Washington University in St. Louis (also referred to as WashU, or WUSTL) is a private research university located in the St. Louis metropolitan area and in Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853, and named after George Washington, the university has students and faculty from all 50 U.S. states and more than 120 countries. As of 2017, 24 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Washington University, nine having done the major part of their pioneering research at the university. Washington University's undergraduate program is ranked 18th by U.S. News & World Report in 2018 and 11th by the Wall Street Journal in their 2018 rankings. The university is ranked 20th in the world in 2017 by the Academic Ranking of World Universities.
Washington University is made up of seven graduate and undergraduate schools that encompass a broad range of academic fields. To prevent confusion over its location, the Board of Trustees added the phrase "in St. Louis" in 1976.
History
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Early history (1853â€"1900)
Washington University was conceived by 17 St. Louis business, political, and religious leaders concerned by the lack of institutions of higher learning in the Midwest. Missouri State Senator Wayman Crow and Unitarian minister William Greenleaf Eliot, grandfather of the poet T.S. Eliot, led the effort.
The university's first chancellor was Joseph Gibson Hoyt. Crow secured the university charter from the Missouri General Assembly in 1853, and Eliot was named President of the Board of Trustees. Early on, Eliot solicited support from members of the local business community, including John O'Fallon, but Eliot failed to secure a permanent endowment. Washington University is unusual among major American universities in not having had a prior financial endowment. The institution had no backing of a religious organization, single wealthy patron, or earmarked government support.
During the three years following its inception, the university bore three different names. The board first approved "Eliot Seminary," but William Eliot was uncomfortable with naming a university after himself and objected to the establishment of a seminary, which would implicitly be charged with teaching a religious faith. He favored a nonsectarian university. In 1854, the Board of Trustees changed the name to "Washington Institute" in honor of George Washington. Naming the University after the nation's first president, only seven years before the American Civil War and during a time of bitter national division, was no coincidence. During this time of conflict, Americans universally admired George Washington as the father of the United States and a symbol of national unity. The Board of Trustees believed that the university should be a force of unity in a strongly divided Missouri. In 1856, the University amended its name to "Washington University." The university amended its name once more in 1976, when the Board of Trustees voted to add the suffix "in St. Louis" to distinguish the university from the nearly two dozen other universities bearing Washington's name.
Although chartered as a university, for many years Washington University functioned primarily as a night school located on 17th Street and Washington Avenue in the heart of downtown St. Louis. Owing to limited financial resources, Washington University initially used public buildings. Classes began on October 22, 1854, at the Benton School building. At first the university paid for the evening classes, but as their popularity grew, their funding was transferred to the St. Louis Public Schools. Eventually the board secured funds for the construction of Academic Hall and a half dozen other buildings. Later the university divided into three departments: the Manual Training School, Smith Academy, and the Mary Institute.
In 1867, the university opened the first private nonsectarian law school west of the Mississippi River. By 1882, Washington University had expanded to numerous departments, which were housed in various buildings across St. Louis. Medical classes were first held at Washington University in 1891 after the St. Louis Medical College decided to affiliate with the University, establishing the School of Medicine. During the 1890s, Robert Sommers Brookings, the president of the Board of Trustees, undertook the tasks of reorganizing the university's finances, putting them onto a sound foundation, and buying land for a new campus.
Modern era (1900â€"1955)
Washington University spent its first half century in downtown St. Louis bounded by Washington Ave., Lucas Place, and Locust Street. By the 1890s, owing to the dramatic expansion of the Manual School and a new benefactor in Robert Brookings, the University began to move west. The University Board of Directors began a process to find suitable ground and hired the landscape architecture firm Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot of Boston. A committee of Robert S. Brookings, Henry Ware Eliot, and William Huse found a site of 103 acres (41.7Â ha) just beyond Forest Park, located west of the city limits in St. Louis County. The elevation of the land was thought to resemble the Acropolis and inspired the nickname of "Hilltop" campus, renamed the Danforth campus in 2006 to honor former chancellor William H. Danforth.
