University of New Orleans

State Senator Theodore M. Hickey of New Orleans in 1956 authored the act which established the University of New Orleans. At the time New Orleans was the largest metropolitan area in the United States without a public university though it had several private universities, such as Tulane (which was originally a state-supported university before being privatized in 1884), Loyola, and Dillard. The institution was a branch of Louisiana State University, and as such was originally named Louisiana State University in New Orleans or LSUNO. The UNO University Ballroom was named in Hickey's honor late in 2014, more than two decades after his death.[7]

The university was built on the New Orleans Lakefront when the United States Navy relocated Naval Air Station New Orleans. The Orleans Levee Board leased the closed base to the LSU Board of Supervisors. The renovation went quicker than expected. LSUNO opened for classes in 1958, two years ahead of schedule. It was the first racially integrated public university in the South. For its first five years, it was reckoned as an offsite department of the main campus in Baton Rouge, and as such its chief administrative officer was originally called a dean (1958–1961), then a vice president in charge (1961–1962). In 1962, the LSU System of Higher Education was established, and LSUNO became a separate campus in that system. To signify that it was now a co-equal institution with LSU, its chief executive's title was changed from "vice president in charge" to "chancellor." After a decade of growth, the LSU Board of Supervisors approved a name change to the current University of New Orleans. Nearly fifty years later, in 2011, the University of New Orleans was transferred from LSU to the University of Louisiana system, and its chief executive's title was changed to "president."[8]

UNO has four colleges: College of Business Administration, College of Liberal Arts, Education and Human Development, College of Engineering, and College of Sciences. The university also offers a bachelor's degree in Interdisciplinary Studies.

The university's campus is located in the New Orleans metropolitan area, sitting on Lake Pontchartrain at the end of Elysian Fields Avenue and on the former site of NAS New Orleans. The UNO Research and Technology Park is located adjacent to campus on the former site of the Pontchartrain Beach amusement park. The Kiefer UNO Lakefront Arena and Maestri Field at Privateer Park, UNO's basketball and baseball facilities, are located at the corner of Franklin Avenue and Leon C. Simon Boulevard.

UNO's classes were originally housed in the remaining buildings following the closure of NAS New Orleans at that site. As a nod to campus' time as a Naval base, the oldest lecture buildings, the Liberal Arts Building and the Science Building, are both numbered and laid-out like a ship with Liberal Arts featuring exterior balconies for access to the classrooms as opposed to interior hallways, and both Liberal Arts and Science featuring two central courtyards in each building.[20] UNO's newer chemical-sciences annex is designed like a steam boat and many of the newer lecture buildings on campus have similar shapes to the original science and liberal arts buildings without the interior courtyards due to limited space on the main campus.

Throughout the years, additional buildings were built to accommodate a larger student body. These include Milneburg Hall (the original business building now a satellite building to the college of liberal arts), the University Center, the Earl K. Long Library, the Administration Building, the Geology/Psychology Building, the Engineering Building, the Life Sciences Complex (Phase 1: the Computer Center, Phase 2: the Biology Building, and Phase 3: the Mathematics Building), the Chemical-Sciences Annex, and Kirschman Hall (the new business building).

The College of Engineering building built in the 1970's is the tallest building on campus. It has a total of nine floors and is home to the university's Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering (NAME) Program (making it one of very few universities in the United States offering this program) among other engineering programs. The first floor is the largest floor featuring large workshop, labs, lobbies, and study spaces as well as the towing tank for the NAME program. Through the breezeway on the first floor is the home of the Dohse Auditorium. Floors two through nine are all part of one large tower in a straight line and are each not as big as the first floor.[21]

Two buildings on campus feature atrium designs as opposed to hallways. Kirschman Hall, the newest lecture building on campus and home of the College of Business Administration, features a large atrium in the center with a few satellite hallways connecting to it. It is considered to be the second largest lecture building on campus (after the engineering building).[22]

Furthermore, the University Center building, one of the centers of campus life, has an atrium in the center with dining locations and event spaces on one side and hallways with offices on the other.

UNO's Homer Hitt Alumni Center is built around a smoke-stack which remains from when campus was a Naval Base. The smoke-stack is the oldest structure on campus.

The University of New Orleans currently has 14 varsity sports teams, and is a Division I member of the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association), competing in the Southland Conference. UNO originally attempted to reclassify to Division II's Gulf South Conference.[26] On February 1, 2011, Provost Joe King submitted the Division II proposal to the LSU Board of Supervisors.[27] Previously, UNO competed at the Division II level from 1969 to 1975.[28] On March 9, 2012, President Peter J. Fos announced that UNO plans to remain a member of NCAA Division I, with potential homes being the Sun Belt or Southland Conference.[29] On August 21, 2012, UNO announced that it would be joining the Southland Conference, effective the 2013–2014 academic year.[30]

The University of New Orleans Research and Technology Park.

