Encyclopedia
Northwestern University is a private, coeducational, non-sectarian
research university, located in
Evanston and
Chicago, Illinois,
U.S.. Northwestern's main campus is a 240-acre parcel in Evanston, along the shore of
Lake Michigan. Several of Northwestern's professional schools are located in Chicago, on a 25-acre campus near the
Magnificent Mile. As of 2005, Northwestern's endowment and other trust funds total approximately $4.92 billion.
Northwestern University enrolls approximately 15,000 full-time students and employs nearly 7,100 faculty and staff members.
Northwestern's student newspaper is
The Daily Northwestern is a student newspaper at Northwestern University [i] that is published on we ...
, its student radio station is WNUR and its student television news network is
NNN. It is a member of the
Big Ten Conference for college athletics. The official school color is purple.
The school is commonly referred to as simply
Northwestern, and although some refer to the university as "NW" or "NWU",
NU is the correct abbreviation.
History
Founded in 1851 by
Methodists from Chicago , Northwestern opened in 1855 with two faculty members and ten students. The University's name,
Northwestern, came from its founders' desire to serve citizens of the states that occupied the area of the former
Northwest Territory:
Ohio,
Indiana,
Illinois,
Michigan,
Wisconsin, and
Minnesota.
The phrase on Northwestern's seal is
Quaecumque sunt vera -- in
Latin, "Whatsoever things are true" from Philippians 4:8. Also on Northwestern's seal, a Greek phrase inscribed on the pages of an open book:
ho logos pleres charitos kai aletheias, which translates as "The Word... full of grace and truth." This phrase comes from the Gospel of John : "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we behold His glory, and the glory was of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Both the Latin and Greek phrases express the values of the University's founders, and recall Northwestern's Methodist heritage.
Northwestern's founding charter granted the school a permanent exemption from paying property taxes. For this reason, Northwestern has often endured a difficult relationship with Evanston's government. Tensions have arisen regarding building codes, law enforcement, and politics. Recently, factions of Evanston's government have attempted to divide Northwestern's campus into several different wards, so as to reduce students' voting potency.
During the
1930s, Northwestern nearly merged with its academic rival, the
University of Chicago. In 1933, Northwestern president Scott and Chicago president Hutchins concluded that in order to secure the future of both universities, it was in the best interest of both to merge as the Universities of Chicago, with Northwestern's Evanston campus serving undergraduates, Northwestern's Chicago campus serving professionals, and Chicago's Hyde Park campus serving postgraduates. What Scott and Hutchins initially envisioned as the preeminent university in the world was eventually extinguished by Northwestern's boards of trustees, a result that Hutchins called "one of the lost opportunities of American education."
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.
In May 1978, the first
Unabomber attack occurred at Northwestern University.
On January 11, 2003, in a speech at Northwestern School of Law's Lincoln Hall, Governor of Illinois
George Ryan announced that he would commute the sentences of more than 150 death row inmates. Ryan said, "it is fitting that we are gathered here today at Northwestern University with the students, teachers, lawyers and investigators who first shed light on the sorrowful conditions of Illinois’ death penalty system." In the late
1990s, Northwestern student journalists uncovered information that exonerated Illinois death row inmate
Anthony Porter two days before his scheduled execution.
The
Chicago Transit Authority's
elevated train running through Evanston is called the Purple Line, taking its name from Northwestern's school color. Although the majority of the campus sits two to four city blocks from the Purple Line, the Foster station is within walking distance of the southern end of the campus, while the Noyes station is close to the northern end of the campus. The Central station is close to Ryan Field, Northwestern's football stadium. Northwestern's professional schools and hospital in downtown Chicago are about four blocks east of the
Chicago stop on the CTA Red Line.
Student body
]
Northwestern's admissions are among the "most selective" in the nation, according to
U.S. News and World Report. Among national undergraduate programs, the publication ranked Northwestern 14th overall in selectivity. As of the 2005-06 academic year, there are 7,947 undergraduates and 5,460 graduate students enrolled full-time. 909 students were enrolled part-time in the School of Continuing Studies.
