NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
Excellence has been Northwestern University’s goal since its nine founders met in 1850 in a room above a hardware store in Chicago – then a city of only 30,000 – to establish an educational institution that would rival any in the United States. That group — a physician, three attorneys, two businessmen, and three Methodist clergymen — envisioned a university “of the highest order of excellence” to serve the people of an area known as Northwest Territory. (That Territory was established in 1787 by the U S government to encourage the development of the frontier states Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota). Northwestern University was officially established on January 28, 1851, when its act of incorporation was passed by the Illinois legislature. That act included a provision reflecting the strong religious beliefs of its founders but requiring no particular religious faith of students or faculty members.
As a site for the new university the founders in 1853 purchased a 379-acre tract of farmland 12 miles north of Chicago along Lake Michigan, (the fifth largest lake in the world which is known as one of America’s “Great Lakes.”). The location so impressed founder Orrington Lunt that he wrote, “I could not rid myself of the fairy visions constantly presenting themselves in fanciful beauties — of the gently waving lake — its pebbly shore — the beautiful oak openings and bluffs beyond.”
The town that grew up around Northwestern was named Evanston in honor of one of the University’s most prominent founders, John Evans. A physician and businessman, Evans also founded the Illinois Medical Society and the Illinois Republican Party and later served as governor of America’s Colorado Territory. He was chairman of Northwestern’s Board of Trustees from the University’s founding until his death in 1897.
After completing its first building in 1855, Northwestern began classes that fall with two faculty members and 10 male students. In 1869 it enrolled its first female students, thereby becoming a pioneer in the higher education of women. Four years later, the University negotiated a merger with the Evanston College for Ladies, whose president, eminent suffragette and temperance movement leader Frances E. Willard, became Northwestern’s first dean of women.
By 1900 the University was composed of a College of Liberal Arts and six professional schools, including the schools of law and medicine, with a total of 2,700 students. With the establishment of the Graduate School in 1910, Northwestern adopted the German university model of providing graduate as well as undergraduate instruction and stressing research along with teaching.
The University’s development since then has paralleled the growth of metropolitan Chicago – the third largest such area in the United States. Today Northwestern enjoys a position as one of the country’s leading private research universities, with 11 academic divisions located on two lakefront campuses in Evanston and Chicago and, as of 2008, a new branch campus in Qatar. The University has approximately 2,500 full-time faculty, 15,000 full-time students, and an annual budget of almost $1.25 billion. Northwestern’s vision of excellence now extends far beyond the old Northwest Territory through the accomplishments of its alumni and by virtue of a distinguished faculty and highly selective student body drawn from across the nation and around the world.