In 1899, the university opened a national design contest for the new campus. The renowned Philadelphia firm Cope & Stewardson won unanimously with its plan for a row of Collegiate Gothic quadrangles inspired by Oxford and Cambridge Universities. The cornerstone of the first building, Busch Hall, was laid on October 20, 1900. The construction of Brookings Hall, Ridgley, and Cupples began shortly thereafter. The school delayed occupying these buildings until 1905 to accommodate the 1904 World's Fair and Olympics. The delay allowed the university to construct ten buildings instead of the seven originally planned. This original cluster of buildings set a precedent for the development of the Danforth Campus; Cope & Stewardson’s original plan and its choice of building materials have, with few exceptions, guided the construction and expansion of the Danforth Campus to the present day.
By 1915, construction of a new medical complex was completed on Kingshighway in what is now St. Louis’s Central West End. Three years later, Washington University admitted its first women medical students.
In 1922, a young physics professor, Arthur Holly Compton, conducted a series of experiments in the basement of Eads Hall that demonstrated the "particle" concept of electromagnetic radiation. Compton’s discovery, known as the “Compton Effect,†earned him the Nobel Prize in physics in 1927.
During World War II, as part of the Manhattan Project, a cyclotron at Washington University was used to produce small quantities of the newly discovered element plutonium via neutron bombardment of uranium nitrate hexahydrate. The plutonium produced there in 1942 was shipped to the Metallurgical Laboratory Compton had established at the University of Chicago where Glenn Seaborg's team used it for extraction, purification, and characterization studies of the exotic substance.
After working for many years at the University of Chicago, Arthur Holly Compton returned to St. Louis in 1946 to serve as Washington University's ninth chancellor. Compton reestablished the Washington University football team, making the declaration that athletics were to be henceforth played on a "strictly amateur" basis with no athletic scholarships. Under Compton’s leadership, enrollment at the University grew dramatically, fueled primarily by World War II veterans' use of their GI Bill benefits.
In 1947, Gerty Cori, a professor at the School of Medicine, became the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Professors Carl and Gerty Cori became Washington University's fifth and sixth Nobel laureates for their discovery of how glycogen is broken down and resynthesized in the body.
The process of desegregation at Washington University began in 1947 with the School of Medicine and the School of Social Work. During the mid and late 1940s, the University was the target of critical editorials in the local African American press, letter-writing campaigns by churches and the local Urban League, and legal briefs by the NAACP intended to strip its tax-exempt status. In spring 1949, a Washington University student group, the Student Committee for the Admission of Negroes (SCAN), began campaigning for full racial integration. In May 1952, the Board of Trustees passed a resolution desegregating the school's undergraduate divisions.
Recent history (1955â€"present)
During the latter half of the 20th century, Washington University transitioned from a strong regional university to a national research institution. In 1957, planning began for the construction of the “South 40,†a complex of modern residential halls. With the additional on-campus housing, Washington University, which had been predominantly a “streetcar college†of commuter students, began to attract a more national pool of applicants. By 1964, over two-thirds of incoming students came from outside the St. Louis area.
In 1971, the Board of Trustees appointed Chancellor William Henry Danforth, who guided the university through the social and financial crises of the 1970s and strengthened the university’s often strained relationship with the St. Louis community. During his 24-year chancellorship, Danforth significantly improved the School of Medicine, established 70 new faculty chairs, secured a $1.72 billion endowment, and tripled the amount of student scholarships.
In 1995, Mark S. Wrighton, former Provost at MIT, was elected the university’s 14th chancellor. During Chancellor Wrighton's tenure undergraduate applications to Washington University have more than doubled. Since 1995, the University has added more than 190 endowed professorships, revamped its Arts & Sciences curriculum, and completed more than 30 new buildings.
The growth of Washington University’s reputation has coincided with a series of record-breaking fund-raising efforts during the last three decades. From 1983 to 1987, the “Alliance for Washington University†campaign raised $630.5 million, which was then the most successful fund-raising effort in national history. From 1998 to 2004, the “Campaign for Washington University†raised $1.55 billion, which has been applied to additional scholarships, professorships, and research initiatives.
