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Northwestern University

Encyclopedia : N : NO : NOR : Northwestern University

For other schools named Northwestern please see Northwestern College.

Northwestern University is a private, coeducational, non-sectarian 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.

Contents

History

"The Arch" is the main entrance to Northwestern's Evanston campus
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"The Arch" is the main entrance to 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." [link]

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.

Traditions

The Rock is one of Northwestern's best-known landmarks, a quartzite boulder set in a plaza in the south end of campus. Originally a fountain, vandalism of the Rock gradually increased, particularly during the Vietnam War. It became a canvas for student art, opinions, advertising, messages, proposals, and jokes. Tradition holds that if a student wishes to paint something on the Rock, he/she must guard and paint it from sundown to sunup; many student groups start guarding even earlier, to ensure that they'll be first.

Levy Mayer Hall
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Levy Mayer Hall

At the kick-off of NU football games, students used to throw marshmallows. Northwestern archivist Patrick Quinn says that students were likely "trying to get them into the tubas, and then started throwing them at each other," leading to the tradition of throwing marshmallows at the field. While Gary Barnett was football coach, he banned marshmallows because they supposedly detracted from the serious level of football that he wanted for the school. The tradition of jingling car keys, however, still continues. It 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." "State-school, state-school," another condescending taunt often heard from the student section, turns a nose up at the other institutions of the Big Ten conference, all of which (except for Northwestern) are public universities. Also during football games, students extend their hands in a claw-shape and "growl" during all plays that the other team is on the offensive.

Each winter, on the second-to-last weekend of the quarter, hundreds of students participate in Dance Marathon. The 30-hour event raises several hundred thousand dollars for national and local charities and is one of the largest student-run philanthropy organizations in the world. In 2006, students raised $686,377.37 for Pediatric AIDS Chicago Prevention Initiative and the Evanston Community Foundation.

Thrice-yearly, at 9 p.m. on the Sunday before finals week, students lean out windows and scream bloody murder; this tradition is known as the Primal Scream.

Each spring, on the Saturday before Memorial Day, an all-day music festival known as Armadillo Day, or more commonly Dillo Day, is held on Northwestern's Lakefill -- an area of land reclaimed from Lake Michigan. The event was founded in the 1970s as a small party by a group of students from Texas, hence 'Armadillo'. It is the culmination of Northwestern's Mayfest, an end-of-school-year celebration that dates back to the 1890s.

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. 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.

Student body

The Ward Building at the Feinberg School of Medicine
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The Ward Building at the Feinberg School of Medicine

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.

Rankings

According to US News & World Report, as of 2006, Northwestern's undergraduate program ranks 12th among all American undergraduate programs. Similarly, many of Northwestern's graduate programs are highly esteemed. For example, Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management consistently ranks as one of the world's finest 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 is 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 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 Learning Sciences, Engineering, Theatre, Communications, Psychology, Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences (MMSS), 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."

Internationally, Northwestern is ranked as the 19th best university in the country, and 46th best in the world, by The Times Higher Education Supplement’s list of the top 200 universities in the world;[Education news & resources at the Times Higher Education Supplement], retrieved July 7, 2006 and 23rd best university in the nation, and 31st best university in the world, by The Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University..[Top 500 World Universities], retrieved July 7, 2006

Athletics

Northwestern University athletics logo
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Northwestern University athletics logo

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 published an article that described the football team as, "a wall of purple wildcats." The name was so popular that university board members made "wildcats" the official nickname just months later. The mascot is Willie the Wildcat. The football team plays at Ryan Field; the basketball and volleyball teams play at Welsh-Ryan Arena.

See Northwestern Wildcats for additional information.

Schools, colleges and departments

Undergraduate programs

Graduate and professional programs

Notable alumni

Main article: List of Northwestern alumni

Notable faculty

References in popular culture

See also

External links

Professional Schools Undergraduate and Graduate Miscellaneous

References

 

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