Northwestern University
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Northwestern University (NU) is a non-sectarian private research university located in Evanston, Illinois and downtown Chicago, Illinois, United States. Northwestern's main campus is a 240-acre (97 ha) parcel in Evanston, along the shore of Lake Michigan. Selected campuses of Northwestern's professional schools such as the School of Law, the Feinberg School of Medicine, and parts of the Kellogg School of Management are located in the Streeterville neighborhood of downtown Chicago.
Northwestern was founded in 1851 to serve the people of the Northwest Territory. A 379-acre (153 ha) tract of farmland along Lake Michigan 12 miles (19 km) north of Chicago was chosen as the new Evanston campus. The university is organized into eleven schools and colleges and in 2007, enrolled 8,284 undergraduate and 9,744 graduate and professional students and granted 2,089 bachelor's degrees and 3,543 graduate and professional degrees.[3] Northwestern employs 2,925 full-time faculty members and had $284 million in research expenditures in 2007.[2]
The Northwestern Wildcats compete in 19 intercollegiate sports in the NCAA's Division I Big Ten Conference.
History
Northwestern was founded in 1851 by Methodists from Chicago (including John Evans, after whom Evanston is named), and opened in Evanston in 1855 with two faculty members and ten students. The school’s nine founders, all of whom were Methodists (three of them ministers), knelt in prayer and worship before launching their first organizational meeting. The University's name, Northwestern, came from its founders' desire to serve citizens of the states that occupied the area of the former Northwest Territory: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota. The original Evanston campus in 1855 consisted of only one building, a temporary structure called "Old College." University Hall, the first permanent building, was constructed in 1869. Northwestern built a campus in Chicago for its graduate schools of law, medicine, and business in the 1920s.
The phrase on Northwestern's seal is Quaecumque sunt vera -- in Latin, "Whatsoever things are true" from Philippians 4:8. Also on Northwestern's seal is a Greek phrase inscribed on the pages of an open book: ho logos pleres charitos kai aletheias, which translates as "The Word... full of grace and truth." This phrase comes from the Gospel of John 1:14: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we behold His glory, and the glory was of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Both the Latin and Greek phrases express the values of the University's founders, and recall Northwestern's Methodist heritage.
Northwestern's founding charter granted the school a permanent exemption from paying property taxes. For this reason, Northwestern has often endured a difficult relationship with Evanston's government. Tensions have arisen regarding building codes, law enforcement, and politics. Recently, factions of Evanston's government have attempted to divide Northwestern's campus into several different wards, in order to reduce students' voting power.
In 1873, the Evanston College for Ladies merged with Northwestern, and Frances Willard, who later gained fame as a suffragist, became the school's first dean of women. Northwestern first became co-educational in 1869 at the insistence of Dean Erastus Haven, and the first female student graduated in 1874.
Purple became Northwestern's official school color in 1892, replacing black and gold; a university committee thought that too many other universities used those colors. Today, Northwestern only has one official color, royal purple. However, tradition has firmly established white as a de facto if not de jure official color. As a result, the University's Alma Mater mentions white in conjunction with purple ("Hail to purple, hail to white"), and both are listed in the university guidelines.
During the 1930s, Northwestern nearly merged with its academic rival, the University of Chicago. In 1933, Northwestern President Walter Scott and Chicago President Robert Hutchins concluded that in order to secure the future of both universities, it was in the best interest of both to merge as the Universities of Chicago, with Northwestern's Evanston campus serving undergraduates, Northwestern's Chicago campus serving professionals, and Chicago's Hyde Park campus serving postgraduates. What Scott and Hutchins initially envisioned as the preeminent university in the world was eventually extinguished by Northwestern's board of trustees, a result that Hutchins called "one of the lost opportunities of American education."
Northwestern hosted the first-ever NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship game in 1939. It took place in the original Patten Gymnasium, which was later demolished and relocated farther north in order to make room for the Technological Institute. In 1948, prominent anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits founded the Program of African Studies at Northwestern, the first center of its kind at an American academic institution. In May 1978, the first Unabomber attack occurred at Northwestern University. The following year, the second Unabomber attack also occurred at Northwestern.
In 1999, Northwestern student journalists uncovered information that exonerated Illinois death row inmate Anthony Porter two days before his scheduled execution. Since, the Medill Innocence Project has exonerated nine more innocent men. On January 11, 2003, in a speech at Northwestern School of Law's Lincoln Hall, Governor of Illinois George Ryan announced that he would commute the sentences of more than 150 death row inmates. Ryan said, "it is fitting that we are gathered here today at Northwestern University with the students, teachers, lawyers and investigators who first shed light on the sorrowful conditions of Illinois’ death penalty system."
