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Georgia Institute of Technology

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The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is a public, coeducational university located in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, and part of the University System of Georgia.

Consistently ranked among the top ten public universities in the United States, Georgia Tech is best known for its programs in engineering, computing, and the sciences, though it also offers degrees in architecture, liberal arts, and management.

Georgia Tech's campus in Midtown Atlanta was the site of the athletes' village, and a venue for a number of athletic events for the 1996 Summer Olympics. It was also the home of early radio station WGST AM from 1924 to 1930.

Contents

History

Name

Sign marking one entrance to Georgia Tech's campus
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Sign marking one entrance to Georgia Tech's campus

Founded on October 13, 1885 as the Georgia School of Technology, it assumed its present name in 1948. Unlike similarly-named universities (such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology), the Georgia Institute of Technology is a public institution.

Georgia Tech is sometimes called the North Avenue Trade School, although this was never its official title. The name stems from the fact that the campus is bordered to the south by North Avenue, and that the school, in its earlier years was operated much like a trade school, with students working part of the day in a machine shop, and the other part of the day in classrooms. Today the name is still used in a humorous manner: the campus bookstore even sells shirts bearing the name "North Avenue Trade School."

Location

The school was located near the northern city limits of Atlanta at the time of its founding (although the city has now expanded several miles beyond it). A historical marker on the large hill in Central Campus notes that the site occupied by the school's first buildings once held fortifications built to protect Atlanta during the Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil War. The surrender of the city took place on the southwestern boundary of the modern Georgia Tech campus in 1864.

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Academics

Georgia Tech's undergraduate and graduate programs are divided into six Colleges. Collaboration among the Colleges is frequent, as mandated by a number of interdisciplinary degree programs and research centers.

Colleges

Recently, Georgia Tech has sought to strengthen its undergraduate and graduate offerings in less technical fields, such as public policy, international affairs, economics, modern languages, history and sociology, communication and cultural studies, and digital media.

Student life

Set on a spacious campus in the middle of trendy Midtown Atlanta, and with a rich tradition of top-ranked athletic teams and student activities, Tech students have a plethora of social options to choose from.

On campus, fraternities and sororities play a central role in the social scene, and nearly a quarter (22%) of Tech students are members of these organizations. Drawing upon students' engineering prowess, many fraternities host raucous parties that feature creative themes and elaborate set designs and props. Outside of the party scene, a number of student organizations play a central role in the lives of Tech students in other ways. Georgia Tech has over three hundred [student organizations], which range from professional clubs to religious organizations, and these all play a large part in the life of an average student at Tech. Tech students are traditionally very active in student organizations, with over 80% of students participating in at least one student organization.#redirect

Due to the prominence of Georgia Tech's athletic programs, attending athletic events is always a popular option for students. The school's men's basketball, football, women's volleyball, and baseball games are well-attended by both current students and alums.

In terms of off-campus social options, being located in the middle of a young and vibrant city like Atlanta offers a number of advantages to Tech students. Just off campus, there are several establishments that act as local watering holes for students. Rocky Mountain Pizza, Peachtree Tavern, and Moondogs are all very popular student spots. Meanwhile, "Home Park", a neighborhood that borders the north end of campus, is a popular living area for Tech students and recent grads, and a number of parties and barbecues are hosted by the neighborhood's residents.

Of course, the downside to being a student at one of the most elite and rigorous engineering schools in the world is that students often don't have a lot of free time with which to explore all of these social options. Quoting the [Princeton Review] summary of student life, "Because of the heavy workload at Georgia Tech, most students are overly stressed, worried about tomorrow's test, and driven by the desire for the degree. Students have only minimal time for social functions". The high levels of stress were the likely causes of a recent U.S. News & World Report which listed Georgia Tech as the 17th most alcoholic school in the nation — the only school on the list that hasn't ever been listed in The Princeton Review's top party schools.

The school's administration has endeavored to reduce the levels of anxiety felt by many Tech students. Most notable have been the administration's FASET (Familiarization and Adaptation to the Surroundings and Environs of Tech) and Freshmen Experience (a freshman only dorm life program to encourage friendships and a feeling of social involvement) programs, which help to acclimate new students to their surroundings and foster a greater sense of community.

Other school initiatives aimed at improving student life include the administration's efforts to boost female enrollment at the school. Historically, female enrollment at engineering institutions has been quite low, and Georgia Tech is no exception. With almost three times as many male students as females, Georgia Tech has one of the most unbalanced male-to-female ratios of any co-ed university. However, this is slowly changing, presumably due to the university's growing liberal arts programs, as well as outreach programs to encourage more female high school students to consider careers in science and engineering, such as the "Women In Engineering" program. The freshman class of 2005–2006 currently has one of the most balanced male/female ratios to date at 71% to 29%.