In early April, it was confirmed that for the undergraduate class of 2010, there were 18,419 total applicants, up 18% from the year before. 5,200 students were admitted .
In the class of 2009, 6.4% are black, 17.4% are
Asian, 6.5% are
Hispanic and 1.8% are
multiracial. The class is 52.1% female and 47.9% male. The mean high school rank was the 94th percentile and the combined
SAT score 1402 , marking the highest SAT average of any class in Northwestern history and making Northwestern the most selective
Big Ten university, and the most selective university in the American Midwest. Of those enrolled in the class of 2009, 126 graduated as valedictorian of their high school class.
According to numbers posted by the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, 36% of Northwestern students were affiliated with a fraternity or a sorority in Spring 2005. This is the highest percentage of students involved in Greek life among
Big Ten universities.
Campus Life
Student theater enjoys a highly visible presence on campus. Two annual productions are especially notable: the Waa-Mu show, and the Dolphin Show. Waa-Mu is an original musical, written and produced almost entirely by students. The Dolphin Show is the nation's largest student produced musical. Children's theater is represented on campus by Griffin’s Tale and the recently formed Purple Crayon Players. In addition, Northwestern boasts the largest student-theatre community in the nation. Students produce over sixty independent productions each year. Many Northwestern alumni have used these productions as stepping stones to successful television and film careers. Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre was founded by alum
David Schwimmer and began in the Great Room in
Jones residential college. The improv and sketch comedy group Mee-Ow lists
Julia Louis-Dreyfus,
Dermot Mulroney, Ana Gasteyer, and Seth Meyers among its alumni.
Athletics
A charter member of the
Big Ten Conference and the only private institution in the conference, Northwestern has 19 intercollegiate athletic teams and numerous club sports. The football team plays at Ryan Field; 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 a writer for the
Chicago Tribune who wrote that even in a loss to the
University of Chicago Maroons, the Northwestern football players looked like "Wildcats [that] had come down from Evanston." The name was so popular that university board members made "wildcats" the official nickname just months later.
The Northwestern Athletics' mascot is Willie the Wildcat. However, the team's first mascot was not Willie, but a live, caged bear cub from the
Lincoln Park Zoo named Furpaw. In fall 1923, Furpaw was driven to the playing field to greet the fans before each game. After a losing season, the team decided that Furpaw was the harbinger of bad luck and banished him from campus.
See Northwestern Wildcats for additional sports information.
Rankings
According to
US News & World Report, as of 2007, Northwestern's undergraduate program ranks 14th among all American "National University" programs. Northwestern's
Medill School consistently ranks among America's top three journalism, media, and integrated marketing communications schools ; Northwestern's
Kellogg School of Management consistently ranks among America's top five business schools; Northwestern's
School of Law consistently ranks among America's top fourteen law schools; Northwestern's
Feinberg School of Medicine consistently ranks among America's top twenty medical schools; Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy consistently ranks among America's top ten education schools; Northwestern's
Materials science program in the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science ranks among America's top three; Northwestern's art history program consistently ranks among America's top ten; Northwestern's program in African history consistently ranks among America's top two; Northwestern's School of Music consistently ranks first among America's non-conservatory-based music programs. Other esteemed programs include Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences , Learning Sciences, Engineering, Theatre, Communications, Psychology, Radio/Television/Film, and Integrated Science .
The
Princeton Review ranks Northwestern among the Top 20 schools with the "Best College Newspaper," the "Best College Theater," and where "Town-Gown Relations are Strained." In 2003, this publication ranked Northwestern first for "Best Overall Academic Experience for Undergraduates."
The Times Higher Education Supplement's ranks Northwestern 19th in the United States and 49th among world universities; the Institute of Higher Education at
Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranks Northwestern 23rd in the United States, and 31st among world universities.
