Northwestern University
Encyclopedia
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston
and Chicago
, Illinois
, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees.
Northwestern was founded in 1851 by John Evans
, for whom Evanston is named, and eight other lawyers, businessmen and Methodist leaders to serve the people of a region that had once been known as the Northwest Territory
. Instruction began in 1855; women were admitted in 1869. Today, the main campus is a 240 acres (97.1 ha) parcel in Evanston, along the shores of Lake Michigan
. The university's law
and medical schools
are located on a 25 acres (10.1 ha) campus in Chicago's Streeterville
neighborhood. In 2008, the University opened a campus in Education City
, Doha
, Qatar
with programs in journalism and communication. In academic year 2010-11, Northwestern enrolled 8,397 undergraduate and 7,870 graduate and professional students.
Northwestern has one of the top ten university endowments in the United States.
One of only 62 institutions elected to the Association of American Universities (1917), Northwestern was awarded more than $500 million in research grants in 2010–2011, placing it in the first tier of the top research universities in the United States by the Center for Measuring University Performance
. Its schools of management, engineering, and communication, for example, are among the most academically productive in the nation.
Northwestern is a founding member of the Big Ten Conference
and remains the only private university in the conference. The Northwestern Wildcats
compete in 19 intercollegiate sports in the NCAA
's Division I.
. On January 28, 1851, the Illinois General Assembly
granted a charter to the Trustees of the North-Western University, making it the first chartered university in Illinois. The school’s nine founders, all of whom were Methodists (three of them ministers
), knelt in prayer
and worship
before launching their first organizational meeting. Although they affiliated the university with the Methodist Episcopal Church
, they were committed to non-sectarian admissions, believing that Northwestern should serve all people in the newly developing territory.
John Evans, for whom Evanston is named, bought 379 acres (153.4 ha) of land along Lake Michigan in 1853, and Philo Judson developed plans for what would become the city of Evanston
. The first building, Old College, opened on November 5, 1855. To raise funds for construction, Northwestern sold $100 "perpetual scholarships" entitling the purchaser and his heirs to free tuition. In 1873 the Evanston College for Ladies
merged with Northwestern, and Frances Willard
, who later gained fame as a suffragette
and as one of the founders of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), became the school's first dean of women. Northwestern admitted its first women students in 1869, and the first woman was graduated in 1874. Willard Residential College (1938) is named in her honor.
Northwestern fielded its first intercollegiate football team in 1882, later becoming a founding member of the Big Ten Conference
. In the 1870s and 1880s, Northwestern affiliated itself with already existing schools of law, medicine, and dentistry in Chicago. As the university increased in wealth and distinction, and enrollments grew, these professional schools were integrated with the undergraduate college in Evanston; the result was a modern research university combining professional, graduate, and undergraduate programs, which gave equal weight to teaching and research. The Association of American Universities
invited Northwestern to become a member in 1917.
Under Walter Dill Scott
's presidency from 1920 to 1939, Northwestern began construction of an integrated campus in Chicago designed by James Gamble Rogers
to house the professional schools; established the Kellogg School of Management
; and built several prominent buildings on the Evanston campus, Dyche Stadium (now named Ryan Field) and Deering Library
among others. In 1933, a proposal to merge Northwestern with the University of Chicago
was considered but rejected. Northwestern hosted the first-ever NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship
game in 1939 in the original Patten Gymnasium
, later demolished and relocated farther north to make room for the Technological Institute
.
Like other American research universities, Northwestern was transformed by World War II
. Franklyn B. Snyder led the university from 1939 to 1949, when nearly 50,000 military officers and personnel were trained on the Evanston and Chicago campuses. After the war, surging enrollments under the G.I. Bill drove drastic expansion of both campuses. In 1948 prominent anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits
founded the Program of African Studies
at Northwestern, the first center of its kind at an American academic institution. J. Roscoe Miller
's tenure as president from 1949–1970 was responsible for the expansion of the Evanston campus, with the construction of the lakefill on Lake Michigan, growth of the faculty and new academic programs, as well as polarizing Vietnam-era student protests. In 1978, the first and second Unabomber attacks occurred at Northwestern University. Relations between Evanston and Northwestern were strained throughout much of the post-war era because of episodes of disruptive student activism, disputes over municipal zoning, building codes, and law enforcement, as well as restrictions on the sale of alcohol near campus until 1972. Northwestern's exemption from state and municipal property tax obligations under its original charter has historically been a source of town and gown
tension.
Though government support for universities declined in the 1970s and 1980s, President Arnold R. Weber
was able to stabilize university finances, leading to a revitalization of the campuses. As admissions to colleges and universities grew increasingly competitive in the 1990s and 2000s, President Henry S. Bienen's tenure saw a notable increase in the number and quality of undergraduate applicants, continued expansion of the facilities and faculty, and renewed athletic competitiveness. In 1999, Northwestern student journalists uncovered information exonerating Illinois death row inmate Anthony Porter
two days before his scheduled execution, and the Innocence Project has since exonerated 10 more men. On January 11, 2003, in a speech at Northwestern School of Law's Lincoln Hall, then Governor of Illinois
George Ryan
announced that he would commute
the sentences of more than 150 death row
inmates.
The Latin
phrase on Northwestern's seal, Quaecumque sunt vera (Whatsoever things are true) is drawn from the Epistle of Paul to the Philippians 4:8, while the Greek phrase inscribed on the pages of an open book is taken from the Gospel of John 1:14: ο λόγος πλήρης χάριτος και αληθείας (The Word full of grace and truth). Purple
became Northwestern's official color in 1892, replacing black
and gold
after a university committee concluded that too many other universities had used these colors. Today, Northwestern's official color is purple, although white is something of an official color as well, being mentioned in both the university's earliest song, Alma Mater (1907) ("Hail to purple, hail to white") and in many university guidelines.
Northwestern's Evanston campus, where the undergraduate schools, the Graduate School, and the Kellogg School of Management are located, runs north-south from Lincoln Avenue to Clark Street west of Lake Michigan along Sheridan Road
. North and South Campuses have noticeably different atmospheres, owing to the predominance of Science and Athletics in the one and Humanities and Arts in the other. North Campus is home to the fraternity
quads
, the Henry Crown Sports Pavilion and Norris Aquatics Center and other athletic facilities, the Technological Institute
, Dearborn Observatory
, and other science-related buildings including Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Hall for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly, and the Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center. South Campus is home to the University's humanities buildings, Pick-Staiger Concert Hall and other music buildings, the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art
, and the sorority
quads. In the 1960s, the University created an additional 84 acres (34 ha) by means of a lakefill in Lake Michigan. Among some of the buildings located on these broad new acres are University Library, Norris University Center (the student union), and Pick-Staiger Concert Hall.
The Chicago Transit Authority
's elevated train
running through Evanston is called the Purple Line
, taking its name from Northwestern's school color. The Foster
and Davis
stations are 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. The Evanston Davis Street
Metra
station serves the Northwestern campus in downtown Evanston and the Evanston Central Street
Metra station is near Ryan Field. Pace Suburban Bus Service and the CTA have several bus routes that run through or near the Evanston campus.
Northwestern's Chicago campus is located in the city's Streeterville
neighborhood. The Chicago campus is home to the medical school
and affiliated hospitals, the law school
, the part-time MBA program, and the School of Continuing Studies
, which offers evening and weekend courses for working adults. Northwestern's professional schools and affiliated hospitals are about four blocks east of the Chicago
station on the CTA Red Line
. The Chicago campus is also served by CTA bus routes.
Founded at various times in the university's history, the professional schools originally were scattered throughout Chicago. In connection with a 1917 master plan for a central Chicago campus and President Walter D. Scott's capital campaign, 8.5 acres (3.44 ha) of land were purchased at the corner of Chicago Avenue and Lake Shore Drive
for $1.5 million in 1920. The architect James Gamble Rogers
was commissioned to create a master plan for the principal buildings on the new campus which he designed in collegiate gothic style. In 1923, Mrs. Montgomery Ward
donated $8 million to the campaign to finance the construction of the Montgomery Ward Memorial Building which would house the medical and dental schools and to create endowments for faculty chairs, research grants, scholarships, and building maintenance. The building would become the first skyscraper housing academic facilities in the United States. In addition to the Ward Building, Rogers designed Wieboldt Hall to house facilities for the School of Commerce and Levy Mayer Hall to house the School of Law. The new campus comprising these three new buildings was dedicated during a two-day ceremony in June 1927. The Chicago campus continued to expand with the addition of Thorn Hall in 1931 and Abbott Hall in 1939.
, Doha
, Qatar
, joining five other American universities: Carnegie Mellon University
, Cornell University
, Georgetown University
, Texas A&M University
, and Virginia Commonwealth University
. Through the Medill School of Journalism
and School of Communication
, Qatar offers bachelors degrees in journalism and communication respectively. The Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development provided funding for construction and administrative costs as well as support to hire 50 to 60 faculty and staff, some of whom rotate between the Evanston and Qatar campuses.
Northwestern requires that all new buildings be LEED-certified. Silverman Hall on the Evanston campus was awarded Gold LEED Certification in 2010; Wieboldt Hall on the Chicago campus was awarded Gold LEED Certification in 2007, and the Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center on the Evanston campus was awarded Silver LEED Certification in 2006. New construction and renovation projects will be designed to provide at least a 20% improvement over energy code requirements where technically feasible. The university also released at the beginning of the 2008-09 academic year the Evanston Campus Framework Plan, which outlines plans for future development of the Evanston Campus. The plan not only emphasizes the sustainable construction of buildings, but also discusses improving transportation by optimizing pedestrian and bicycle access. Northwestern has had a comprehensive recycling program in place since 1990. Annually more than 1,500 tons are recycled at Northwestern, which represents 30% of the waste produced on campus. Additionally, all landscape waste at the university is composted.
, delegates its power to an elected president to serve as the chief executive officer of the university. Northwestern has had sixteen presidents in its history (excluding interim presidents), the current president, Morton O. Schapiro, an economist, having succeeded Henry Bienen
whose 14-year tenure ended on August 31, 2009. The president has a staff of vice presidents, directors, and other assistants for administrative, financial, faculty, and student matters. Daniel I. Linzer
, provost since September 2007, serves under the president as the chief academic officer of the university to whom the deans of every academic school, leaders of cross-disciplinary units, and chairs of the standing faculty committee report.
The Associated Student Government consists of the elected representatives of the undergraduate students and the Graduate Student Association represents graduate students.
Northwestern University is composed of 11 schools and colleges. The faculty for each school consists of the dean of the school and the instructional faculty. Faculty are responsible for teaching, research, advising students, and serving on committees. Each school's admission requirements, degree requirements, courses of study, and disciplinary and degree recommendations are determined by the voting members of that school's faculty (assistant professor and above).
Northwestern's endowment was $5.9 billion in mid 2010, estimated as ninth among US and Canadian universities.
By August 2010 it had grown to $6.3 billion, with an estimated rank of eighth.
In 2003, Northwestern finished a five-year capital campaign that raised $1.55 billion, $150 million more than its goal. In 2007, the university sold its royalty interest in the pain relief drug Lyrica for $700 million, a drug developed at Northwestern by Richard Bruce Silverman
, the John Evans Professor of Chemistry. This was the largest such sale in history, the proceeds of which were added to the endowment.
and the respective national professional organizations for chemistry, psychology, business, education, journalism, music, engineering, law, and medicine, the university offers 124 undergraduate programs and 145 graduate and professional programs. NU conferred 2,219 bachelors degrees, 2,971 masters degrees, 447 doctoral degrees, and 444 professional degrees in 2009–2010.
The four-year, full-time undergraduate program comprises the majority of enrollments at the university and emphasizes instruction in the arts and sciences, plus the professions of engineering, journalism, communication, music, and education. Although a foundation in the liberal arts and sciences is required in all majors, there is no required common core curriculum; individual degree requirements are set by the faculty of each school. Northwestern's full-time undergraduate and graduate programs operate on an approximately 10-week academic quarter system
with the academic year beginning in late September and ending in early June. Undergraduates typically take 4 courses each quarter and 12 courses in an academic year and are required to complete at least 12 quarters on campus to graduate. Northwestern offers honors, accelerated, and joint degree programs in medicine, science, mathematics, engineering, and journalism. The comprehensive doctoral graduate program has high coexistence with undergraduate programs.
Undergraduates with grade point averages in the highest 3 percent of each graduating class are awarded degrees summa cum laude
, the next 5 percent magna cum laude, and the next 8 percent cum laude. Northwestern also has chapters of academic honor societies such as Phi Beta Kappa (Alpha of Illinois), Eta Kappa Nu
, Tau Beta Pi
, and Lambda Pi Eta
. Since 1951, Northwestern has awarded 520 honorary degrees.
Undergraduate tuition for the 2010-2011 school year was $39,840. Northwestern awards financial aid solely on the basis of need through loans, work-study, grants, and scholarships. The University processed in excess of $472 million in financial aid for the 2009-2010 academic year. This included $265 million in institutional funds, with the remainder coming from federal and state governments and private organizations and individuals. Northwestern scholarship programs for undergraduate students support needy students from a variety of income and backgrounds. Approximately 44 percent of the June 2010 graduates had received federal and/or private loans for their undergraduate education, graduating with an average debt of $17,200.
Among the six undergraduate schools, 51.6% of undergraduate students are enrolled in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, 17.4% in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, 13.7% in the School of Communication
, 8.1% in the Medill School of Journalism
, 4.3% in the Bienen School of Music, and 4.9% in the School of Education and Social Policy. The five most commonly awarded underegraduate degrees are in economics, journalism, communication studies, psychology, and political science. While professional students are affiliated with their respective schools, full-time graduate academic degrees are primarily administered by the Graduate School. With 2,446 students enrolled in science, engineering, and health fields, the largest graduate programs by enrollment include chemistry, integrated biology, material sciences, electrical and computer engineering, neuroscience, and economics. The Kellogg School of Management
's MBA
, the School of Law
's JD
, and the Feinberg School of Medicine
's MD
are the three largest professional degree
programs by enrollment.
The Northwestern library system consists of four libraries on the Evanston campus including the central University Library
, three libraries on the Chicago campus, and the library affiliated with Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. University Library contains over 4.9 million volumes, 4.6 million microforms, and almost 99,000 periodicals making it (by volume) the 30th-largest university library in North America and the 10th-largest library among private universities. Library expenditures totaled $26.3 million in 2006 and more than 100,000 volumes were added in the same year. Notable collections in the library system include the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, one of the largest Africana
collections in the world, an extensive collection of early edition printed music and manuscripts as well as late-modern works, and an art collection noted for its 19th and 20th-century Western art
and architecture periodicals
. The library system participates with 15 other universities in digitizing its collections as a part of the Google Book Search
project. The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art
is a major art museum in Chicago, containing more than 4,000 works in its permanent collection as well as dedicating a third of its space to temporary and traveling exhibitions.
In 2011, the Holocaust Educational Foundation
, which had previously endowed the Theodore Zev Weiss – Holocaust Educational Foundation Professorship in Holocaust Studies, became part of Northwestern.