U.S. presidential and vice-presidential debates
Washington University has been selected by the Commission on Presidential Debates to host more presidential and vice-presidential debates than any other institution in history. United States presidential election debates were held at the Washington University Athletic Complex in 1992, 2000, 2004, and 2016. A presidential debate was planned to occur in 1996, but owing to scheduling difficulties between the candidates, the debate was canceled. The university hosted the only 2008 vice presidential debate, between Republican Sarah Palin and Democrat Joe Biden, on October 2, 2008, also at the Washington University Athletic Complex. The university hosted the second 2016 presidential debate, between Republican Party candidate Donald Trump and Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton, on October 9, 2016.
Although Chancellor Wrighton had noted after the 2004 debate that it would be "improbable" that the university will host another debate and was not eager to commit to the possibility, he subsequently changed his view and the university submitted a bid for the 2008 debates. "These one-of-a-kind events are great experiences for our students, they contribute to a national understanding of important issues, and they allow us to help bring national and international attention to the St. Louis region as one of America's great metropolitan areas," said Wrighton.
Rankings and reputation
Washington University's undergraduate program is ranked 18th in the nation in the 2018 U.S. News & World Report National Universities ranking. Additionally, 19 undergraduate disciplines are ranked among the top 10 programs in the country. In 2013, the ranking's peer assessment score was 4.1.
In 2013, Washington University received a record 30,117 applications for a freshman class of 1,500 with an acceptance rate of 13.7%. More than 90% of incoming freshmen whose high schools ranked were ranked in the top 10% of their high school classes. In 2006, the university ranked fourth overall and second among private universities in the number of enrolled National Merit Scholar freshmen, according to the National Merit Scholar Corporation's annual report. In 2008, Washington University was ranked #1 for quality of life according to The Princeton Review, among other top rankings. In addition, the Olin Business School's undergraduate program is among the top 4 in the country. The Olin Business School's undergraduate program is also among the country's most competitive, admitting only 14% of applicants in 2007 and ranking #1 in SAT scores with an average composite of 1492 M+CR according to BusinessWeek.
Graduate schools include the School of Medicine, currently ranked sixth in the nation, and the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, currently ranked first. The program in occupational therapy at Washington University currently occupies the first spot for the 2016 U.S. News & World Report rankings, and the program in physical therapy is ranked first as well. For the 2015 edition, the School of Law is ranked 18th, the Clinical Psychology in the Arts and Science department ranked 14th, and the Olin Business School is ranked 19th. Additionally, the Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design was ranked ninth in the nation by the journal DesignIntelligence in its 2013 edition of "America's Best Architecture & Design Schools."
Global rankings include 20th in the Academic Ranking of World Universities in 2017. In 2016, Washington University ranked 42nd in the world according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Washington University ranked 22nd in CWTS Leiden Ranking 2013, Netherland.
Geography and campuses
Danforth Campus
The main, or Danforth Campus (formerly known as the Hilltop Campus) is mostly between Forest Park Parkway, Wydown Boulevard, North Big Bend Boulevard, and North Skinker Boulevard.
Although the school includes St. Louis in its name, the majority of the school's main campus (including Brookings Hall) is located in unincorporated St. Louis County and suburban Clayton.
Medical Campus
Washington University Medical Center comprises 164 acres (66.4Â ha) spread over approximately 12 city blocks, located along the eastern edge of Forest Park within the Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis. The campus is home to the Washington University School of Medicine and its associated teaching hospitals, Barnes-Jewish Hospital and St. Louis Children's Hospital. Many of the buildings are connected via a series of skyways and corridors.
The School's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty Physicians and Nurse Practitioners also serve as the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, which are part of BJC HealthCare. Washington University and BJC have taken on many joint venture projects, such as the Center for Advanced Medicine, completed in December 2001. BJC Institute of Health at Washington University is the newest research building with 680,000 square feet (63,000Â m2).
Olin Residence Hall, named for Spencer T. Olin, provides residential services for 200 medical and graduate students.
