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UChicago History
Foundation
The University of Chicago was founded in 1892 by John D. Rockefeller, biblical scholar William Rainey Harper, and Chicago-area Baptists. The University’s Articles of Incorporation commit the institution to excellence in both undergraduate and graduate education, an explicit policy of co-education, and an atmosphere of non-sectarianism. Harper agreed to become the first president of the University on the condition that he be allowed to establish a university that would be unlike any other. He conceived of a university that would emphasize the creation of new knowledge and “make the work of investigation primary.” To this end, the University has always been dedicated to excellence in research and has sought only the most distinguished scholars for its faculty.
Impact on Higher Education
Over the years, the University and its faculty have had a major impact on American higher education. Faculty scholarship has shaped several essential disciplines and established important and distinctive “Chicago schools” in such disparate fields as economics, evolutionary biology, sociology, literary criticism, anthropology, and law and economics. Seventy-five Nobel laureates [more than any other University in the world] have been members of the faculty, researchers, or students at the University. Programmatic innovations originating at the University include the invention of the four-quarter system, the establishment of a coherent program of general education for undergraduates, the initiation of a full-time medical school teaching faculty, and the development of extension courses and programs in the liberal arts for adults.
Structure, Statistics, & Architecture
The University includes an undergraduate College, the William B. and Catherine V. Graham School of General Studies, four graduate divisions (Biological Sciences, Humanities, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences), six graduate professional schools (Graduate School of Business, Divinity School, Law School, Pritzker School of Medicine, Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, and School of Social Service Administration), and a diverse collection of academic support units and resources including libraries, research institutes, clinics, museums, theaters, and a university press. The University has a faculty of more than 1,200 and an enrollment of over 12,000 students. [The College size is approximately 4,500.] The 200-acre campus is located along the Midway Plaisance, in Hyde Park, a residential community on Lake Michigan south of Chicago's Loop.
The University's English Collegiate Gothic buildings, built of gray Indiana limestone, were designed to frame shady, green quadrangles. Contemporary campus buildings have been designed in keeping with the original Gothic theme while drawing from the tradition of great modern architecture for which the city of Chicago is famous. Eero Saarinen and Ludwig Meis van der Rohe designed striking buildings for the Law School and the School of Social Service Administration. The National Trust for Historic Preservation praised the University for its insistence on architectural continuity over "a century of social and academic change."
Adapted From the Spring 2001 College Convocation Program
On July 1, 2006, Robert J. Zimmer will become the University's thirteenth President.