University of Chicago

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The University of Chicago
Motto:	Crescat scientia; vita excolatur (Latin)
Motto in English:	Let knowledge grow from more to more; and so be human life enriched[1]
Established:	1891
Type:	Private nondenominational coeducational
Endowment:	US $5.2 billion (2009)[2]
President:	Robert Zimmer
Faculty:	2,168
Staff:	14,772 employees (includes Medical Center)
Undergraduates:	5,027
Postgraduates:	9,820
Location:	Chicago, Illinois
Campus:	Urban, 211 acres (850,000 m²)
Colors:	Maroon and White
Nickname:	Maroons
Mascot:	Phoenix
Athletics:	NCAA Division III UAA
Website:	www.uchicago.edu

The University of Chicago^[3] (commonly referred to as UChicago, The U of C, or just Chicago) is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was established by oil magnate and benefactor John D. Rockefeller, traditionally dating its founding to July 1, 1891 when William Rainey Harper became the university's president.

The University is affiliated with 82 Nobel Prize laureates.^[4] It has a reputation of devotion to academic scholarship and intellectualism,^[5][6][7] and was one of the first universities in the United States to be conceived as a combination of an American liberal arts college and a German research university^{[citation needed]}. The university and its undergraduate college rank among the top ten schools in national and international rankings.^[8][9][10]

Historically, the university has also been noted for its undergraduate core curriculum pioneered by Robert Maynard Hutchins; for several influential academic movements and centers, such as the Chicago School of Economics, the Chicago School of Sociology, the Law and Economics movement in legal analysis, and several of the most prominent movements in anthropology; and for its role in developing modern physics leading to the world's first man-made, self-sustaining nuclear reaction^[11]. The university is also home to the Committee on Social Thought, an interdisciplinary graduate research program, and to the largest university press in the United States.^[12]

[edit] History

[edit] Founding

John D. Rockefeller founded the University of Chicago along with the American Baptist Education Society.

The University of Chicago was founded in 1890 by the American Baptist Education Society and oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, who later called it "the best investment I ever made."^[13] The University of Chicago held its first classes on October 1, 1892.^[14] The land for the university was donated by Marshall Field, owner of the Marshall Field and Company department store chain. The modern university emerged from a bankruptcy reorganization of a predecessor institution named Chicago University and known more broadly as Old University of Chicago which was founded by prominent members of the Chicago and greater Illinois community including Justice Stephen A. Douglas and Chicago Mayor James Hutchinson Woodworth. Graduates of the Old Chicago University were later assimilated into the ranks of the alumni of the University of Chicago.

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. The first classes were held on October 1, 1892, with an enrollment of 594 students and a faculty of 120, including eight former college presidents.^[15] Earlier references to University of Chicago rise from the incorporation of the "first" University of Chicago, a school Senator Stephen A. Douglas started with an 1856 grant.^[16]

Westward migration, population growth, and industrialization had led to an increasing need for elite schools away from the East Coast, especially schools that would focus on issues vital to national development. Though Rockefeller was urged to build in New England or the 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 meritocracy's rise to prominence, determined by talent rather than familial heritage. Rockefeller's early fiscal emphasis on the physics department showed his pragmatic, yet deeply intellectual, desires for the school.

Although founded under Baptist auspices, the University of Chicago has never had a sectarian affiliation. The school's traditions of rigorous scholarship were established primarily by Presidents William Rainey Harper and Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago opened its door to women and minorities from the very beginning, a time when they seldom had access to other leading universities. It was the first major university to enroll women on an equal basis with men,^[17] as well as the first major, predominantly white university to offer a black professor a tenured position, in 1947.^[18]

Ryerson Physical Laboratory, located on the Main Quadrangles.

Unlike many other American universities at the time, the University of Chicago revolved around a number of graduate research institutions, following Germanic precedent. The College of the University of Chicago remained quite small compared to its East Coast peers until around the middle of the 20th century.

