Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Emory University


 Emory University is a private doctoral university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by the Methodist Episcopal Church and was named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory.  In 1915, the college relocated to metropolitan Atlanta and was rechartered as Emory University. The university is the second-oldest private institution of higher education in Georgia and among the fifty oldest private universities in the United States 

Emory University has nine academic divisions: Emory College of Arts and Sciences, Oxford College, Goizueta Business School, Laney Graduate School, School of Law, School of Medicine, Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, Rollins School of Public Health, and the Candler School of Theology.  Emory University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Peking University in Beijing, China jointly administer the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering.  The university operates the Confucius Institute in Atlanta in partnership with Nanjing University.   Emory has a growing faculty research partnership with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).  Emory University students come from all 50 states, 6 territories of the United States, and over 100 foreign countries. 

Emory Healthcare is the largest healthcare system in the state of Georgia  and comprises seven major hospitals, including the internationally renowned Emory University Hospital and Emory University Hospital Midtown.  The university operates the Winship Cancer Institute, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, and many disease and vaccine research centers.  Emory university is one of four institutions involved in the NIAID's Tuberculosis Research Units Program  and is the leading coordinator of the U.S. Health Department's National Ebola Training and Education Center. The International Association of National Public Health Institutes is headquartered at the university and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Cancer Society are national affiliate institutions located adjacent to the campus. The university is partnered with the Carter Center. 

Emory University is 18th among the list of colleges and universities in the United States by endowment,  21st among universities in the world by endowment, and 21st in U.S. News & World Report's 2016 National Universities Rankings. Emory University has a Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education status of R1: "highest research activity" and is cited for high scientific performance and citation impact in the CWTS Leiden Ranking. The National Science Foundation ranked the university 36th among academic institutions in the United States for research and development (R&D) expenditures. Emory University research is funded primarily by federal government agencies, namely the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In 1995 Emory University was elected to the Association of American Universities, an association of the 62 leading research universities in the United States & Canada. 


University of Texas at Austin


The University of Texas at Austin, informally UT Austin, UT, University of Texas, or Texas in sports contexts,  is a public research university and the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. Founded in 1881 as "The University of Texas," its campus is in Austin, Texas—approximately 1 mile (1,600 m) from the Texas State Capitol. The institution has the fifth-largest single-campus enrollment in the nation, with over 50,000 undergraduate and graduate students and over 24,000 faculty and staff. The university has been labeled one of the "Public Ivies," a publicly funded university considered to provide a quality of education comparable to those of the Ivy League. 

UT Austin was inducted into the American Association of Universities in 1929, becoming only the third university in the American South to be elected. It is a major center for academic research, with research expenditures exceeding $550 million for the 2013–2014 school year. The university houses seven museums and seventeen libraries, including the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum and the Blanton Museum of Art, and operates various auxiliary research facilities, such as the J. J. Pickle Research Campus and the McDonald Observatory. Among university faculty are recipients of the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, the Wolf Prize, the Emmy Award, and the National Medal of Science, as well as many other awards.

UT Austin student athletes compete as the Texas Longhorns and are members of the Big 12 Conference. Its Longhorn Network is unique in that it is the only sports network featuring the college sports of a single university. The Longhorns have won four NCAA Division I National Football Championships, six NCAA Division I National Baseball Championships and has claimed more titles in men's and women's sports than any other school in the Big 12 since the league was founded in 1996. Current and former UT Austin athletes have won 130 Olympic medals (73 gold, 37 silver, and 20 bronze), including 14 in Beijing in 2008 and 13 in London in 2012.

The first mention of a public university in Texas can be traced to the 1827 constitution for the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. Although Title 6, Article 217 of that Constitution promised to establish public education in the arts and sciences,  no action was taken by the Mexican government. After Texas obtained its independence from Mexico in 1836, the Texas Congress adopted the Constitution of the Republic, which, under Section 5 of its General Provisions, stated "It shall be the duty of Congress, as soon as circumstances will permit, to provide, by law, a general system of education." On April 18, 1838, "An Act to Establish the University of Texas" was referred to a special committee of the Texas Congress, but was not reported back for further action.  On January 26, 1839, the Texas Congress agreed to set aside fifty leagues of land (approx. 288,000 acres) towards the establishment of a publicly funded university.  In addition, 40 acres (160,000 m2) in the new capital of Austin were reserved and designated "College Hill." (The term "Forty Acres" is colloquially used to refer to the University as a whole. The original forty acres is the area from Guadalupe to Speedway and 21st Street to 24th Street 

