University of Vermont

18th century The University of Vermont was founded as a private university in 1791, the same year Vermont became the fourteenth U.S. state. The university enrolled its first students ten years later. 19th century Its first president, Daniel C. Sanders, was hired in 1800, and served as the sole faculty member for seven years. Instruction began in 1801, and the first class graduated in 1804. In 1865, the university merged with Vermont Agricultural College (chartered November 22, 1864, after the passage of the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act of 1862), emerging as the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College. The university was granted 150,000 acres, which it sold for $122,626. Much of the initial funding and planning for the university was undertaken by Ira Allen, who is honored as UVM's founder. Allen donated a parcel of land for establishment of the university. Most of this land has been maintained as the university's main green, where stands a statue of Allen. UVM was the first American institution of higher education with a charter declaring that the "rules, regulations, and by-laws shall not tend to give preference to any religious sect or denomination whatsoever". Justin Smith Morrill, a U.S. Representative (1855–1867), and Senator (1867–1898) from Vermont, author of the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act that created federal funding for establishing the U.S. land-grant colleges and universities, served as a trustee of the university from 1865 to 1898. 20th century In 1924, UVM's WCAX, now called WVMT, sent out the first radio broadcast in Vermont. It was run by UVM students and faculty before being sold in 1931. WCAX is now the call sign of a commercial television station. A new radio station was set up in 1955, dubbed WRUV. It currently runs an FM broadcast at 90.1 MHz and an internet stream at wruv.org. The station, run by students, faculty, and local community members, dubs itself ''Burlington's Better Alternative''. It is known for playing a wide range of music, boasting "the largest catalog in the State of Vermont" at over 50,000 albums. In March 1957, student protests against a motel owner who refused service to an African-American woman led the Vermont General Assembly to outlaw discrimination in public accommodations. For 73 years, UVM held an annual "Kake Walk" where students wore blackface, until the practice was abolished in 1969 under pressure from the student body and the community. In 1972, the board of trustees intervened again to deny tenure to Michael Parenti, a popular Marxist political science professor who drew ire from the authorities due to his participation in anti-war demonstrations. The board overrode the recommendation of the faculty, the deans' council and the administration. Parenti later brought a federal suit against the university, which was settled out of court for $15,000. Student protests against investment in apartheid culminated in the construction of a "shantytown" on the green across from the Waterman building on October 12, 1985. On December 6, the board voted 12-7 to divest. 21st century UVM has undertaken several other divestment actions due to advocacy from student groups, including divestment from "Sudan-friendly" companies in 2006, during the Darfur genocide, and divestment from cluster munitions and depleted uranium weapons in 2009, during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In 2013 and 2016, trustees rejected calls to divest from fossil fuels. On July 1, 2019, Suresh Garimella was appointed UVM's 27th president. Under his tenure, the university faced record enrollment and a 50 percent increase in research funding to $250 million; however, he has been criticized for his public relations with students and faculty. In 2021, the university administration imposed budget cuts that terminated three departments, 12 majors, 11 minors and four master's degree programs in the College of Arts and Sciences. In 2020, under pressure from a student campaign, UVM trustees voted unanimously to divest from fossil fuels by July 2023. The investigation concluded in April 2023, after the university and the Office of Civil Rights settled in a voluntary resolution. A press release from the Department of Education stated that the university failed to adequately respond to incidents. University administrators denied the allegations, insisting that they responded appropriately. The university agreed to adopt new practices around bias reporting, edit their discrimination and harassment policies, and provide extra training to staff and students, but it did not adopt the demands of the complainant. The Department of Education did not make a finding of guilt or wrongdoing or create new federal policy in closing the investigation. In October 2023, UVM's Division of Safety and Compliance abruptly canceled a planned guest lecture by Palestinian author Mohammed El-Kurd, citing an inability to provide adequate "safety and security" for the event. An investigative report by Seven Days found no evidence of threats related to the event. The university's graduate students voted to unionize with the UAW in March 2024. In April 2024, UVM's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine established a protest encampment on the Andrew Harris Commons, demanding transparency in the university's endowment and divestment from "all weapons manufacturers, Israeli companies, and companies involved in the occupation of historic Palestine." They also demanded that the university cancel a planned commencement speech by Linda Thomas-Greenfield. ==Seal==