University of Chicago
| Shield of the University of Chicago | |
| Motto | Crescat scientia; vita excolatur (Latin for "Let knowledge grow from more to more; and so be human life enriched") |
|---|---|
| Type | Private coeducational |
| Established | 1890 by John D. Rockefeller |
| Endowment | $4.5 billion |
| President | Don Michael Randel (sitting), Robert J. Zimmer (elect) |
| Undergraduates | 4,672 |
| Postgraduates | 9,855 |
| Location | , , |
| Campus | Urban, 211 acres (850,000 m²) |
| Colors | Maroon and White |
| Nickname | Maroon |
| Mascot | Phoenix |
| Website | www.uchicago.edu |
The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1890, the University of Chicago opened its doors on October 2, 1892. The university was conceived as a combination of the American interdisciplinary liberal-arts college and German graduate research university models.
Historically, the university has been particularly noted for its unique undergraduate "core curriculum," and other educational innovations introduced by Robert Maynard Hutchins during the 1930s; for its contributions to the Manhattan Project during the Second World War; and for influential academic movements such as "The Chicago School of Economics", "The Chicago School of Literary Criticism", "The Chicago School of Sociology", and the Law and Economics movement in legal analysis.
Overview
The University of Chicago is located seven miles south of downtown Chicago, in the neighborhoods of Hyde Park and Woodlawn. The campus is noted for its neo-Gothic architecture, which was constructed entirely out of limestone.
The buildings of the historic Main Quadrangle were deliberately patterned after the layouts of Oxford University and Cambridge University. The Mitchell Tower, for example, is a smaller-sized reproduction of Oxford's Magdalen Tower,[1] and the University Commons, Hutchinson Hall, is a duplicate of Oxford's Christ Church Hall.[2]
Contemporary buildings have attempted to complement the style of the original architecture, often with varying degrees of success. One of the most striking modern additions is the Regenstein Library, designed by architect Walter Netsch and constructed on the grounds of the former Stagg Field.
The campus is home to several significant buildings, including Bertram Goodhue's Rockefeller Memorial Chapel (notable for its solid stone construction), the Oriental Institute, and Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House. The campus is bisected by the Midway Plaisance, a large linear public park that hosted the 1893 World's Fair.
The bulk of the campus, including the main quadrangle, is located north of the Midway, while several of the professional schools are located south of the Midway.
A recent two billion dollar campaign has brought unprecedented expansion to the school, including the unveiling of a new dormitory (primarily for first-year students), a new athletic center, a new hospital, and a new science building. The University plans to direct the next stage of its campaign towards revamping and consolidating dormitories, many of which are far from campus and aging poorly. Plans are underway for the construction of a new dormitory on land south of the Midway. [1]
The university's Yerkes Observatory, constructed in 1897, is home to the largest refracting telescope ever built (though Yerkes was never able to match the observation conditions afforded by the mountaintop location of its main competitor, the Lick Observatory). In March of 2005, the university announced plans to sell the observatory and its land.
In February 2006, the university announced its bid for a U.S. Department of Energy contract to obtain complete management rights to the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, which maintains the Tevatron, the world's highest-energy particle accelerator. Fermilab is currently one of the world's primary scientific research centers in the fields of elementary particle physics and astrophysics. [2]
In 2003, the university's Paris Center opened. The Paris Center, a campus located on the left bank of the Seine in Paris, hosts various undergraduate and graduate study and research programs.
In 2005, construction began on a ten-story medical research center, expected to be the tallest building on campus when completed in 2008. The university's Graduate School of Business also maintains campuses in London and Singapore.
The university campus is also home to the Seminary Co-op book store. The labyrinthine Co-op, located in the basement of the Chicago Theological Seminary on University Avenue, stocks the largest selection of academic volumes in the United States.
History
Most of the information below is adapted from the university's official website.
The University of Chicago was founded by oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, who later called it "the best investment I ever made."[3] The university's founding was part of a wave of university foundings that followed the American Civil War. Incorporated in 1890, the university has dated its founding as July 1, 1891, when William Rainey Harper became its first president.