In 1845, Texas was annexed into the United States. Interestingly, the state's Constitution of 1845 failed to mention the subject of higher education.  On February 11, 1858, the Seventh Texas Legislature approved O.B. 102, an act to establish the University of Texas, which set aside $100,000 in United States bonds toward construction of the state's first publicly funded university  (the $100,000 was an allocation from the $10 million the state received pursuant to the Compromise of 1850 and Texas' relinquishing claims to lands outside its present boundaries). In addition, the legislature designated land reserved for the encouragement of railroad construction toward the university's endowment. On January 31, 1860, the state legislature, wanting to avoid raising taxes, passed an act authorizing the money set aside for the University of Texas to be used for frontier defense in west Texas to protect settlers from Indian attacks.  Texas' secession from the Union and the American Civil War delayed repayment of the borrowed monies. At the end of the Civil War in 1865, The University of Texas' endowment consisted of a little over $16,000 in warrants  and nothing substantive had been done to organize the university's operations. This effort to establish a University was again mandated by Article 7, Section 10 of the Texas Constitution of 1876 which directed the legislature to "establish, organize and provide for the maintenance, support and direction of a university of the first class, to be located by a vote of the people of this State, and styled "The University of Texas." Additionally, Article 7, Section 11 of the 1876 Constitution established the Permanent University Fund, a sovereign wealth fund managed by the Board of Regents of the University of Texas and dedicated for the maintenance of the university. Because some state legislators perceived an extravagance in the construction of academic buildings of other universities, Article 7, Section 14 of the Constitution expressly prohibited the legislature from using the state's general revenue to fund construction of university buildings. Funds for constructing university buildings had to come from the university's endowment or from private gifts to the university, but operational expenses for the university could come from the state's general revenues.



The 1876 Constitution also revoked the endowment of the railroad lands of the Act of 1858 but dedicated 1,000,000 acres (4,000 km2) of land, along with other property appropriated for the university, to the Permanent University Fund. This was greatly to the detriment of the university as the lands granted the university by the Constitution of 1876 represented less than 5% of the value of the lands granted to the university under the Act of 1858 (the lands close to the railroads were quite valuable while the lands granted the university were in far west Texas, distant from sources of transportation and water). The more valuable lands reverted to the fund to support general education in the state (the Special School Fund). On April 10, 1883, the legislature supplemented the Permanent University Fund with another 1,000,000 acres of land in west Texas previously granted to the Texas and Pacific Railroad but returned to the state as seemingly too worthless to even survey.  The legislature additionally appropriated $256,272.57 to repay the funds taken from the university in 1860 to pay for frontier defense and for transfers to the state's General Fund in 1861 and 1862. The 1883 grant of land increased the land in the Permanent University Fund to almost 2.2 million acres. Under the Act of 1858, the university was entitled to just over 1,000 acres of land for every mile of railroad built in the state. Had the original 1858 grant of land not been revoked by the 1876 Constitution, by 1883 the university lands would have totaled 3.2 million acres, so the 1883 grant was to restore lands taken from the university by the 1876 Constitution, not an act of munificence.

On March 30, 1881, the legislature set forth the structure and organization of the university and called for an election to establish its location. By popular election on September 6, 1881, Austin (with 30,913 votes) was chosen as the site of the main university. Galveston, having come in second in the election (20,741 votes) was designated the location of the medical department (Houston was third with 12,586 votes).  On November 17, 1882, on the original "College Hill," an official ceremony was held to commemorate the laying of the cornerstone of the Old Main building. University President Ashbel Smith, presiding over the ceremony prophetically proclaimed "Texas holds embedded in its earth rocks and minerals which now lie idle because unknown, resources of incalculable industrial utility, of wealth and power. Smite the earth, smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth."  The University of Texas officially opened its doors on September 15, 1883.

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign


 The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (U of I, University of Illinois, UIUC, or simply Illinois) is a public research-intensive university in the U.S. state of Illinois. As a land-grant university, it is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system. The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (founded, 1867) is the state's second oldest public university, after Illinois State University, and a founding member of the Big Ten Conference. It is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified as a RU/VH Research University under the Carnegie Classification system which denotes very high research activities. The campus library system possesses the second-largest university library in the United States after Harvard University. 