As a result, the graduate population of the university dwarfs the undergraduate population 2:1 to this day, while the university's undergraduate student body remains the third smallest amongst the top 10 national universities. The student-to-faculty ratio is 4:1, one of the lowest amongst national universities, and all faculty members are required to teach undergraduate courses.^[19][20]

[edit] Presidency of Robert Hutchins

During his presidency, Robert Maynard Hutchins met with the president of academic rival Northwestern University to discuss the future of the two institutions through the Depression and the looming war. Hutchins concluded that, in order to secure the future of both universities, it was in the best interest of both for the two campuses to merge as the "Universities of Chicago", with Northwestern's campus serving as the site for undergraduate education and the Hyde Park campus serving as the graduate studies campus. President Hutchins' vision for what he hoped would become the preeminent university in the world eventually faltered amidst opposition from several groups, most notably Northwestern's medical faculty. Hutchins called the episode "one of the lost opportunities of American education."^[21]

Starting in the 1930s, the university conducted a more successful experiment on the college. To make the university a preeminent undergraduate academic institution, administrators decided to implement President Hutchins' philosophy of secular perennialism. This led to the innovation of the common core, an educational strategy in which students read original source materials rather than textbooks, and discuss them in small groups using the Socratic method rather than a lecture approach.^[22] The common core is still an important feature of Chicago's undergraduate education. In addition to pioneering this new undergraduate curriculum, the university took steps to eliminate "distractions" such as varsity sports, fraternities, and religious organizations. This attracted free-thinkers such as Carl Sagan and Kurt Vonnegut to the university. The university succeeded in eliminating all varsity sports for 20 years and all but five fraternities, although three of the eliminated fraternities were re-chartered in the 1980s.

[edit] Science at Chicago

In addition to its contributions to higher education, the University of Chicago made significant contributions to 20th century science. In 1909 Professor Robert Andrews Millikan performed the historic oil-drop experiment in the Ryerson Physical Laboratory on the university campus.^[23] This experiment allowed Millikan to calculate the charge of an electron and paved the way for the theory of quantum mechanics in the 1940s. The American Physical Society now designates Ryerson Laboratory a historic physics site.^[24]

As part of the Manhattan Project, University of Chicago chemists, led by Glenn T. Seaborg, began to study the newly manufactured radioactive element plutonium. The George Herbert Jones Laboratory was the site where, for the first time, a trace quantity of this new element was isolated and measured in September 1942. This procedure enabled chemists to determine the new element's atomic weight. Room 405 of the building was named a National Historic Landmark in May 1967.^[25]

Henry Moore's Nuclear Energy on the site of the first self-sustained nuclear chain reaction.

On December 2, 1942, scientists achieved the world's first self-sustained nuclear reaction at Stagg Field on the campus of the university under the direction of professor Enrico Fermi. A sculpture by Henry Moore marks the spot, now deemed a National Historic Landmark, where the nuclear reaction took place. Stagg Field has since been demolished to make way for the Regenstein Library.

In addition to its groundbreaking work in physics, the University of Chicago is recognized for numerous other important scientific discoveries.^[26] These include

• The technique of radiocarbon dating, developed in 1949 by Willard Libby and his team during his tenure as a professor at the university. Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960 for this discovery.^{[citation needed]}
• The discovery of the atmosphere's jet stream.^{[citation needed]}
• The discovery of REM sleep.^{[citation needed]}
• The discovery of synchronized menstrual cycles^{[citation needed]}
• The famous Miller-Urey experiment, considered to be the classic experiment on the origin of life.^{[citation needed]}
• The development of agent orange, a highly-toxic herbicide that would gain notoriety for its use during the Vietnam War.^[27]
• The prediction of white dwarfs and black holes by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Arts at Chicago

The Rockefeller Chapel, the tallest structure on campus.

Although the University of Chicago is better known for its academic and scientific achievements, its students and faculty have also made significant contributions to the arts. In 1955, the University of Chicago became the birthplace of improvisational comedy with the formation of the undergraduate comedy troupe, the Compass Players.^[28] In 1959, alumnus Paul Sills, who many consider the father of improvisational theater, founded The Second City along with Bernard Sahlins, also a graduate of the University. Since its founding, The Second City Theater has inspired other comedy troupes such as Saturday Night Live, as well as serving as an incubator for artists such as Alan Arkin, Mike Nichols, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Mike Myers, Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Jack McBrayer, and Steve Carell.^[29]

