’Hoos choose science: U.Va. works hard to train future leaders

While U.Va. is often seen as one of the premier liberal arts institutions in the world, it is perhaps a little-known fact that it also produces some of the best scientists in the country, according to Peter Brunjes, Commonwealth Professor of Psychology and associate dean for the sciences in the College.

“In an era when there are many concerns in education in science and technology, U.Va. has been working hard to train future leaders in these fields,” he says.

In 2004 the Howard Hughes Medical Institute surveyed people who had received Ph.D. degrees in science and engineering between 1996 and 2002 to determine where they had done their undergraduate work. The University ranked 25th among the top research universities, but when size of the undergraduate student body was taken into account, U.Va. ranked third among public institutions, behind the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Michigan.

The chemistry department, Brunjes points out, regularly ranks in the top 10 nationally in the number of undergraduate chemistry degrees awarded. In 2003, with about 85 majors graduating, the department was ranked third in the country by the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics and eighth by the American Chemical Society’s Committee on Professional Training.

The physics department has been cited as one of 21 “thriving” programs among those at more than 750 institutions surveyed by the National Task Force on Undergraduate Physics. In the past 13 years, 441 students, including 106 women, earned bachelor’s degrees in physics, and 90 of these students continued on to graduate school in physics. From 1992 through 1999, when the nationwide number of bachelor’s degrees in physics dropped 30 percent, U.Va.’s numbers increased by 50 percent. For the period 2001 to 2003 U.Va. ranked 11th in the United States for the number of physics majors, says Brunjes.

“Of course, once again, many of the schools higher in these rankings are much larger than U.Va.,” Brunjes adds. “Adjusted for size of the undergraduate body, U.Va. ranks fifth in the country in the number of graduating physics majors, and their numbers are rising every year.”