The university comprises 17 colleges that offer more than 150 programs of study. Additionally, the university operates an extension[9] that serves 2.7 million registrants per year around the state of Illinois and beyond. The campus holds 647 buildings on 4,552 acres (1,842 ha)[10] in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana (together known as Champaign–Urbana); its annual operating budget in 2011 was over $1.7 billion

. The main research and academic facilities are divided almost evenly between the twin cities of Urbana and Champaign. The College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences' research fields stretch south from Urbana and Champaign into Savoy and Champaign County. The university maintains formal gardens and a conference center in nearby Monticello at Allerton Park. Four main quads compose the center of the university and are arranged from north to south. The Beckman Quadrangle and the John Bardeen Quadrangle occupy the center of the Engineering Campus. Boneyard Creek flows through the John Bardeen Quadrangle, paralleling Green Street. The Beckman Quadrangle is primarily composed of research units and laboratories, and features a large solar calendar consisting of an obelisk and several copper fountains. The Main Quadrangle and South Quadrangle follow immediately after the John Bardeen Quad. The former makes up a large part of the Liberal Arts and Sciences portion of the campus, while the latter comprises many of the buildings of the College of ACES spread across the campus map 

The campus is known for its landscape and architecture, as well as distinctive landmarks. It was identified as one of 50 college or university 'works of art' by T.A. Gaines in his book The Campus as a Work of Art.  The campus also has a number of buildings and sites on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places including Harker Hall, Astronomical Observatory, Louise Freer Hall, The Main Library, The Experimental Dairy Farm Historic District, and Morrow Plots. U of I's Willard Airport is one of the few airports owned by an educational institution 

The University offers more than 150 undergraduate and 100 graduate and professional programs in over 15 academic units. In 2015, the University announced its expansion to include an engineering-based medical program, which would be the first new college created in Urbana-Champaign in over 60 years. The university also offers Undergraduate students the opportunity for graduation honors. University Honors is an academic distinction awarded to the highest achieving students. To earn the distinction, students must have a cumulative grade point average of a 3.5/4.0 within the academic year of their graduation and rank within the top 3% of their graduating class. Their names are inscribed on a Bronze Tablet that hangs in the Main Library.

Several scholar opportunities include "James Scholars" where undergraduate students invited to pursue a specialized course of study for no less than two years of their undergraduate course work, "Chancellor's Scholars" where undergraduate students are invited to participate in the Campus Honors Program (only 125 members admitted per year),  and "Senior 100 Honorary", which recognizes graduates for achievements in leadership, academics and campus involvement throughout their undergraduate education. 

The Leadership Certificate is a multi-semester structured program which aims to develop students' leadership skills through different kinds of curricula and programs 

Friday, April 29, 2016

University of California, Los Angeles


The University of California, Los Angeles  is a public research university located in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California, United States. It became the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919, making it the second-oldest undergraduate campus of the ten-campus system after the original University of California campus in Berkeley (1873).  It offers 337 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines. UCLA has an approximate enrollment of 30,000 undergraduate and 12,000 graduate students, and has 119,000 applicants for Fall 2016, including transfer applicants, the most applicants for any American university. 

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2015–2016 ranks UCLA 16th in the world for academics and 13th in the world for reputation  In 2015/16, UCLA is ranked 12th in the world (10th in North America) by the Academic Ranking of World Universities   and 27th in the 2015/16 QS World University Rankings.  In 2015, the Center for World University Rankings   ranked the university 15th in the world based on quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, publications, influence, citations, broad impact, and patents. 

The university is organized into five undergraduate colleges, seven professional schools, and four professional health science schools. The undergraduate colleges are the College of Letters and Science; Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science   School of the Arts and Architecture; School of Theater, Film and Television; and School of Nursing. Thirteen Nobel laureates, three Fields Medalists, and three Turing Award winners have been faculty, researchers, or alumni. Among the current faculty members, 55 have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, 28 to the National Academy of Engineering, 39 to the Institute of Medicine, and 124 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences  The university was elected to the Association of American Universities in 1974. 

UCLA student-athletes compete as the Bruins in the Pac-12 Conference. The Bruins have won 126 national championships, including 113 NCAA team championships, more than any other university.  UCLA student-athletes, coaches and staff have won 251 Olympic medals: 126 gold, 65 silver and 60 bronze. The Bruins have competed in every Olympics since 1920 with one exception (1924), and have won a gold medal in every Olympics that the United States has participated in since 1932. 

