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Northwestern University

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For other schools named Northwestern please see Northwestern College.
Northwestern University
Official Seal of Northwestern University
MottoQuaecumque sunt vera (Latin: Whatsoever things are true)
TypePrivate
Established1851
Endowment$4.92 billion
PresidentHenry S. Bienen
Undergraduates7,947
Postgraduates5,460
Location
Evanston
,
Illinois
,
USA
CampusSuburban, 240 acres
AthleticsWildcats
ColorsPurple and White
MascotWillie the Wildcat
Websitewww.northwestern.edu

Northwestern University also known as Northwestern or NU is a private, coeducational, non-sectarian research university, located in Evanston, Illinois and Chicago, Illinois. Northwestern's main campus is a 240-acre (970,000 m²) parcel in Evanston, along the shore of Lake Michigan. Several of Northwestern's professional schools are located in Chicago, on a 25-acre (101,000 m²) campus near the Magnificent Mile. As of 2005, Northwestern's endowment and other trust funds total approximately $4.92 billion.

Northwestern University enrolls approximately 15,000 full-time students (including approximately 8,000 undergraduates) and employs nearly 7,100 faculty and staff members.

Northwestern's student newspaper is The Daily Northwestern, its student radio station is WNUR and its student television news network is NNN. It is a member of the Big Ten Conference for college athletics. The official school color is purple.

History

The Arch at Northwestern's Evanston campus

Founded in 1851 by Methodists from Chicago (including John Evans, after whom Evanston is named), Northwestern opened in 1855 with two faculty members and ten students. 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 Minnesota.

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, 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, so as to reduce students' voting potency.

During the 1930s, Northwestern nearly merged with academic rival, the University of Chicago. In 1933, Northwestern president Scott and Chicago president 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 boards of trustees, a result that Hutchins called "one of the lost opportunities of American education." [2]

In 1948, prominent athropologist Melville J. Herskovits founded the Program of African Studies at Northwestern, the first center of its kind at an American academic institution.

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." [3] In the late 1990s, Northwestern student journalists uncovered information that exonerated Illinois death row inmate Anthony Porter two days before his scheduled execution.

The Chicago Transit Authority's elevated train running through Evanston is called the Purple Line, inheriting its name from Northwestern's school color. Although the majority of the campus sits two to four city blocks from the Purple Line, the Foster station is 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 stop on the CTA Red Line.

Student body

The Montgomery Ward Building at the Feinberg School of Medicine--America's first academic skyscraper. [1]

Northwestern's admissions are among the "most selective" in the nation, according to U.S. News and World Report. Among national undergraduate programs, the publication ranked Northwestern 11th overall in selectivity. As of the 2005-06 academic year, there are 7,947 undergraduates and 5,460 graduate students enrolled full-time. 909 students were enrolled part-time in the School of Continuing Studies.

In early April, it was confirmed that for the undergraduate class of 2010, there were 18,419 total applicants, up 18% from the year before. 5,200 students were admitted (about 28%).

In the class of 2009, 6.4% are black, 17.4% are Asian, 6.5% are Hispanic and 1.8% are multiracial. The class is 52.1% female and 47.9% male. The mean high school rank was the 94th percentile and the combined SAT score 1402 (out of 1600), marking the highest SAT average of any class in Northwestern history and making Northwestern the most selective Big Ten university, and the most selective university in the American Midwest. Of those enrolled in the class of 2009, 126 graduated as valedictorian of their high school class.

According to numbers posted by the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, 36% of Northwestern students were affiliated with a fraternity or a sorority in Spring 2005. This is the highest percentage of students involved in Greek life among Big Ten universities.

Campus Life

Student theater enjoys a highly visible presence on campus. Two annual productions are especially notable: the Waa-Mu show, and the Dolphin Show. Waa-Mu is an original musical, written and produced almost entirely by students. The Dolphin Show is the nation's largest student produced musical. Children's theater is represented on campus by Griffin’s Tale and the recently formed Purple Crayon Players. In addition, Northwestern boasts the largest student-theatre community in the nation. Students produce over sixty independent productions each year. Many Northwestern alumni have used these productions as stepping stones to successful television and film careers. Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre was founded by alum David Schwimmer and began in the Great Room in Jones Fine and Performing Arts Residential College. The improv and sketch comedy group Mee-Ow lists Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Dermot Mulroney, Ana Gasteyer, and Seth Meyers amongst its alumni.