The Medical Campus is accessible via the Central West End MetroLink station, which provides a quick link to the Danforth, North, and West Campuses.
Medical Campus Includes:
- Barnes-Jewish Hospital
- Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology
- Central Institute for the Deaf
- St. Louis Children's Hospital
- Rehabilitation Institute of St. Louis
- Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center
- Center for Advanced Medicine
- Eric P. Newman Education Center (conference and convention center)
North and West Campuses
Washington University's North Campus and West Campus principally house administrative functions that are not student focused. North Campus lies in St. Louis City near the Delmar Loop. The University acquired the building and adjacent property in 2004, formerly home to the Angelica Uniform Factory. Several University administrative departments are located at the North Campus location, including offices for Quadrangle Housing, Accounting and Treasury Services, Parking and Transportation Services, Army ROTC, and Network Technology Services. The North Campus location also provides off-site storage space for the Performing Arts Department. Renovations are still ongoing; recent additions to the North Campus space include a small eatery operated by Bon Appétit Management Company, the University's on-campus food provider, completed during spring semester 2007, as well as the Family Learning Center, operated by Bright Horizons and opened in September 2010.
The West Campus is located about one mile (1.6Â km) to the west of the Danforth Campus in Clayton, Missouri, and primarily consists of a four-story former department store building housing mostly administrative space. The West Campus building was home to the Clayton branch of the Famous-Barr department store until 1990, when the University acquired the property and adjacent parking and began a series of renovations. Today, the basement level houses the West Campus Library, the University Archives, the Modern Graphic History Library, and conference space. The ground level still remains a retail space. The upper floors house consolidated capital gifts, portions of alumni and development, and information systems offices from across the Danforth and Medical School campuses. There is also a music rehearsal room on the second floor.
Both the North and West Campuses are accessible by the St. Louis MetroLink, which, with the Delmar Loop and Forsyth MetroLink Stations directly adjacent to these campuses, provides easy travel around the St. Louis metropolitan area, including all of Washington University's campuses.
Tyson Research Center
Tyson Research Center is a 1,966.5 acres (3.07 sq mi; 795.81 ha) field station located west of St. Louis on the Meramec River. Washington University obtained Tyson as surplus property from the federal government in 1963. It is used by the University as a biological field station and research/education center. In 2010 the Living Learning Center was named one of the first two buildings accredited nationwide as a "living building" under the Living Building Challenge, opened to serve as a biological research station and classroom for summer students.
Academics
Arts & Sciences
For the Fall 2011 semester Arts & Sciences enrolled 942 out of 18,079 applicants (5.2%).
Arts & Sciences at Washington University comprises three divisions: the College of Arts & Sciences, the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, and University College in Arts & Sciences. Barbara Schaal is Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. James E. McLeod was the Vice Chancellor for Students and Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences; according to a University news release he died at the University's Barnes-Jewish Hospital on Tuesday, September 6, 2011 of renal failure as a result of a two-year-long struggle with cancer. Richard J. Smith is Dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.
- The College of Arts & Sciences is the central undergraduate unit of the University with 330 tenured and tenure-track faculty along with over 100 research scientists, lecturers, artists in residence, and visitors serving more than 3,700 undergraduates in 40 academic departments divided into divisions of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences and Mathematics. The College of Arts & Sciences has an average class size of 18 students, with over 80% having fewer than 24. Almost one-half of the undergraduate classes have fewer than 10 students. The student-faculty ratio is 7:1.
- The Graduate School serves over 1,800 students pursuing Master's and PhD degrees.
- University College grants both graduate and undergraduate degrees, offering courses primarily in the evenings for adult and continuing education.
- The College of Arts & Sciences offers courses in over a dozen languages, including Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, German, French, Swahili, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Greek, Italian, Hindi, Portuguese, and Latin. University College in Arts & Sciences also offers course work in Swedish, Vietnamese, Irish, and Czech.
