Ursinus College
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Ursinus College is a small, coeducational, liberal arts college in Collegeville, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Named after Zacharias Ursinus, a 16th-century German theologian and an important figure in the Protestant Reformation, the college was founded in 1869 by the German Reformed Church on the grounds of the Freeland Seminary. Today, notable facilities at Ursinus include the Phillip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art, the Walter W. Marstellar Memorial Observatory, and a recently completed performing arts center, the "Kaleidoscope," which opened in April of 2005 with a performance by jazz legend Wynton Marsalis. Women were first admitted to Ursinus in 1881.
Ursinus has 28 majors and 49 minors, although Biology, Business & Economics, and English are the three majors with the most students. A high percentage of graduates go on to attend law and medical schools. Ursinus has a 90 percent acceptance rate among graduates who apply to law and medical schools.
The Mission
"To enable students to become independent, responsible and thoughtful individuals through a program of liberal education. That education prepares them to live creatively and usefully, and to provide leadership for their society in an interdependent world."
Ursinus at a Glance
- Founded in 1869, the mission of the college is to model civility, to prepare students for an interdependent world and to teach students how to put their ideas to work
- 1,485 students from 25 states and 15 countries
- 10% African American, 3% Latino, 4% International
- 12:1 student/faculty ratio
- 28 majors and 49 minors
- Biology, Business & Economics, and English are the three majors with the most students
- All students and faculty issued Dell Latitude laptop computers since the institution of the Laptop Initiative in Fall 2000
- Member of Phi Beta Kappa, the Watson Foundation List, Project Pericles, Project DEEP, the Annapolis Group and the Centennial Conference
- Home to the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art
- Its running team is well known because of their "Ursinus is Running" T-shirts
- Featured in Loren Pope’s "Colleges That Change Lives"
- On Wednesday nights there is a celebration entitled Ungerfest; this festival is to pay homage to all that is good about college; especially professor Ron Unger
- President John Strassburger — B.A., Bates College; M.A., Cambridge University; Ph.D., Princeton University
- Dean Judith Levy—B.S., Goucher College; M.S., Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University
- Former US Ambassador to Sierra Leone and Ursinus graduate, Mr. Joseph Melrose, is now Ambassador-in-Residence, Ursinus International Relations Program
- The college is independent in character and rests upon a growing $100,000,000 endowment
- 168 acres, 25 miles from Philadelphia
- Named "Hottest Freshman Year" in 2006 by Newsweek Kaplan College Guide
- According to U.S. News, Ursinus is one of the nation’s “Best Liberal Arts Colleges," ranking 47th among its 215 peers in terms of graduation and retention rank and 65th in terms of selectivity
- USA Today cited Ursinus as one of 20 American schools that truly excel at creating “a campus culture that fosters student success.”
- The Princeton Review ranks Ursinus as one of the nation's "Best 361 Colleges."
- Listed on Yahoo! Most Wired Colleges 2001
Prominent Ursinus Alumni
One of Ursinus's most notable students was The Catcher in the Rye author J.D. Salinger (1937 to 1938). He left the school after one semester and continued his studies elsewhere. Computer pioneer John Mauchly, creator of the ENIAC, was a faculty member at Ursinus from 1933 to 1941, working at Ursinus's science labs in Pfahler Hall, a large building which still stands on campus.The literary papers of writer Linda Grace Hoyer Updike, a member of the Ursinus Class of 1923 and mother of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist John Updike, are kept at the Myrin Library. John Updike was made an honorary graduate in 1964. The library also has an extensive Pennsylvania German archive and is one of three government repositories in Montgomery County.
Other prominent Ursinus alumni include: Gerald Edelman, winner of the 1972 Nobel Prize in medicine; Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America; James F. Scott II, director of the Magellan Space Mission at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); Greg Zara, who broke the record for longest field goal with a 73 yard field goal; Jing Johnson, former Major League Baseball player; Christopher "The Gill" Threadgill, all star baseball player, notorious partier, and all around great individual; and Sam Keen, noted author, professor of philosophy and religion, and former contributing editor of Psychology Today.
External link
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