In 1964, Professor Ralph Shapey founded the University of Chicago Contemporary Chamber Players, one of the oldest and most successful professional new music groups in the nation. The Contemporary Chamber Players, also known as "contempo", has given over eighty world premieres of established and emerging composers.^[30]

While teaching on the Committee on Social Thought, Professor Saul Bellow wrote several best-selling novels, including Herzog in 1964 and Humboldt's Gift in 1975, for which he was awarded the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and Nobel Prize in Literature.^[31]

The University of Chicago also founded the Renaissance Society in 1915, which is devoted to the exhibition of contemporary art. The Society's 1934 exhibition of Alexander Calder's "mobiles" and its 1936 survey of paintings and drawings by Ferdinand Leger were the first solo exhibitions of these artists in the United States.^[32]

The Smart Museum was established in 1974 in association with the University of Chicago's Art History department. It was endowed by David A. Smart and his brother Alfred Smart. In 1983, the museum became a separate unit of the university devoted to serving the entire community, including educational outreach activities in local public schools. In 2000 it completed a $2 million renovation.

[edit] 1950s–1980s

In the early 1950s, student applications declined as a result of increasing crime and poverty in the Hyde Park neighborhood. In response, the university became a major sponsor of a controversial urban renewal project for Hyde Park, which profoundly affected both the neighborhood's architecture and street plan. For details of this urban renewal effort, see Hyde Park.^[33]

Snell and Hitchcock Halls, the oldest residence halls still in use on campus

In 1959, the university's literary journal the Chicago Review, edited by Irving Rosenthal and Paul Carroll, published excerpts from William S. Burroughs’ experimental novel Naked Lunch. The material appeared in the Spring 1958 edition. The university was criticized for publishing fiction deemed obscene by a columnist in the Chicago Daily News and suppressed the Winter 1959 issue, which contained more material from the Naked Lunch manuscript. The university administration fired Rosenthal and Carroll, who regarded the university's attempt at suppressing Naked Lunch as censorship.^[34]

The University experienced its share of student unrest during the 1960s, beginning in 1962, when students occupied President George Beadle's office in a protest over the University's off-campus rental policies. In 1969, more than 400 students, angry about the dismissal of a popular professor, Marlene Dixon, occupied the Administration Building for two weeks. After the sit-in ended, when Dixon turned down a one-year reappointment, 42 students were expelled and 81 were suspended,^[35] the most severe response to student occupations of any American university during the student movement.^[36]

In 1978, Hanna Holborn Gray, then the provost of Yale University, became President of the University of Chicago, the first woman ever to serve as the president of a major research university.

[edit] 1990s–present

Max Palevsky Residential Commons, an undergraduate dormitory that opened in 2002.

In 1990, the Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR) was created after the passage of the Chicago School Reform Act that decentralized governance of the city's public schools. Researchers at the University of Chicago joined with researchers from Chicago Public Schools and other organizations to form CCSR with the imperative to study this landmark restructuring and its long-term effects. Since then CCSR has undertaken research on many of Chicago's school reform efforts, some of which have been embraced by other cities as well. Thus, CCSR studies have also informed broader national movements in public education.

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 led to President Sonnenschein's resignation in 2000.

In 2006, the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute became the center of controversy when U.S. federal courts ruled to seize and auction its valuable collection of ancient Persian artifacts, the proceeds of which would go to compensate the victims of a 1997 bombing in Jerusalem that the United States believes was funded by Iran. The ruling threatens the university's invaluable collection of ancient clay tablets held by the Oriental Institute since the 1930s but officially owned by Iran.

The quadrangles of the University of Chicago were modeled after Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

In 2007, the University of Chicago received a $35 million donation from David and Reva Logan to be used toward the construction of the Reva and David Logan Center for Creative and Performing Arts. This new arts center "will be a venue for the artistic expression and multidisciplinary inquiry, performance and production of our faculty and students," says President Robert Zimmer in his May 3 note. The building will be constructed next to Midway Studios, which was the personal residence and studio for sculptor Lorado Taft. The University has selected the firm of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects to design the center.^[37]