In March 1881, after heavy lobbying by Los Angeles residents, the California State Legislature authorized the creation of a southern branch of the California State Normal School (which later became San Jose State University) in downtown Los Angeles to train teachers for the growing population of Southern California. The State Normal School at Los Angeles opened on August 29, 1882, on what is now the site of the Central Library of the Los Angeles Public Library system. The new facility included an elementary school where teachers-in-training could practice their teaching technique on children. That elementary school is related to the present day version, UCLA Lab School. In 1887, the school became known as the Los Angeles State Normal School 


In 1914, the school moved to a new campus on Vermont Avenue (now the site of Los Angeles City College) in East Hollywood. In 1917, UC Regent Edward Augustus Dickson, the only regent representing the Southland at the time, and Ernest Carroll Moore, Director of the Normal School, began working together to lobby the State Legislature to enable the school to become the second University of California campus, after UC Berkeley. They met resistance from UC Berkeley alumni, Northern California members of the state legislature, and Benjamin Ide Wheeler, President of the University of California from 1899 to 1919, who were all vigorously opposed to the idea of a southern campus. However, David Prescott Barrows, the new President of the University of California, did not share Wheeler's objections. On May 23, 1919, the Southern Californians' efforts were rewarded when Governor William D. Stephens signed Assembly Bill 626 into law, which transformed the Los Angeles Normal School into the Southern Branch of the University of California. The same legislation added its general undergraduate program, the College of Letters and Science.  The Southern Branch campus opened on September 15 of that year, offering two-year undergraduate programs to 250 Letters and Science students and 1,250 students in the Teachers College, under Moore's continued direction. 


Under University of California President William Wallace Campbell, enrollment at the Southern Branch expanded so rapidly that by the mid-1920s the institution was outgrowing the 25 acre Vermont Avenue location. The Regents conducted a search for a new location and announced their selection of the so-called "Beverly Site"—just west of Beverly Hills—on March 21, 1925 edging out the panoramic hills of the still-empty Palos Verdes Peninsula. After the athletic teams entered the Pacific Coast conference in 1926, the Southern Branch student council adopted the nickname "Bruins", a name offered by the student council at UC Berkeley.  In 1927, the Regents renamed the Southern Branch the University of California at Los Angeles (the word "at" was officially replaced by a comma in 1958, in line with other UC campuses). In the same year, the state broke ground in Westwood on land sold for $1 million, less than one-third its value, by real estate developers Edwin and Harold Janss, for whom the Janss Steps are named. 

The original four buildings were the College Library (now Powell Library), Royce Hall, the Physics-Biology Building  and the Chemistry Building   arrayed around a quadrangular courtyard on the 400 acre (1.6 km²) campus. The first undergraduate classes on the new campus were held in 1929 with 5,500 students. After further lobbying by alumni, faculty, administration and community leaders, UCLA was permitted to award the master's degree in 1933, and the doctorate in 1936, against continued resistance from UC Berkeley. 

A timeline of the history can be found on its website,  as well as a published book 

Imperial College London


Imperial College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom. It was founded by Prince Albert who envisioned an area composed of the Natural History Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Royal Albert Hall and the Imperial Institute. The Imperial Institute was opened by Queen Victoria, his wife, who laid the first stone.  The college has expanded its coursework to medicine through mergers with St Mary's Hospital. In 2004, Queen Elizabeth II opened the Imperial College Business School. 

Imperial is organised into faculties of science, engineering, medicine and business. Its main campus is located in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea adjacent to Kensington Gardens. Imperial's contributions to society include the discovery of penicillin, the development of holography and fibre optics. Imperial College's focus is in science and technology and their applications for industry.

Imperial is included among the top universities in the world by numerous university rankings. According to The New York Times, its students are highly globally recruited, and receive the highest salary of any UK university. Imperial faculty and alumni include 15 Nobel laureates, 2 Fields Medalists, 70 Fellows of the Royal Society, 82 Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering and 78 Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

 The Great Exhibition 


The Great Exhibition in 1851 was organised by Prince Albert, Henry Cole, Francis Fuller and other members of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. The Great Exhibition made a surplus of £186,000 used in creating an area in the South of Kensington celebrating the encouragement of the arts, industry, and science. Albert insisted the Great Exhibition surplus should be used as a home for culture and education for everyone. His commitment was to find practical solutions to today's social challenges. Prince Albert's vision built the Victoria and Albert Museum, Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Geological Museum, Royal College of Science, Royal College of Art, Royal School of Mines, Royal School of Music, Royal College of Organists, Royal School of Needlework, Royal Geographical Society, Institute of Recorded Sound, Royal Horticultural Gardens, Royal Albert Hall and the Imperial Institute. Royal colleges and the Imperial Institute merged to form what is now Imperial College London. 

