Utrecht, State University of

Utrecht, State University of 

one of the oldest and largest universities in The Netherlands. The University of Utrecht, founded in 1636, was given the status of a royal university in 1815 and became a state university in 1961. In 1974 it comprised faculties of law, medicine, veterinary medicine, science, theology, arts, and social sciences. It had 110 subdepartments, clinics, and laboratories, a botanical garden, and three museums. The university library, founded in 1581, contains 900,000 volumes and 2,500 manuscripts. In the 1974–75 academic year, more than 12,900 students were enrolled in the university, and the faculty consisted of more than 500 teachers, including 284 professors.