Later in 2007, the University of Chicago received an anonymous alumni donation of $100 million. The donation will be used as the cornerstone of a $400 million undergraduate student aid initiative. Beginning in the fall of 2008, students will be eligible for enhanced financial aid packages called Odyssey Scholarships, which hopes to eliminate student loans entirely among students whose annual family income is less than $60,000 and to eliminate half the student loan packages among students whose annual family income is between $60,000 and $75,000. The College expects nearly a quarter of the entire College population to benefit from the program.^[38]

In 2008, the University of Chicago announced plans to establish the Milton Friedman Institute. Friedman, a Nobel Laureate in economics, received his A.M. in economics from the university in 1933 and was a professor at the University of Chicago for over thirty years. The institute will cost around $200 million and occupy the buildings of the Chicago Theological Seminary. Some faculty members and students have signed petition against these plans.^[39] During the same year, investor David G. Booth donated $300 million to the university's Graduate School of Business, which is the largest gift in the university's history and the largest gift ever to any business school.^[40]

Also in 2008, the University of Chicago and particularly its surrounding neighborhood of Hyde Park attracted international media attention because of former Law School lecturer Barack Obama's election as President of the United States.^[41]

[edit] Campus

[edit] Hyde Park campus

Maps showing the University of Chicago and the Midway Plaisance (black rectangle) between Washington Park to the west (left) and Jackson Park. Fountain of Time (red oval) is located in the southeast portion of Washington Park immediately west of the Midway Plaisance. Lorado Taft Midway Studios (red rectangle) is located a just south of the Midway Plaisance. (Chicago Park District in green)

The University of Chicago is principally located in the neighborhoods of Hyde Park and Woodlawn, seven miles (11 km) south of downtown Chicago. The campus is bisected by the Midway Plaisance, a large linear park created for the 1893 World's Fair. While the bulk of the campus is located north of the Midway, some of the professional schools (including the Law School) are located south of the Midway.

The quadrangles of the main campus feature a botanical garden and neo-Gothic buildings constructed mostly out of limestone in the late 19th century. Buildings of the original quadrangles were deliberately patterned after the layouts of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Mitchell Tower, for example, is a reproduction of Oxford's Magdalen Tower,^[42] and the University Commons, Hutchinson Hall, is a duplicate of Oxford's Christ Church Hall.^[43]

Contemporary buildings have attempted to complement the style of the original architecture. Notable examples include the Laird Bell Law Quadrangle by Eero Saarinen, the School of Social Service Administration by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and the Robie House by Frank Lloyd Wright. The largest modern addition is the Regenstein Library, designed by architect Walter Netsch and constructed on the grounds of the former Stagg Field, the site of the world's first nuclear reaction.

The Hyde Park campus is also home to the Oriental Institute, an internationally renowned archeology museum and research center for ancient Near Eastern studies, which is housed in an unusual Gothic and Art Deco structure designed by the architectural firm Mayers Murray & Phillip. The Museum has artifacts from digs in Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. Notable possessions include: the famous Megiddo Ivories, various treasures from Persepolis (the old Persian capital), a 40-ton human-headed winged lamassu from Khorsabad (the capital of Sargon II), and a monumental statue of King Tutankhamun.

Buildings such as these within the main quadrangle epitomize the neo-Gothic architecture that is present throughout the campus.

Across the street from the Oriental Institute is the Seminary Co-op bookstore, located in the basement of the Chicago Theological Seminary. The Co-op stocks the largest selection of academic volumes in the United States.^[44]

A recent two billion dollar campaign has brought unprecedented expansion to the campus, including the unveiling of the Max Palevsky Residential Commons, an undergraduate student dormitory, the Gerald Ratner Athletics Center, a new hospital, and a new science building. Current construction projects include: the Jules and Gwen Knapp Center for Biomedical Discovery, a ten-story medical research center, as well as further additions to the medical campus of the University of Chicago Medical Center.^[45] In the next stage of its campaign, the university plans to revamp and consolidate residence halls: a new residence hall south of the Midway is expected to open in September 2009.^[46]

[edit] Satellite campuses

The University of Chicago also maintains a number of facilities apart from its main campus. The University's Booth School of Business maintains campuses in Singapore, London, and the downtown Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago. The Paris Center, a campus located on the left bank of the River Seine in Paris, hosts various undergraduate and graduate study programs.