 Royal College of Chemistry
The Royal College of Chemistry was established by private subscription in 1845 as there was a growing awareness that practical aspects of the experimental sciences were not well taught and that in the United Kingdom the teaching of chemistry in particular had fallen behind that in Germany. As a result of a movement earlier in the decade, many politicians donated funds to establish the college, including Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone and Robert Peel. It was also supported by Prince Albert, who persuaded August Wilhelm von Hofmann to be the first professor.

William Henry Perkin studied and worked at the college under von Hofmann, but resigned his position after discovering the first synthetic dye, mauveine, in 1856. Perkin's discovery was prompted by his work with von Hofmann on the substance aniline, derived from coal tar, and it was this breakthrough which sparked the synthetic dye industry, a boom which some historians have labelled the second chemical revolution.  His contribution led to the creation of the Perkin Medal, an award given annually by the Society of Chemical Industry to a scientist residing in the United States for an "innovation in applied chemistry resulting in outstanding commercial development". It is considered the highest honour given in the industrial chemical industry. 

Royal School of Mines 


The Royal School of Mines was established by Sir Henry de la Beche in 1851, developing from the Museum of Economic Geology, a collection of minerals, maps and mining equipment He created a school which laid the foundations for the teaching of science in the country, and which has its legacy today at Imperial. Prince Albert was a patron and supporter of the later developments in science teaching, which led to the Royal College of Chemistry becoming part of the Royal School of Mines, to the creation of the Royal College of Science and eventually to these institutions becoming part of his plan for South Kensington being an educational region. 

Royal College of Science 
The Royal College of Science was established in 1881. The main objective was to support the training of science teachers and to develop teaching in other science subjects alongside the Royal School of Mines earth sciences specialities. 

Shanghai Jiao Tong University


Shanghai Jiao Tong University is a public research university located in Shanghai, China. Established in 1896 by an imperial edict issued by the Guangxu Emperor, the university is renowned as one of the oldest and most prestigious and selective universities in China.

The university also annually produces the Academic Ranking of World Universities.



In 1896, the Nanyang Public School  was founded in Shanghai by an imperial edict issued by the Guangxu Emperor, under the Business and Telegraphs Office of the imperial government. Four schools were established: a normal school, a school of foreign studies, a middle school, and a high school. Sheng Xuanhuai, the mandarin responsible for proposing the idea to the Guangxu Emperor, became the first president and is regarded as the founder of the university, with the assistance of John Calvin Ferguson, a missionary educator.


In 1904, the Ministry of Commerce took over the school, and in 1905 changed its name to Imperial Polytechnic College of the Commerce Ministry.

In 1906, the college was placed under the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, and its name was changed to Shanghai Industrial College of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs.

When the Republic of China was founded, the college was placed under the Ministry of Communications and its name was once again changed, this time to Government Institute of Technology of the Communications Ministry.

In 1918, the republic government founded the School of Management. In 1920, the Government Institute of Technology of the Communications Ministry merged with two other colleges and changed its name to Nan Yang College of Chiao Tung.

In the 1930s, it was achieved renown for nurturing top engineers and scientists and was referred to as the "Eastern MIT". 

In 1938, the Ministry of Education took over the university and renamed it to National Chiao Tung University   (the separate institution of National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, is still known by this name). In 1943, the graduate school was founded.

When the Japanese surrendered in 1945, neither the Communist Party of China  nor the Kuomintang KMT trusted each other or were actively cooperating. After American-sponsored attempts to negotiate a coalition government failed in 1946, the Chinese Civil War resumed. The CPC defeated the Nationalists in 1949, forcing Chiang's government to retreat to Taiwan. During the evacuation, a part of faculty and alumni was taken to Taiwan by Chiang Kai-shek, founding National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan in 1958.

After the Chinese Civil War, the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949. Chiao Tung lost its "National" appellation and became Chiao Tung University to reflect the fact that all universities under the new socialist state would be public.