Northwestern was elected to the Association of American Universities
in 1917 and remains a research university with "very high" research activity. Northwestern's schools of management, engineering, and communication are among the most academically productive in the nation. Northwestern received $556.4 million in research funding in 2010, an increase of 17 percent over the previous year. In 2010, $451.9 million of the overall dollar volume of research originated from federal agencies, $39.8 million from industry, $11.2 million from state governments, and $53.5 million from other sources. Northwestern supports nearly 1,500 research laboratories across two campuses, predominately in the medical and biological sciences. In 2008, the most recent year for which data are available, Northwestern was 32nd among top-ranking US universities in total funds for research and development with $439.9 million. Northwestern researchers disclosed 165 inventions, filed 76 patents applications, received 58 patents, started 4 companies, and generated $824.4 million in license income in 200. The bulk of revenue has come from a patent on pregabalin, a synthesized organic molecule discovered by chemistry professor Richard Silverman, which ultimately was marketed as Lyrica, a drug sold by Pfizer
, to combat epilepsy, neuropathic pain, and fibromyalgia. The Lyrica returns in 2008 pushed Northwestern into first place among universities in licensing income.
Northwestern is home to the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics, Northwestern Institute for Complex Systems, Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, Materials Research Center, Institute for Policy Research, International Institute for Nanotechnology, Center for Catalysis and Surface Science, Buffet Center for International and Comparative Studies, the Initiative for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern and the Argonne/Northwestern Solar Energy Research Center
and other centers for interdisciplinary research.
The undergraduates have a number of traditions: Painting The Rock
(originally a fountain donated by the Class of 1902) is a way to advertise, for example, campus organizations, events in Greek life, student groups, and university-wide events. Dance Marathon
, a 30-hour philanthropic event, raises several hundred thousand dollars every winter. Primal Scream is held at 9 p.m. on the Sunday before finals week every quarter; students lean out of windows or gather in courtyards and scream. Armadillo Day, or, more popularly, Dillo Day
, is held on Northwestern's Lakefill every Spring on the weekend after Memorial Day
.
There are traditions long associated with football games. Students growl like wildcats when the opposing team controls the ball, while simulating a claw with their hands. They will also jingle keys at the beginning of each kickoff. In the past, before the tradition was discontinued, students would throw marshmallows during games. The Clock Tower at the Rebecca Crown Center glows purple, instead of its usual white, after a winning game, thereby proclaiming the happy news. The Clock Tower remains purple until a loss or until the end of the sports season. Whereas formerly the Clock Tower was lighted only for football victories, wins for men's basketball and women's lacrosse now merit commemoration as well; important victories in other sports may also prompt an empurpling.
Corporal punishment
for undergraduates was introduced in 1922, when it was announced that students of either sex could be spanked
for a range of offenses in public, including swearing, smoking (if aged under 21), rollerskating in the downtown district, or being rowdy in an ice cream parlor.
is the main student newspaper. Established in 1881, and published on weekdays during the academic year, it is directed entirely by undergraduates. Although it serves the Northwestern community, the Daily has no business ties to the university, being supported wholly by advertisers. It is owned by the Students Publishing Company. Current circulation is in excess of 7,500.
North by Northwestern
is an online magazine founded and run by undergraduates. It was established in September 2006 by students at the Medill School and is published on weekdays, with updates on breaking news stories and special events throughout the day and on weekends. North by Northwestern also publishes a quarterly print magazine, which was recognized as the nation's best student magazine by the Society of Professional Journalists.
WNUR
(89.3 FM) is a 7,200 watt radio station
that broadcasts to Chicago and its northern suburbs. WNUR's programming consists of music – jazz, classical, rock – varsity sports (football, men's and women's basketball, baseball, softball, and women's lacrosse), breaking news on weekdays, politics, current events, and literature.
Northwestern News Network
, commonly known as NNN, is a student-produced television news report. It broadcasts news and sports programming three days a week during the academic year on NU Channel 1, online at nnntv.org, and weeknights at 10 p.m. on Evanston Public-access television
cable TV channel 6.
Syllabus is the undergraduate yearbook. First published in 1885, the yearbook is an epitome of that year's events at Northwestern. Published by Students Publishing Company and edited by Northwestern students, it is distributed in late May.
Northwestern Flipside
is an undergraduate satirical magazine. Founded in 2009, The Flipside publishes a weekly issue both in print and online.
Helicon is the university's undergraduate literary magazine. Started in 1979, it is published twice a year, a web issue in the Winter, and a print issue with a web complement in the Spring.
TriQuarterly Online (formerly TriQuarterly) is a literary magazine published twice a year featuring poetry, fiction, nonfiction, drama, literary essays, reviews, a blog, and graphic art.
http://triquarterly.org
. Waa-Mu is an original musical, written and produced almost entirely by students. Children's theater is represented on campus by Griffin’s Tale and Purple Crayon Players. Its umbrella organization—the Student Theatre Coalition, or StuCo—organizes the 9 fully functioning student theatre companies, plus some other performance groups. Students produce over sixty independent productions each year. Many Northwestern alumni have used these productions as stepping stones to successful television and film careers. Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre was founded by several alumni, including David Schwimmer
, and began in the Great Room in Jones Residential College.
Northwestern also has a variety of improv groups. The improv and sketch comedy group Mee-Ow created by Paul Warshauer and Josh Lazar in 1974 lists Julia Louis-Dreyfus
, Ana Gasteyer
, Dermot Mulroney
, Seth Meyers
, John Cameron Mitchell
, and Kristen Schaal
among its alumni. Mee-Ow, The Titanic Players, and Out da Box, a multicultural comedy show, along with Northwestern's theatre department, have brought attention to Northwestern's improv comedy training and performance.
There are ten a cappella groups and a variety of dance companies on campus. The dance companies include Fusion Dance Company, Northwestern's premiere Hip-Hop Dance Crew; Graffiti Dancers, a dance group that focuses on jazz and modern; and Boomshaka, Northwestern's premiere drum and dance ensemble, combining body rhythm, drumming, and dance. Radio drama featuring student voice actors is a staple of WNUR's programming.
, a thirty-hour event that raised more than a million dollars for charity in 2011; and Project Pumpkin, a Halloween
celebration hosted by the Northwestern Community Development Corps (NCDC) to which more than 800 local children are invited for an afternoon of games and sweets. NCDC's work is to connect hundreds of student volunteers to some twenty volunteer sites in Evanston and Chicago throughout the year. Many students have assisted with the Special Olympics
and have taken alternative spring break
trips to hundreds of service sites across the United States. Northwestern students also participate in the Freshman Urban Program, a program for students interested in community service. A large and growing number of students participate in the university's Global Engagement Summer Institute (GESI), a group service-learning expedition in Asia, Africa, or Latin America, in conjunction with the Foundation for Sustainable Development
. Several internationally recognized non-profit organizations
have originated at Northwestern including the World Health Imaging, Informatics and Telemedicine Alliance, a spin-off from an engineering student's honors
thesis
.
In Fall 2007, 27% of undergraduates were affiliated with a fraternity
or sorority. Northwestern recognizes 21 fraternities and 18 sororities.
Northwestern is a charter member of the Big Ten Conference
and the only private institution in the conference. Northwestern fields 19 intercollegiate athletic teams (8 men's and 11 women's) in addition to numerous club sports. The women's lacrosse team
won five consecutive NCAA national championships
between 2005 and 2009, went undefeated in 2005 and 2009, and holds several scoring records. The men's basketball
team is recognized by the Helms Athletic Foundation
as the 1931 National Champion. In the 2008–2009 school year, a total of 184 athletes received Academic All-Big Ten honors: 75 athletes in the fall season, 41 in the winter season, and 68 in the spring season.
The football team plays at Ryan Field (formerly known as Dyche Stadium); the basketball and volleyball teams play at Welsh-Ryan Arena
. 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 Wallace Abbey, a writer for the Chicago Daily Tribune who wrote that even in a loss to the University of Chicago
, "Football players had not come down from Evanston; wildcats would be a name better suited to [Coach Glenn] Thistletwaite's
boys." The name was so popular that university board members made "wildcats" the official nickname just months later. In 1972, the student body voted to change the official nickname from "Wildcats" to "Purple Haze" but the new name never stuck.
The mascot of Northwestern Athletics is Willie the Wildcat
. The first mascot, however, was a live, caged bear cub from the Lincoln Park Zoo
named Furpaw who was brought to the playing field on the day of a game to greet the fans. But after a losing season, the team, deciding that Furpaw was to blame for its misfortune, banished him from campus forever. Willie the Wildcat made his debut in 1933 first as a logo, and then in three dimensions in 1947, when members of the Alpha Delta fraternity dressed as wildcats during a Homecoming Parade. The Northwestern University Marching Band (NUMB)
performs at all home football games and leads cheers in the student section and performs the Alma Mater
at the end of the game.
Although Northwestern's football team
has made 73 appearances in the top 10 of the AP poll since 1936 (including 5 at #1) and has won eight Big Ten conference championships since 1903, its history is one of losses: its all-time record is 461-622-42 (0.428) giving it the all-time record for Division I-A losses. Other dubious distinctions include being on the losing end of the greatest comeback in Division I-A history
and holding the record for the longest losing streak in Division I-A, losing 34 consecutive games between 1979 and 1982. In 2004, Northwestern broke a 33-year losing streak (46 years at home) by defeating No. 7-ranked Ohio State
33-27. After head coach Ara Parseghian
left the program in 1964, the team did not appear in a bowl game until the 1996 Rose Bowl
. Despite playing in the 1996 Rose Bowl, 1997 Citrus Bowl
, 2000 Alamo Bowl
, 2003 Motor City Bowl
, 2005 Sun Bowl
, 2009 Alamo Bowl, 2010 Outback Bowl
and 2011 TicketCity Bowl, the last bowl game Northwestern won was the 1949 Rose Bowl
. Following the sudden death of football coach Randy Walker
in 2006, 31-year-old former All-American Northwestern linebacker
Pat Fitzgerald
assumed the position, becoming the youngest Division I FBS coach at the time.
In 1998, two former Northwestern basketball
players were charged and convicted for sports bribery as a result of being paid to shave points
in games against three other Big 10 schools during the 1995 season. The football team
became embroiled in a different betting scandal later that year when federal prosecutors indicted four former players for perjury related to betting
on their own games. In August 2001, Rashidi Wheeler, a senior safety, collapsed and died during practice from an asthma attack. An autopsy revealed that he had ephedrine
, a stimulant
banned by the NCAA, in his system, which prompted Northwestern to investigate the prevalence of stimulants and other banned substances across all of its athletic programs. In 2006, the Northwestern women's soccer team was suspended and coach Jenny Haigh resigned following the release of images of alleged hazing
.
Northwestern enrolled 8,284 undergraduate, 8,249 graduate, and 1,495 professional students in the 2006–2007 academic year. The undergraduate population is drawn from the 50 states and from some 50 foreign countries. Admissions are characterized as "more selective, lower transfer-in". There were 30,975 applications for the undergraduate Class of 2015 (entering 2011): 18% were admitted. The interquartile range
on the SAT
was 2010–2270 and 85% ranked in the top ten percent of their high school class. In 2007, Northwestern enrolled 249 National Merit Scholars as freshmen, the third-largest total in the nation. 86% of students were graduated after four years, 92% after five years, the university having several five-year programs.
, 65 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
, 19 members of the National Academy of Engineering
, and 6 members of the Institute of Medicine
. Notable faculty include 2010 Nobel Prize
- winning economist Dale T. Mortensen
; nano-scientist Chad Mirkin
; Tony Award-winning director Mary Zimmerman
; management expert Philip Kotler
; King Faisal International Prize in Science recipient Sir Fraser Stoddart; Steppenwolf Theatre director Anna Shapiro
; sexual psychologist J. Michael Bailey
; Holocaust denier Arthur Butz
; Federalist Society
co-founder Steven Calabresi
; former Weatherman
Bernardine Rae Dohrn; ethnographer Gary Alan Fine
; Pulitzer Prize
-winning historian Garry Wills
; and MacArthur Fellowship recipients Stuart Dybek
, and Jennifer Richeson
. Notable former faculty include political advisor David Axelrod
, artist Ed Paschke
, writer Charles Newman
, Nobel Prize
-winning chemist John Pople
, and military sociologist and "don't ask, don't tell
" author Charles Moskos
.
, Nobel Prize-winning economist George J. Stigler, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow
, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and diarist Ned Rorem
, the much-decorated composer Howard Hanson
, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey
Ali Babacan
, the historian and novelist Wilma Dykeman
, and the founder of the presidential prayer breakfast Abraham Vereide
. U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens
, Supreme Court Justice and Ambassador to the United Nations Arthur Joseph Goldberg, and Governor of Illinois and Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson are among the graduates of the Northwestern School of Law
. Many Northwestern alumni play or have played important roles in Chicago and Illinois
, such as former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich
, Chicago Bulls
and Chicago White Sox
owner Jerry Reinsdorf
, and theater director Mary Zimmerman
. Northwestern alumni David J. Skorton
and Graham Spanier
currently serve as president of Cornell University
and Penn State University, respectively. Rahm Emanuel
, the mayor of Chicago and former White House Chief of Staff
, earned a Masters in Speech and Communication in 1985.
Northwestern's School of Communication has been especially fruitful in the number of actors, actresses, playwrights, and film and television writers and directors it has produced. Alumni who have made their mark on film and television include Ann-Margret
, Warren Beatty
, Paul Lynde
, David Schwimmer
, Anne Dudek
, Zach Braff
, Zooey Deschanel
, Marg Helgenberger
, Julia Louis-Dreyfus
, Jerry Orbach
, Jennifer Jones
, Jerry Springer
, Megan Mullally
, Dermot Mulroney
, Charlton Heston
, Richard Kind
, Ana Gasteyer
, Brad Hall
, Shelley Long
, William Daniels
, Cloris Leachman
, Bonnie Bartlett
, Paula Prentiss
, Richard Benjamin
, Laura Innes
, Charles Busch
, Stephanie March
, Tony Roberts
, Jeri Ryan
, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, McLean Stevenson
, Tony Randall
, Charlotte Rae
, Patricia Neal
, Nancy Dussault, Robert Reed
, Mara Brock Akil
, Greg Berlanti
, Dan Shor
, Seth Meyers
, Frank DeCaro
, Zach Gilford
, Stephen Colbert
and Garry Marshall
. Directors who were graduated from Northwestern include Gerald Freedman
, Stuart Hagmann, Marshall W. Mason
, and Mary Zimmerman
. Lee Phillip Bell
hosted a talk show in Chicago from 1952–1986 and co-created the Daytime Emmy Award
-winning soap operas The Young and the Restless
in 1973 and The Bold and the Beautiful
in 1987. Alumni such as Sheldon Harnick
, Stephanie D'Abruzzo
, Heather Headley
, Kristen Schaal
, Lily Rabe
, and Walter Kerr
have distinguished themselves on Broadway, as has designer Bob Mackie
. Amsterdam-based comedy theater Boom Chicago
was founded by Northwestern alumni, and the school has become a training ground for future The Second City
, I.O.
, ComedySportz
, Mad TV
and Saturday Night Live
talent. Tam Spiva
wrote scripts for The Brady Bunch
and Gentle Ben
. In New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, the number of Northwestern alumni involved in theater, film, and television is so large that a perception has formed that there's such a thing as a "Northwestern mafia."