Newsweek Magazine ranks Northwestern the 23rd most global American university, and 35th most global university overall.
Traditions
Northwestern University student traditions include:
- Painting The Rock to advertise student groups and on-campus events
- Jingling car keys at sports games. This began as an arrogant taunt; Big Ten rivals often bested Northwestern at football, and the keys implied "while your school may win the football game, in a few years your school's graduates will be parking Northwestern graduates' cars."
- Taunting opposing sports teams with "State-school, state-school," referencing that all institutions of the Big Ten conference, except for Northwestern, are public universities. Students also commonly chant "That's allright, that's OK, you're going to work for us someday!"
- "Go U", the Northwestern fight song, is played after scoring and at the end of games.
- The Wildcat Growl is done when the other team has control of the ball in sports to show support and distract the other teams. This works especially well in thwarting audibles on the field as the majority of home fans participate.
- The Clock Tower glows purple after a winning game, altering sports with the season, announcing the results to a large part of the Evanston community. The Clock Tower remains purple until a loss or the end of the sports season.
- The Marching Band leads the student section in cheers and spirit, providing strong links to the past and present in preserving the oldest of traditions to numerous to mention.
- "Hey Baby" with altered phrases denoting Northwestern spirit is played right after big plays or large gains for the team.
- 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. For the event, students lean out windows or gather in court yards and scream bloody murder.
- Armadillo Day, or more commonly Dillo Day, is held on Northwestern's Lakefill every Spring on the weekend before Memorial Day.
Schools, colleges and departments
Undergraduate programs
Graduate and professional programs
Notable alumni
Main article: List of Northwestern alumni
Notable faculty
References in popular culture
- Fictional alumni of Northwestern include: Josie Geller , Andrea Sachs , Natalie Hurley , and Sara Tancredi .
- Daniel Cosgrove's character, Richard "Dick" Bagg, in Van Wilder interviews with representatives from Northwestern's medical school.
- Jonathan Bennett's character, Aaron Samuels, in Mean Girls is a 2004 film [i] written by Tina Fey [i]. ...
attends Northwestern at the end of the film. Also, the parents of Lindsay Lohan's character are professors at the university. - Gwyneth Paltrow's character, Catherine Llewellyn, in the movie Proof is a graduate student in the Department of Mathematics at Northwestern University. She drops out of school to take care of her father, Robert Llewellyn, an ailing mathematician.
- Steve Martin's character in Cheaper by the Dozen coaches football at a school that is clearly supposed to be Northwestern.
- Mena Suvari's character in American Pie is thinking of applying to Northwestern, but says that the essays are pretty tough.
- Sarah Michelle Gellar's titular character Buffy Summers in the TV show Buffy The Vampire Slayer is an American television series that originally ran from March 10 [i], 1997 [i] ...
gets accepted to Northwestern in the season three episode 'Choices', but turns it down for the University of California, Sunnydale. - Meadow Soprano, the daughter in HBO's The Sopranos is an American [i] television [i] drama [i] broadcast on HBO [i] about a ...
, declares her intention to transfer from Columbia University in New York to Northwestern. - Scott Foley's character Noel on the WB show Felicity has a long-distance relationship with his high school girlfriend Hannah , who attends music school at Northwestern.
- Twins Brenda and Brandon Walsh on the popular show Beverly Hills, 90210 both considered Northwestern before deciding to attend the fictional California University.
See also
- Randy Walker - Former Football Coach
- Ricky Byrdsong - Former Basketball Coach
- Waa-Mu - Annual student written musical review, produced by the theatre department
- Technological Institute - The home of the engineering program
- WNUR FM 89.3 - NU's student run radio station
- Jones residential college - A residential college dedicated to the arts
- Willard Residential College - The largest residential college
- Communications Residential College - A residential college for students interested in communications
External links
Professional Schools
Undergraduate and Graduate
Miscellaneous
Notes
References