In the 1950s, the pinyin romanization system was developed in Mainland China and Chiao Tung University changed its English name to Jiao Tong University.

From 1952, the Communist government adopted a policy of creating Soviet-style specialized schools, reshuffling nearly all universities and colleges to follow the Soviet-style higher education model. Under this policy, some faculties of the university were shifted to other universities, and some engineering faculties from outside were absorbed into Jiao Tong University to form a specialized engineering university.

Shanghai Second Medical University was merged into Shanghai Jiao Tong University on July 18, 2005, under the name Medical School of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Since the reform and opening up policy in China, SJTU has grown substantially. It is composed of five campuses, including Xuhui, Minhang, Luwan, Qibao, and Fahua   taking up an area of about 3,225,833 square meters. 
In 2013, François Hollande inaugurated the SJTU-ParisTech Elite Institute of Technology an institution based on the French engineering education system. The four founding member universities are École Polytechnique, ENSTA ParisTech, Mines ParisTech and Télécom ParisTech 

Thursday, April 7, 2016

University of Washington


 The University of Washington, commonly referred to as simply Washington, UW, or informally U-Dub, is a public flagship research university based in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast and features one of the most highly regarded medical schools in the world. 

The university has three campuses: the primary and largest in the University District of Seattle and two others in Tacoma and Bothell. Its operating expenses and research budget for fiscal year 2014–15 is expected to be $6.4 billion.  The UW occupies over 500 buildings, with over 20 million gross square footage of space, including the University of Washington Plaza, consisting of the 325-foot (99 m) UW Tower and conference center.

Washington is a member of the Association of American Universities. Its research budget is among the highest in the United States. In athletics, the university competes in the NCAA Division I Pac-12 Conference (Pac-12).


The city of Seattle was one of several settlements in the mid to late 19th century vying for primacy in the newly formed Washington Territory. In 1854, territorial governor Isaac Stevens recommended the establishment of a university in Washington. Several prominent Seattle-area residents, chief among them Methodist preacher Daniel Bagley, saw the siting of this University as a chance to add to the city's prestige. They were able to convince early founder of Seattle and member of the territorial legislature Arthur A. Denny of the importance of Seattle winning the school. The legislature initially chartered two universities, one in Seattle and one in Lewis County, but later repealed its decision in favor of a single university in Lewis County, provided locally donated land could be found. When no site emerged, the legislature, encouraged by Denny, relocated the university to Seattle in 1858.


The original University of Washington building on Denny's Knoll, c. 1870
In 1861, scouting began for an appropriate 10 acres (4 ha) site in Seattle to serve as the campus for a new university. Arthur and Mary Denny donated eight acres, and fellow pioneers Edward Lander and Charlie and Mary Terry donated two acres to the university[8] at a site on Denny's Knoll in downtown Seattle. This tract was bounded by 4th and 6th Avenues on the west and east and Union and Seneca Streets on the north and south.

UW opened officially on November 4, 1861, as the Territorial University of Washington. The following year, the legislature passed articles formally incorporating the University and establishing a Board of Regents. The school struggled initially, closing three times: in 1863 for lack of students, and again in 1867 and 1876 due to shortage of funds. However, Clara Antoinette McCarty Wilt became the first graduate of UW in 1876 when she graduated from UW with a bachelor's degree in science. By the time Washington entered the Union in 1889, both Seattle and the University had grown substantially. Enrollment had increased from an initial 30 students to nearly 300, and the relative isolation of the campus had given way to encroaching development. A special legislative committee headed by UW graduate Edmond Meany was created for the purpose of finding a new campus better able to serve the growing student population. The committee selected a site on Union Bay northeast of downtown, and the legislature appropriated funds for its purchase and subsequent construction.


Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition on the UW campus toward Mount Rainier in 1909
The university relocated from downtown to the new campus in 1895, moving into the newly built Denny Hall. The regents tried and failed to sell the old campus, and eventually settled on leasing the area. The University still owns what is now called the Metropolitan Tract. In the heart of the city, it is among the most valuable pieces of real estate in Seattle and generates millions of US$ in revenue annually.