Business
Founded as the School of Commerce and Finance in 1917, the Olin Business School was named after entrepreneur John M. Olin in 1988. The school's academic programs include BSBA, MBA, Professional MBA (PMBA), Executive MBA (EMBA), MS in Finance, MS in Supply Chain Management, MS in Customer Analytics, Master of Accounting, Global Master of Finance Dual Degree program, and Doctorate programs, as well as non-degree executive education. In 2002, an Executive MBA program was established in Shanghai, in cooperation with Fudan University.
Olin has a network of more than 16,000 alumni worldwide. Over the last several years, the school’s endowment has increased to $213 million (2004) and annual gifts average $12 million per year. Simon Hall was opened in 1986 after a donation from John E. Simon. On May 2, 2014, the $90 million conjoined Knight and Bauer Halls were dedicated, following a $15 million gift from Charles F. Knight and Joanne Knight and a $10 million gift from George and Carol Bauer through the Bauer Foundation.
Undergraduate BSBA students take 40â€"60% of their courses within the business school and are able to formally declare majors in eight areas: accounting, entrepreneurship, finance, healthcare management, marketing, managerial economics and strategy, organization and human resources, international business, and operations and supply chain management. Graduate students are able to pursue an MBA either full-time or part-time. Students may also take elective courses from other disciplines at Washington University, including law and many other fields. Mark P. Taylor is the Dean of the Olin Business School.
School of Design & Visual Arts
For the Fall 2011 semester Design & Visual Arts enrolled 106 out of 1,422 applicants (7.5%).
Created in 2005 by merging the existing Colleges of Art and Architecture, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts combines the strengths of these fields into a single collaborative unit offering both undergraduate and graduate programs. The School comprises:
- College of Architecture
- Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design
- College of Art
- Graduate School of Art
- Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, considered one of the most distinguished university art collections in the country
Architecture offers BS and BA degrees as well as M. Arch and MUD. There is a combined six-year BS and M. Arch degree program as well as joint M. Arch programs with most of the other schools in the University. The Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design was ranked 5th in the nation by the journal DesignIntelligence in its 2008 edition of "America's Best Architecture & Design Schools."
Art offers the BFA and MFA in Art in the context of a full university environment. Students take courses in the College of Arts & Sciences as well as courses in the College of Art to provide a well rounded background. One third of students in the school pursue a combined study degree program, second major, and/or minors in other undergraduate divisions at Washington University. U.S. News & World Report ranked the MFA program 13th in the nation in 2012.
In October 2006 the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum moved into new facilities designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect, and former faculty member, Fumihiko Maki.
Carmon Colangelo is the Dean of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Bruce Lindsey is Dean of the College of Architecture and the Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design. Franklin "Buzz" Spector is the Dean of the College and Graduate School of Art.
School of Engineering & Applied Science
The School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis (WashU Engineering) is a top-ranked, dynamic school with 88 tenured and tenure-track professors, 40 additional full-time faculty, 1,300 undergraduate students, 560 master's students, 380 PhD students, and more than 20,000 alumni. Aaron Bobick serves as dean of the school.
With approximately $27 million in annual research awards, the school focuses intellectual efforts on medicine and health, energy and environment, entrepreneurship, and security. The school is ranked among the top 50 by the magazine U.S. News & World Report, and the biomedical engineering graduate program was ranked 12th by U.S. News & World Report in 2012â€"2013.
Departments include:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Computer Science & Engineering
- Electrical & Systems Engineering
- Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering
- Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
School of Law
Washington University School of Law offers joint-degree programs with the Olin Business School, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Medicine, and the School of Social Work. It also offers an LLM in Intellectual Property and Technology Law, an LLM in Taxation, an LLM in US Law for Foreign Lawyers, a Master of Juridical Studies (MJS), and a Juris Scientiae Doctoris (JSD). The law school offers 3 semesters of courses in the Spring, Summer, and Fall, and requires at least 85 hours of coursework for the JD.