Athletics

File:Northwesternb10.gif
Northwestern University Wildcats

A charter member of the Big Ten Conference and the only private institution in the conference, Northwestern has 19 intercollegiate athletic teams (8 men's and 11 women's) and numerous club sports. The football team plays at Ryan Field; the basketball and volleyball teams play at Welsh-Ryan Arena. Northwestern's athletic teams are nicknamed the Wildcats. Before 1924, they were known as "The Purple" and unofficially as "The Fighting Methodists." The name Wildcats was bestowed upon the university in 1924 by a writer for the Chicago Tribune who wrote that even in a loss to the University of Chicago Maroons, the Northwestern football players looked like "Wildcats [that] had come down from Evanston." The name was so popular that university board members made "wildcats" the official nickname just months later.

The Northwestern Athletics' mascot is Willie the Wildcat. However, the team's first mascot was not Willie, but a live, caged bear cub from the Lincoln Park Zoo named Furpaw. In fall 1923, Furpaw was driven to the playing field to greet the fans before each game. After a losing season, the team decided that Furpaw was the harbinger of bad luck and banished him from campus.

See Northwestern Wildcats for additional sports information.

Rankings

File:Lm entry10.jpg
Levy Mayer Hall

According to US News & World Report, as of 2007, Northwestern's undergraduate program ranks 14th among all American "National University" undergraduate programs. Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management consistently ranks in the top five for business schools. Northwestern's School of Law consistently ranks among America's top ten law schools; the Feinberg School of Medicine consistently ranks among the top twenty medical schools; Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism ranks among America's top three journalism schools, and Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy ranks in the top 10. Also, US News & World Report ranks Northwestern's Materials science program in the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science 2nd overall, and its graduate program in African history the best in the nation. Northwestern's School of Music often ranks first among non-conservatory-based music programs. Other esteemed programs include Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences (MMSS), Learning Sciences, Engineering, Theatre, Communications, Psychology, Art History, and Integrated Science (ISP).

According to the Princeton Review's undergraduate rankings, Northwestern ranks among the Top 20 schools with the "Best College Newspaper," the "Best College Theater," and where "Town-Gown Relations are Strained."

In international university rankings, The Times Higher Education Supplement's ranks Northwestern 19th in the United States and 49th in the world, while The Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranks Northwestern 23rd in the United States, and 31st in the world. Newsweek Magazine ranks Northwestern university as the world's 35th most global university, and the 23rd most global university in the USA. [1]

Traditions

Northwestern University student traditions include:

  • Painting The Rock to advertise student groups and on-campus events
  • Jingling car keys at sports games. This began as an arrogant taunt; Big Ten rivals often bested Northwestern at football, and the keys implied "while your school may win the football game, in a few years your school's graduates will be parking Northwestern graduates' cars."
  • Taunting opposing sports teams with "State-school, state-school," referencing that all institutions of the Big Ten conference, except for Northwestern, are public universities.
  • Dance Marathon, a 30-hour event philanthropic event, raises several hundred thousand dollars every winter.
  • Primal Scream is held at 9 p.m. on the Sunday before finals week every quarter. For the event, students lean out windows or gather in court yards and scream bloody murder.
  • Armadillo Day, or more commonly Dillo Day, is held on Northwestern's Lakefill every Spring on the weekend before Memorial Day.

Schools, colleges and departments

Undergraduate programs

Graduate and professional programs

Notable alumni

Main article: List of Northwestern alumni

Notable faculty

See also

Professional Schools

Undergraduate and Graduate

Miscellaneous

Notes

  1. ^ Education news & resources at the Times Higher Education Supplement, Top 500 World Universities, The World's 100 Most Global Universities retrieved Aug 18 2006

References

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