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| University of Chicago |
The University of Chicago (U of C, UC, UChicago, or simply Chicago) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890. William Rainey Harper became the university's first president, in 1891, and the first classes were held in 1892. It has a reputation of devotion to academic scholarship and intellectualism and is affiliated with scores of Rhodes Scholars and 85 Nobel Prize laureates.
The University consists of the College of the University of Chicago, various graduate programs and interdisciplinary committees organized into four divisions, six professional schools, and a school of continuing education. The University enrolls approximately 5,000 students in the College and about 15,000 students overall.
In 2008, the University spent $423.7 million on scientific research. University of Chicago scholars have played a role in the development of the Chicago School of economics, the Chicago School of sociology, the law and economics movement in legal analysis, and the physics leading to the world's first man-made, self-sustaining nuclear reaction. The University is also home to the largest university press in the United States.
The University of Chicago was created and incorporated as a coeducational, secular institution in 1890 by the American Baptist Education Society and a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller. It emerged from a Baptist university of the same name that had closed in 1886 due to financial difficulties. William Rainey Harper became the modern University's first president on July 1, 1891, and the first classes were held on October 1, 1892.
In 1929, the University's fifth president, Robert Maynard Hutchins, took office; the University underwent many changes during his 24-year tenure. Hutchins eliminated varsity football from the University in an attempt to deemphasize athletics over academics, instituted the undergraduate college's liberal-arts curriculum known as the Common Core, and organized the University's graduate work into its current four divisions. In 1933, Hutchins proposed an unsuccessful plan to merge the University of Chicago and Northwestern University into a single university. During his term, the University of Chicago Hospitals (now called the University of Chicago Medical Center) finished construction and enrolled its first medical students, and the Committee on Social Thought was created.
In 1999, then-President Hugo Sonnenschein announced plans to relax the University's famed core curriculum, 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 changes were ultimately implemented, but the controversy played a role in Sonnenschein's decision to resign in 2000.
The main campus of the University of Chicago consists of 211 acres (85 ha) in the Chicago neighborhoods of Hyde Park and Woodlawn, seven miles (11 km) south of downtown Chicago. The northern and southern portions of campus are separated by the Midway Plaisance, a large, linear park created for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.
The first buildings of the University of Chicago campus, which make up what is now known as the Main Quadrangles, were part of a "master plan" conceived by two University of Chicago trustees and plotted by Chicago architect Henry Ives Cobb. The Main Quadrangles consist of six quadrangles, each surrounded by buildings, bordering one larger quadrangle. The buildings of the Main Quadrangles were designed by Cobb, Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, Holabird & Roche, and other architectural firms in the Collegiate Gothic style, deliberately patterned after the layouts of the Universities of Oxford. (Mitchell Tower, for example, is modeled after Oxford's Magdalen Tower, and the University Commons, Hutchinson Hall, is a duplicate of Oxford's Christ Church Hall.
The academic bodies of the University of Chicago consist of the College, four divisions of graduate research, six professional schools, and the Graham School of General Studies (a continuing education school). The University also contains a library system, the University of Chicago Press, the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, and the University of Chicago Medical Center, and holds ties with a number of independent academic institutions, including Fermilab and Argonne National Laboratory. The University is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.
The College of the University of Chicago grants Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees in 49 academic majors and 22 minors. The college's academics are divided into five divisions: the Biological Sciences Collegiate Division, the Physical Sciences Collegiate Division, the Social Sciences Collegiate Division, the Humanities Collegiate Division, and the New Collegiate Division. The first four are sections within their corresponding graduate divisions, while the New Collegiate Division administers interdisciplinary majors and studies which do not fit in one of the other four divisions.
The University graduate schools and committees are divided into four divisions: Biological Sciences, Humanities, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences. In the spring quarter of 2009, the University enrolled 3,633 graduate students: 485 in the Biological Sciences Division, 1,076 in the Humanities Division, 732 in the Physical Sciences Division, and 1,340 in the Social Sciences Division.
The University contains six professional schools: the Pritzker School of Medicine (which is a part of the Biological Sciences Division), the Booth School of Business, the Law School, the Divinity School, the Harris School of Public Policy Studies, and the School of Social Service Administration (SSA). The total enrollment for these six professional schools was 5,086 students in the 2009 spring quarter: 2,878 students in the business school, 344 in the Divinity School, 452 in the medical school, 269 in the Harris School, 494 in SSA, and 649 in the Law School.
The University of Chicago has been the site of some important experiments and academic movements. In economics, the University has played an important role in shaping ideas about the free market and is the namesake of the Chicago school of economics, the school of economic thought supported by Milton Friedman and other economists. The University's sociology department was the first independent sociology department in the United States and gave birth to the Chicago school of sociology. In physics, the University was the site of the Chicago Pile-1 (the first self-sustained man-made nuclear reaction, part of the Manhattan Project), of Robert Millikan's oil-drop experiment that calculated the charge of the electron, and of the development of radiocarbon dating.
The University of Chicago hosts 19 varsity sports teams: 10 men's teams and 9 women's teams, all called the Maroons, with 585 students participating in the 2008–2009 school year.
The Maroons compete in the NCAA's Division III as members of the University Athletic Association (UAA). The University was a founding member of the Big Ten Conference and participated in the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball and Football and was a regular participant in the Men's Basketball tournament. In 1935 the University of Chicago reached the Sweet Sixteen. However, the University chose to withdraw from the conference in 1946 after University President Robert Maynard Hutchins de-emphasized varsity athletics in 1939 and dropped football. (In 1969, Chicago reinstated football as a Division III team, resuming playing its home games at the new Stagg Field.)