Campuses
Evanston
Northwestern's Evanston campus, home to the undergraduate program, graduate school, and business school, runs north-south in between Lake Michigan and Sheridan Road from Clark Street to Central Street. The north side of campus is home to the campus' fraternity quads, the Henry Crown Sports Pavilion and other athletic facilities, the Technological Institute, Dearborn Observatory, and other science-related buildings including Ryan Hall, and the Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center. The south side of campus is home to the University's humanities buildings, music buildings (such as Pick-Staiger Concert Hall), art buildings (such as the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art), and sorority quads. This division in building location, along with the fact that the south end of campus is closer to the downtown center of Evanston, creates a cultural difference between the students typically found on either end of the campus. In the 1960s, the University expanded its campus boundaries by constructing a lakefill in Lake Michigan. The additional 84 acres (340,000 m2) are now home to the Northwestern University Library, Norris University Center, and Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, among other facilities.
The Chicago Transit Authority's elevated train running through Evanston is called the Purple Line, taking its name from Northwestern's school color. The Foster and Davis stations are within walking distance of the southern end of the campus, while the Noyes station is close to the northern end of the campus. The Central station is close to Ryan Field, Northwestern's football stadium. Northwestern's professional schools and hospital in downtown Chicago are about four blocks east of the Chicago station on the CTA Red Line. The Chicago Transit Authority and Pace Suburban Bus Service have several bus routes that run through both campuses. The Evanston Davis Street Metra station serves the Northwestern campus in downtown Evanston as well, and the Evanston Central Street Metra station is near Ryan Field.
Chicago
Northwestern's Chicago campus is located in the city's Streeterville neighborhood, with close proximity to landmarks such as the John Hancock Center and Michigan Avenue. The Chicago campus is home to the medical school and hospital, the law school, the part-time business school, and the School of Continuing Studies, which offers evening and weekend courses for working adults. Its Ward Building was the first academic skyscraper in the country.
Qatar
In fall 2008, Northwestern opened a campus in Education City, Doha, Qatar joining five other American universities: Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, Georgetown University, Texas A&M University, and Virginia Commonwealth University. The Medill School of Journalism and School of Communication offer bachelors degrees in journalism and communication respectively without matriculants ever attending the American campus. The Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development provided funding for construction and administrative costs as well as support to hire 50 to 60 faculty and staff, some of whom will rotate between the Evanston and Qatar campuses.
Organization and administration
Northwestern is owned and governed by a privately-appointed board of trustees. The current board, with 70 members and chaired by Patrick G. Ryan, delegates its power to an elected President to serve as the chief executive officer of the university Northwestern has had fifteen presidents in its history (excluding interim presidents) and the current president, Henry Bienen, has served in the office since January 1995. President Bienen announced his intention to retire effective August 31, 2009 and Morton O. Schapiro will assume the role on September 1, 2009. The president currently has an immediate staff of 21 vice presidents, directors, and other assistants for administrative, financial, faculty, and student matters. The Provost, Daniel I. Linzer since September 2007, serves under the President as the chief academic officer of the university and is the office to which the deans of every academic school, leaders of cross-disciplinary units, and chairs of the 17 standing faculty committees report.
The University Senate is composed of all full-time faculty and makes recommendations on matters of educational policy, recommends candidates for honorary degrees, and can elect special committees such as the 22-member General Faculty Committee which serves as a liaison between the faculty and administration. The Associated Student Government and Graduate Student Association are likewise the elected, representative liaison bodies for undergraduate and graduate students respectively to the university administration.
Northwestern University is composed of 11 schools and colleges. The faculty for each school consists of the university president, provost, the dean of the school, and the instructional faculty. Faculty are responsible for teaching, research, advising students, and serving on committees. The admission requirements, degree requirements, course of study, disciplinary and degree recommendations are determined by the voting members of each school's faculty (assistant professor and above).
In 2007, Northwestern's endowment increased by 11.4% to $7.243 billion, making it the 8th-largest endowment of all American universities. In the eleven year period between 1997 and 2007, the endowment grew by an average rate of 13.4%. $187.9 million is gifts and other voluntary support were made to Northwestern in 2006–2007.In 2007, the university sold its royalty interest in the pain relief drug Lyrica (developed at Northwestern by Professor Richard Bruce Silverman) for $700 million, the largest royalty sale in history, and the proceeds placed in the endowment to support financial aid, research, and construction.
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