University of Chicago

University of Chicago 

The University of Chicago (U of C, Chicago, or UChicago) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Established in 1890, the University of Chicago consists of The College, various graduate programs, interdisciplinary committees organized into four academic research divisions and seven professional schools. Beyond the arts and sciences, Chicago is also well known for its professional schools, which include the Pritzker School of Medicine, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, the Law School, the School of Social Service Administration, the Harris School of Public Policy Studies, the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies and the Divinity School. The university currently enrolls approximately 5,000 students in the College and around 15,000 students overall. University of Chicago scholars have played a major role in the development of various academic disciplines, including: the Chicago school of economics, the Chicago school of sociology, the law and economics movement in legal analysis,[] the Chicago school of literary criticism, the Chicago school of religion,[] and the behavioralism school of political science.[] Chicago's physics department helped develop the world's first man-made, self-sustaining nuclear reaction beneath the university's Stagg Field.[] Chicago's research pursuits have been aided by unique affiliations with world-renowned institutions like the nearby Fermilab and Argonne National Laboratory, as well as the Marine Biological Laboratory. The university is also home to the University of Chicago Press, the largest university press in the United States.[] Founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and wealthiest man in history John D. Rockefeller, the University of Chicago was incorporated in 1890; William Rainey Harper became the university's first president in 1891, and the first classes were held in 1892. Both Harper and future president Robert Maynard Hutchins advocated for Chicago's curriculum to be based upon theoretical and perennial issues rather than on applied sciences and commercial utility.[] With Harper's vision in mind, the University of Chicago also became one of the 14 founding members of the Association of American Universities, an international organization of leading research universities, in 1900.[] The University of Chicago is home to many prominent alumni. 89 Nobel laureates[] have been affiliated with the university as visiting professors, students, faculty, or staff, the fourth most of any institution in the world. In addition, Chicago's alumni include 49 Rhodes Scholars,[] 9 Fields Medalists, 13 National Humanities Medalists, 13 billionaire graduates, and a plethora of members of the United States Congress and heads of state of countries all over the world. The University of Chicago was created and incorporated as a coeducational,[] secular institution in 1890 by the American Baptist Education Society and a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller on land donated by Marshall Field.[] Organized as an independent institution legally, it replaced the first Baptist university of the same name, which had closed in 1886 due to extended financial and leadership problems.[] William Rainey Harper became the modern university's first president on July 1, 1891, and the university opened for classes on October 1, 1892.[20] The Booth School of Business was founded in 1898,[] and the law school was founded in 1902.[] Harper died in 1906,[and was replaced by a succession of three presidents whose tenures lasted until 1929.[] During this period, the Oriental Institute was founded to support and interpret archeological work in what was then called the Near East.[]   CAMPUS The main campus of the University of Chicago consists of 211 acres (85.4 ha) in the Chicago neighborhoods of Hyde Park and Woodlawn, seven miles (11 km) south of downtown Chicago. The northern and southern portions of campus are separated by the Midway Plaisance, a large, linear park created for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. In 2011, Travel+Leisure listed the university as one of the most beautiful college campuses in the United States.[] Many older buildings of the University of Chicago employ Collegiate Gothic architecture like that of the University of Oxford. For example, Chicago's Mitchell Tower (left) was modeled after Oxford's Magdalen Tower (right). The first buildings of the University of Chicago campus, which make up what is now known as the Main Quadrangles, were part of a "master plan" conceived by two University of Chicago trustees and plotted by Chicago architect Henry Ives Cobb.[] The Main Quadrangles consist of six quadrangles, each surrounded by buildings, bordering one larger quadrangle.[] The buildings of the Main Quadrangles were designed by Cobb, Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, Holabird & Roche, and other architectural firms in a mixture of the Victorian Gothic and Collegiate Gothic styles, patterned on the colleges of the University of Oxford.[] (Mitchell Tower, for example, is modeled after Oxford's Magdalen Tower,[54] and the university Commons, Hutchinson Hall, replicates Christ Church Hall.[])