Westward migration, population growth, and industrialization led to an increasing need for elite schools away from the East Coast, especially schools whose focus would be on issues vital to national development. Though Rockefeller was urged to build in the New England or Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, he ultimately chose Chicago. His choice reflected his strong desire to realize Thomas Jefferson's dream of a natural aristocracy, determined by talent rather than familial heritage, rise to national prominence. Rockefeller's early fiscal emphasis on the physics department showed his pragmatic, yet deeply intellectual, desires for the school.
Founded under Baptist auspices, the university today does not have a sectarian affiliation. The school's traditions of rigorous scholarship were established by Presidents William Rainey Harper and Robert Maynard Hutchins. The University opened its door to women and minorities from the very beginning, at a time when their access to other leading universities was extremely rare.
Unlike many other American universities at the time (with the notable exception of Johns Hopkins University), the University of Chicago was set up around a number of graduate research institutions, following Germanic precedent. The college itself remained quite small compared to its East Coast peers until the middle of the twentieth century. As a result, the graduate population at the university, to this day, dwarves the undergraduate population by a two-to-one student ratio (its undergraduate student body remains the third smallest amongst the top 15 national universities). The faculty-student ratio is also the second-highest amongst national universities, at four-to-one, and all faculty members are required to teach in addition to their research.
The university produced the first winner of the Heisman Trophy (Jay Berwanger)[4]
On December 2, 1942, the world's first self-sustaining nuclear reaction was achieved at Stagg Field on the campus of the university under the direction of Enrico Fermi. A sculpture by Henry Moore marks the location where this reaction took place (now deemed a National Historic Landmark). Stagg Field has since been demolished to make way for the Regenstein Library.
The University of Chicago became the birthplace of improvisational comedy with the 1955 formation of the undergraduate comedy troupe, Compass Players.[5] In 1978, Hanna Gray, then the provost of Yale University, became president of the university, the first woman ever to serve as the president of a major research university.
In 1999, then-President Hugo Sonnenschein announced plans to relax the university's famed core curriculum, including reducing the number of required courses from 21 to 15. When The New York Times, The Economist, and other major news outlets picked up this story, the university became the focal point of a national debate on education. The National Association of Scholars, for example, released a statement saying, "It is truly depressing to observe a steady abandonment of the University of Chicago's once imposing undergraduate core curriculum, which for so long stood as the benchmark of content and rigor among American academic institutions." [3] The changes were ultimately implemented, but the controversy eventually led to Sonnenschein's resignation in 2000.
Divisions and schools
The University of Chicago currently maintains twelve units, grouped into divisions for graduate research, professional schools, the College, the Library, the Press, the Lab Schools, and the Hospitals.
The Divisions: Biological Sciences, Social Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Humanities.
The Professional Schools: the Divinity School, the Law School, the Graduate School of Business, the Pritzker School of Medicine, the Harris School of Public Policy Studies, the School of Social Service Administration, and the Graham School of General Studies.
Faculty and students at the adjacent Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago also collaborate closely with the school.
The University also operates the Laboratory Schools (from day care through high school, founded by John Dewey and considered one of the leading preparatory schools in the United States), the Hyde Park Day Schools (for the learning disabled of otherwise exceptional ability), and the Orthogenic School (a residential treatment program for those with behavioral and emotional problems). The University also administers two unaffiliated public charter schools on the South Side of Chicago.
The University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. [4] It publishes a wide array of academic texts, including The Chicago Manual of Style, as well as several academic journals (including Critical Inquiry).
The University's Regenstein Library is also the largest browsable library in the country and the largest research library in the Midwest. [5]
The University also operates a number of off-campus scientific research institutions, including the Argonne National Laboratory, part of the United States Department of Energy's national laboratory system. The University also owns and operates the Oriental Institute and has a stake in the Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico. It is also a founding member of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation.
Specific programs
The University of Chicago's economics department is particularly well-known. In fact, an entire school of thought (the Chicago School of Economics) bears its name. Led by Nobel Prize winners such as Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Gary Becker, and Robert Lucas, the university's economics department has played an important role in shaping ideas about the free market.
The University is also known for creating the first sociology department in the world, which later founded its own school of sociology. Scholars affiliated with this first school are considered pioneers in the field and include Albion Small, George Herbert Mead, Robert E. Park, W. I. Thomas, and Ernest Burgess. [6]
The University is also home to several committees for interdisciplinary scholarship, the most famous of which is the Committee on Social Thought. Members of this program have included Hannah Arendt, T.S. Eliot, Friedrich Hayek, Leon Kass, and Mark Strand.