The Medill School of Journalism
has produced notable journalists and political activists including 38 Pulitzer Prize
laureates. National correspondents, reporters and columnists such as The New York Timess Elisabeth Bumiller
, David Barstow
, Dean Murphy, and Vincent Laforet, USA Today
's Gary Levin, Susan Page
and Christine Brennan
, NBC
correspondent Kelly O'Donnell
, CBS
correspondent Richard Threlkeld
, CNN
correspondents Nicole Lapin
and Joie Chen, and ESPN
personalities Rachel Nichols
, Michael Wilbon
, Mike Greenberg, Steve Weissman
, J. A. Adande
, and Kevin Blackistone
.
Northwestern alumni involved in music include Steve Albini
, Thomas Tyra
, Andrew Bird
, Joshua Radin
, members of Arcade Fire, The Lawrence Arms
, Chavez
, and OK Go
. Lastly, Northwestern alumni involved in professional sports include Rick Sund
(NBA), Billy McKinney
(NBA), Mark Loretta
(MLB), Joe Girardi
(MLB), Luis Castillo (NFL), Ernie Adams (NFL), Otto Graham
(NFL), three-time Olympic medalist Matt Grevers
, and PGA Tour star Luke Donald
.
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
and Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees.
Northwestern was founded in 1851 by John Evans
John Evans (governor)
John Evans was a U.S. politician, physician, railroad promoter, Governor of the Territory of Colorado, and namesake of Evanston, Illinois; Evans, Colorado; and Mount Evans, Colorado...
, for whom Evanston is named, and eight other lawyers, businessmen and Methodist leaders to serve the people of a region that had once been known as the Northwest Territory
Northwest Territory
The Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, more commonly known as the Northwest Territory, was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 13, 1787, until March 1, 1803, when the southeastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the state of Ohio...
. Instruction began in 1855; women were admitted in 1869. Today, the main campus is a 240 acres (97.1 ha) parcel in Evanston, along the shores of Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
. The university's law
Northwestern University School of Law
The Northwestern University School of Law is a private American law school in Chicago, Illinois. The law school was founded in 1859 as the Union College of Law of the Old University of Chicago. The first law school established in Chicago, it became jointly controlled by Northwestern University in...
and medical schools
Feinberg School of Medicine
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, located in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois and situated near Lake Michigan and the Magnificent Mile, is one of Northwestern University's 11 schools and colleges...
are located on a 25 acres (10.1 ha) campus in Chicago's Streeterville
Streeterville
Streeterville is a neighborhood in the Near North Side community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States, north of the Chicago River in Cook County...
neighborhood. In 2008, the University opened a campus in Education City
Education City
Education City is an initiative of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. Located on the outskirts of Doha, the capital of Qatar, Education City covers 14 square kilometers and houses educational facilities from school age to research level and branch campi of some of...
, Doha
Doha
Doha is the capital city of the state of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf, it had a population of 998,651 in 2008, and is also one of the municipalities of Qatar...
, Qatar
Qatar
Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...
with programs in journalism and communication. In academic year 2010-11, Northwestern enrolled 8,397 undergraduate and 7,870 graduate and professional students.
Northwestern has one of the top ten university endowments in the United States.
One of only 62 institutions elected to the Association of American Universities (1917), Northwestern was awarded more than $500 million in research grants in 2010–2011, placing it in the first tier of the top research universities in the United States by the Center for Measuring University Performance
Center for Measuring University Performance
The Center for Measuring University Performance is a research center at Arizona State University. The Center is best known for an annual report it produces, The Top American Research Universities, that ranks American universities on nine different measures: Total Research, Federal Research,...
. Its schools of management, engineering, and communication, for example, are among the most academically productive in the nation.
Northwestern is a founding member of the Big Ten Conference
Big Ten Conference
The Big Ten Conference is the United States' oldest Division I college athletic conference. Its twelve member institutions are located primarily in the Midwestern United States, stretching from Nebraska in the west to Pennsylvania in the east...
and remains the only private university in the conference. The Northwestern Wildcats
Northwestern Wildcats
The Northwestern Wildcats are the athletic teams that represent Northwestern University, a founding member of the Big Ten Conference and the only private university in the conference. Northwestern has eight men's and eleven women's Division I sports teams. The mascot is Willie the Wildcat...
compete in 19 intercollegiate sports in the NCAA
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
's Division I.
History
The history of Northwestern University is traceable to a meeting on May 31, 1850, of nine prominent Chicago businessmen, Methodist leaders and attorneys who had formed the idea of establishing a university to serve what had once been known as the Northwest TerritoryNorthwest Territory
The Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, more commonly known as the Northwest Territory, was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 13, 1787, until March 1, 1803, when the southeastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the state of Ohio...
. On January 28, 1851, the Illinois General Assembly
Illinois General Assembly
The Illinois General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Illinois and comprises the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate. The General Assembly was created by the first state constitution adopted in 1818. Illinois has 59 legislative districts, with two...
granted a charter to the Trustees of the North-Western University, making it the first chartered university in Illinois. The school’s nine founders, all of whom were Methodists (three of them ministers
Elder (Methodism)
An Elder in the Methodist Church — sometimes called a Presbyter or Minister — is someone who has been ordained by a Bishop to the ministry of Word, Sacrament, Order, and Service...
), knelt in prayer
Prayer in Christianity
Prayer has been an essential part of Christianity since its earliest days. Prayer is an integral element of the Christian faith and permeates all forms of Christian worship...
and worship
Christian worship
In Christianity, worship is adoration and contemplation of God.-Overview:Throughout most of Christianity's history, corporate Christian worship has been primarily liturgical, characterized by prayers and hymns, with texts rooted in, or closely related to, the Scripture, particularly the Psalter;...
before launching their first organizational meeting. Although they affiliated the university with the Methodist Episcopal Church
Methodist Episcopal Church
The Methodist Episcopal Church, sometimes referred to as the M.E. Church, was a development of the first expression of Methodism in the United States. It officially began at the Baltimore Christmas Conference in 1784, with Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke as the first bishops. Through a series of...
, they were committed to non-sectarian admissions, believing that Northwestern should serve all people in the newly developing territory.
John Evans, for whom Evanston is named, bought 379 acres (153.4 ha) of land along Lake Michigan in 1853, and Philo Judson developed plans for what would become the city of Evanston
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
. The first building, Old College, opened on November 5, 1855. To raise funds for construction, Northwestern sold $100 "perpetual scholarships" entitling the purchaser and his heirs to free tuition. In 1873 the Evanston College for Ladies
Evanston College for Ladies
The Evanston College for Ladies, in Evanston, Illinois, was a female-only Methodist-affiliated institution closely linked with Northwestern University. The college was established in 1871 as a boarding house "in a building at Chicago Avenue between Greenwood and Lake Streets, formerly occupied by...
merged with Northwestern, and Frances Willard
Frances Willard (suffragist)
Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard was an American educator, temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Her influence was instrumental in the passage of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution...
, who later gained fame as a suffragette
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
and as one of the founders of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), became the school's first dean of women. Northwestern admitted its first women students in 1869, and the first woman was graduated in 1874. Willard Residential College (1938) is named in her honor.
Northwestern fielded its first intercollegiate football team in 1882, later becoming a founding member of the Big Ten Conference
Big Ten Conference
The Big Ten Conference is the United States' oldest Division I college athletic conference. Its twelve member institutions are located primarily in the Midwestern United States, stretching from Nebraska in the west to Pennsylvania in the east...
. In the 1870s and 1880s, Northwestern affiliated itself with already existing schools of law, medicine, and dentistry in Chicago. As the university increased in wealth and distinction, and enrollments grew, these professional schools were integrated with the undergraduate college in Evanston; the result was a modern research university combining professional, graduate, and undergraduate programs, which gave equal weight to teaching and research. The Association of American Universities
Association of American Universities
The Association of American Universities is an organization of leading research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education...
invited Northwestern to become a member in 1917.
Walter Dill Scott
Walter Dill Scott was one of the first applied psychologists. He applied psychology to various business practices such as personnel selection and advertising.-Life:...
's presidency from 1920 to 1939, Northwestern began construction of an integrated campus in Chicago designed by James Gamble Rogers
James Gamble Rogers
James Gamble Rogers was an American architect best known for his academic commissions at Yale University, Columbia University, Northwestern University, and elsewhere....
to house the professional schools; established the Kellogg School of Management
Kellogg School of Management
The Kellogg School of Management is the business school of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, downtown Chicago, Illinois and Miami, Florida. Kellogg offers full-time, part-time, and executive programs, as well as partnering programs with schools in China, India, Hong Kong, Israel,...
; and built several prominent buildings on the Evanston campus, Dyche Stadium (now named Ryan Field) and Deering Library
Deering Library
Charles Deering Library is located on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Deering Library houses the Government Publications Department and the Northwestern University Archives on the first floor, the Music Library on the second floor, and the Map Collection,...
among others. In 1933, a proposal to merge Northwestern with the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of 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...
was considered but rejected. Northwestern hosted the first-ever NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship
NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship
The NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship is a single-elimination tournament held each spring in the United States, featuring 68 college basketball teams, to determine the national championship in the top tier of college basketball...
game in 1939 in the original Patten Gymnasium
Patten Gymnasium
Patten Gymnasium is a multi-purpose gymnasium in Evanston, Illinois. The original building, designed by George Washington Maher, opened in 1910 and was home to the Northwestern University Wildcats Basketball Team until 1940, when it was demolished and rebuilt farther north to make room for the...
, later demolished and relocated farther north to make room for the Technological Institute
Technological Institute
The Technological Institute, more commonly known as "Tech", is a landmark building at Northwestern University built from 1940 to 1942.It is the main building for students and faculty in the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. The school of engineering itself was called...
.
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Franklyn B. Snyder led the university from 1939 to 1949, when nearly 50,000 military officers and personnel were trained on the Evanston and Chicago campuses. After the war, surging enrollments under the G.I. Bill drove drastic expansion of both campuses. In 1948 prominent anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits
Melville J. Herskovits
Melville Jean Herskovits was an American anthropologist who firmly established African and African American studies in American academia. The son of Jewish immigrants, he obtained a Bachelor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago in 1923 and obtained his Master's and Ph.D...
founded the Program of African Studies
African studies
African studies is the study of Africa, especially the cultures and societies of Africa .The field includes the study of:Culture of Africa, History of Africa , Anthropology of Africa , Politics of Africa, Economy of Africa African studies is the study of Africa, especially the cultures and...
at Northwestern, the first center of its kind at an American academic institution. J. Roscoe Miller
J. Roscoe Miller
James Roscoe Miller was the twelfth president of Northwestern University, serving between 1949 and 1970.During his tenure, Northwestern substantially increased the size of its Evanston campus, constructing many new buildings on adjacent land reclaimed by filling in Lake Michigan...
's tenure as president from 1949–1970 was responsible for the expansion of the Evanston campus, with the construction of the lakefill on Lake Michigan, growth of the faculty and new academic programs, as well as polarizing Vietnam-era student protests. In 1978, the first and second Unabomber attacks occurred at Northwestern University. Relations between Evanston and Northwestern were strained throughout much of the post-war era because of episodes of disruptive student activism, disputes over municipal zoning, building codes, and law enforcement, as well as restrictions on the sale of alcohol near campus until 1972. Northwestern's exemption from state and municipal property tax obligations under its original charter has historically been a source of town and gown
Town and gown
Town and gown are two distinct communities of a university town; "town" being the non-academic population and "gown" metonymically being the university community, especially in ancient seats of learning such as Oxford, Cambridge, Durham and St Andrews, although the term is also used to describe...
tension.
Though government support for universities declined in the 1970s and 1980s, President Arnold R. Weber
Arnold R. Weber
Arnold Robert Weber was the president of Northwestern University from 1985–1994. His tenure at Northwestern was remarkable for stabilizing the university's finances and enhancing the Evanston campus environment.-Biography:...
was able to stabilize university finances, leading to a revitalization of the campuses. As admissions to colleges and universities grew increasingly competitive in the 1990s and 2000s, President Henry S. Bienen's tenure saw a notable increase in the number and quality of undergraduate applicants, continued expansion of the facilities and faculty, and renewed athletic competitiveness. In 1999, Northwestern student journalists uncovered information exonerating Illinois death row inmate Anthony Porter
Anthony Porter
Anthony Porter was a prisoner on death row whose conviction was overturned in 1999 due to the investigation of two Northwestern University School of Law professors and students from the Medill School of Journalism, and is notable for being an exonerated death row inmate that was once 50 hours away...
two days before his scheduled execution, and the Innocence Project has since exonerated 10 more men. On January 11, 2003, in a speech at Northwestern School of Law's Lincoln Hall, then Governor of Illinois
Governor of Illinois
The Governor of Illinois is the chief executive of the State of Illinois and the various agencies and departments over which the officer has jurisdiction, as prescribed in the state constitution. It is a directly elected position, votes being cast by popular suffrage of residents of the state....
George Ryan
George Ryan
George Homer Ryan, Sr. was the 39th Governor of the U.S. state of Illinois from 1999 until 2003. He is a member of the Republican Party. Ryan became nationally known when in 2000 he imposed a moratorium on executions and "raised the national debate on capital punishment"...
announced that he would commute
Commutation of sentence
Commutation of sentence involves the reduction of legal penalties, especially in terms of imprisonment. Unlike a pardon, a commutation does not nullify the conviction and is often conditional. Clemency is a similar term, meaning the lessening of the penalty of the crime without forgiving the crime...
the sentences of more than 150 death row
Death row
Death row signifies the place, often a section of a prison, that houses individuals awaiting execution. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution , even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists.After individuals are found...
inmates.
The Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
phrase on Northwestern's seal, Quaecumque sunt vera (Whatsoever things are true) is drawn from the Epistle of Paul to the Philippians 4:8, while the Greek phrase inscribed on the pages of an open book is taken from the Gospel of John 1:14: ο λόγος πλήρης χάριτος και αληθείας (The Word full of grace and truth). Purple
Purple
Purple is a range of hues of color occurring between red and blue, and is classified as a secondary color as the colors are required to create the shade....
became Northwestern's official color in 1892, replacing black
Black
Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light...
and gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
after a university committee concluded that too many other universities had used these colors. Today, Northwestern's official color is purple, although white is something of an official color as well, being mentioned in both the university's earliest song, Alma Mater (1907) ("Hail to purple, hail to white") and in many university guidelines.
Evanston
Sheridan Road
Sheridan Road is a major north-south thoroughfare that leads from Diversey Parkway in Chicago, Illinois, north to the Illinois-Wisconsin border and beyond to Racine. Throughout most of its run, it is the easternmost north-south through street, closest to Lake Michigan...
. North and South Campuses have noticeably different atmospheres, owing to the predominance of Science and Athletics in the one and Humanities and Arts in the other. North Campus is home to the fraternity
Fraternity and sorority houses
North American fraternity and sorority housing refers largely to the houses or housing areas that fraternity and sorority members live and work together in...
quads
Quadrangle (architecture)
In architecture, a quadrangle is a space or courtyard, usually rectangular in plan, the sides of which are entirely or mainly occupied by parts of a large building. The word is probably most closely associated with college or university campus architecture, but quadrangles may be found in other...
, the Henry Crown Sports Pavilion and Norris Aquatics Center and other athletic facilities, the Technological Institute
Technological Institute
The Technological Institute, more commonly known as "Tech", is a landmark building at Northwestern University built from 1940 to 1942.It is the main building for students and faculty in the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. The school of engineering itself was called...
