Cornell University

 

Cornell University (/kɔrˈnɛl/ kor-nel) is an American private Ivy League and federal land-grant research university located in Ithaca, New York. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, the university was intended to teach and make contributions in all fields of knowledge — from the classics to the sciences, and from the theoretical to the applied. These ideals, unconventional for the time, are captured in Cornell's motto, a popular 1865 Ezra Cornell quotation: "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study."

The university is broadly organized into seven undergraduate colleges and seven graduate divisions at its main Ithaca campus, with each college and division defining its own admission standards and academic programs in near autonomy. The university also administers two satellite medical campuses, one in New York City and one in Education City, Qatar.

Cornell is one of three private land grant universities in the nation and the only one in New York. Of its seven undergraduate colleges, three are state-supported statutory or contract colleges through the State University of New York (SUNY) system, including its agricultural and veterinary colleges. As a land grant college, it operates a cooperative extension outreach program in every county of New York and receives annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions.The Cornell University Ithaca Campus comprises 745 acres, but is much larger when the Cornell Plantations (more than 4,300 acres) are considered, as well as the numerous university-owned lands in New York City.

Since its founding, Cornell has been a co-educational, non-sectarian institution where admission has not been restricted by religion or race. Cornell counts more than 245,000 living alumni, and its former and present faculty and alumni include 34 Marshall Scholars, 29 Rhodes Scholars, 7 Gates Scholars, 44 Nobel laureates, and 14 living billionaires.The student body consists of nearly 14,000 undergraduate and 7,000 graduate students from all 50 American states and 122 countries.

University of Toronto

                                                   
                                               

The founding of a colonial college had long been the desire of John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada. As an Oxford-educated military commander who had fought in the American Revolutionary War, Simcoe believed a college was needed to counter the spread of republicanism from the United States.The Upper Canada Executive Committee recommended in 1798 that a college be established in York, the colonial capital.

A painting by Sir Edmund Walker depicts University College as it appeared in 1858.

On March 15, 1827, a royal charter was formally issued by King George IV, proclaiming "from this time one College, with the style and privileges of a University ... for the education of youth in the principles of the Christian Religion, and for their instruction in the various branches of Science and Literature ... to continue for ever, to be called King's College." The granting of the charter was largely the result of intense lobbying by John Strachan, the influential Anglican Bishop of Toronto who took office as the first president of the college. The original three-storey Greek Revival school building was constructed on the present site of Queen's Park.

Under Strachan's stewardship, King's College was a religious institution that closely aligned with the Church of England and the British colonial elite, known as the Family Compact.Reformist politicians opposed the clergy's control over colonial institutions and fought to have the college secularized.In 1849, after a lengthy and heated debate, the newly elected responsible government of Upper Canada voted to rename King's College as the University of Toronto and severed the school's ties with the church. Having anticipated this decision, the enraged Strachan had resigned a year earlier to open Trinity College as a private Anglican seminary.University College was created as the nondenominational teaching branch of the University of Toronto. During the American Civil War, the threat of Union blockade on British North America prompted the creation of the University Rifle Corps, which saw battle in resisting the Fenian raids on the Niagara border in 1866.

A Sopwith Camel aircraft rests on the Front Campus lawn in 1918, during World War I.

Established in 1878, the School of Practical Science was precursor to the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, which has been nicknamed Skule since its earliest days.While the Faculty of Medicine opened in 1843, medical teaching was conducted by proprietary schools from 1853 until 1887, when the faculty absorbed the Toronto School of Medicine. Meanwhile, the university continued to set examinations and confer medical degrees during that period. The university opened the Faculty of Law in 1887, and it was followed by the Faculty of Dentistry in 1888, when the Royal College of Dental Surgeons became an affiliate.Women were admitted to the university for the first time in 1884.

A devastating fire in 1890 gutted the interior of University College and destroyed thirty-three thousand volumes from the library,but the university restored the building and replenished its library within two years. Over the next two decades, a collegiate system gradually took shape as the university arranged federation with several ecclesiastical colleges, including Strachan's Trinity College in 1904. The university operated the Royal Conservatory of Music from 1896 to 1991 and the Royal Ontario Museum from 1912 to 1968; both still retain close ties with the university as independent institutions.The University of Toronto Press was founded in 1901 as the first academic publishing house in Canada.The Faculty of Forestry, founded in 1907 with Bernhard Fernow as dean, was the first university faculty devoted to forest science in Canada. In 1910, the Faculty of Education opened its laboratory school, the University of Toronto Schools.