Arts at Tech

Student media

Campus

The Georgia Tech campus is located in Midtown, an area north of downtown Atlanta. Although a number of skyscrapers are visible from all points on campus — most notably the headquarters of both BellSouth and The Coca-Cola Company as well as Atlanta's tallest building, the Bank of America building — the campus itself has few buildings over four stories and has a great deal of greenery. This gives it a distinctly suburban atmosphere quite different from other Atlanta campuses such as that of Georgia State University or Emory University.

The campus is organized into four main parts: West Campus, East Campus, Central Campus, and Technology Square. West Campus and East Campus are both occupied primarily by student living complexes, while Central Campus is reserved primarily for teaching and research buildings.

West Campus

West Campus is occupied primarily by apartments and coed undergraduate freshman dormitories. The Campus Recreation Center (formerly the Student Athletic Complex), a volleyball court, a large, low natural green area known as the Burger Bowl, a large, and a flat artificial green area known as the SAC Fields are all located on the western side of the campus. Also within easy walking distance of West Campus is City Cafe, which is open 24 hours, Rocky Mountain Pizza, and Engineer's Bookstore, an alternative to Georgia Tech's official bookstore. West Campus is also home to a music club operated by students called Under the Couch as well as a small diner and convenience store, West Side Market. Due to limited space, all auto travel proceeds via a network of one-way streets which connects West Campus to Ferst Drive, the main road of the campus. Woodruff Dining Hall, or "Woody's," is the West Campus Dining Hall. It connects the Woodruff North and Woodruff South undergraduate dorms.

East Campus

East Campus houses all of the Fraternities and Sororities as well as most of the undergraduate freshman dormitories. Although the residences are similar, East Campus is decidedly more urban than West Campus. East Campus abuts on the Downtown Connector. Via a number of bridges over the highway as well as a tunnel under it, East Campus has quick access to Midtown and its businesses such as The Varsity. Georgia Tech football's home, Bobby Dodd Stadium is located on East Campus, as well as Georgia Tech basketball's home Alexander Memorial Coliseum. Brittain Dining Hall is the main dining hall for East Campus. It is modeled after a medieval church, complete with carved columns and stained-glass windows showing symbolic figures. The main road leading from East Campus to Central Campus is an ascending incline commonly referred to as "Freshman Hill" or simply "The Hill."

Central Campus

A view of Skiles Walkway from the Student Center, facing east
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A view of Skiles Walkway from the Student Center, facing east

Central Campus is home to the majority of the Academic, Research, and Administrative buildings. It includes among others: the Howey Physics Building; the Boggs Chemistry Building; the College of Computing; the Skiles Classroom Building, which houses the School of Mathematics and the School of Literature, Communication and Culture; the D.M. Smith Building, which houses the School of Public Policy and the School of History, Technology, and Society; and the Ford Environmental Science & Technology Building. In 2005, the School of Modern Languages returned to the Swann Building, a 100-year-old former dorm that now houses some of the most technology-equipped classrooms on campus. Intermingled with these are a variety of research facilities, such as the Centennial Research Building, the Pettit Microelectronics Research Center, the Electronic Research Building, and the Petit Biotechnology Building. Tech's administrative buildings, such as the Student Services Building ("Flag Building"), Tech Tower, and the Bursar's Office are also located here. The campus library, a small traditional eatery called Junior's Grill, as well as a large communal building for students, the Fred B. Wenn Student Center are also located on Central Campus. The Student Center provides a variety of recreational and social functions for students including a computer lab, a game room ("Tech Rec"), the Student Post Office, a darkened Music Listening Room, a movie theater, a Food Court, as well as meeting rooms for various clubs and organizations. Adjacent to the eastern entrance of the Student Center is the Kessler Campanile, which is commonly referred to by students as "The Shaft." The former Hightower Textile Engineering building was demolished in 2002 to create Yellow Jacket Park. Plenty of greenspace now occupies the area around the Kessler Campanile for a more aesthetically pleasing look in accordance with the [Master Plan]. Numerous clubs and organizations hold activities in Yellow Jacket Park.