The university's Yerkes Observatory, constructed in 1897 and located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, is the home of the largest refracting telescope ever built. The Yerkes Observatory claims to have been the first to determine the spiral structure of the Milky Way Galaxy and the first to observe carbon in stellar spectra.

[edit] Academics

Eckhart Hall, located on the East Quadrangles.

The University of Chicago currently maintains twelve units: the College, four divisions of graduate research, six professional schools, and the Graham School of General Studies. The University of Chicago also operates the Library, the University of Chicago Press, the Lab Schools, the Hospitals. In addition, it is affiliated with several other research and teaching institutions.

The University of Chicago's economics department has played an important role in shaping ideas about the free market^[47] 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 in the United States and gave birth to the Chicago school of sociology. Scholars affiliated with this school include Albion Small, George Herbert Mead, Robert E. Park, W. I. Thomas, and Ernest Burgess.^[48]

[edit] Undergraduate college

The College of the University of Chicago grants Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees in 52 majors and 14 minors in the biological, physical, and social sciences, as well as in the humanities and interdisciplinary areas. A major may provide a comprehensive understanding of a well-defined field, such as anthropology or mathematics, or it may be an interdisciplinary program such as African and African-American studies, environmental studies, biological chemistry, or cinema and media studies. A full list of offered majors and minors is available within the college's main article.

Undergraduate students must undergo a rigorous core curriculum, the goal of which is to impart an education that is both timeless and a vehicle for interdisciplinary debate. Students must take courses designed to foster critical skills in a broad range of academic disciplines, including history, literature, science, mathematics, writing, and critical reasoning. Most of the Core curriculum classes at Chicago contain no more than 25 students, and are generally led by a full-time professor (as opposed to a teaching assistant).^[49] Currently, 15 courses are required in addition to tested foreign language proficiency if no Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate examinations are used for exemption.

An important part of the undergraduate experience is that the college runs on a quarter system, instead of the traditional semester system followed in many other universities. The quarter system includes four academic quarters: Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring (although most undergraduates typically do not stay for the Summer quarter). Full-time students take three to four courses every quarter for approximately eleven weeks before their quarterly academic breaks. The school year typically begins late September and ends in mid-June. While the school year begins later than most other academic institutions, the quarter system also allows students to take more courses than a typical student would on the semester system.

While the science curriculum has largely followed the intellectual evolution of its respective fields, the requisite humanities and social science sequences now have several variants that encompass non-Western, non-canonical, and critical theory texts.^[50] The majority of undergraduate courses are small, discussion-based seminars with the exception of courses in the physical sciences, and undergraduate students routinely take their upper-level courses alongside graduate students.

First-year students are assigned to one of 38 houses through the university's house system. House sizes range from 25 to 100 members but typically consist of no more than 60 students. The house system serves as the focal point of university life, and each house offers amenities such as kitchenettes, common areas, and study rooms. A significant portion of the undergraduate student body, however, lives off-campus, and relocation amongst the houses is not uncommon.

[edit] Libraries

The University of Chicago's library system is also one of the largest in the country. The university's Regenstein Library is committed to providing physical, "browsable" access to print books in a single location, rather than relying on offsite storage as many libraries do. In 2005, funding was approved for the construction of a 308,000-square-foot (28,600 m²) addition to the library to accommodate an expansion of its collection. When the expansion is complete, the Regenstein will contain the largest browsable collection of print volumes in the United States.^[51] The university expects to finish construction by winter of 2009.^[52] The "Reg", as it is commonly called by students, is noted for its exceptional breadth and depth of material. In its 2007 rankings, the Princeton Review ranked it among the top college libraries in the country.^[53]

The John Crerar Library is recognized as one of the best libraries in the country for research and teaching in the sciences, medicine, and technology and maintains more than 1.3 million volumes in the biological, medical and physical sciences as well as collections in general science and the philosophy and history of science, medicine, and technology.^[54] Students in the College have access to all of the university's special libraries, including the D’Angelo Law Library, Yerkes Observatory Library for astronomy and astrophysics, the Social Service Administration Library, and the Eckhart Library for mathematics and computer science.^[20]

[edit] Associated institutions

Faculty and students at the adjacent Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago also collaborate closely with the university.^[55] Although formally unrelated, the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) is also located on the campus, and many faculty members and graduate students hold research appointments at NORC.

