VCU at a glance

Located on two downtown campuses in Richmond, Va., Virginia Commonwealth University is the state’s most comprehensive and diverse urban university and offers its nearly 32,000 students programs in the arts, business, education, engineering, humanities, mass communications, government, public affairs, life sciences, social work, world studies, medicine, and all the health sciences. 

VCU is the fastest growing university in Virginia's higher education system, and nearly 63 of the university's programs are unique in the state, including VCU’s new Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness major. VCU is home to Virginia’s only School of Public Health. Innovative collaborations between the schools and campuses create groundbreaking interdisciplinary programs and build strong networks of students, professors, researchers and community leaders. One example is VCU Life Sciences, a comprehensive undergraduate, graduate and doctoral program involving academic and medical facilities.

VCU is ranked among the top 100 universities in the country in sponsored research, with more than $227 million in sponsored programs during fiscal year 2007. 

The VCU Medical Center is one of the nation’s leading academic medical centers and stands alone as the only academic medical center in Central Virginia.  The medical center includes the 780-bed MCV Hospitals and outpatient clinics, MCV Physicians -- a 600-physician-faculty group practice, and the health sciences schools of Virginia Commonwealth University.  The VCU Medical Center, through its VCU Health System, offers state-of-the art care in more than 200 specialty areas, many of national and international note, including organ transplantation, head and spinal cord trauma, burn healing and cancer treatment. The VCU Medical Center is the site for the region’s only Level 1 Trauma Center. It offers patients the opportunity to choose to participate in programs that advance evolving treatment, such as those sponsored by the National Cancer Institute through VCU’s Massey Cancer Center, Virginia’s first NCI-designated cancer center.  The VCU Medical Center’s academic mission is supported by VCU’s health sciences schools of medicine, allied health, dentistry, pharmacy and nursing. 

VCU’s 16 varsity sports compete at the NCAA Division I level as members of the Colonial Athletic Association.  In recent years, VCU has participated in NCAA tournaments in basketball, baseball, golf, volleyball, men’s and women’s soccer and men’s and women’s tennis.

VCU is an urban leader, forging ties with business, industry and government in such innovative projects as the VCU School of Engineering and the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park.  With the completion of the new Philip Morris Research and Technology Center, the Park is now two-thirds developed and encompasses more than 1.2 million square feet of space in nine buildings and houses more than 2,000 scientists, researchers, engineers and technicians in fields that include drug development, medical diagnostics, biomedical engineering, forensics and environmental analysis.

The university is the largest-single employer in the Richmond area, with nearly 17,000 employees, including more than 1,700 full-time instructional faculty – many of them nationally and internationally recognized in their fields.  Dr. John B. Fenn, research professor in the department of chemistry and affiliate professor of chemical engineering, was one of three international scientists to be awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in chemistry. 

 

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