Graduate and Professional Schools:
Penn's 12 graduate and professional schools, with their Fall 2001 student populations, are:
Annenberg School for Communication, 78
School of Arts and Sciences, 2,302
School of Dental Medicine, 530
Graduate School of Education, 1,059
School of Engineering and Applied Science, 884
Graduate School of Fine Arts, 562
Law School, 856
School of Medicine, 1,091
School of Nursing, 351
School of Social Work, 326
School of Veterinary Medicine, 451
The Wharton School, 2,055
Faculty:
Standing: 2,257
Associated: 2,062
Total: 4,319
The student-faculty ratio is 6.4:1 (Fall 2001).
61 members of the Academy of Arts and Sciences;
44 members of the Institute of Medicine;
39 members of the National Academy of Sciences;
91 Guggenheim Fellowships (1980-2001);
11 members of the National Academy of Engineering;
Seven MacArthur Award recipients;
Six National Medal of Science recipients;
Four Nobel Prize recipients; and
Two Pulitzer Prize winners
Staff:
Penn is the largest private employer in the city of Philadelphia and the fourth-largest in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of Fall 2001, Penn has a total regular work force of 12,290. The University of Pennsylvania Health System, which includes the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, employs an additional 12,673 people.
Academics:
Total undergraduate majors currently being pursued: 94 (Academic Year 2002).
Libraries:
5.0 million books
3.6 million items on microfilm
39,439 periodical subscriptions
1,952 CD-ROM databases
4,734 e-journals
Athletics and Recreation:
A charter member of the Ivy League, Penn offers intercollegiate competition for men in 20 sports, including basketball, baseball, heavyweight crew, lightweight crew, cross country, fencing, football, golf, lacrosse, soccer, sprint football, squash, swimming, tennis, indoor track, outdoor track and wrestling. It offers intercollegiate competition for women in 14 sports, including basketball, crew, cross country, field hockey, fencing, golf, gymnastics, lacrosse, soccer, softball, squash, swimming, tennis, indoor track, outdoor track and volleyball. During the 2001-2002 academic year, there were 14,678 team members participating in 20 intramural teams; 927 additional students were members of 30 club sports.
Campus Size:
Living Alumni of Record:
Undergraduate Admission and Fees:
$27,988 (Academic Year 2003)
Room and Board Fees:
$8,224 (Academic Year 2003)
Community Service:
Approximately 5,000 University students, faculty and staff participate in more than 300 Penn volunteer and community service programs. The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools recognized the University's West Philadelphia Improvement Corps (WEPIC), in Penn's Center for Community Partnerships, for exemplary school-college partnerships in Pennsylvania.
Fundraising (Fiscal Year 2001):
Endowment $3.382 billion (as of June 30, 2001)
Voluntary support: $285 million
107,941 donors gave $138 million in contributions
$92 million in gifts from foundations and associations
$37 million in gifts from corporations
$550 million in awards
4,169 awards
2,655 projects
1,219 principal investigators
Budget:
$3.21 billion (Fiscal Year 2002)
Payroll (including benefits):
$1.324 billion (Fiscal Year 2002)
Washington and Lee University.
Washington and Lee is a small, private, liberal arts university nestled between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains in Lexington, VA. It is the ninth oldest institution of higher learning in the nation.
In 1749, Scotch-Irish pioneers who had migrated deep into the Valley of Virginia founded a small classical school called Augusta Academy, some 20 miles north of what is now Lexington. In 1776, the trustees, fired by patriotism, changed the name of the school to Liberty Hall. Four years later the school was moved to the vicinity of Lexington, where in 1782 it was chartered as Liberty Hall Academy by the Virginia legislature and empowered to grant degrees. A limestone building, erected in 1793 on the crest of a ridge overlooking Lexington, burned in 1803, though its ruins are preserved today as a symbol of the institution's honored past.
In 1796, George Washington saved the struggling Liberty Hall Academy when he gave the school its first major endowment--$20,000 worth of James River Canal stock. The trustees promptly changed the name of the school to Washington Academy as an expression of their gratitude. In a letter to the trustees, Washington responded, "To promote the Literature in this rising Empire, and to encourage the Arts, have ever been amongst the warmest wishes of my heart." The donations - one of the largest to any educational institution at that time –continue to contribute to the University's operating budget today.
Once an all-male institution, Washington and Lee first admitted women to its law school in 1972. The first undergraduate women matriculated in 1985. Since then, Washington and Lee has flourished. The University now boasts a new science building, a performing arts center and an indoor tennis facility, and it continues to climb the ranking charts of U.S. News and World Report and other rating agencies. Washington and Lee is ranked 15th among the top national liberal arts colleges by U.S. News.