The university also operates the University of Chicago 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 of persons disabled but otherwise of exceptional ability), and the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School (a residential treatment program for those with behavioral and emotional problems).^[56] The university also administers four unaffiliated public charter schools on the South Side of Chicago.

The University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the country.^[12] It publishes a wide array of scholarly and academic texts, including The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek, A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean and the influential Chicago Manual of Style, as well as numerous highly-cited academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, American Journal of Sociology, The American Naturalist and the Journal of Political Economy.

Chicago 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 and the Association of American Universities.

In February 2006, the University of Chicago 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 preeminent centers for research in the fields of elementary particle physics and astrophysics.^[57] On November 1, 2006, the Department of Energy announced that the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC (FRA), led by the University of Chicago, would manage Fermilab for five years starting January 1, 2007. The FRA is a partnership between the Universities Research Association (URA) and the University of Chicago. Based on its performance, the FRA may be entitled to renew this contract without competition for up to 20 years.

The university is home to several committees for interdisciplinary scholarship, the most famous of which is the Committee on Social Thought. One of several Ph. D-granting committees at the university, it was started in 1941 by University of Chicago president Robert Maynard Hutchins along with historian John U. Nef, economist Frank Knight, and anthropologist Robert Redfield. The committee is interdisciplinary, but it is not centered on any specific topic. Since its inception, the committee has drawn together noted academics and writers to "foster awareness of the permanent questions at the origin of all learned inquiry".^[58] Members of the committee have included Hannah Arendt, T. S. Eliot, David Grene, Leo Strauss, Allan Bloom, Friedrich von Hayek, Leon Kass, Mark Strand, Wayne Booth, Joseph Rutherford Hicks, and J.M. Coetzee.^[58]

The Council on Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences and Humanities administers over seventy interdisciplinary workshops, which provide a forum for graduate students, faculty, and visiting scholars to present scholarly work in progress. The council is composed of faculty from the Social Sciences and Humanities divisions and the Divinity School who set policy for the council and approve new workshops for funding. The focus of the workshops varies depending on the interests of the student and faculty participants, but tend to focus on a thematic, geographic, temporal area of study.^[59]

In 1983, the University of Chicago implemented the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project, a comprehensive mathematics program for students from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Today, an estimated 3.5 to 4 million students in elementary and secondary schools in every state and virtually every major urban area are now using UCSMP materials.^[60]

The University of Chicago, as of 2009, offers undergraduate instruction in at least 47 foreign languages, ancient and modern.^[61]

[edit] Student body

The University of Chicago enrolls 4,901 undergraduate, and 9,820 graduate, professional, and other students.^[62] Admissions are characterized as "more selective, lower transfer-in".^[63] There were 12,385 applications for the undergraduate Class of 2012 (entering 2008).^[64] 3,459 were admitted (27.9%), 1,328 enrolled (38.4%).^[64] 86% ranked in the top ten percent of their high school class.^[64]

[edit] Rankings and reputation

The entrance to Mandel Hall, a Victorian-style theater that acts as a concert and assembly venue for students.

Comprehensively, the University is ranked: 9th among world universities and 8th among universities in North America by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University,^[80] 7th among world universities and 4th in North America by the Times Higher Education Supplement on the basis of peer review,^[81][82][83], 8th in the World by USNews[5], and the 20th most "global" university by Newsweek on the basis of scholarly achievements and "international diversity".^[84]

According to David Rothkopf, the University of Chicago is one of the top three elite universities in the world (along with Harvard and Stanford) to produce members of the new global "Superclass."^[85]

[edit] Undergraduate college

The 2009 edition of U.S. News and World Report ranks the undergraduate program 8th among national universities (tied with Columbia University and Duke University).^[8] The acceptance rate for the Class of 2012 was 27%. Meanwhile, in its 2007 publication, "The Best 361 Colleges", the Princeton Review ranked the University of Chicago 1st in the country in the category of "best overall academic experience for undergraduates", the ranking being retired in 2008. The University of Chicago's undergraduate college ranks 14^th in the Wall Street Journal's ranking of top feeder colleges to the fifteen elite business, law, and medical schools. According to the University, 85 percent of undergraduates attend graduate school within five years, the highest rate in the nation, and with more going on to doctor of philosophy programs than at any other university affiliated college[6].