In the 2015 US News & World Report America's Best Graduate Schools, the law school is ranked 18th nationally, out of over 180 law schools. In particular, its Clinical Education Program is currently ranked 4th in the nation. This year, the median score placed the average student in the 96th percentile of test takers. The law school offers a full-time day program, beginning in August, for the J.D. degree. The law school is located in a state-of-the-art building, Anheuser-Busch Hall (opened in 1997). The building combines traditional architecture, a five-story open-stacks library, an integration of indoor and outdoor spaces, and the latest wireless and other technologies. National Jurist ranked Washington University 4th among the "25 Most Wired Law Schools."
Nancy Staudt is the Dean of the School of Law.
Medicine
The Washington University School of Medicine, founded in 1891, is highly regarded as one of the world's leading centers for medical research and training. The School ranks first in the nation in student selectivity. Among its many recent initiatives, The Genome Center at Washington University (directed by Richard K. Wilson) played a leading role in the Human Genome Project, having contributed 25% of the finished sequence. The School pioneered bedside teaching and led in the transformation of empirical knowledge into scientific medicine. The medical school partners with St. Louis Children's Hospital and Barnes-Jewish Hospital (part of BJC HealthCare), where all physicians are members of the school's faculty.
The Program in Occupational Therapy is currently tied for 1st in the nation for "Best Occupational Therapy Schools" according to U.S. News & World Report. The Program offers a Master of Science degree as well as the Occupational Therapy Doctorate (OTD) at the professional and post-professional levels. M. Carolyn Baum, PhD, serves as the program director and was the most recent president of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA).
David H. Perlmutter, MD, is the Dean of Washington University School of Medicine.
Social Work and Public Health
With roots dating back to 1909 in the university's School of Social Economy, the George Warren Brown School of Social Work (commonly called GWB, the Brown School, or Brown) was founded in 1925. Brown's academic degree offerings include a Master of Social Work (MSW), a Master of Public Health (MPH), a PhD in Social Work, and a PhD in Public Health Sciences. It is currently ranked first among Master of Social Work programs in the United States. The school was endowed by Bettie Bofinger Brown and named for her husband, George Warren Brown, a St. Louis philanthropist and co-founder of the Brown Shoe Company. The school was the first in the country to have a building for the purpose of social work education, and it is also a founding member of the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health. The school is housed within Brown and Goldfarb Halls, but a third building expansion is currently in progress and slated to be completed in summer 2015. The new building, adjacent to Brown and Goldfarb Halls, targets LEED Gold certification and will add approximately 105,000 square feet, more than doubling the school's teaching, research, and program space.
The school has many nationally and internationally acclaimed scholars in social security, health care, health disparities, communication, social and health policy, and individual and family development. Many of the faculty have training in both social work and public health. The school's current dean is Edward F. Lawlor. In addition to affiliation with the university-wide Institute of Public Health, Brown houses 12 research centers. The Brown School Library collects materials on many topics, with specific emphasis on: children, youth, and families; gerontology; health; mental health; social and economic development; family therapy; and management. The library maintains subscriptions to over 450 academic journals.
Former dental school
Founded as the Missouri Dental College in 1866, the Washington University School of Dental Medicine was the first dental school west of the Mississippi River and the sixth dental school in the U.S. The school closed in 1991.
Museums and library system
With 14 libraries, the Washington University library system is the largest in the state of Missouri, containing over 4.2 million volumes. The main library, Olin Library, is centrally located on the Danforth Campus. Other libraries in the system include:
- Kranzberg Art & Architecture Library
- Business Library
- Chemistry Library
- East Asian Library
- Law Library
- Medical Library (Becker)
- Music Library
- Physics Library
- Social Work Library
- Special Collections & Archives
- West Campus Library
The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, established in 1881, is one of the oldest teaching museums in the country. The collection includes works from 19th, 20th, and 21st century American and European artists, including George Caleb Bingham, Thomas Cole, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Alexander Calder, Jackson Pollock, Rembrandt, Robert Rauschenberg, Barbara Kruger, and Christian Boltanski. Also in the complex is the 3,000 sq ft (300 m2) Newman Money Museum exhibiting the collection of American numismatist Eric P. Newman. In October 2006, the Kemper Art Museum moved from its previous location, Steinberg Hall, into a new facility designed by former faculty member Fumihiko Maki. Interestingly, the new Kemper Art Museum is located directly across from Steinberg Hall, which was Maki's very first commission in 1959.
