Northwestern University

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Northwestern University is a private, coeducational, non-sectarian university, located in Evanston, Illinois and Chicago, Illinois. Northwestern's main campus is a 240-acre (970,000 m²) parcel in Evanston, along the shore of Lake Michigan. Several of the university's professional schools are located in Chicago, on a 25-acre (101,000 m²) campus near the Magnificent Mile. As of August 31, 2004, Northwestern's endowment stood at $4.34 billion.

According to US News & World Report, Northwestern's undergraduate education ranks 12th among all American universities. Northwestern's School of Law consistently ranks among America's top ten law programs. Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management is often considered one of the world's best graduate business programs. Journalism schools are not ranked; however, Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism is widely regarded as one of America's top three journalism programs. Similarly, Northwestern's Theatre and Communications programs are well-regarded. Northwestern is a member of the Big Ten Conference for college athletics.

Northwestern University enrolls approximately 14,000 full-time students (including approximately 8,000 undergraduates) and employs nearly 7,100 faculty and staff members.

The university's student newspaper is The Daily Northwestern and its student radio station is WNUR.

Contents

History

The university was founded in 1851 by Methodists from Chicago, (including John Evans, after whom Evanston is named), and 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.

Northwestern's school colors are purple and white. (For this reason, the Chicago Transit Authority's elevated train running through Evanston is called the Purple Line. The Purple Line stations that serve Northwestern University are Davis, Foster, Noyes, and Central.) The phrase on Northwestern University's seal is Quaecumque sunt vera -- in Latin, "Whatsoever things are true" from Phillipians 4:8.

Traditions

On the Saturday before Memorial Day each year, an all-day music festival known as Armadillo Day, or more commonly Dillo Day, is held on Northwestern's Lakefill -- an area of land reclaimed from Lake Michigan. The event was founded in the 1970s as a small party by a group of students from Texas, hence 'Armadillo'.

Each winter, on the second-to-last weekend of the quarter, hundreds of students participate in Dance Marathon. The 30-hour event raises considerable sums for local charities.

On south campus, there sits a quartzite boulder known as 'the Rock'. The quartzite is no longer visible beneath countless layers of paint. Originally a simple stone monument, and later a fountain, vandalism of the Rock gradually increased, particularly during the Vietnam War. It became a canvas for student art, opinions, advertising, messages, proposals, and jokes. Tradition holds that if a student wishes to paint something on the Rock, he/she must guard it for twenty-four hours beforehand.

Student Body

Northwestern University'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 11th overall in selectivity. As of the 2004-2005 academic year, there were 7,840 undergraduates and 6,119 graduate students enrolled full-time. 1,100 students were enrolled part-time in the School of Continuing Studies.

Image:Northwestern Arch.jpg
"The Arch," the main entrance to Northwestern's Evanston campus

For the undergraduate class of 2008, entering school in fall of 2004, there were 15,637 total applicants, with 29.9% admitted. 40.9% of admitted students, or 1,915 enrolled. Of the students that matriculated in the class of 2008, 28.1% were admitted under the Early Decision program. Of minorities enrolled in the class of 2008, 5.5% are African-American, 16.4% are Asian-American or Pacific Islanders, 6.4% are Hispanic and less than 1% claim Native American ancestry. The class is 53.8% female and 46.2% male. The mean high school rank was the 94th percentile and the combined SAT score 1398 (out of 1600), making Northwestern the most selective Big Ten university.

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 2004. This is the highest percentage of students involved in Greek life among Big Ten universities.

Athletics

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 published an article that described the football team as, "a wall of purple wildcats." The name was so popular that university board members made "wildcats" the official nickname just months later. The mascot is Willie the Wildcat. Northwestern University is the only private university member of the Big Ten Conference, of which it was a founding member. Northwestern has eight men's and eleven women's Division I sports teams. Notable programs that are usually ranked in the Top 20 include men's swimming, and women's tennis, fencing and lacrosse. The Northwestern football team was recently ranked 21 by the AP poll and 23 by the Coach's poll. In 2005 Northwestern won the national championship in Women's Lacrosse. The women's lacrosse team, after only 4 years as a varsity sport, was able to defeat many long-established east-coast schools to capture the school's first national championship in over 50 years. Soon after, the team made national news when members appeared in a White House photo with President Bush wearing flip flops instead of heels.

Schools, colleges and departments

Notable alumni

Main article: List of Northwestern alumni

See also

Waa-Mu - "Greatest Spectacle in College Theatre", Annual student written and produced musical

External links

For other schools named Northwestern please see the Northwestern College article.

References

Template:Big Ten Conferencees:Universidad de Northwestern fr:Université du Northwestern

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