Technology Square

Technology Square, located across the Downtown Connector and embedded in the city east of East Campus, is home to the College of Management, the official school bookstore, the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center, as well as offices for a number of faculty and graduate students, the GVU Center, the Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute, the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), VentureLab, and the Georgia Electronics Design Center research group. The buildings in Technology Square also host a variety of small businesses as well as business ventures spawned by Georgia Tech research. Opened in 2003, the district was built over run-down neighborhoods and has sparked a revitalization of the entire Midtown area.

Satellite campuses

In 1999, Georgia Tech began offering local degree programs to engineering students in Southeast Georgia, and in 2003 established a physical campus in Savannah, Georgia. [Georgia Tech Savannah] offers undergraduate and graduate programs in engineering, and boasts a robust research program with many activities centered on coastal concerns. It is also home to the regional offices of the Georgia Tech Economic Development Institute and the Advanced Technology Development Center.

Georgia Tech also operates a campus in Metz, France known as Georgia Tech Lorraine. Georgia Tech Lorraine is known for a much-publicized lawsuit pertaining to the language used in advertisements; see Toubon Law. Additionally, the College of Architecture maintains a small permanent presence in Paris, France in affiliation with the Ecole d'Architecture Paris La Vilette.

The university further collaborated with the National University of Singapore to set up [The Logistics Institute - Asia Pacific] in Singapore.

Research

National Science Foundation statistics place Georgia Tech third among all U.S. universities for the volume of engineering research and development conducted. Georgia Tech's total research program topped $400 million for the fiscal year 2004.

In addition to research performed by the schools, Georgia Tech is affiliated with a nonprofit research organization referred to as the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). GTRI provides sponsored research in a variety of technical specialties including radar, electro-optics, and materials engineering. GTRI employs over 1,300 people, conducting over $110 million in research every year. Sponsored research at Georgia Tech is managed by the Georgia Tech Research Corporation (GTRC) and its subsidiary, the Georgia Tech Applied Research Corporation (GTARC).

The Georgia Tech Nanotechnology Research Center is scheduled to be completed Summer 2008, at which point it will be the largest cleanroom in the Southeastern United States.

Athletics

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets logo
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Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets logo

Not many schools of Tech's relatively small size (around 16,000) and high academic standing (top 5 among engineering schools, top 10 among public universities, top 40 among all universities) do as well or better in the "big three" traditional American sports. Eliminating schools which are not state-supported, there are only a handful.

The school's sports teams are variously called the Yellowjackets, the Ramblin' Wreck, and the Engineers, but the official nickname is Yellow Jackets. They participate in NCAA Division I-A, in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The school mascots are Buzz and the Ramblin' Wreck. The school's traditional football rival is UGA; the rivalry was, at one time, considered one of the fiercest in college football. The rivalry is commonly referred to as Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate, which is also the title of a 1986 book about the subject.

Tech's fight song "I'm a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech" is known worldwide. It was adapted from an old drinking song ("Son of a Gambolier"), and embellished with trumpet flourishes by Frank Roman. In 1959, then VP Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev sang it together when they had their famous cold war confrontation in Moscow, to reduce the tension. Nixon didn't know any Russian songs, but Khrushchev knew that one American one. It was sung on the Ed Sullivan show. It was played in space. Gregory Peck sang it while strumming a ukulele in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. John Wayne whistled it in The High and the Mighty. It is played after every GT score in a football game. The Edwin H. Morris & Company (later acquired by Paul McCartney's company, MPL) obtained a copyright in 1931.

There are multiple explanations for where how the term "Ramblin' Wrecks" became associated with Georgia Tech. The most plausible is that many GT engineering grads found jobs in the jungles of South America in the early 1900s, where they concocted mechanical contraptions to tame the jungle and get around. The first Ramblin' Wreck of record was a 1914 Ford Model T owned by Floyd Field, Tech's first dean of men. In 1961, a gold and white Model A, known as the Ramblin' Wreck, led the team onto the field for the first time, and it has done so at home games ever since. The annual "Ramblin' Wreck" parade at Homecoming displays some really strange contraptions, judged for ingenuity.

Tech has seventeen varsity sports. In men's sports, in addition to football, basketball, and baseball, there's golf, tennis, swimming & diving, track & field, and cross country. For women, there's basketball, softball, volleyball, tennis, swimming & diving, track & field, and cross-country. Fourteen of these sports finished in the top 25 during the 2004-5 school year.

Football

Georgia Tech's football team plays at Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field, the oldest on campus stadium among Division I-A teams. Georgia Tech claims 4 national championships in football: 1917 under the legendary coach John Heisman; 1928 under William Alexander; 1952 under the famous Bobby Dodd; and, 1990 as national co-champions with Colorado under Bobby Ross.