The University of New Orleans Research and Technology Park is a research park whose tenants collaborate with the university to conduct research, provide training, and create education opportunities.[32] Tenants have many university services provided to them, including the university library and recreational facilities.[33]

• Austin Badon – state representative for Orleans Parish since 2004; administrator at Nunez Community College since 2000[34]
• Pat Barry – UFC fighter and kickboxer
• Walter Boasso – former Louisiana state senator from St. Bernard Parish who made national headlines for fighting to combine levee boards in southeast Louisiana; gubernatorial candidate in 2007, Democrat
• Jericho Brown – poet, Pulitzer Prize winner
• Jim Bullinger – former Major League Baseball player
• Randy Bush – former Major League Baseball player; member of 1987 and 1991 World Series champion Minnesota Twins
• Joel Chaisson – former President of Louisiana State Senate, attorney
• James H. Clark – co-founder of Silicon Graphics, Inc., and Netscape Communications
• Wayne Cooper – former NBA basketball player
• Ellen DeGeneres – comedian, television host, and actress
• Jim Donelon – former state representative, former president of Jefferson Parish, and current state insurance commissioner
• Michael T. Dugan – educator and accounting scholar
• Margaret Evangeline – post-minimalist painter, video, performance, and installation artist
• Sabrina Farmer – Google Vice President[35]
• Ron Faucheux – former state representative, political consultant and pundit from New Orleans[36]
• Tom Fitzmorris – food writer[37]
• Peter J. Fos – former president, University of New Orleans
• Eva Galler - Jewish holocaust survivor
• Jeffrey Gangwisch – filmmaker
• Robert T. Garrity, Jr. – state representative for Jefferson Parish, 1988–1992
• Johnny Giavotella – Major League Baseball player for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
• Anthony Guarisco, Jr. – Democratic state senator from Morgan City from 1976 to 1988, studied political science at UNO while in office[38]
• Stephanie Hansen – environmental lawyer elected to Delaware State Senate in 2017
• Daniel L. Haulman – aviation historian
• Ervin Johnson – player in National Basketball Association
• Sal Khan – Founder of Khan Academy
• John Larroquette – film, television and stage actor, 5-time Emmy Award winner, Tony winner
• James Letten – former U.S. Attorney for Eastern district of Louisiana
• Nicholas Lorusso – Republican state representative from Orleans Parish since 2007
• Paul Mainieri – current Louisiana State University head baseball coach
• Valerie Martin – novelist
• Michelle Miller – National correspondent for CBS News
• Arthur Morrell – state representative from 1984 to 2006 and clerk of the criminal court since 2006 for Orleans Parish[39]
• Cynthia Hedge-Morrell – member of New Orleans City Council, 2005–2014
• Lance E. Nichols – actor
• Mark Normand – stand up comedian
• Frank Ocean – R&B and hip-hop artist
• Brian Palermo – American actor and comedian, and science communicator
• Michael Holloway Perronne – novelist
• Dawn Richard – singer-songwriter, Danity Kane, Dirty Money
• Jamison Ross – Grammy-nominated jazz drummer and vocalist
• Jeffrey D. Sadow – political scientist, columnist, professor at LSU Shreveport
• Billy Slaughter – actor
• Milton Dean Slaughter – theoretical physicist
• Joe Slusarski – former Major League Baseball player
• Brian Snitker – manager of MLB's Atlanta Braves
• Patricia Snyder – American sociologist
• Julie Stokes (Class of 1992) – certified public accountant, state representative from District 79 in Jefferson Parish[40]
• Roy C. Strickland – businessman and politician in Louisiana and later The Woodlands, Texas
• Taryn Terrell – professional wrestler
• Brian Traxler – former Major League Baseball player
• Chloé Valdary – political activist
• Wally Whitehurst – Major League Baseball pitcher for New York Mets[41]
• Darryl Willis – BP vice president in charge of claims featured in commercials about Deepwater Horizon oil spill

• Lance M. Africk, American judge
• Stephen E. Ambrose (January 10, 1936 – October 13, 2002) was an American historian and biographer of U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He was a longtime professor of history at the University of New Orleans and the author of many best selling volumes of American popular history.
• Fredrick Barton, American novelist and film critic
• Günter Bischof, Austrian-American historian
• Amanda Boyden, American novelist
• Joseph Boyden, Canadian writer
• Douglas Brinkley, American historian
• Robert Cashner, American zoologist
• John Churchill Chase, American cartoonist
• Richard H. Collin, American historian and food writer[42]
• Philip B. Coulter, American political scientist
• Robert Denhardt, American scholar
• Philip James DeVries, Biology Professor, MacArthur Fellow and Guggenheim Fellow, among other honors
• Robert L. Flurry, chemistry professor
• Peter J. Fos, American college president
• Paul Frick, American psychologist
• John Gery, American poet, critic, and editor
• Bruce C. Gibb, Scottish chemist
• Victor Goines, American jazz musician
• Gabriel Gómez, American poet
• Richard Goodman, American nonfiction writer
• Arnold R. Hirsch, American historian
• Toussaint Hočevar, Slovenian-American economic historian
• Richard A. Johnson, American artist
• Richard Katrovas, American writer
• Yusef Komunyakaa, American poet
• Joseph Logsdon, American historian
• Andreas Maislinger, Austrian historian
• Valerie Martin, American novelist
• Edward M. Miller, American economist
• Allan R. Millett, American historian
• Niyi Osundare, Nigerian writer
• Carla Penz, American entomologist
• Frank Schalow, American philosopher
• Milton Dean Slaughter – Theoretical Physicist, Affiliate Professor of Physics at Florida International University, Chair Emeritus and University Research Professor of Physics Emeritus at the University of New Orleans, LANL Assistant Theoretical Division Leader, EBASI Chair, APS and AAAS Fellow
• Alan Soble, American philosopher
• Nguyen TK Thanh, Vietnamese nanotechnologist
• David Wojahn, American poet

Wikimedia Commons has media related to University of New Orleans.

• Official website
• University of New Orleans Athletics website