, Dearborn Observatory
Dearborn Observatory
The Dearborn Observatory is an astronomical observatory located on the Evanston campus of Northwestern University. The observatory was originally constructed in 1888...
, and other science-related buildings including Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Hall for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly, and the Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center. South Campus is home to the University's humanities buildings, Pick-Staiger Concert Hall and other music buildings, the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art
Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art
The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art is an art museum located on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The Block Museum was established in 1980 by Chicago art collectors Mary and Leigh B. Block...
, and the sorority
Fraternity and sorority houses
North American fraternity and sorority housing refers largely to the houses or housing areas that fraternity and sorority members live and work together in...
quads. In the 1960s, the University created an additional 84 acres (34 ha) by means of a lakefill in Lake Michigan. Among some of the buildings located on these broad new acres are University Library, Norris University Center (the student union), and Pick-Staiger Concert Hall.
The Chicago Transit Authority
Chicago Transit Authority
Chicago Transit Authority, also known as CTA, is the operator of mass transit within the City of Chicago, Illinois and some of its surrounding suburbs....
's elevated train
Chicago 'L'
The L is the rapid transit system serving the city of Chicago and some of its surrounding suburbs. It is operated by the Chicago Transit Authority...
running through Evanston is called the Purple Line
Purple Line (Chicago Transit Authority)
The Purple Line of the Chicago Transit Authority is a branch line on the northernmost section of the Chicago 'L' rapid transit network. Normally, it extends south from the Wilmette terminal at Linden Avenue, passing through Evanston to Howard Street, on Chicago's northern city limits...
, taking its name from Northwestern's school color. The Foster
Foster (CTA)
Foster is a station on the Chicago Transit Authority's 'L' system, on the Purple Line in Evanston, Illinois. It is located at 900 Foster Street , just a few blocks west of Northwestern University's Evanston campus....
and Davis
Davis (CTA)
Davis is a station on the Chicago Transit Authority's 'L' system, on the Purple Line in Evanston, Illinois. It is located at 1612 Benson Avenue , in the middle of downtown Evanston, and next to the Davis Street stop of Metra's Union Pacific/North Line...
stations are within walking distance of the southern end of the campus, while the Noyes
Noyes (CTA)
Noyes is a station on the Chicago Transit Authority's 'L' system, on the Purple Line in Evanston, Illinois. It is located at 909 Noyes Street , just a few blocks west of the north end of Northwestern University's Evanston campus. The Noyes Cultural Center is also nearby...
station is close to the northern end of the campus. The Central
Central (CTA Purple Line)
Central is a Purple Line station of the Chicago Transit Authority 'L' system. Located at 1024 Central Street in Evanston, Illinois , the elevated platform sits above Central Street, half a block west of Ridge Avenue...
station is close to Ryan Field, Northwestern's football stadium. The Evanston Davis Street
Evanston Davis Street (Metra)
Evanston Davis Street is a commuter railroad station in downtown Evanston, Illinois, USA. It is served solely by Metra's Union Pacific/North Line with trains going south to Ogilvie Transportation Center in Chicago and as far north as Kenosha, Wisconsin. In Metra's zone-based fare system, Davis...
Metra
Metra
Metra is the commuter rail division of the Illinois Regional Transportation Authority. The system serves Chicago and its metropolitan area through 240 stations on 11 different rail lines. Throughout the 21st century, Metra has been the second busiest commuter rail system in the United States by...
station serves the Northwestern campus in downtown Evanston and the Evanston Central Street
Evanston Central Street (Metra)
Evanston Central Street is the northernmost of the three commuter railroad stations in Evanston, Illinois, USA. It is an elevated station at Green Bay Road and Central Street, surrounded by a neighborhood of stores, restaurants and multi-story apartment buildings...
Metra station is near Ryan Field. Pace Suburban Bus Service and the CTA have several bus routes that run through or near the Evanston campus.
Chicago
Streeterville
Streeterville is a neighborhood in the Near North Side community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States, north of the Chicago River in Cook County...
neighborhood. The Chicago campus is home to the medical school
Feinberg School of Medicine
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, located in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois and situated near Lake Michigan and the Magnificent Mile, is one of Northwestern University's 11 schools and colleges...
and affiliated hospitals, the law school
Northwestern University School of Law
The Northwestern University School of Law is a private American law school in Chicago, Illinois. The law school was founded in 1859 as the Union College of Law of the Old University of Chicago. The first law school established in Chicago, it became jointly controlled by Northwestern University in...
, the part-time MBA program, and the School of Continuing Studies
Northwestern University School of Continuing Studies
The Northwestern University School of Continuing Studies is one of eleven schools comprising Northwestern University, with campuses in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois...
, which offers evening and weekend courses for working adults. Northwestern's professional schools and affiliated hospitals are about four blocks east of the Chicago
Chicago (CTA Red Line)
Chicago is an 'L' station on the CTA's Red Line. It is a subway station with two side platforms, located at 800 North State Street—underneath the intersection of Chicago Avenue and State Street—in the River North neighborhood of Chicago's Near North Side...
station on the CTA Red Line
Red Line (Chicago Transit Authority)
The northern terminus of the Red Line is Howard Street in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago , on the City Limits farthest north. The Red Line extends southeasterly on an elevated embankment structure about a half-mile west of the lakefront to Touhy Avenue then turns south along Glenwood...
. The Chicago campus is also served by CTA bus routes.
Founded at various times in the university's history, the professional schools originally were scattered throughout Chicago. In connection with a 1917 master plan for a central Chicago campus and President Walter D. Scott's capital campaign, 8.5 acres (3.44 ha) of land were purchased at the corner of Chicago Avenue and Lake Shore Drive
Lake Shore Drive
Lake Shore Drive is a mostly freeway-standard expressway running parallel with and alongside the shoreline of Lake Michigan through Chicago, Illinois, USA. Except for the portion north of Foster Avenue , Lake Shore Drive is designated as part of U.S...
for $1.5 million in 1920. The architect James Gamble Rogers
James Gamble Rogers
James Gamble Rogers was an American architect best known for his academic commissions at Yale University, Columbia University, Northwestern University, and elsewhere....
was commissioned to create a master plan for the principal buildings on the new campus which he designed in collegiate gothic style. In 1923, Mrs. Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward is an online retailer that carries the same name as the former American department store chain, founded as the world's #1 mail order business in 1872 by Aaron Montgomery Ward, and which went out of business in 2001...
donated $8 million to the campaign to finance the construction of the Montgomery Ward Memorial Building which would house the medical and dental schools and to create endowments for faculty chairs, research grants, scholarships, and building maintenance. The building would become the first skyscraper housing academic facilities in the United States. In addition to the Ward Building, Rogers designed Wieboldt Hall to house facilities for the School of Commerce and Levy Mayer Hall to house the School of Law. The new campus comprising these three new buildings was dedicated during a two-day ceremony in June 1927. The Chicago campus continued to expand with the addition of Thorn Hall in 1931 and Abbott Hall in 1939.
Satellite Campus in Qatar
In Fall 2008, Northwestern opened a campus in Education CityEducation City
Education City is an initiative of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. Located on the outskirts of Doha, the capital of Qatar, Education City covers 14 square kilometers and houses educational facilities from school age to research level and branch campi of some of...
, Doha
Doha
Doha is the capital city of the state of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf, it had a population of 998,651 in 2008, and is also one of the municipalities of Qatar...
, Qatar
Qatar
Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...
, joining five other American universities: Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
, Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
, Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University is a coeducational public research university located in College Station, Texas . It is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. The sixth-largest university in the United States, A&M's enrollment for Fall 2011 was over 50,000 for the first time in school...
, and Virginia Commonwealth University
Virginia Commonwealth University
Virginia Commonwealth University is a public university located in Richmond, Virginia. It comprises two campuses in the Downtown Richmond area, the product of a merger between the Richmond Professional Institute and the Medical College of Virginia in 1968...
. Through the Medill School of Journalism
Medill School of Journalism
The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications is a constituent school of Northwestern University which offers both undergraduate and graduate programs. It has consistently been one of the top-ranked schools in Journalism in the United States...
and School of Communication
Northwestern University School of Communication
The Northwestern University School of Communication is an undergraduate and graduate institution devoted to the academic study of communication arts and sciences, located on Northwestern University's campus in Evanston, Illinois, about 12 miles north of downtown Chicago.The School has its origins...
, Qatar offers bachelors degrees in journalism and communication respectively. The Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development provided funding for construction and administrative costs as well as support to hire 50 to 60 faculty and staff, some of whom rotate between the Evanston and Qatar campuses.
Sustainability
In January 2009, the Green Power Partnership (GPP, sponsored by the EPA) listed Northwestern as one of the top 10 universities in the country in purchasing energy from renewable sources. The university matches 74 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of its annual energy use with Green-e Certified Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). This green power commitment represents 30 percent of the university's total annual electricity use and places Northwestern in the EPA's Green Power Leadership Club. The 2010 Report by The Sustainable Endowments Institute awarded Northwestern a “B-” on its College Sustainability Report Card. The Initiative for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN), supporting research, teaching and outreach in these themes, was launched in 2008.Northwestern requires that all new buildings be LEED-certified. Silverman Hall on the Evanston campus was awarded Gold LEED Certification in 2010; Wieboldt Hall on the Chicago campus was awarded Gold LEED Certification in 2007, and the Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center on the Evanston campus was awarded Silver LEED Certification in 2006. New construction and renovation projects will be designed to provide at least a 20% improvement over energy code requirements where technically feasible. The university also released at the beginning of the 2008-09 academic year the Evanston Campus Framework Plan, which outlines plans for future development of the Evanston Campus. The plan not only emphasizes the sustainable construction of buildings, but also discusses improving transportation by optimizing pedestrian and bicycle access. Northwestern has had a comprehensive recycling program in place since 1990. Annually more than 1,500 tons are recycled at Northwestern, which represents 30% of the waste produced on campus. Additionally, all landscape waste at the university is composted.
Organization and administration
Northwestern is privately owned and governed by an appointed board of trustees. The board, composed of 70 members and chaired by William A. OsbornWilliam A. Osborn
William A. Osborn is an American bank executive.William A. Osborn graduated from Northwestern University as an undergraduate in 1969, and from the NU Graduate School of Management in 1973....
, delegates its power to an elected president to serve as the chief executive officer of the university. Northwestern has had sixteen presidents in its history (excluding interim presidents), the current president, Morton O. Schapiro, an economist, having succeeded Henry Bienen
Henry Bienen
Henry Samuel Bienen is an American academic administrator and former president of Northwestern University. He was elected president on June 13, 1994 and took office on January 1, 1995. He announced his retirement effective August 31, 2009...
whose 14-year tenure ended on August 31, 2009. The president has a staff of vice presidents, directors, and other assistants for administrative, financial, faculty, and student matters. Daniel I. Linzer
Daniel I. Linzer
Daniel I. H. Linzer is an American molecular biologist and academic administrator. Linzer was named provost of Northwestern University on September 1, 2007 and previously served as the Dean and Associate Dean of Northwestern's largest school, the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.Linzer...
, provost since September 2007, serves under the president as the chief academic officer of the university to whom the deans of every academic school, leaders of cross-disciplinary units, and chairs of the standing faculty committee report.
The Associated Student Government consists of the elected representatives of the undergraduate students and the Graduate Student Association represents graduate students.
Northwestern University is composed of 11 schools and colleges. The faculty for each school consists of the dean of the school and the instructional faculty. Faculty are responsible for teaching, research, advising students, and serving on committees. Each school's admission requirements, degree requirements, courses of study, and disciplinary and degree recommendations are determined by the voting members of that school's faculty (assistant professor and above).
Northwestern's endowment was $5.9 billion in mid 2010, estimated as ninth among US and Canadian universities.
By August 2010 it had grown to $6.3 billion, with an estimated rank of eighth.
In 2003, Northwestern finished a five-year capital campaign that raised $1.55 billion, $150 million more than its goal. In 2007, the university sold its royalty interest in the pain relief drug Lyrica for $700 million, a drug developed at Northwestern by Richard Bruce Silverman
Richard Bruce Silverman
Richard Bruce Silverman is a chemistry professor at Northwestern University in the United States. He currently holds the title of "John Evans Professor of Chemistry". He is most known for his invention of pregabalin, which is now marketed by Pfizer under the trade name Lyrica.Silverman was awarded...
, the John Evans Professor of Chemistry. This was the largest such sale in history, the proceeds of which were added to the endowment.
| Undergraduate and Graduate Programs | Graduate and Professional |
|---|---|
Evanston Campus
|
Evanston Campus
Chicago Campus
|
| Chicago Campus
Northwestern University School of Continuing Studies The Northwestern University School of Continuing Studies is one of eleven schools comprising Northwestern University, with campuses in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois... (1933) |
Academics
Northwestern is a large, residential research university. Accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and SchoolsNorth Central Association of Colleges and Schools
The North Central Association of Colleges and Schools , also known as the North Central Association, is a membership organization, consisting of colleges, universities, and schools in 19 U.S. states, that is engaged in educational accreditation...
and the respective national professional organizations for chemistry, psychology, business, education, journalism, music, engineering, law, and medicine, the university offers 124 undergraduate programs and 145 graduate and professional programs. NU conferred 2,219 bachelors degrees, 2,971 masters degrees, 447 doctoral degrees, and 444 professional degrees in 2009–2010.
The four-year, full-time undergraduate program comprises the majority of enrollments at the university and emphasizes instruction in the arts and sciences, plus the professions of engineering, journalism, communication, music, and education. Although a foundation in the liberal arts and sciences is required in all majors, there is no required common core curriculum; individual degree requirements are set by the faculty of each school. Northwestern's full-time undergraduate and graduate programs operate on an approximately 10-week academic quarter system
Academic quarter (year division)
An academic quarter refers to the division of an academic year into four parts, found in a minority of universities in the United States and in some European and Asian countries.-Background and trends:...
with the academic year beginning in late September and ending in early June. Undergraduates typically take 4 courses each quarter and 12 courses in an academic year and are required to complete at least 12 quarters on campus to graduate. Northwestern offers honors, accelerated, and joint degree programs in medicine, science, mathematics, engineering, and journalism. The comprehensive doctoral graduate program has high coexistence with undergraduate programs.
Undergraduates with grade point averages in the highest 3 percent of each graduating class are awarded degrees summa cum laude
Latin honors
Latin honors are Latin phrases used to indicate the level of academic distinction with which an academic degree was earned. This system is primarily used in the United States, Canada, and in many countries of continental Europe, though some institutions also use the English translation of these...
, the next 5 percent magna cum laude, and the next 8 percent cum laude. Northwestern also has chapters of academic honor societies such as Phi Beta Kappa (Alpha of Illinois), Eta Kappa Nu
Eta Kappa Nu
Eta Kappa Nu is the electrical and computer engineering honor society of the IEEE, founded in October 1904 by Maurice L. Carr at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The organization currently has around 200 student chapters and about 3,000,000 members and is headquartered in Chicago,...
, Tau Beta Pi
Tau Beta Pi
The Tau Beta Pi Association is the oldest engineering honor society in the United States and the second oldest collegiate honor society in America. It honors engineering students who have shown a history of academic achievement as well as a commitment to personal and professional integrity...
