U.S. public university founded in Charlottesville by Thomas Jefferson .
It was chartered in 1819 and opened in 1825. Jefferson designed its beautiful campus and buildings, planned the curriculum, and selected the faculty. By the time of the Civil War, the university was second only to Harvard in size of faculty and student body. It first admitted women in 1970. In addition to its college of arts and sciences, it has schools of architecture, education, engineering and applied sciences, and nursing, as well as a business school, a graduate school, and schools of law and medicine.