The 1916 Yellow Jackets team set a record for the largest margin of victory in college football history (or in the history of any other American football competition, for that matter) in a game against Cumberland College, 222-0.

The team is currently coached by Chan Gailey, who is best known for his stints with the Dallas Cowboys and the Pittsburgh Steelers. As of the end of the 2005 season, Tech is one of only six Div. I-A teams to have played in a bowl game in each of the past nine years. Only 5 schools have longer bowl streaks. Georgia Tech's winning percentage of .647 in bowl games is the second best in college football among teams with 20 bowl appearances. The Yellow Jackets are 23-13 in bowl games as of 2006. During the Dodd glory years of the early 50s, Tech won six bowls in six years, back when there were few bowls. In 1955, it was the first school to win what were then considered the four major bowls: Rose, Orange, Sugar, and Cotton. In 2005 Georgia Tech's football program was cited for NCAA violations stemming from the participation of academically ineligible players between the 1998-1999 and 2004-2005 academic years. The program was put on NCAA probation, scholarship availabilities were limited, and all victories and records were vacated for the time ineligible players participated. In May 2006 the vacated records and victories were restored following an appeal by the institute.

Basketball

Georgia Tech's men's basketball team plays at Alexander Memorial Coliseum. The team is currently coached by Paul Hewitt. Georgia Tech has participated in two NCAA Final Fours - 1990 and 2004. The Yellow Jackets advanced to their first NCAA championship game in 2004, losing to the UConn Huskies.

The 2005-2006 team, after losing rising senior Jarrett Jack to the NBA, featured two upperclassmen and nationally ranked sophomore and freshmen recruiting classes. The team failed to qualify for post-season play. However, with the addition of highly ranked incoming freshmen, Javaris Crittenden and Thaddeus Young, at least one early poll places the 2006-2007 squad back in the Top 20.

Bobby Cremins, the previous coach, led Georgia Tech to several NCAA basketball tournaments and finished with a 354-237 record. The Yellow Jackets reached the NCAA Final Four in 1990 under Cremins with his "Lethal Weapon 3" team featuring Brian Oliver, Dennis Scott, and Kenny Anderson. The basketball court at Georgia Tech was later named Cremins Court for Cremins' accomplishments.

Baseball

Georgia Tech's baseball team is currently coached by Danny Hall. The Yellow Jackets are frequently ranked in the Top 10 at the beginning of the season, and almost always finish in the Top 20. Tech has advanced to the NCAA playoffs in 21 of the past 22 years. Tech has been to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, three times: in 1994 (when it lost the Championship game) in 2002, and in 2006. Tech is second only to Stanford in players named to the USA Baseball National Team over the years.

In 2005, Tech won the ACC Championship (regular season & tournament) and its regional, but lost it super-regional to the University of Tennessee. In 2006, Tech fell to Clemson in the ACC tournment, bounced back by sweeping a regional held at home in Atlanta, and then took two straight against the College of Charleston to advance to Omaha for the third time.

A new 3500-seat baseball stadium was built in 2002. The name of the old stadium, Russ Chandler Stadium, was retained, and it's still affectionately referred to as "the Rusty C." There are always a number of Tech alum in "the bigs," including Nomar Garciaparra, Jason Varitek, Matt Murton, Jay Payton, Marlon Byrd,Mark Teixeira, and Kevin Brown.

Golf

Georgia Tech is consistently ranked near the top in golf. In 2005, Golf Digest named Georgia Tech the No. 1 golf school in the country. The success of several alumni on the pro circuit is testimony to the quality of GT players. These include David Duval, Stewart Cink, and the legendary Bobby Jones.

Women's sports

Tech's softball, volleyball, and tennis teams have improved dramatically in recent years. Individuals have excelled in track & field and swimming & diving. The women's volleyball has participated in the NCAA tournament regularly under head coach Bond Shymansky. The 2004-2005 Women's Tennis won the ACC tournament and hosted the first rounds of the NCAA at Georgia Tech.

Club sports

Georgia tech participates in many non-NCAA sanctioned club sports. These sports include and are not limited to crew, cricket, cycling, equestrian, fencing, field hockey, gymnastics, ice hockey, kayaking, lacrosse, paintball, roller hockey, rowing, rugby, sailing, skydiving, triathlon, ultimate, water polo, and wrestling.

One of the places club sports takes place at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center, where swimming, diving, water polo, and the swimming part of the Modern Pentathlon competitions for the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Tech traditions

Tech has a number of legends and traditions, some of which have persisted for decades.