, and Lambda Pi Eta
Lambda Pi Eta
Lambda Pi Eta is the official communication studies honor society of the National Communication Association . As a member of the Association of College Honor Societies , Lambda Pi Eta has over 400 active chapters at four-year colleges and universities worldwide.Lambda Pi Eta was founded in 1985 at...
. Since 1951, Northwestern has awarded 520 honorary degrees.
Undergraduate tuition for the 2010-2011 school year was $39,840. Northwestern awards financial aid solely on the basis of need through loans, work-study, grants, and scholarships. The University processed in excess of $472 million in financial aid for the 2009-2010 academic year. This included $265 million in institutional funds, with the remainder coming from federal and state governments and private organizations and individuals. Northwestern scholarship programs for undergraduate students support needy students from a variety of income and backgrounds. Approximately 44 percent of the June 2010 graduates had received federal and/or private loans for their undergraduate education, graduating with an average debt of $17,200.
Among the six undergraduate schools, 51.6% of undergraduate students are enrolled in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, 17.4% in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, 13.7% in the School of Communication
Northwestern University School of Communication
The Northwestern University School of Communication is an undergraduate and graduate institution devoted to the academic study of communication arts and sciences, located on Northwestern University's campus in Evanston, Illinois, about 12 miles north of downtown Chicago.The School has its origins...
, 8.1% in the Medill School of Journalism
Medill School of Journalism
The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications is a constituent school of Northwestern University which offers both undergraduate and graduate programs. It has consistently been one of the top-ranked schools in Journalism in the United States...
, 4.3% in the Bienen School of Music, and 4.9% in the School of Education and Social Policy. The five most commonly awarded underegraduate degrees are in economics, journalism, communication studies, psychology, and political science. While professional students are affiliated with their respective schools, full-time graduate academic degrees are primarily administered by the Graduate School. With 2,446 students enrolled in science, engineering, and health fields, the largest graduate programs by enrollment include chemistry, integrated biology, material sciences, electrical and computer engineering, neuroscience, and economics. The Kellogg School of Management
Kellogg School of Management
The Kellogg School of Management is the business school of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, downtown Chicago, Illinois and Miami, Florida. Kellogg offers full-time, part-time, and executive programs, as well as partnering programs with schools in China, India, Hong Kong, Israel,...
's MBA
Master of Business Administration
The Master of Business Administration is a :master's degree in business administration, which attracts people from a wide range of academic disciplines. The MBA designation originated in the United States, emerging from the late 19th century as the country industrialized and companies sought out...
, the School of Law
Northwestern University School of Law
The Northwestern University School of Law is a private American law school in Chicago, Illinois. The law school was founded in 1859 as the Union College of Law of the Old University of Chicago. The first law school established in Chicago, it became jointly controlled by Northwestern University in...
's JD
Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...
, and the Feinberg School of Medicine
Feinberg School of Medicine
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, located in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois and situated near Lake Michigan and the Magnificent Mile, is one of Northwestern University's 11 schools and colleges...
's MD
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
are the three largest professional degree
First professional degree
A professional degree prepares the holder for a particular profession by emphasizing competency skills along with theory and analysis. These professions are typically licensed or otherwise regulated by a governmental or government-approved body...
programs by enrollment.
Libraries and Museums
Northwestern University Library
The Northwestern University Library is the principal library for the Evanston campus of Northwestern University. The library holds 4.6 million volumes, making it the 11th largest library at a private university. The building was designed in brutalist style by Walter Netsch of Skidmore, Owings and...
, three libraries on the Chicago campus, and the library affiliated with Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. University Library contains over 4.9 million volumes, 4.6 million microforms, and almost 99,000 periodicals making it (by volume) the 30th-largest university library in North America and the 10th-largest library among private universities. Library expenditures totaled $26.3 million in 2006 and more than 100,000 volumes were added in the same year. Notable collections in the library system include the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, one of the largest Africana
Africana studies
In United States education, Africana studies, or Africology is the study of the histories, politics and cultures of peoples of African origin both in Africa and in the African diaspora....
collections in the world, an extensive collection of early edition printed music and manuscripts as well as late-modern works, and an art collection noted for its 19th and 20th-century Western art
Western art history
Western art is the art of the North American and European countries, and art created in the forms accepted by those countries.Written histories of Western art often begin with the art of the Ancient Middle East, Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Aegean civilisations, dating from the 3rd millennium BC...
and architecture periodicals
Architecture criticism
Architecture criticism is the act of writing or speaking about a building, usually of historical importance or novel design or built in a notable public space....
. The library system participates with 15 other universities in digitizing its collections as a part of the Google Book Search
Google Book Search
Google Books is a service from Google that searches the full text of books that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition, and stored in its digital database. The service was formerly known as Google Print when it was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October...
project. The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art
Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art
The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art is an art museum located on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The Block Museum was established in 1980 by Chicago art collectors Mary and Leigh B. Block...
is a major art museum in Chicago, containing more than 4,000 works in its permanent collection as well as dedicating a third of its space to temporary and traveling exhibitions.
In 2011, the Holocaust Educational Foundation
Holocaust Educational Foundation
The Holocaust Educational Foundation is a private nonprofit organization founded by Theodore Zev Weiss in 1976.. Its purpose is to record the testimony of survivors and promote the creation of creating courses in Holocaust Studies...
, which had previously endowed the Theodore Zev Weiss – Holocaust Educational Foundation Professorship in Holocaust Studies, became part of Northwestern.
Research
Association of American Universities
The Association of American Universities is an organization of leading research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education...
in 1917 and remains a research university with "very high" research activity. Northwestern's schools of management, engineering, and communication are among the most academically productive in the nation. Northwestern received $556.4 million in research funding in 2010, an increase of 17 percent over the previous year. In 2010, $451.9 million of the overall dollar volume of research originated from federal agencies, $39.8 million from industry, $11.2 million from state governments, and $53.5 million from other sources. Northwestern supports nearly 1,500 research laboratories across two campuses, predominately in the medical and biological sciences. In 2008, the most recent year for which data are available, Northwestern was 32nd among top-ranking US universities in total funds for research and development with $439.9 million. Northwestern researchers disclosed 165 inventions, filed 76 patents applications, received 58 patents, started 4 companies, and generated $824.4 million in license income in 200. The bulk of revenue has come from a patent on pregabalin, a synthesized organic molecule discovered by chemistry professor Richard Silverman, which ultimately was marketed as Lyrica, a drug sold by Pfizer
Pfizer
Pfizer, Inc. is an American multinational pharmaceutical corporation. The company is based in New York City, New York with its research headquarters in Groton, Connecticut, United States...
, to combat epilepsy, neuropathic pain, and fibromyalgia. The Lyrica returns in 2008 pushed Northwestern into first place among universities in licensing income.
Northwestern is home to the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics, Northwestern Institute for Complex Systems, Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, Materials Research Center, Institute for Policy Research, International Institute for Nanotechnology, Center for Catalysis and Surface Science, Buffet Center for International and Comparative Studies, the Initiative for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern and the Argonne/Northwestern Solar Energy Research Center
Argonne/Northwestern Solar Energy Research Center
The Argonne/Northwestern Solar Energy Research Center is a joint research program between the Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University. Michael R. Wasielewski, Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern founded the ANSER center in 2007 and is its current director...
and other centers for interdisciplinary research.
Traditions
The Rock (Northwestern University)
The Rock is a boulder on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, located in between University Hall and Harris Hall. It serves as a billboard for campus groups and events.-History:...
(originally a fountain donated by the Class of 1902) is a way to advertise, for example, campus organizations, events in Greek life, student groups, and university-wide events. Dance Marathon
Northwestern University Dance Marathon
The Northwestern University Dance Marathon is a philanthropic dance marathon held annually at Northwestern University. Currently in its 38th year, NUDM is one of the world's largest student-run philanthropies...
, a 30-hour philanthropic event, raises several hundred thousand dollars every winter. Primal Scream is held at 9 p.m. on the Sunday before finals week every quarter; students lean out of windows or gather in courtyards and scream. Armadillo Day, or, more popularly, Dillo Day
Dillo Day
Dillo Day is an annual festival at Northwestern University which takes place on the last Saturday of May. Begun in 1972, and organized by the , the day is characterized by an all-day music festival and special events on the Northwestern Lakefill, as well as a spirit of celebration.Alternatively,...
, is held on Northwestern's Lakefill every Spring on the weekend after Memorial Day
Memorial Day
Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War...
.
There are traditions long associated with football games. Students growl like wildcats when the opposing team controls the ball, while simulating a claw with their hands. They will also jingle keys at the beginning of each kickoff. In the past, before the tradition was discontinued, students would throw marshmallows during games. The Clock Tower at the Rebecca Crown Center glows purple, instead of its usual white, after a winning game, thereby proclaiming the happy news. The Clock Tower remains purple until a loss or until the end of the sports season. Whereas formerly the Clock Tower was lighted only for football victories, wins for men's basketball and women's lacrosse now merit commemoration as well; important victories in other sports may also prompt an empurpling.
Corporal punishment
Corporal punishment
Corporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable...
for undergraduates was introduced in 1922, when it was announced that students of either sex could be spanked
Spanking
Spanking refers to the act of striking the buttocks of another person to cause temporary pain without producing physical injury. It generally involves one person striking the buttocks of another person with an open hand. When an open hand is used, spanking is referred to in some countries as...
for a range of offenses in public, including swearing, smoking (if aged under 21), rollerskating in the downtown district, or being rowdy in an ice cream parlor.
Media
The Daily NorthwesternThe Daily Northwestern
The Daily Northwestern is a student newspaper at Northwestern University that is published on weekdays during the academic year. Established in 1881 and published in Evanston, Illinois, it is run entirely by undergraduates, many of whom are students at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism.The...
is the main student newspaper. Established in 1881, and published on weekdays during the academic year, it is directed entirely by undergraduates. Although it serves the Northwestern community, the Daily has no business ties to the university, being supported wholly by advertisers. It is owned by the Students Publishing Company. Current circulation is in excess of 7,500.
North by Northwestern
North by Northwestern
North by Northwestern is a daily online newsmagazine at Northwestern University, started in September 2006 by students at the Medill School of Journalism. It is noted for its multimedia coverage of campus events. In 2008 the site was recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists with eight...
is an online magazine founded and run by undergraduates. It was established in September 2006 by students at the Medill School and is published on weekdays, with updates on breaking news stories and special events throughout the day and on weekends. North by Northwestern also publishes a quarterly print magazine, which was recognized as the nation's best student magazine by the Society of Professional Journalists.
WNUR
WNUR
WNUR-FM is a 7200 watt radio station based in Evanston, Illinois that broadcasts to Chicago and its northern suburbs. Northwestern University owns the station's FCC license.-History:...
(89.3 FM) is a 7,200 watt radio station
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
that broadcasts to Chicago and its northern suburbs. WNUR's programming consists of music – jazz, classical, rock – varsity sports (football, men's and women's basketball, baseball, softball, and women's lacrosse), breaking news on weekdays, politics, current events, and literature.
Northwestern News Network
Northwestern News Network
The Northwestern News Network, commonly known as NNN, is the student television news and sports service at Northwestern University.NNN is funded by the Medill School of Journalism, serving the Northwestern and Evanston communities...
, commonly known as NNN, is a student-produced television news report. It broadcasts news and sports programming three days a week during the academic year on NU Channel 1, online at nnntv.org, and weeknights at 10 p.m. on Evanston Public-access television
Public-access television
Public-access television is a form of non-commercial mass media where ordinary people can create content television programming which is cablecast through cable TV specialty channels...
cable TV channel 6.
Syllabus is the undergraduate yearbook. First published in 1885, the yearbook is an epitome of that year's events at Northwestern. Published by Students Publishing Company and edited by Northwestern students, it is distributed in late May.
Northwestern Flipside
Northwestern Flipside
The Northwestern Flipside is a weekly online and printed satirical newspaper at Northwestern University, started in January 2009 by residents of the Willard Residential College. Though it is a relative newcomer to the Northwestern publication scene, it has made quite a name for itself, being the...
is an undergraduate satirical magazine. Founded in 2009, The Flipside publishes a weekly issue both in print and online.
Helicon is the university's undergraduate literary magazine. Started in 1979, it is published twice a year, a web issue in the Winter, and a print issue with a web complement in the Spring.
TriQuarterly Online (formerly TriQuarterly) is a literary magazine published twice a year featuring poetry, fiction, nonfiction, drama, literary essays, reviews, a blog, and graphic art.
http://triquarterly.org
Performing Arts
Two annual productions are especially notable: the Waa-Mu show, and the Dolphin showDolphin Show
The Dolphin Show is a non-profit student theatre organization that annually presents a large-scale student-produced musical theatre at Northwestern University.- History :...
. Waa-Mu is an original musical, written and produced almost entirely by students. Children's theater is represented on campus by Griffin’s Tale and Purple Crayon Players. Its umbrella organization—the Student Theatre Coalition, or StuCo—organizes the 9 fully functioning student theatre companies, plus some other performance groups. Students produce over sixty independent productions each year. Many Northwestern alumni have used these productions as stepping stones to successful television and film careers. Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre was founded by several alumni, including David Schwimmer
David Schwimmer
David Lawrence Schwimmer is an American actor and director of television and film. He was born in New York City, and his family moved to Los Angeles when he was two. He began his acting career performing in school plays at Beverly Hills High School. In 1988, he graduated from Northwestern...
, and began in the Great Room in Jones Residential College.
Northwestern also has a variety of improv groups. The improv and sketch comedy group Mee-Ow created by Paul Warshauer and Josh Lazar in 1974 lists Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Julia Scarlett Elizabeth Louis-Dreyfus is an American actress and comedienne, widely known for her sitcom roles in Seinfeld and The New Adventures of Old Christine....
, Ana Gasteyer
Ana Gasteyer
Ana Kristina Gasteyer is an American actress of stage, film, and television. She is best known for her comedic roles when she was a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1996 to 2002.-Early life:...
, Dermot Mulroney
Dermot Mulroney
-Early life:Mulroney was born in Alexandria, Virginia, the son of Ellen, a housewife and amateur actress originally from Manchester, Iowa, and Michael Mulroney, a law professor at Villanova University School of Law, originally from Elkader, Iowa. He has a sister, Moira, and three brothers, Conor,...
, Seth Meyers
Seth Meyers
Seth Adam Meyers is an American actor and comedian. He currently serves as head writer for Saturday Night Live and hosts its news parody segment Weekend Update.-Early life:...
, John Cameron Mitchell
John Cameron Mitchell
John Cameron Mitchell is an American writer, actor, and director. He is best known for his motion pictures Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Shortbus and Rabbit Hole.- Early life:...
, and Kristen Schaal
Kristen Schaal
Kristen Schaal is an American actress, writer and comedienne, best known for her role as Mel in the HBO series Flight of the Conchords, as Louise in Bob's Burgers and as a contributor on The Daily Show.-Early life:...
among its alumni. Mee-Ow, The Titanic Players, and Out da Box, a multicultural comedy show, along with Northwestern's theatre department, have brought attention to Northwestern's improv comedy training and performance.