In 2008, Forbes magazine ranked the University of Chicago's undergraduate program the 4th best in the country after Harvard, Yale, and Princeton based on post-graduation achievements and student evaluations.^[86]

The University is also ranked first among colleges with fewer than 5,000 students for sending students to the Peace Corps.^[87]

[edit] Graduate programs

The University is known for its internationally reputable professional programs. In the 2007 Business Week and The Economist both ranked the Booth School of Business 1st in the country.^[88] US News ranks the School of Law 6th (tied with the University of California, Berkeley),^[89] the Harris School of Public Policy 7th in policy analysis^[90] as well as 7th in social policy,^[91] the School of Medicine 13th in the country,^[92] and the School of Social Service Administration 3rd. The University of Chicago Divinity School, which offers both academic and ministerial training, is ranked #1 in faculty quality out of all U.S. doctoral programs in religious studies by the National Research Council [7]. The National Research Council also ranked the University of Chicago's Anthropology Department #1, overall, in the country (tied with University of Michigan).

According to the National Research Council the school was ranked within the United States at: 8th in arts & humanities, 11th in biological sciences, 7th in physical sciences and mathematics, and 5th in social and behavioral sciences.[8] In aggregate, 18 programs ranked in the top ten in the nation, the 7th strongest showing[9].

The university operates the University of Chicago Medical Center, which was ranked the 14th best hospital in the country by U.S. News and World Report.^[93] It is the only hospital in Illinois ever to be included in the magazine's Honor Roll of the best hospitals in the United States.^[94]

[edit] Faculty and alumni

[edit] Presidents

The main quadrangle in the winter.

For each president, the University of Chicago commissions a large portrait that is hung in Hutchinson Commons, one of the university's central buildings. The presidents of the University of Chicago have been:

1. William Rainey Harper, 1891–1906
2. Harry Pratt Judson, 1906–1923
3. Ernest DeWitt Burton, 1923–1925
4. Max Mason, 1925–1928
5. Robert Hutchins, 1929–1951
6. Lawrence A. Kimpton, 1951–1960
7. George W. Beadle, 1961–1968
8. Edward H. Levi, 1968–1975
9. John T. Wilson, 1975–1978
10. Hanna Holborn Gray, 1978–1993
11. Hugo F. Sonnenschein, 1993–2000
12. Don Michael Randel, 2000–2006
13. Robert Zimmer, 2006–present

[edit] Notable faculty and alumni

According to the Nobel Foundation, there have been 17 Nobel Prizes awarded to persons pursuing research or on faculty at the university at the time of the award announcement, placing the university behind only Harvard University (31) and Stanford University (18). ^[95]

In addition, many Chicago alumni and scholars have won the Fulbright awards^[96] and, since its inception in 1904, 44 have matriculated as Rhodes Scholars.^[97]

[edit] Athletics

The "Wishbone C" logo used by the university.

Chicago's sports teams are called the Maroons, and their colors are maroon and white. They participate in the NCAA's Division III as members of the University Athletic Association (UAA). At one point, the University of Chicago's football teams (nicknamed the Monsters of the Midway at the time) 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 the old Stagg Field.^[98] The University is also one of only a few schools to be undefeated in football against the University of Notre Dame.^[99] Against the undefeated University of Michigan in 1905, Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg's Maroons beat the Wolverines with a two point safety, ending Michigan's legendary 2,281 to 42 point overall margin of victory against opponents in the previous 5 years. In 1935, Chicago's Jay Berwanger was the winner of the first-ever Heisman Trophy, now on display in Ratner Athletic Facility. Reportedly, Berwanger had used the trophy as an indoor door stop until its transfer to Ratner.^{[citation needed]} The following year, Berwanger also became the first player to be drafted by the National Football League, although he decided not to play professional football.

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 conference altogether, in 1946.^[100] The University maintains an academic affiliation with the Big Ten schools through the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, a consortium of one Northeastern and eleven Midwestern research universities. In 1969, Chicago reinstated football as a minor Division III team, resuming playing its home games at the new Stagg Field. The Maroon football team has won the University Athletic Association (UAA) championship in 1998, 2000, and 2005. Having founded the UAA with Washington University in St. Louis, the Chicago football team has an intense rivalry with the Wash U football team for the traveling trophy known as the "Founder's Cup". There are several other prominent athletic teams at the University, among them swimming and track have performed excellently.