The First and Second World Wars curtailed some university activities as undergraduate and graduate men eagerly enlisted. Intercollegiate athletic competitions and the Hart House Debates were suspended, although exhibition and interfaculty games were still held.The David Dunlap Observatory in Richmond Hill opened in 1935, followed by the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies in 1949.The university opened satellite campuses in Scarborough in 1964 and in Mississauga in 1967. The university's former affiliated schools at the Ontario Agricultural College and Glendon Hall became fully independent of the University of Toronto and became part of University of Guelph in 1964 and York University in 1965, respectively. Beginning in the 1980s, reductions in government funding prompted more rigorous fundraising efforts.The University of Toronto was the first Canadian university to amass a financial endowment greater than C$1 billion.

University of Pennsylvania

                                                 
                     
The University of Pennsylvania (commonly referred to as Penn or UPenn) is a private Ivy League research university located in Philadelphia. Incorporated as The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn is one of 14 founding members of the Association of American Universities and one of the nine original Colonial Colleges. Penn claims to be the first university in the United States of America.

Benjamin Franklin, Penn's founder, advocated an educational program that focused as much on practical education for commerce and public service as on the classics and theology although Franklin's curriculum was never adopted. The university coat of arms features a dolphin on the red chief, adopted directly from the Franklin family's own coat of arms. Penn was one of the first academic institutions to follow a multidisciplinary model pioneered by several European universities, concentrating multiple "faculties" (e.g., theology, classics, medicine) into one institution. It was also home to many other educational innovations. The first school of medicine in North America (Perelman School of Medicine, 1765), the first collegiate business school (Wharton School of Business, 1881) and the first "student union" building and organization (Houston Hall, 1896) were all born at Penn.

Penn offers a broad range of academic departments, an extensive research enterprise and a number of community outreach and public service programs. It is particularly well known for its medical school, dental school, design school, business school, law school, engineering school, communications school, nursing school, veterinary school, its social sciences and humanities programs, as well as its biomedical teaching and research capabilities. Its undergraduate program is also among the most selective in the country, with an acceptance rate of 10 percent.One of Penn's most well known academic qualities is its emphasis on interdisciplinary education, which it promotes through numerous double degree programs, research centers and professorships, a unified campus, and the ability for students to take classes from any of Penn's schools (the "One University Policy").

All of Penn's schools exhibit very high research activity. Penn is consistently ranked among the top research universities in the world, for both quality and quantity of research.In fiscal year 2015, Penn's academic research budget was $851 million, involving more than 4,300 faculty, 1,100 postdoctoral fellows and 5,500 support staff/graduate assistants. As one of the most active and prolific research institutions, Penn is associated with several important innovations and discoveries in many fields of science and the humanities. Among them are the first general purpose electronic computer (ENIAC), the rubella and hepatitis B vaccines, Retin-A, cognitive therapy, conjoint analysis and others.

Penn's academic and research programs are led by a large and highly productive faculty.28 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Penn. Over its long history the university has also produced many distinguished alumni. These include twelve heads of state (including one U.S. President), three United States Supreme Court justices, and supreme court justices of other states, founders of technology companies, international law firms and global financial institutions, and university presidents. According to a 2014 study, the University of Pennsylvania has produced the most billionaires of any university at the undergraduate level.Penn's endowment, at $10.1 billion as of June 30, 2015, is the tenth-largest university endowment in the United States and the thirtieth-largest on a per-student basis.

Johns Hopkins University (U.S)

                                                       
                                                   
The Johns Hopkins University (commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, the university was named after its first benefactor, the American entrepreneur, abolitionist, and philanthropist Johns Hopkins. His $7 million bequest—of which half financed the establishment of The Johns Hopkins Hospital—was the largest philanthropic gift in the history of the United States at the time.Daniel Coit Gilman, who was inaugurated as the institution's first president on February 22, 1876,led the university to revolutionize higher education in the U.S. by integrating teaching and research.Adopting the concept of a graduate school from Germany's ancient Heidelberg University, Johns Hopkins University is considered the first research university in the United States.

Johns Hopkins is organized into ten divisions on campuses in Maryland and Washington, D.C. with international centers in Italy, China, and Singapore.The two undergraduate divisions, the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and the Whiting School of Engineering, are located on the Homewood campus in Baltimore's Charles Village neighborhood. The medical school, the nursing school, and the Bloomberg School of Public Health are located on the Medical Institutions campus in East Baltimore.The university also consists of the Peabody Institute, the Applied Physics Laboratory, the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, the education school, the Carey Business School, and various other facilities.