The original Territorial University building was torn down in 1908 and its former site currently houses the Fairmont Olympic Hotel. The sole surviving remnants of UW's first building are four 24-foot (7.3 m), white, hand-fluted cedar, Ionic columns. They were salvaged by Edmond S. Meany—one of the University's first graduates and the former head of the history department. Meany and his colleague, Dean Herbert T. Condon, dubbed each of the columns "Loyalty," "Industry," "Faith" and "Efficiency," or "LIFE." The columns now stand in the Sylvan Grove Theater 

Organizers of the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition eyed the still largely undeveloped campus as a prime setting for their world's fair. They came to an agreement with the Board of Regents that allowed them to use the campus grounds for the exposition. In exchange, the University would be able to take advantage of the development of the campus for the fair after its conclusion. This included a detailed site plan and several buildings. The plan for the A-Y-P Exposition prepared by John Charles Olmsted was later incorporated into the overall campus master plan and permanently affected the layout of the campus.


Aerial view of campus, circa 1922
Both World Wars brought the military to the campus, with certain facilities temporarily loaned to the federal government. The subsequent post-war periods were times of dramatic growth for the University.[10] The period between the wars saw significant expansion on the upper campus. Construction of the liberal arts quadrangle, known to students as "The Quad," began in 1916 and continued in stages until 1939. The first two wings of Suzzallo Library, considered the architectural centerpiece of the University, were built in 1926 and 1935, respectively. Further growth came with the end of World War II and passage of the G.I. Bill. Among the most important developments of this period was the opening of the medical school in 1946. It would eventually grow into the University of Washington Medical Center, now ranked by U.S. News and World Report among the top ten hospitals in the United States. It was during this era in University of Washington history in which many Japanese Americans were sent away from the university to internment camps along the West-coast of the United States as part of Executive Order 9066 following the attacks on Pearl Harbor. As a result, many Japanese American "soon-to-be" graduates were unable to receive their diplomas and be recognized for their accomplishment at the university until the University of Washington's commemoration ceremony for the Japanese Americans entitled The Long Journey Home held on May 18, 2008 at the main campus.


A view of campus and Gas Works Park from George Washington Memorial Bridge in 2008
In the late 1960s, the University of Washington Police Department evolved from the University Safety and Security Division in response to anti-Vietnam War protests.  It currently has jurisdiction over the University of Washington campus and University-owned housing, except for the Radford Court apartments in Sand Point. The 1960s and 1970s are known as the "golden age" of the university due to the tremendous growth in students, facilities, operating budget and prestige under the leadership of Charles Odegaard from 1958 to 1973. Enrollment at UW more than doubled—from around 16,000 to 34,000—as the baby boom generation came of age. As was the case at many American universities, this era was marked by high levels of student activism, with much of the unrest focused around civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam War. Odegaard instituted a vision of building a "community of scholars" and convinced the state of Washington legislatures to increase their investments towards the university. Additionally, Washington senators, Henry M. Jackson and Warren G. Magnuson used their political clout to funnel federal research monies to the University of Washington and to this day, UW is among the top recipients of federal research funds in the United States. The results included an operating budget increase of $37 million in 1958, to over $400 million in 1973, and 35 new buildings that doubled the floor space of the university.

The University opened campuses in Bothell and Tacoma in 1990. Initially, these campuses offered curricula for students seeking bachelor's degrees who have already completed two years of higher education, but both schools have transitioned to four-year universities, accepting the first freshman class in the fall of 2006. Both campuses offer master's degree programs as well. In 2009 the University opened an office in the Spanish city of León in collaboration with the local university.



The University of Washington, Seattle campus, is situated on the shores of Union and Portage Bays, with views of the Cascade Range to the east and the Olympic Mountains to the west. The main campus is bounded on the west by 15th Avenue N.E., on the north by N.E. 45th Street, on the east by Montlake Boulevard N.E., and on the south by N.E. Pacific Street. East Campus stretches east of Montlake Boulevard to Laurelhurst and is largely taken up by wetlands and sports fields. South Campus occupies the land between Pacific Street and the Lake Washington Ship Canal which used to be a golf course and is given over to the health sciences, oceanography, fisheries, and the University of Washington Medical Center. West Campus is less of a separate entity than the others, many of its facilities being on city streets, and stretches between 15th Avenue and Interstate 5 from the Ship Canal to N.E. 41st Street. University Way, known locally as "The Ave", lies nearby and is a focus for much student life at the university. At the heart of the university lies Red Square, which functions as the central hub of student interaction and hosts a variety of events annually.

Several major motion picture films were filmed on campus or used it as a backdrop, including The Sixth Man WarGames,  What the Bleep!?: Down the Rabbit Hole and 21 and Over