Washington and Lee University observed its 250th Anniversary with a year-long, national celebration during the 1998-99 academic year.
Columbia University.
Columbia University was founded in 1754 as King’s College by royal charter of King George II of England. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York and the
Controversy preceded the founding of the College, with various groups competing to determine its location and religious affiliation. Advocates of New York City met with success on the first point, while the Anglicans prevailed on the latter. However, all constituencies agreed to commit themselves to principles of religious liberty in establishing the policies of the College.
In July 1754, Samuel Johnson held the first classes in a new schoolhouse adjoining Trinity Church, located on what is now lower Broadway in Manhattan. There were eight students in the class. At King’s College, the future leaders of colonial society could receive an education designed to “enlarge the Mind, improve the Understanding, polish the whole Man, and qualify them to support the brightest Characters in all the elevated stations in life.” One early manifestation of the institution’s lofty
The American Revolution brought the growth of the College to a halt, forcing a suspension of instruction in 1776 that lasted for eight years. However, the institution continued to exert a significant influence on American life through the people associated with it. Among the earliest students and Trustees of King’s College were John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States; Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury; Gouverneur Morris, the author of the final draft of the U.S. Constitution; and Robert R. Livingston, a member of the five-man committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence.
The College reopened in 1784 with a new name—Columbia—that embodied the patriotic fervor, which had inspired the nation’s quest for independence. The revitalized institution was recognizable as the descendant of its colonial ancestor, thanks to its inclination toward Anglicanism and the needs of an urban population, but there were important differences: Columbia College reflected the legacy of the Revolution in the greater economic, denominational, and geographic diversity of its new students and leaders. Cloistered campus life gave way to the more common phenomenon of day students, who lived at home or lodged in the city.
In 1849, the College moved from Park Place, near the present site of City Hall, to 49th Street and Madison Avenue, where it
When Seth Low became Columbia’s president in 1890, he vigorously promoted the university ideal for the College, placing the fragmented federation of autonomous and competing schools under a central administration that stressed cooperation and shared resources. Barnard College for women had become affiliated with Columbia in 1889; the medical school came under the aegis of the University in 1891, followed by Teachers of graduate faculties in political science, philosophy, and pure science established Columbia as one of the nation’s earliest centers for graduate education. In 1896, the Trustees officially authorized the use of yet another new name, Columbia University, and today the institution is officially known as Columbia University in the City of New York.
Low’s greatest accomplishment, however, was moving the University from 49th Street to Morningside Heights and a more spacious campus designed as an urban academic village by McKim, Mead & White, the renowned turn-of-the-century architectural firm. Architect Charles Follen McKim provided Columbia with stately buildings patterned after those of the Italian Renaissance. The University continued to prosper after its move uptown.
During the presidency of Nicholas Murray Butler (1902–1945), Columbia emerged as a preeminent national center for educational innovation and scholarly achievement. John Erskine taught the first Great Books Honors Seminar at Columbia College in 1919, making the study of original masterworks the foundation of undergraduate education. Columbia became, in the words of College alumnus Herman Wouk, a place of “doubled magic,” where “the best things of the moment were outside the rectangle of Columbia; the best things
By the late 1930s, a Columbia student could study with the likes of Jacques Barzun, Paul Lazarsfeld, Mark Van Doren, Lionel Trilling, and I.I. Rabi, to name just a few of the great minds of the Morningside campus. The University’s graduates during this time were equally accomplished—for example, two alumni of Columbia’s Law School, Charles Evans Hughes and Harlan Fiske Stone (who also held the position of Law School dean), served successively as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Research into the atom by faculty members I.I. Rabi, Enrico Fermi, and Polykarp Kusch placed Columbia’s Physics Department in the international spotlight in the 1940s, and the founding of the School of International Affairs (now the School of International and Public Affairs) in 1946 marked the beginning of intensive growth in international relations as a major scholarly focus of the University. The Oral History movement in the United States was launched at Columbia in 1948.
Columbia celebrated its Bicentennial in 1954 during a period of steady expansion. This growth mandated a major campus-building program in the 1960s, and, by the end of the decade, five of the University’s schools were housed in new buildings.
On the Health Sciences campus, a generous commitment from
Thanks to concerted efforts to place the University on the strongest possible foundations, Columbia is approaching the twenty-first century with a firm sense of the importance of
In 1897, the University moved from 49th Street and Madison Avenue, where it had stood for fifty years, to its present location on Morningside Heights at 116th Street and Broadway. Seth Low, the President of the University at the time of the move, sought to create an academic village in a more spacious setting. Charles Follen McKim of the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White modeled the new campus after the Athenian agora. The Columbia campus comprises the largest single collection of McKim, Mead & White buildings in existence.