Georgia Tech's Tech Tower
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Georgia Tech's Tech Tower

Notable Georgia Tech people

A number of distinguished individuals once called Georgia Tech home. For an extended listing, see List of Georgia Institute of Technology people.

Presidents of Georgia Tech

Georgia Tech in popular culture

Movies

The Georgia Tech library was featured as the library at the fictitious Atlanta A&T University in the movie Drumline (2002). Tech is also mentioned by name in the movie, when the only white student at the black university is asked (jokingly) "what's the matter, not enough black kids at Georgia Tech?"

The Georgia Tech football team was portrayed near the end of the 1993 film Rudy, losing 24-3. In a famous scene from the movie, the title character finally gets a chance to play for the University of Notre Dame as he is put into the ballgame towards the closing moments of the Irish-Yellow Jacket matchup. There are some inaccuracies in the portrayal.

The Georgia Tech ATĪ© fraternity house was featured in the 1992 film Love Potion No. 9 starring Tate Donovan and a then largely unknown Sandra Bullock.

The Tech campus, especially Rose Bowl Field football practice area and the former Heisman Gym were used in filming the 1984 movie The Bear, starring Gary Busey as Paul "Bear" Bryant.

The 1993 Touchstone Pictures movie The Program (starring James Caan as the coach, Omar Epps and Craig Sheffer as players, and Halle Berry and Kristy Swanson as co-eds), features (at the start and near the end) Georgia Tech (in gold helmets with white GT logo, blue and then white jerseys, and gold pants) playing a fictional "ESU" team" (with garnet and gold colors suggesting FSU).

In the movie The Devil's Advocate (1997), starring Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves, Pacino tells Reeves that one of the interns on their law firm goes to Georgia Tech.

As mentioned in an earlier section, Gregory Peck played and sang the world-renowned "Ramblin' Wreck" fight song in Man in a Gray Flannel Suit and John Wayne whistled a bit of it in the 1954 movie The High and the Mighty (after convincing the captain to attempt to make it to San Francisco rather than ditch the plane in the ocean). It was no doubt carefully selected as a sign of success, since Georgia Tech was in its glory days of football, winning six bowl games in six years and being named National Champion by organizations in 1951, 1952, and 1956, though Georgia Tech currently only claims to the 1952 season.

Scenes for various other movies have been filmed on the Tech campus, mostly in front of, or in, fraternity houses. Many of the outdoor scenes of the walking tour that sets the stage in the movie Road Trip (2000) were filmed between the Skiles classroom building and the student center, including the Skiles walkway (the Skiles building was incorrectly referred to as a dorm in the movie). Also, one classroom scene was shot inside a large [DM Smith] lecture hall that was notorious for being one of the most uncomfortable places to attend class on campus.

The movie Hyderabad Blues (1998) depicts a graduate student returning home to India to face his parents' proposal of marriage. The student, Nagesh Kukunoor, is seen wearing a Georgia Tech T-shirt. Additionally, Nagesh attended Georgia Tech as a graduate student before becoming a movie producer.

Stevie Ray Vaughan's video for his hit song "The House Is Rockin'" was shot entirely inside the Chi Phi fraternity house at Georgia Tech.

Music

In the Field Mob (featuring Ludacris and Jamie Foxx) song, Georgia, Georgia Tech is mentioned in the lyric: "That's why I keep my Georgia Tech in the state of / Georgia". In keeping with the rest of the song, the reference is a double entendre, the secondary meaning in this case being a TEC 9 gun.

Books

John Heisman: Principles of Football (ISBN 1892514990) describes the philosophy and plays used by the great John Heisman, Tech's first paid coach.

Dodd's Luck (ISBN 0932958095) describes Bobby Dodd's highly successful football coaching career in his own words.

In Tom Wolfe's novel, A Man in Full (ISBN 0374270325), the central character, a developer named Charlie Croker (who was a former 250-lb GT football player), is pressured by Atlanta leaders to support Fareek Fanon, a modern, black, Georgia Tech football star who may or may not have raped the white socialite daughter of a prominent Atlanta businessman; while the girl's father pressures Charlie to denounce the accused football player.

In B. B. Rose's novel, Halls of Poison Ivy (ISBN 0972472703), Georgia Tech is the setting of the murder of a graduate student. The administration and several students feature prominently in the ensuing mystery.

In James Michener's novel Space, one of the central characters is a visionary aerospace engineer from Georgia Tech named Stanley Mott. In the miniseries version of the book, Stanley Mott is played by Bruce Dern.

References

External links

 

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