Safety also arrested four students on felony criminal mischief charges in November 2024 for allegedly plastering "wanted" posters across campus that the university denounced as "antisemitic".
Strong Memorial Hospital, the main teaching hospital at the university, is currently undergoing its largest expansion, tripling the size of its
Emergency department and adding a new, nine-story patient tower, which is the largest capital project in university history. In 2024,
Tom Golisano announced that he had made a $50 million donation, the largest single gift in the university's history, to build the Golisano Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Institute and expand care for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the Rochester region. ==Administration==