Faculty and alumni
See List of University of Chicago people for a comprehensive list of notable people associated with the University of Chicago.
Faculty, students, and researchers affiliated with the university have received a total of 79 Nobel Prizes. [7] For details, see Nobel Prize laureates by university affiliation.
For a survey of other major awards earned by Chicago scholars, such as the Rhodes Scholarships, see the University’s news service report.
Ranking and reputation
The university is ranked as one of the top 20 institutions in the world by The Times Higher Education Supplement, [8] as well as one of the top 10 by The Economist. [9] The international academic rankings table produced in 2005 by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University also listed the university amongst the top 10. [10] In 2004, the Princeton Review rated the university as having the "Best Overall Academic Experience For Undergraduates" among all American colleges and universities. [11]
High-ranking professional schools include the Graduate School of Business , the Law School, the Medical School, the School of Public Policy Studies, the School of Social Service Administration, and the Divinity School.
Sports and traditions
The University's sports teams are called the Maroons, and their athletic colors are maroon and white. They participate in the NCAA's Division III and in the University Athletic Association. At one time, the University of Chicago's football teams (known as the Monsters of the Midway) were among the best in the country, winning seven Big Ten Conference titles from 1899 to 1924, including a national championship in 1905 while playing at Stagg Field. [12] The University is also the only school ever to be undefeated in football against Notre Dame. [13] In 1935, Chicago's Jay Berwanger was the winner of the first-ever Heisman Trophy.
However, the university, a founding member of the Big Ten Conference, de-emphasized varsity athletics in 1939 when it dropped football and withdrew from the league in 1946. The University maintains an affiliation with the Big Ten schools through the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, a consortium of twelve Midwestern research universities.
The school's mascot is the Phoenix, chosen in honor of the city of Chicago's rebirth after the Great Chicago Fire, and also in honor of the previous University of Chicago, which dissolved due to financial reasons (making the current University of Chicago the second university to carry the name). The gargoyle has become an unofficial mascot of the university, owing to the ubiquitous statues of gargoyles that adorn many of the buildings on campus.
According to a common superstition among University students, stepping on University Seal (located in the main lobby of the Reynolds Club) as an undergraduate will prevent the student from graduating in four years. [14] Another common myth about the university is that nearly 50% of its students marry a fellow alumnus. [15]
Scavenger Hunt
The annual University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt is a multi-day event in which large teams compete to obtain all of the items on a list. Held every May since 1987, it is considered the largest scavenger hunt in the world. Established by student Chris Straus, the "Scav Hunt" (as it is known among University students) has become one of the university's most popular traditions. The list for the scavenger hunt typically includes over 300 items and has typically pushed the boundaries of absurdity with every passing year.
Student organizations
The University's independent student newspaper is the Chicago Maroon. Founded in 1892, the same year as the university, the newspaper is published every Tuesday and Friday. Notable extracurricular groups include the University of Chicago College Bowl Team, which has won 118 tournaments and 15 national championships, leading both categories internationally.
Vita Excolatur, a student-published erotic magazine, began publication in 2004. [16]
In 2006, students at the university launched Hype, a group designed to foster school spirit and unify the undergraduate student body. The administration has worked closely with students in recent years to combat the university's reputation as "where fun goes to die," which some claim have discouraged top students from taking the university into serious consideration when researching colleges.
References
- ^ "Architectural Details". The University of Chicago Magazine. December 2002. Retrieved 2006-04-30.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link) - ^ "University of Chicago College/English Dictionary". The University of Chicago. 2008. Retrieved 2006-04-30.
- ^ "A Brief History of the University of Chicago". The University of Chicago. 2000. Retrieved 2006-04-30.
- ^ "Jay Berwanger, first winner of the Heisman Trophy, 1914-2002". The University of Chicago. June 27th, 2002. Retrieved 2006-04-30.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|year=(help)CS1 maint: year (link) - ^ "Some students walk into a bar..." The University of Chicago Magazine. October 2005. Retrieved 2006-04-30.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