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 Old 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, because of the ubiquitous statues of gargoyles that adorn many of the buildings on the campus. Chicago's fight song is Wave the Flag, written in 1929.

[edit] Student life

The University's Reynolds Club, the student center

[edit] Student Organizations

Students at the University of Chicago run over 400 clubs and organizations known as Recognized Student Organizations (RSOs).^[101][102] These include cultural and religious groups, academic clubs and teams, and common-interest organizations.^[102] Among notable RSOs are the organizing committee for the University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt, the twice-weekly student newspaper the Chicago Maroon, and the university-owned radio station WHPK.

[edit] Fraternities and sororities

There are fourteen fraternities and six sororities at the University of Chicago,^[103] as well as one co-ed community service fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega.^[104] Three of the sororities are members of the National Panhellenic Conference,^[105] and ten of the fraternities form the University of Chicago Interfraternity Council.^[106] In 2002, the Associate Director of Student Activities estimated that 8–10 percent of undergraduates were members of fraternities or sororities.^[105] The student activities office has used similar figures, stating that one in ten undergraduates participate in Greek life.^[103]

[edit] Residential Life

On-campus undergraduate students at the University of Chicago participate in a "House System", in which each student is assigned to a residence hall building and to a smaller community within their residence hall called a "House".

[edit] Traditions

[edit] Summer Breeze

The university annually holds a summer carnival and concert called Summer Breeze. Past musicians who have performed at Summer Breeze include The Roots, Spoon, Wilco, Eminem, Kanye West, Run DMC, Cake, Andrew Bird, They Might Be Giants, Method Man, Moby, Fuel, Nas, Jurassic 5, U2, Sonic Youth, Talib Kweli, The Violent Femmes, OK Go, Mos Def, George Clinton, and recently Santigold and Broken Social Scene.^[107]

[edit] Doc Films

Doc Films, founded in 1932 (originally the Documentary Film Group), is the oldest student film society in the country. In Vanity Fair's "Film Snob's Dictionary", Doc Films is described as: "Hard-core beyond words and lay comprehension, the society is populated by 19-year olds who have already seen every film ever made, and boasts its own Dolby Digital-equipped cinema and an impressive roster of alumni that includes snob-revered critic Dave Kehr."^[108]

During the school year, Doc Films screens a different film on every night of the week. Foreign films and documentaries are typically screened on weekdays, while recent, mainstream selections are shown on weekends. Occasionally, Doc Films screens works that have not yet been released to the general public, such as American Gangster, Corpse Bride and Brokeback Mountain.

Doc Films has hosted many Hollywood luminaries as guests, including Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho, Vertigo, The Birds), Fritz Lang (Metropolis), and Woody Allen (Annie Hall, Manhattan). In November 2005, director Ang Lee and producer James Schamus visited the University of Chicago to screen the film Brokeback Mountain a month before its American debut, and to participate in a question-and-answer session with students.^[109] In January 2007, film director Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, Pi) presented a screening of his film The Fountain to students and afterwards, likewise, participated in a question-and-answer session. Most recently, Robert Redford screened Lions for Lambs and held a question and answer session after the screening.

[edit] Scavenger Hunt

Qwazy Quad Rally, Scav Hunt 2005, item #38

The annual University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt is a week-long event in which large teams compete to obtain all of the notoriously esoteric items on a list. Held every May since 1987, it is considered to be the largest scavenger hunt in the world.^[110] 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 and has typically pushed the boundaries of absurdity.

Each year, the scavenger hunt list includes roughly 300 items, each with an assigned point value. The items vary widely and may involve performances, large-scale constructions, and long-distance travel. Teams are generally expected to fall well short of completing half of the list and instead compete for total points earned. The more difficult and time-consuming items earn more points. Notable past items include: a passport stamped by all members of the Axis of Evil, a functioning nuclear reactor, a Calvinball tournament, a ninja muffin, a sex toy autographed by a Nobel Prize winner and a cell phone marching band.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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