There are ten a cappella groups and a variety of dance companies on campus. The dance companies include Fusion Dance Company, Northwestern's premiere Hip-Hop Dance Crew; Graffiti Dancers, a dance group that focuses on jazz and modern; and Boomshaka, Northwestern's premiere drum and dance ensemble, combining body rhythm, drumming, and dance. Radio drama featuring student voice actors is a staple of WNUR's programming.
Service
Many students are involved in community service in one form or another. Annual events include Dance MarathonNorthwestern University Dance Marathon
The Northwestern University Dance Marathon is a philanthropic dance marathon held annually at Northwestern University. Currently in its 38th year, NUDM is one of the world's largest student-run philanthropies...
, a thirty-hour event that raised more than a million dollars for charity in 2011; and Project Pumpkin, a Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
celebration hosted by the Northwestern Community Development Corps (NCDC) to which more than 800 local children are invited for an afternoon of games and sweets. NCDC's work is to connect hundreds of student volunteers to some twenty volunteer sites in Evanston and Chicago throughout the year. Many students have assisted with the Special Olympics
Special Olympics
Special Olympics is the world's largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, providing year-round training and competitions to more than 3.1 million athletes in 175 countries....
and have taken alternative spring break
Alternative break
An alternative break is a trip where a group of college students engage in volunteer service, typically for a week. Alternative break trips originated with college students in the early 1980s as a counter to "traditional" spring break trips.Alternative breaks may occur during students’ fall,...
trips to hundreds of service sites across the United States. Northwestern students also participate in the Freshman Urban Program, a program for students interested in community service. A large and growing number of students participate in the university's Global Engagement Summer Institute (GESI), a group service-learning expedition in Asia, Africa, or Latin America, in conjunction with the Foundation for Sustainable Development
Foundation for Sustainable Development
The Foundation for Sustainable Development is an American volunteer-based organization specializing in international development. FSD is a 501 non-profit organization based in San Francisco, California, with operations in Nicaragua, Bolivia, Argentina, Kenya, Uganda, and India...
. Several internationally recognized non-profit organizations
International nongovernmental organization
The World Bank defines a non-governmental organization as "private organizations that pursue activities to relieve suffering, promote the interests of the poor, protect the environment, provide basic social services, or undertake community development"...
have originated at Northwestern including the World Health Imaging, Informatics and Telemedicine Alliance, a spin-off from an engineering student's honors
Honors course
Honors course is a distinction applied in the United States to certain classes to distinguish them from standard course offerings. The difference between a regular class and the honors class is not necessarily the amount of work, but the type of work required and the pace of studying...
thesis
Thesis
A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings...
.
Undergraduate Housing
Northwestern has several housing options, including both traditional residence halls and residential colleges which gather together students who have a particular intellectual interest in common. Among the residential colleges are the Residential College of Cultural and Community Studies (CCS), Ayers College of Commerce and Industry, Jones Residential College (Arts), Slivka Residential College (Science and Engineering), the International Studies Residential College, Communications Residential College (CRC), and the Public Affairs Residential College (PARC).In Fall 2007, 27% of undergraduates were affiliated with a fraternity
Fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In Latin, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in the United States, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...
or sorority. Northwestern recognizes 21 fraternities and 18 sororities.
Athletics
Big Ten Conference
The Big Ten Conference is the United States' oldest Division I college athletic conference. Its twelve member institutions are located primarily in the Midwestern United States, stretching from Nebraska in the west to Pennsylvania in the east...
and the only private institution in the conference. Northwestern fields 19 intercollegiate athletic teams (8 men's and 11 women's) in addition to numerous club sports. The women's lacrosse team
Northwestern Wildcats women's lacrosse
The Northwestern Wildcats Women's Lacrosse Team is a NCAA Division I college lacrosse team representing Northwestern University as part of the American Lacrosse Conference. The team began competition at the varsity level in 1982, operated as a club sport from 1993 to 2001, and resumed play at the...
won five consecutive NCAA national championships
NCAA Women's Lacrosse Championship
The annual NCAA Women's Lacrosse Championship tournament determines the top women's lacrosse team in the NCAA Division I, Division II, and Division III....
between 2005 and 2009, went undefeated in 2005 and 2009, and holds several scoring records. The men's basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
team is recognized by the Helms Athletic Foundation
Helms Athletic Foundation
The Helms Athletic Foundation was an athletic foundation based in Los Angeles, founded in 1936 by Bill Schroeder and Paul Helms. It put together a panel of experts to select National Champion teams and make All-America team selections in a number of college sports including football and basketball...
as the 1931 National Champion. In the 2008–2009 school year, a total of 184 athletes received Academic All-Big Ten honors: 75 athletes in the fall season, 41 in the winter season, and 68 in the spring season.
The football team plays at Ryan Field (formerly known as Dyche Stadium); the basketball and volleyball teams play at Welsh-Ryan Arena
Welsh-Ryan Arena
Welsh-Ryan Arena is an 8,117-seat multi-purpose arena in Evanston, Illinois. The arena opened in 1952 as McGaw Memorial Hall. It is home to the Northwestern University Wildcats basketball, volleyball and wrestling teams. It is located to the north of Ryan Field on the athletic campus, and also...
. 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 Wallace Abbey, a writer for the Chicago Daily Tribune who wrote that even in a loss to the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of 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...
, "Football players had not come down from Evanston; wildcats would be a name better suited to [Coach Glenn] Thistletwaite's
Glenn Thistlethwaite
Glenn F. Thistlethwaite was an American football coach in the United States. He served as the head football coach at Earlham College , Northwestern University , the University of Wisconsin–Madison , Carroll College in Wisconsin , and the University of Richmond ,...
boys." The name was so popular that university board members made "wildcats" the official nickname just months later. In 1972, the student body voted to change the official nickname from "Wildcats" to "Purple Haze" but the new name never stuck.
The mascot of Northwestern Athletics is Willie the Wildcat
Northwestern's Willie the Wildcat
Willie the Wildcat is the mascot for the Northwestern University Wildcats. He is not to be confused with the mascot for Kansas State University, also named Willie The Wildcat.-History:...
. The first mascot, however, was a live, caged bear cub from the Lincoln Park Zoo
Lincoln Park Zoo
Lincoln Park Zoo is a free zoo located in Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois. The zoo was founded in 1868, making it one of the oldest zoos in the nation. The zoo is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums ....
named Furpaw who was brought to the playing field on the day of a game to greet the fans. But after a losing season, the team, deciding that Furpaw was to blame for its misfortune, banished him from campus forever. Willie the Wildcat made his debut in 1933 first as a logo, and then in three dimensions in 1947, when members of the Alpha Delta fraternity dressed as wildcats during a Homecoming Parade. The Northwestern University Marching Band (NUMB)
Northwestern University Wildcat Marching Band
The Northwestern University Wildcat Marching Band is the marching band of Northwestern University. NUMB provides pre-game, halftime, and postgame field performances at all home football games while school is in session as well as performing in various pep bands and at "Wildcat Alley" before the...
performs at all home football games and leads cheers in the student section and performs the Alma Mater
Alma mater
Alma mater , pronounced ), was used in ancient Rome as a title for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele, and in Christianity for the Virgin Mary.-General term:...
at the end of the game.
Northwestern Wildcats football
The Northwestern Wildcats football team, representing Northwestern University, is a NCAA Division I team and member of the Big Ten Conference, with evidence of organization in 1876...
has made 73 appearances in the top 10 of the AP poll since 1936 (including 5 at #1) and has won eight Big Ten conference championships since 1903, its history is one of losses: its all-time record is 461-622-42 (0.428) giving it the all-time record for Division I-A losses. Other dubious distinctions include being on the losing end of the greatest comeback in Division I-A history
2006 Michigan State vs. Northwestern football game
The 2006 edition of the Michigan State Spartans / Northwestern Wildcats football game featured the biggest comeback in NCAA history. The Spartans, after falling behind to the Wildcats 38-3 with 9:54 remaining in the 3rd quarter, rallied to score 38 unanswered points to defeat the Wildcats...
and holding the record for the longest losing streak in Division I-A, losing 34 consecutive games between 1979 and 1982. In 2004, Northwestern broke a 33-year losing streak (46 years at home) by defeating No. 7-ranked Ohio State
Ohio State Buckeyes football
The Ohio State Buckeyes football team is an intercollegiate varsity sports team of The Ohio State University. The team is a member of the Big Ten Conference of the NCAA, playing at the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, formerly Division I-A, level. The team nickname is derived from the state...
33-27. After head coach Ara Parseghian
Ara Parseghian
Ara Raoul Parseghian is a former American football player and coach of Armenian descent. He served as the head football coach at Miami University , Northwestern University , and the University of Notre Dame , compiling a career college football record of 170–58–6...
left the program in 1964, the team did not appear in a bowl game until the 1996 Rose Bowl
1996 Rose Bowl
The 1996 Rose Bowl was the 82nd Rose Bowl Game. It was the 50th game in the series featuring the Big Ten Conference and the Pacific-10 Conference. The USC Trojans defeated the Northwestern Wildcats 41-32 on the strength of two touchdown passes from USC QB Brad Otton to WR Keyshawn Johnson...
. Despite playing in the 1996 Rose Bowl, 1997 Citrus Bowl
Citrus Bowl
The Florida Citrus Bowl is a stadium in Orlando, Florida, USA, built for football, which currently seats around 70,000 people....
, 2000 Alamo Bowl
2000 Alamo Bowl
The 2000 edition to the Alamo Bowl featured the , and the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Despite both teams being ranked, it was the biggest blowout in the game's history...
, 2003 Motor City Bowl
Motor City Bowl
The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl is a post-season college football bowl game certified by the NCAA that has been played annually since 1997. The first five games were played at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan. Starting in 2002, the game was moved to 65,000-seat Ford Field in downtown...
, 2005 Sun Bowl
2005 Sun Bowl
The 2005 Sun Bowl, known as the Vitalis Sun Bowl was a college football bowl game played on December 30, 2005 in El Paso, Texas. It was the 72nd Sun Bowl. It featured the , and the Northwestern Wildcats. UCLA overcame a 22-0 deficit to Northwestern in the first quarter to win 50-38. This is the...
, 2009 Alamo Bowl, 2010 Outback Bowl
2010 Outback Bowl
The 2010 Outback Bowl was the 24th edition of the college football bowl game, and was played at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. The game started at 11 AM US EST on Friday, January 1, 2010. The game was telecast on ESPN and matched Auburn University against Northwestern University...
and 2011 TicketCity Bowl, the last bowl game Northwestern won was the 1949 Rose Bowl
1949 Rose Bowl
The 1949 Rose Bowl was a college football bowl game. It was the 35th Rose Bowl Game, and the third since the Big Nine Conference and Pacific Coast Conference agreed to an exclusive agreement to match their conference champions. The Northwestern Wildcats defeated the California Golden Bears 20-14...
. Following the sudden death of football coach Randy Walker
Randy Walker (football coach)
Randy J. Walker was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Miami University from 1990 to 1998 and at Northwestern University from 1999 to 2005, compiling a career college football record of 96–81–5...
in 2006, 31-year-old former All-American Northwestern linebacker
Linebacker
A linebacker is a position in American football that was invented by football coach Fielding H. Yost of the University of Michigan. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up approximately three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage, behind the defensive linemen...
Pat Fitzgerald
Pat Fitzgerald
-External links:*...
assumed the position, becoming the youngest Division I FBS coach at the time.
In 1998, two former Northwestern basketball
Northwestern Wildcats men's basketball
The Northwestern Wildcats men's basketball team is an NCAA Division I college basketball team representing Northwestern University in the Big Ten Conference. Men's basketball was first introduced at Northwestern in 1901...
players were charged and convicted for sports bribery as a result of being paid to shave points
Point shaving
In organized sports, point shaving is a type of match fixing where the perpetrators try to prevent a team from covering a published point spread. Unlike other forms of match fixing, sports betting invariably motivates point shaving. A point shaving scheme generally involves a sports gambler and one...
in games against three other Big 10 schools during the 1995 season. The football team
Northwestern Wildcats football
The Northwestern Wildcats football team, representing Northwestern University, is a NCAA Division I team and member of the Big Ten Conference, with evidence of organization in 1876...
became embroiled in a different betting scandal later that year when federal prosecutors indicted four former players for perjury related to betting
Sports betting
Sports betting is the activity of predicting sports results and placing a wager on the outcome.-United States of America:Aside from simple wagers such as betting a friend that one's favorite baseball team will win its division or buying a football "square" for the Super Bowl, sports betting is...
on their own games. In August 2001, Rashidi Wheeler, a senior safety, collapsed and died during practice from an asthma attack. An autopsy revealed that he had ephedrine
Ephedrine
Ephedrine is a sympathomimetic amine commonly used as a stimulant, appetite suppressant, concentration aid, decongestant, and to treat hypotension associated with anaesthesia....
, a stimulant
Stimulant
Stimulants are psychoactive drugs which induce temporary improvements in either mental or physical function or both. Examples of these kinds of effects may include enhanced alertness, wakefulness, and locomotion, among others...
banned by the NCAA, in his system, which prompted Northwestern to investigate the prevalence of stimulants and other banned substances across all of its athletic programs. In 2006, the Northwestern women's soccer team was suspended and coach Jenny Haigh resigned following the release of images of alleged hazing
Hazing
Hazing is a term used to describe various ritual and other activities involving harassment, abuse or humiliation used as a way of initiating a person into a group....
.
Student body
| Undergraduate | Postgraduate | U.S. Census | |
|---|---|---|---|
| African American African American African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States... |
3.0% | 4.0% | 12.1% |
| Asian American Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,... |
16.6% | 9.9% | 4.3% |
| White American White American White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa... |
59.2% | 46.0% | 65.8% |
| Hispanic American | 6.7% | 3.1% | 14.5% |
| Native American Native Americans in the United States Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as... |
0.1% | 0.2% | 0.9% |
| International student International student According to Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development , international students are those who travel to a country different from their own for the purpose of tertiary study. Despite that, the definition of international students varies in each country in accordance to their own national... |
5.0% | 20.0% | N/A |
Northwestern enrolled 8,284 undergraduate, 8,249 graduate, and 1,495 professional students in the 2006–2007 academic year. The undergraduate population is drawn from the 50 states and from some 50 foreign countries. Admissions are characterized as "more selective, lower transfer-in". There were 30,975 applications for the undergraduate Class of 2015 (entering 2011): 18% were admitted. The interquartile range
Interquartile range
In descriptive statistics, the interquartile range , also called the midspread or middle fifty, is a measure of statistical dispersion, being equal to the difference between the upper and lower quartiles...
on the SAT
SAT
The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a nonprofit organization in the United States. It was formerly developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service which still...
was 2010–2270 and 85% ranked in the top ten percent of their high school class. In 2007, Northwestern enrolled 249 National Merit Scholars as freshmen, the third-largest total in the nation. 86% of students were graduated after four years, 92% after five years, the university having several five-year programs.
Faculty
The university employs 2,291 full-time faculty members across its eleven schools, including 18 members of the National Academy of SciencesUnited States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
, 65 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
, 19 members of the National Academy of Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
, and 6 members of the Institute of Medicine
Institute of Medicine
The Institute of Medicine is a not-for-profit, non-governmental American organization founded in 1970, under the congressional charter of the National Academy of Sciences...