A founding member of the American Association of Universities, Johns Hopkins has been considered one of the world’s top universities throughout its history.The University stands among the top 10 in US News' Best National Universities Rankings and top 20 on a number of international league tables. Over the course of almost 140 years, thirty-six Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Johns Hopkins. Founded in 1883, the Blue Jays men’s lacrosse team has captured 44 national titles and joined the Big Ten Conference as an affiliate member in 2014.

Carnegie Mellon University (QATAR)

                           

The university began as the Carnegie Technical Schools, founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1900. In 1912, the school became the Carnegie Institute of Technology and began granting four-year degrees. In 1967, the Carnegie Institute of Technology merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research to form Carnegie Mellon University. The university's 140-acre (57 ha) main campus is 3 miles (4.8 km) from Downtown Pittsburgh and abuts the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, the main branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, the Carnegie Music Hall, Schenley Park, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, the Pittsburgh Golf Club, and the campus of the University of Pittsburgh in the city's Oakland and Squirrel Hill neighborhoods, partially extending into Shadyside.

Carnegie Mellon has seven colleges and independent schools: the College of Engineering, College of Fine Arts, Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Mellon College of Science, Tepper School of Business, H. John Heinz III College and the School of Computer Science.

Carnegie Mellon fields 17 varsity athletic teams, most of which compete in the University Athletic Association conference of the NCAA Division III.

History

Andrew Carnegie, founder of the Carnegie Technical Schools

Post-Civil War industrialists accumulated unprecedented wealth and some were eager to found institutions in their names as part of philanthropy campaigns using portions of their vast wealth. Washington Duke at Duke University, Ezra Cornell at Cornell University, Johns Hopkins at Johns Hopkins University, Leland Stanford at Stanford University, John D. Rockefeller at the University of Chicago, and Cornelius Vanderbilt at Vanderbilt University are several notable examples of Andrew Carnegie's gospel of wealth mentality and Carnegie Mellon University is one such result.

CalTech University

The California Institute of Technology or Caltech is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Although founded as a preparatory and vocational school by Amos G. Throop in 1891, the college attracted influential scientists such as George Ellery Hale, Arthur Amos Noyes, and Robert Andrews Millikan in the early 20th century. The vocational and preparatory schools were disbanded and spun off in 1910, and the college assumed its present name in 1921. In 1934, Caltech was elected to the Association of American Universities, and the antecedents of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which Caltech continues to manage and operate, were established between 1936 and 1943 under Theodore von Kármán.The university is one among a small group of Institutes of Technology in the United States which tends to be primarily devoted to the instruction of technical arts and applied sciences.

Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphasis on science and engineering, managing $332 million in 2011 in sponsored research.Its 124-acre (50 ha) primary campus is located approximately 11 mi (18 km) northeast of downtown Los Angeles. First-year students are required to live on campus, and 95% of undergraduates remain in the on-campus house system. Although Caltech has a strong tradition of practical jokes and pranks, student life is governed by an honor code which allows faculty to assign take-home examinations. The Caltech Beavers compete in 13 intercollegiate sports in the NCAA Division III's Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

Caltech is frequently cited as one of the world's best universities.Despite its small size, 33 Caltech alumni and faculty have won a total of 34 Nobel Prizes (Linus Pauling being the only individual in history to win two unshared prizes) and 71 have won the United States National Medal of Science or Technology.There are 112 faculty members who have been elected to the National Academies. In addition, numerous faculty members are associated with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as well as NASA.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT)

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1861 in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States, MIT adopted a European polytechnic university model and stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering. Researchers worked on computers, radar, and inertial guidance during World War II and the Cold War. Post-war defense research contributed to the rapid expansion of the faculty and campus under James Killian. The current 168-acre (68.0 ha) campus opened in 1916 and extends over 1 mile (1.6 km) along the northern bank of the Charles River basin.

MIT, with five schools and one college which contain a total of 32 departments, is often cited as among the world's top universities.The Institute is traditionally known for its research and education in the physical sciences and engineering, and more recently in biology, economics, linguistics, and management as well. The "Engineers" sponsor 31 sports, most teams of which compete in the NCAA Division III's New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference; the Division I rowing programs compete as part of the EARC and EAWRC.

As of 2015, 84 Nobel laureates, 52 National Medal of Science recipients, 65 Marshall Scholars, 45 Rhodes Scholars, 38 MacArthur Fellows, 34 astronauts, and 2 Fields Medalists have been affiliated with MIT. The school has a strong entrepreneurial culture, and the aggregated revenues of companies founded by MIT alumni would rank as the eleventh-largest economy in the world.