At a glance

It’s been a game-changing year at Virginia Commonwealth University. Here are some of the highlights from 2012-13:

Faculty and student excellence

  • 7,372 degrees awarded
    • 330 doctoral, 440 first-professional and nearly 1,700 master’s degrees conferred
    • 19 percent more degrees than five years ago, despite a 2 percent smaller enrollment
    • 1,611 students with Latin honors
  • Six student Fulbright Scholars
    • 23 awarded since 2006
  • Two faculty Guggenheim Fellows
    • 12 awarded since 2002
  • University honored with first Higher Education Excellence in Diversity award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine
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Innovation

  • Sponsored research: $248 million
  • Invention disclosures (103), patents filed (152), patents issued (7), copyrights (7), licenses/options (11), research support agreements (16)
  • VCU da Vinci Center named an outstanding academic program in its Real World Experiences into Engineering Education publication
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Engagement

  • 723,414 community-engagement hours logged
  • Debut of ASPiRE (Academic Scholars Program in Real Environments) and VCU Globe, two new living-learning programs for undergraduates
  • Fourteen residents of Mosby Court, a public housing project, graduate from Mosby Leadership Program
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Development

  • $77.5 million in new gifts and pledges
  • Surpassed $20 million in support of the university’s new Institute for Contemporary Art
  • $4 million partnership with Health Diagnostic Laboratory Inc. to support VCU Athletics
  • $5 million gift to the Pauley Heart Center at the VCU Medical Center from the Pauley Family Foundation
  • More than 11,000 alumni association members
    • Most in university history
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Framework

  • Opening of 12-story, 200,000-square-foot James W. and Frances G. McGlothlin Medical Education Center
  • Earned a top spot on the Universitas Indonesia’s GreenMetric World University Ranking of sustainability, ranking No. 26 out of 215 universities worldwide and No. 10 out of 29 participating universities in the U.S.-based rankings
  • Opening of new high-tech Academic Learning Commons, which houses VCU’s School of Social Work, the Center for Teaching Excellence and Online@VCU, as well as numerous classrooms, collaborative study spaces and faculty offices
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Health care

  • Ranked a Best Hospital in Virginia for second consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report
  • Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU named Virginia’s first pediatric Level I trauma center, American College of Surgeons
  • 550,000 VCU Medical Center outpatient visits
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National attention

  • Named a 2014 “up-and-comer” among national universities in U.S. News & World Report’s annual “Best Colleges” rankings
  • Finished athletic season with a higher winning percentage than any other university in Virginia (.655)
  • Men’s basketball’s 35 consecutive home game sell-out streak, one of the longest in the nation
  • Campus visits from U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, filmmaker Spike Lee, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine and more
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