. Notable faculty include 2010 Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
- winning economist Dale T. Mortensen
Dale T. Mortensen
Dale Thomas Mortensen is an American economist. He received his B.A. in economics from Willamette University and his Ph.D. in Economics from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity...
; nano-scientist Chad Mirkin
Chad Mirkin
Chad A. Mirkin is an American chemist. He is the George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Medicine, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology and Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly at...
; Tony Award-winning director Mary Zimmerman
Mary Zimmerman
Mary Zimmerman is an American theatre director and playwright, born in Lincoln, Nebraska.-Career:Zimmerman is a member of the Lookingglass Theatre Company and is an Artistic Associate of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. She received her BS, MA and PhD from Northwestern University, where...
; management expert Philip Kotler
Philip Kotler
Philip Kotler is the S.C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.-Early life:He received his master's degree at the University of Chicago...
; King Faisal International Prize in Science recipient Sir Fraser Stoddart; Steppenwolf Theatre director Anna Shapiro
Anna Shapiro
-Early years:Shapiro was born in Evanston, Illinois, and went on to receive an undergraduate degree in directing from Columbia College Chicago. She then attended graduate school at the Yale School of Drama and was the recipient of a 1996 Princess Grace Award...
; sexual psychologist J. Michael Bailey
J. Michael Bailey
John Michael Bailey is an American psychologist and professor at Northwestern University. He is best known among scientists for his work on the etiology of sexual orientation, from which he concluded that homosexuality is substantially inherited...
; Holocaust denier Arthur Butz
Arthur Butz
Arthur R. Butz is a Holocaust denier and associate professor of electrical engineering at Northwestern University. He achieved tenure in 1974 and currently teaches classes in control system theory and digital signal processing.-Education:...
; Federalist Society
Federalist Society
The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, most frequently called simply the Federalist Society, is an organization of conservatives seeking reform of the current American legal system in accordance with a textualist and/or originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution...
co-founder Steven Calabresi
Steven Calabresi
Steven G. Calabresi is a professor of law at Northwestern University School of Law. He is also a visiting professor at Brown University.Calabresi co-founded the Federalist Society when a student at Yale University, and is an active conservative author and commentator.Among others, he has...
; former Weatherman
Weatherman (organization)
Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization , was an American radical left organization. It originated in 1969 as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society composed for the most part of the national office leadership of SDS and their...
Bernardine Rae Dohrn; ethnographer Gary Alan Fine
Gary Alan Fine
Gary Alan Fine is an American sociologist and author.- Life and career :The son of Bernard David Fine and Bernice Estelle Tanz, Fine grew up in Manhattan and went to the Horace Mann School. He studied psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and then received his PhD from Harvard in social...
; Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning historian Garry Wills
Garry Wills
Garry Wills is a Pulitzer Prize-winning and prolific author, journalist, and historian, specializing in American politics, American political history and ideology and the Roman Catholic Church. Classically trained at a Jesuit high school and two universities, he is proficient in Greek and Latin...
; and MacArthur Fellowship recipients Stuart Dybek
Stuart Dybek
-Personal life:Dybek was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Chicago's Little Village and Pilsen neighborhoods in the 1950s and early 1960s. Dybek graduated from St. Rita of Cascia High School in 1959...
, and Jennifer Richeson
Jennifer Richeson
Jennifer A. Richeson is an African-American social psychologist who studies racial identity and interracial interactions.-Education:Dr. Richeson completed a B.S. in psychology at Brown University and earned her Ph.D. in social psychology at Harvard University...
. Notable former faculty include political advisor David Axelrod
David Axelrod
David Axelrod may refer to:* David Axelrod * David Axelrod , Senior Advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama* David B. Axelrod , poet and educator...
, artist Ed Paschke
Ed Paschke
Edward Francis Paschke was a Polish American painter. His childhood interest in animation and cartoons, as well as his father's creativity in wood carving and construction, led him toward a career in art...
, writer Charles Newman
Charles Newman (author)
Charles Newman was an American novelist and critic. Newman authored several experimental novels including White Jazz , The Promisekeeper: A Tephramancy , A Child's History of America , New Axis , and The Post-Modern Aura: The Act of Fiction in an Age of Inflation and his work has been compared to...
, Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
-winning chemist John Pople
John Pople
Sir John Anthony Pople, KBE, FRS, was a Nobel-Prize winning theoretical chemist. Born in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, England, he attended Bristol Grammar School. He won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1943. He received his B. A. in 1946. Between 1945 and 1947 he worked at the Bristol...
, and military sociologist and "don't ask, don't tell
Don't ask, don't tell
"Don't ask, don't tell" was the official United States policy on homosexuals serving in the military from December 21, 1993 to September 20, 2011. The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while...
" author Charles Moskos
Charles Moskos
Charles C. Moskos was a sociologist of the United States Military and a professor at Northwestern University...
.
Alumni
Northwestern has roughly 190,000 alumni in all branches of business, government, law, science, education, medicine, media, and the performing arts. Among Northwestern's more notable alumni are U.S. Senator and presidential candidate George McGovernGeorge McGovern
George Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....
, Nobel Prize-winning economist George J. Stigler, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...
, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and diarist Ned Rorem
Ned Rorem
Ned Rorem is a Pulitzer prize-winning American composer and diarist. He is best known and most praised for his song settings.-Life:...
, the much-decorated composer Howard Hanson
Howard Hanson
Howard Harold Hanson was an American composer, conductor, educator, music theorist, and champion of American classical music. As director for 40 years of the Eastman School of Music, he built a high-quality school and provided opportunities for commissioning and performing American music...
, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
Ali Babacan
Ali Babacan
Ali Babacan is a Turkish politician and the current Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey responsible for the Economy. He was previously Minister of Economy in the 58th cabinet from the Justice and Development Party . On August 29, 2007, he was named Minister of Foreign Affairs of in the cabinet of...
, the historian and novelist Wilma Dykeman
Wilma Dykeman
Wilma Dykeman Stokely was an American writer of fiction and nonfiction whose works chronicled the people and land of Appalachia.-Biography:...
, and the founder of the presidential prayer breakfast Abraham Vereide
Abraham Vereide
Abraham Vereide was a Norwegian-born Methodist clergyman and founder of Goodwill Industries of Seattle. In 1935, Vereide founded the prayer breakfast movement in the United States. In 1942, Vereide established International Christian Leadership, incorporated as Fellowship Foundation, in Chicago...
. U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens
John Paul Stevens
John Paul Stevens served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from December 19, 1975 until his retirement on June 29, 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the oldest member of the Court and the third-longest serving justice in the Court's history...
, Supreme Court Justice and Ambassador to the United Nations Arthur Joseph Goldberg, and Governor of Illinois and Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson are among the graduates of the Northwestern School of Law
Northwestern University School of Law
The Northwestern University School of Law is a private American law school in Chicago, Illinois. The law school was founded in 1859 as the Union College of Law of the Old University of Chicago. The first law school established in Chicago, it became jointly controlled by Northwestern University in...
. Many Northwestern alumni play or have played important roles in Chicago and Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, such as former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich
Rod Blagojevich
Rod R. Blagojevich is an American politician who served as the 40th Governor of Illinois from 2003 to 2009. A Democrat, Blagojevich was a State Representative before being elected to the United States House of Representatives representing parts of Chicago...
, Chicago Bulls
Chicago Bulls
The Chicago Bulls are an American professional basketball team based in Chicago, Illinois, playing in the Central Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association . The team was founded in 1966. They play their home games at the United Center...
and Chicago White Sox
Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are a Major League Baseball team located in Chicago, Illinois.The White Sox play in the American League's Central Division. Since , the White Sox have played in U.S. Cellular Field, which was originally called New Comiskey Park and nicknamed The Cell by local fans...
owner Jerry Reinsdorf
Jerry Reinsdorf
Jerry M. Reinsdorf is a CPA, lawyer and an owner of the MLB's Chicago White Sox and the NBA's Chicago Bulls. He started his professional life as a tax attorney with the Internal Revenue Service. He has been the head of the White Sox and Bulls for over 20 years.He made his initial fortune in real...
, and theater director Mary Zimmerman
Mary Zimmerman
Mary Zimmerman is an American theatre director and playwright, born in Lincoln, Nebraska.-Career:Zimmerman is a member of the Lookingglass Theatre Company and is an Artistic Associate of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. She received her BS, MA and PhD from Northwestern University, where...
. Northwestern alumni David J. Skorton
David J. Skorton
David Jan Skorton is an American professor of medicine and an academic administrator. He is currently serving as the president of Cornell University.- Education :...
and Graham Spanier
Graham Spanier
Graham B. Spanier is an American academic, who served as the 16th president of the Pennsylvania State University from September 1, 1995, until he was forced to resign on November 9, 2011, in the aftermath of the Penn State child sex abuse scandal...
currently serve as president of Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
and Penn State University, respectively. Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Israel Emanuel is an American politician and the 55th and current Mayor of Chicago. He was formerly White House Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama...
, the mayor of Chicago and former White House Chief of Staff
White House Chief of Staff
The White House Chief of Staff is the highest ranking member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States and a senior aide to the President.The current White House Chief of Staff is Bill Daley.-History:...
, earned a Masters in Speech and Communication in 1985.
Ann-Margret
Ann-Margret Olsson is a Swedish-American actress, singer and dancer whose professional name is Ann-Margret. She became famous for her starring roles in Bye Bye Birdie, Viva Las Vegas, The Cincinnati Kid, Carnal Knowledge, and Tommy...
, Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...
, Paul Lynde
Paul Lynde
Paul Edward Lynde was an American comedian and actor. A noted character actor, Lynde was well known for his roles as Uncle Arthur on Bewitched and Harry MacAfee, the befuddled father in Bye Bye Birdie...
, David Schwimmer
David Schwimmer
David Lawrence Schwimmer is an American actor and director of television and film. He was born in New York City, and his family moved to Los Angeles when he was two. He began his acting career performing in school plays at Beverly Hills High School. In 1988, he graduated from Northwestern...
, Anne Dudek
Anne Dudek
Anne Louise Dudek is an American actress, known for her role as Dr. Amber Volakis on the television show House and her leading role on UK television series The Book Group as well as playing Francine Hanson in the series Mad Men...
, Zach Braff
Zach Braff
Zachary Israel "Zach" Braff is an American actor, screenwriter, producer, comedian, and director. Braff first became known in 2001 for his role as Dr. John Dorian on the television series Scrubs, for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award and three Golden Globe Awards.In 2004, Braff made his...
, Zooey Deschanel
Zooey Deschanel
Zooey Claire Deschanel is an American actress, musician, and singer-songwriter. In 1999, Deschanel made her film debut in Mumford, followed by her breakout role as young protagonist William Miller's troubled older sister Anita in Cameron Crowe's 2000 semi-autobiographical film Almost Famous...
, Marg Helgenberger
Marg Helgenberger
Mary Marg Helgenberger is an American film and television actress known for her roles as Catherine Willows in the CBS drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and as K.C...
, Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Julia Scarlett Elizabeth Louis-Dreyfus is an American actress and comedienne, widely known for her sitcom roles in Seinfeld and The New Adventures of Old Christine....
, Jerry Orbach
Jerry Orbach
Jerome Bernard "Jerry" Orbach was an American actor and singer. He was well known for his starring role as Detective Lennie Briscoe in the Law & Order television series and as the voice of Lumière in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. As well, Orbach was a noted musical theatre star...
, Jennifer Jones
Jennifer Jones
Phylis Lee Isley , better known by her stage name Jennifer Jones, was an American actress. A five-time Academy Award nominee, Jones won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Song of Bernadette .-Early life:Jones was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the daughter of Flora Mae and...
, Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer
Gerald Norman "Jerry" Springer is a British-born American television presenter, best known as host of the tabloid talk show The Jerry Springer Show since its debut in 1991...
, Megan Mullally
Megan Mullally
Megan Mullally is an American actress and singer.After working in the theatre in Chicago, Mullally moved to Los Angeles in 1985 and began to appear in supporting roles in film and television productions. She made her Broadway debut in Grease in 1994 and she has since appeared in several Broadway...
, Dermot Mulroney
Dermot Mulroney
-Early life:Mulroney was born in Alexandria, Virginia, the son of Ellen, a housewife and amateur actress originally from Manchester, Iowa, and Michael Mulroney, a law professor at Villanova University School of Law, originally from Elkader, Iowa. He has a sister, Moira, and three brothers, Conor,...
, Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...
, Richard Kind
Richard Kind
Richard John Kind is an American actor known for his roles in the sitcoms Mad About You and Spin City .- Early life :...
, Ana Gasteyer
Ana Gasteyer
Ana Kristina Gasteyer is an American actress of stage, film, and television. She is best known for her comedic roles when she was a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1996 to 2002.-Early life:...
, Brad Hall
Brad Hall
William Brad Hall is an American writer and actor, best known as a Saturday Night Live news anchor on Saturday Night News. He was also the creator of the TV series The Single Guy and Watching Ellie...
, Shelley Long
Shelley Long
Shelley Lee Long is an American actress best known for her role as Diane Chambers on the sitcom Cheers, for which she won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress and two Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress...
, William Daniels
William Daniels
William David Daniels is an American actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild . He is known for his performance as Dustin Hoffman's father in The Graduate , as John Adams in 1776, as Carter Nash in Captain Nice, as Mr. George Feeny in ABC's Boy Meets World, as the voice of KITT in...
, Cloris Leachman
Cloris Leachman
Cloris Leachman is an American actress of stage, film and television. She has won eight Primetime Emmy Awards—more than any other performer—and one Daytime Emmy Award...
, Bonnie Bartlett
Bonnie Bartlett
Bonnie Bartlett is an American television and film actress. Her career spans over 50 years, with her first major role being on a 1950s daytime drama, Love of Life. She is best known for her role as Ellen Craig on the medical drama series St. Elsewhere. She and her husband, actor William Daniels,...
, Paula Prentiss
Paula Prentiss
Paula Ragusa , better known by her stage name Paula Prentiss, is an American actress well-known for her film roles in Where the Boys Are, Man's Favorite Sport?, The Stepford Wives, What's New Pussycat?, The Black Marble, and The Parallax View and her co-starring role in the television situation...
, Richard Benjamin
Richard Benjamin
Richard Benjamin is an American actor and film director. He has starred in a number of productions, including Goodbye, Columbus , based on the novella by Philip Roth, and Westworld .-Life and career:...
, Laura Innes
Laura Innes
Laura Elizabeth Innes is an American actress and director, probably best known for her role as Dr. Kerry Weaver on ER, and most recently, as Sophia on the NBC thriller The Event.-Career:...
, Charles Busch
Charles Busch
Charles Louis Busch is an American actor, screenwriter, playwright and female impersonator, known for his appearances on stage in his own camp style plays and in film and television. He wrote The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, which was a success on Broadway.-Early life:Busch was born in 1954 and...
, Stephanie March
Stephanie March
Stephanie Caroline March is an American actress, best known for her current portrayal of Alexandra Cabot on the television series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.-Early life:...
, Tony Roberts
Tony Roberts (actor)
David Anthony "Tony" Roberts is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in several Woody Allen movies, usually cast as Allen's best friend.-Early life:...
, Jeri Ryan
Jeri Ryan
Jeri Lynn Zimmermann Ryan is an American actress best known for her roles as the liberated Borg, Seven of Nine, on Star Trek: Voyager; Tara Cole on Leverage; and Veronica "Ronnie" Cooke on Boston Public. She was also a regular on the science fiction show Dark Skies and the legal drama series...
, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, McLean Stevenson
McLean Stevenson
Edgar McLean Stevenson, Jr. , better known as McLean Stevenson, was an American actor most recognized for his role as Lt. Colonel Henry Blake on the TV series M*A*S*H...
, Tony Randall
Tony Randall
Tony Randall was a U.S. actor, comic, producer and director.-Early years:Randall was born Arthur Leonard Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Julia and Mogscha Rosenberg, an art and antiques dealer...
, Charlotte Rae
Charlotte Rae
Charlotte Rae is a prolific American character actress of stage, comedienne, singer and dancer, who in her six decades of television is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Edna Garrett in the sitcoms Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life...
, Patricia Neal
Patricia Neal
Patricia Neal was an American actress of stage and screen. She was best known for her film roles as World War II widow Helen Benson in The Day the Earth Stood Still , wealthy matron Emily Eustace Failenson in Breakfast at Tiffany's , middle-aged housekeeper Alma Brown in Hud , for which she won...
, Nancy Dussault, Robert Reed
Robert Reed
Robert Reed was a prolific American character actor of stage, film and television. In his first big break, he played Kenneth Preston on the popular 1960s TV legal drama, The Defenders, alongside E. G. Marshall. But he was best remembered for portraying the father, Mike Brady, on the popular...
, Mara Brock Akil
Mara Brock Akil
Mara Brock Akil is an American television writer and producer.-Early life:Muslim American born in Los Angeles, California, Brock Akil was raised primarily in Kansas City. She is a graduate of Raytown South High School in 1988...
, Greg Berlanti
Greg Berlanti
Greg Berlanti is an American television writer and producer.- Personal life :Berlanti was born in Rye, New York. His parents are Barbara Moller Berlanti and Eugene Berlanti. Greg has one sister, Dina and is the uncle of two nieces...
, Dan Shor
Dan Shor
Daniel Shor is an American veteran actor, director, writer and teacher with a career spanning over 30 years.- Early life :Shor was born and raised in New York City. Attended McBurney school from 6th thru 8th grade...
, Seth Meyers
Seth Meyers
Seth Adam Meyers is an American actor and comedian. He currently serves as head writer for Saturday Night Live and hosts its news parody segment Weekend Update.-Early life:...
, Frank DeCaro
Frank DeCaro
Frank DeCaro is an American writer, performer and radio show host.The New York-born DeCaro is the author of The Dead Celebrity Cookbook: A Resurrection of Recipes From More Than 145 Stars of Stage and Screen , Unmistakably Mackie: The Fashion and Fantasy of Bob Mackie , and A Boy Named Phyllis: A...
, Zach Gilford
Zach Gilford
Zach Gilford is an American actor best known for his role as Matt Saracen on the NBC television drama series Friday Night Lights. Gilford starred alongside Terrell Owens in the 2008 NBA Celebrity All-Star game....
, Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.Colbert originally studied to be an...
and Garry Marshall
Garry Marshall
Garry Kent Marshall is an American actor, director, writer and producer. His notable credits include creating Happy Days and The Odd Couple and directing Nothing In Common, Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, Valentine's Day, and The Princess Diaries.-Early life:Marshall was born in the New York City...
. Directors who were graduated from Northwestern include Gerald Freedman
Gerald Freedman
Gerald Freedman is an American theatre director, librettist, and lyricist, and a college dean.Born in Lorain, Ohio, Freedman was educated at Northwestern University, where he received both BA and MA degrees. He began his career as assistant director of such projects as Bells Are Ringing, West Side...
, Stuart Hagmann, Marshall W. Mason
Marshall W. Mason
Marshall W. Mason is an American theater director, the founder and for eighteen years, artistic director of the Circle Repertory Company in New York City....
, and Mary Zimmerman
Mary Zimmerman
Mary Zimmerman is an American theatre director and playwright, born in Lincoln, Nebraska.-Career:Zimmerman is a member of the Lookingglass Theatre Company and is an Artistic Associate of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. She received her BS, MA and PhD from Northwestern University, where...
. Lee Phillip Bell
Lee Phillip Bell
Lee Phillip Bell is a former talk show host and soap opera creator.Lee Phillip Bell is one of the most notable graduates from what is now known as Riverside-Brookfield High School in Riverside, Illinois. Ms. Bell received a degree in microbiology from Northwestern University...
hosted a talk show in Chicago from 1952–1986 and co-created the Daytime Emmy Award
Daytime Emmy Award
The Daytime Emmy Awards are awards presented by the New York-based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles-based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in recognition of excellence in American daytime television programming...
-winning soap operas The Young and the Restless
The Young and the Restless
The Young and the Restless is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. The show is set in a fictional Wisconsin town called Genoa City, which is unlike and unrelated to the real life village of the same name, Genoa City, Wisconsin...
in 1973 and The Bold and the Beautiful
The Bold and the Beautiful
The Bold and the Beautiful is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS Daytime. It premiered on March 23, 1987....
in 1987. Alumni such as Sheldon Harnick
Sheldon Harnick
Sheldon Harnick is an American lyricist best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on hit musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof....
, Stephanie D'Abruzzo
Stephanie D'Abruzzo
Stephanie D'Abruzzo is an American actress and puppeteer.-Early life:D'Abruzzo grew up in McMurray, Pennsylvania, a Pittsburgh suburb she has described as a "plastic bubble kind of town." She graduated from Peters Township High School, where she was active in the theater program, and attended the...
, Heather Headley
Heather Headley
Heather Headley is a Trinidadian-American R&B and soul singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. She has won one Tony Award and one Grammy Award.-Personal life:...
, Kristen Schaal
Kristen Schaal
Kristen Schaal is an American actress, writer and comedienne, best known for her role as Mel in the HBO series Flight of the Conchords, as Louise in Bob's Burgers and as a contributor on The Daily Show.-Early life:...
, Lily Rabe
Lily Rabe
Lily Rabe is an American actress. She is the daughter of the late actress Jill Clayburgh and playwright David Rabe and attended Northwestern University and the Hotchkiss School....
, and Walter Kerr
Walter Kerr
For the RN admiral see Lord Walter KerrWalter Francis Kerr was an American writer and Broadway theater critic. He also was the writer, lyricist, and/or director of several Broadway plays and musicals.-Biography:...
have distinguished themselves on Broadway, as has designer Bob Mackie
Bob Mackie
Robert Gordon Mackie is an American fashion designer, best known for his costuming for entertainment icons such as Judy Garland, Cher, Diana Ross, Liza Minnelli, Tina Turner, and Mitzi Gaynor...
. Amsterdam-based comedy theater Boom Chicago
Boom Chicago
Boom Chicago is a creative group, based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, that writes and performs sketch and improvisational comedy at the Leidseplein Theater...
was founded by Northwestern alumni, and the school has become a training ground for future The Second City
The Second City
The Second City is a improvisational comedy enterprise which originated in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood.The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959 and has since expanded its presence to several other cities, including Toronto and Los Angeles...
, I.O.
I.O.
iO, or iO Chicago, is a theater located at 3541 N. Clark St., in Chicago, Illinois, one-half block south of Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. The theater both has performances of, and teaches improvisational comedy. It was founded in the 1980s by Del Close and Charna Halpern...
, ComedySportz
ComedySportz
ComedySportz is an improvisational comedy organization started in 1984 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by a group of local comedians including Dick Chudnow, Bob Orvis, Brian Green and many others.-Format:...
, Mad TV
MADtv
MADtv is an American sketch comedy television series. It licensed the name and logo of Mad, but otherwise had no connection with the humor magazine outside the animated Spy vs. Spy and Don Martin cartoon shorts and images of Alfred E. Neuman that the show featured during the late 1990s. Its first...
and Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
talent. Tam Spiva
Tam Spiva
Hubert Tamblyn Spiva, known as Tam Spiva , is a television screenwriter in Pacific Palisades, California, who is best known for his work on ABC's The Brady Bunch situation comedy , starring Florence Henderson and Robert Reed, and CBS's family drama Gentle Ben starring Dennis Weaver.Spiva is...
wrote scripts for The Brady Bunch
The Brady Bunch
The Brady Bunch is an American sitcom created by Sherwood Schwartz and starring Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, and Ann B. Davis. The series revolved around a large blended family...
and Gentle Ben
Gentle Ben
Gentle Ben is a children's novel by author Walt Morey, first published in 1965. The book concerns the friendship between the title character, a bear, and a young boy named Mark...
. In New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, the number of Northwestern alumni involved in theater, film, and television is so large that a perception has formed that there's such a thing as a "Northwestern mafia."
The Medill School of Journalism
Medill School of Journalism
The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications is a constituent school of Northwestern University which offers both undergraduate and graduate programs. It has consistently been one of the top-ranked schools in Journalism in the United States...
has produced notable journalists and political activists including 38 Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
laureates. National correspondents, reporters and columnists such as The New York Timess Elisabeth Bumiller
Elisabeth Bumiller
Elisabeth Bumiller is an American author and journalist who is currently a national affairs correspondent for the New York Times.-Personal:...
, David Barstow
David Barstow
-Life:Born in Boston, he received a bachelor's degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 1986. Barstow has worked for The New York Times since 1999, and has been an investigative reporter there since 2002.He worked for The St...
, Dean Murphy, and Vincent Laforet, USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
's Gary Levin, Susan Page
Susan Page
Susan Page is an American journalist and the current Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today. She has won several awards for her work, including the Merriman Smith Memorial Award, the Aldo Beckman Memorial Award, the Gerald R...
and Christine Brennan
Christine Brennan
Christine Brennan is an American sports columnist, TV and radio commentator, best-selling author and nationally-known speaker....
, NBC
NBC News
NBC News is the news division of American television network NBC. It first started broadcasting in February 21, 1940. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is...
correspondent Kelly O'Donnell
Kelly O'Donnell
-Occupation:*Is a political reporter for NBC News.**She appears on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, Today -Occupation:*Is a political reporter for NBC News.**She appears on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, Today -Occupation:*Is a political reporter for NBC News.**She appears on NBC...
, CBS
CBS News
CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes, while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main...
correspondent Richard Threlkeld
Richard Threlkeld
Richard Threlkeld is an American television news correspondent who spent 25 years with CBS News.Threlkeld grew up in Barrington, Illinois. He earned a degree in history and political science from Ripon College...
, CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
correspondents Nicole Lapin
Nicole Lapin
Nicole Miriam Lapin is an anchor on CNN Live who regularly appeared on CNN Headline News, CNN, and CNN International. In January 2010, Lapin joined CNBC in New York as an anchor for Worldwide Exchange, joining CNBC Europe's Ross Westgate in London and CNBC Asia's Christine Tan in Singapore. She...
and Joie Chen, and ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
personalities Rachel Nichols
Rachel Nichols (reporter)
Rachel Michele Nichols is an ESPN reporter. A regular part of ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown and Monday Night Countdown shows, as well as a regular on ESPN's NBA coverage, Nichols is also a correspondent for E:60. She worked for the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel and Washington Post...
, Michael Wilbon
Michael Wilbon
Michael Ray Wilbon is a former sportswriter and columnist for the Washington Post and current ESPN commentator. He serves as an analyst for ESPN and co-hosts Pardon the Interruption on ESPN with former Post writer Tony Kornheiser, and has been doing so since 2001.-Career:Wilbon began working for...
, Mike Greenberg, Steve Weissman
Steve Weissman
Steve Weissman is an American sportscaster who joined ESPN in January 2010. He came to ESPN from Comcast Sportsnet in California, where he served as the network's lead anchor...
, J. A. Adande
J. A. Adande
Joshua Ade "J. A." Adande is an American sports columnist who covers the National Basketball Association for ESPN.com. He also serves as a panelist for ESPN's Around the Horn and as a guest host on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption television shows...
, and Kevin Blackistone
Kevin Blackistone
Kevin B. Blackistone is a columnist for Fanhouse.com, also a frequent panelist for ESPN's Around the Horn and on Sundays for Comcast's Redskins Postgame Live. On radio, he appears as a frequent guest cohost on the Sports Reporters on DC's ESPN980.-Career:He was born in Washington, D.C...
.
Northwestern alumni involved in music include Steve Albini
Steve Albini
Steven Frank Albini is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, audio engineer and music journalist. He was a member of Big Black, Rapeman, and Flour, and is currently a member of Shellac...
, Thomas Tyra
Thomas Tyra
Thomas Tyra was an American composer, arranger, bandmaster, and music educator.-Early life and education:...
, Andrew Bird
Andrew Bird
Andrew Bird is an American musician, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist.- Early life and the Bowl of Fire :...
, Joshua Radin
Joshua Radin
Joshua Radin is an American recording artist, songwriter and actor. He was born and raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and is of Swedish, German, Polish, Russian, and Austrian descent. He studied drawing and painting at Northwestern University, following his college years with stints as an art...
, members of Arcade Fire, The Lawrence Arms
The Lawrence Arms
The Lawrence Arms are an American punk rock band from Chicago, Illinois, formed in 1999. They have released five full-length albums and toured extensively.-Pre-history:...
, Chavez
Chavez (band)
Chavez is an alternative rock/math rock band from New York, formed in 1993. After a period of inactivity, the band reformed in 2006. They released two independent non-charting albums in the mid-1990s...
, and OK Go
OK Go
OK Go is a rock band originally from Chicago, Illinois, USA, now residing in Los Angeles, California, USA. The band is composed of Damian Kulash , Tim Nordwind , Dan Konopka and Andy Ross , who joined them in 2005, replacing Andy Duncan...
. Lastly, Northwestern alumni involved in professional sports include Rick Sund
Rick Sund
Rick Sund is an NBA executive who is the current GM of the Atlanta Hawks, replacing Billy Knight in 2008.-Managerial career:...
(NBA), Billy McKinney
Billy McKinney (basketball)
William Melvin McKinney III is an American former professional basketball player and former radio broadcaster....
(NBA), Mark Loretta
Mark Loretta
Mark David Loretta is a retired Major League Baseball infielder. Loretta played for the Milwaukee Brewers , Houston Astros , San Diego Padres , Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers...
(MLB), Joe Girardi
Joe Girardi
Joseph Elliott Girardi is a former Major League Baseball catcher and current manager of the New York Yankees. During a 15-year playing career, he played from 1989–2003 for the Chicago Cubs, the Colorado Rockies, the New York Yankees, and St. Louis Cardinals...
(MLB), Luis Castillo (NFL), Ernie Adams (NFL), Otto Graham
Otto Graham
Otto Everett Graham, Jr. was a professional American football and basketball player who played for the Cleveland Browns in both the All-America Football Conference and National Football League, as well as the Rochester Royals in the National Basketball League.-Early life:Born in Waukegan,...
(NFL), three-time Olympic medalist Matt Grevers
Matt Grevers
Matt Grevers is a professional American swimmer. He is best known for winning the silver medal in the 100 m backstroke at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.-Personal life:...
, and PGA Tour star Luke Donald
Luke Donald
Luke Campbell Donald is an English professional golfer who is the current World Number One. He plays mainly on the U.S. based PGA Tour but is also a member of the European Tour. In 2006 he reached the top ten in the Official World Golf Rankings for the first time in his career. In January 2007, he...
.