- published: 26 Aug 2014
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The University of Tennessee (also referred to as the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, UT Knoxville or UT) is a public land-grant university headquartered at Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1794, it is the flagship institution of the statewide University of Tennessee system with nine undergraduate colleges and eleven graduate colleges and hosts almost 28,000 students from all 50 states and more than 100 foreign countries. In its 2012 ranking of universities, U.S. News & World Report ranked UT 101st among all national universities and 46th among public institutions of higher learning. Its ties to Oak Ridge National Laboratory, established under UT President Andrew Holt and continued under the UT-Battelle partnership, allow for considerable research opportunities for faculty and students.
Also affiliated with the University are the Howard H. Baker, Jr. Center for Public Policy, the University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Facility, and the University of Tennessee Arboretum, which occupies 250 acres (1.0 km2) of nearby Oak Ridge and features hundreds of species of plants indigenous to the region. The University is a direct partner of the University of Tennessee Medical Center, it is one of two Level I trauma centers in the East Tennessee region. As a teaching hospital, it has aggressive medical research programs.
Tennessee (i/tɛnɨˈsiː/) (Cherokee: ᏔᎾᏏ) is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. Tennessee is the 36th most extensive and the 17th most populous of the 50 United States. Tennessee is bordered by Kentucky and Virginia to the north, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, and Arkansas and Missouri to the west. The Appalachian Mountains dominate the eastern part of the state, and the Mississippi River forms the state's western border. Tennessee's capital and second largest city is Nashville, which has a population of 626,144.Memphis is the state's largest city, with a population of 670,902.
The state of Tennessee is rooted in the Watauga Association, a 1772 frontier pact generally regarded as the first constitutional government west of the Appalachians. What is now Tennessee was initially part of North Carolina, and later part of the Southwest Territory. Tennessee was admitted to the Union as the 16th state on June 1, 1796. Tennessee was the last state to leave the Union and join the Confederacy at the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War in 1861, and the first state to be readmitted to the Union at the end of the war.