Top Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» NewsCenter Stories of 2016
We say goodbye to 2016 with the top 10 Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» NewsCenter stories of the year.
Here are the top 10 Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» NewsCenter stories from the past year.
The Great Give, Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»â€™s first-ever day of philanthropy, raised nearly $140,000 from more than 700 gifts. The 24-hour online event on Oct. 25 benefitted students, faculty, research, and important campus programs.
Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»â€™s premier orchestral and wind ensembles united with the Aztec Concert Choir to present an evening unlike any other for San Diego music lovers. Featuring more than 250 musicians, the mega-concert took place at the Jacobs Music Center in the historic Copley Symphony Hall.
Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» graduation rates rose to a record-high, with approximately 74 percent of first-time freshmen graduating in six years or less, up from 68 percent last year. This year’s cohort of 5,011 first-time freshmen have an average 3.7 high school GPA and an average two-part SAT score of 1,117.
A team led by astronomers from Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight identified the new planet, Kepler-1647 b, which is the largest planet in size and orbit of any circumbinary planet discovered to date. Kepler-1647 b is 3,700 light years away and approximately 4.4 billion years old, roughly the same age as the Earth.
In the most recent Institute for International Education’s Open Doors report, Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» ranks No. 9 in the nation for total number of students studying abroad. When compared to the percentage of university enrollment, Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» ranks No. 1 for public universities.
For the first time in history, Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» was listed as one of the nation’s best institutions for undergraduate education by the Princeton Review. Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» was rated highly for its admissions, academics, financial aid, quality of life and sustainability efforts.
Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» defeated Wyoming, 27-24, to win its second consecutive Mountain West Conference championship. The conference title was Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»â€™s third in the last five years and the 21st in program history.
An endowment from the National Institutes of Health will help Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» build its capacity to conduct pioneering public health research and become a hub for health disparities research for years to come.
U.S. News & World Report released its annual rankings of America’s Best Colleges, listing Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» at No. 74 among public universities and No. 146 overall among national universities. Since 2011, Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» has climbed 37 spots on the annual list.
Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» received the largest philanthropic gift in its history. Local philanthropist and San Diego Padres executive chairman Ron Fowler and his wife, Alexis, pledged a $25 million endowment gift to Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»â€™s College of Business Administration.