Research, research centers, and institutes
Virtually all faculty members at Washington University engage in academic research, offering opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students across the university's seven schools. Known for its interdisciplinarity and departmental collaboration, many of Washington University's research centers and institutes are collaborative efforts between many areas on campus. More than 60% of undergraduates are involved in faculty research across all areas; it is an institutional priority for undergraduates to be allowed to participate in advanced research. According to the Center for Measuring University Performance, it is considered to be one of the top 10 private research universities in the nation. A dedicated Office of Undergraduate Research is located on the Danforth Campus and serves as a resource to post research opportunities, advise students in finding appropriate positions matching their interests, publish undergraduate research journals, and award research grants to make it financially possible to perform research.
During fiscal year 2007, $537.5 million was received in total research support, including $444 million in federal obligations. The University has over 150 National Institutes of Health funded inventions, with many of them licensed to private companies. Governmental agencies and non-profit foundations such as the NIH, United States Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, and NASA provide the majority of research grant funding, with Washington University being one of the top recipients in NIH grants from year-to-year. Nearly 80% of NIH grants to institutions in the state of Missouri went to Washington University alone in 2007. Washington University and its Medical School play a large part in the Human Genome Project, where it contributes approximately 25% of the finished sequence. The Genome Sequencing Center has decoded the genome of many animals, plants, and cellular organisms, including the platypus, chimpanzee, cat, and corn.
NASA hosts its Planetary Data System Geosciences Node on the campus of Washington University. Professors, students, and researchers have been very involved with many unmanned missions to Mars. Professor Raymond Arvidson has been deputy principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover mission and co-investigator of the Phoenix lander robotic arm.
Washington University professor Joseph Lowenstein, with the assistance of several undergraduate students, has been involved in editing, annotating, making a digital archive of the first publication of poet Edmund Spenser's collective works in 100 years. A large grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities has been given to support this ambitious project centralized at Washington University with support from other colleges in the United States.
Campus life
Student organizations
Washington University has over 300 undergraduate student organizations on campus. Most are funded by the Washington University Student Union, which has a $2 million plus annual budget that is completely student-controlled and is one of the largest student government budgets in the country. Known as SU for short, the Student Union sponsors large-scale campus programs including WILD (a semesterly concert in the quad) and free copies of the New York Times, USA Today, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch through The Collegiate Readership Program; it also contributes to the Assembly Series, a weekly lecture series produced by the University, and funds the campus television station, WUTV, and the radio station, KWUR. KWUR was named best radio station in St. Louis of 2003 by the Riverfront Times despite the fact that its signal reaches only a few blocks beyond the boundaries of the campus. There are 11 fraternities and 9 sororities, with approximately 35% of the student body being involved in Greek life. The Congress of the South 40 (CS40) is a Residential Life and Events Programming Board, which operates outside of the SU sphere. CS40's funding comes from the Housing Activities Fee of each student living on the South 40.
Many of these organizations and other campus life amenities are housed in the $43 million Danforth University Center on the Danforth Campus, also dedicated in honor of the Danforth family. The building opened on August 11, 2008 and earned LEED Gold certification for its environmentally friendly design.
Washington University has a large number of student-run musical groups on campus, including 12 official a cappella groups. The Pikers, an all-male group, is the oldest such group on campus. The Greenleafs, an all-female group is the oldest (and only) female group on campus. The Mosaic Whispers, founded in 1991, is the oldest co-ed group on campus. They have produced 9 albums and have appeared on a number of compilation albums, including Ben Folds' Ben Folds Presents: University A Cappella! The Amateurs, who also appeared on this album, is another co-ed a cappella group on campus, founded in 1991. They have recorded seven albums and toured extensively. After Dark is a co-ed a cappella group founded in 2001. It has released three albums and has won several Contemporary A Capella Recording (CARA) awards. In 2008 the group performed on MSNBC during coverage of the vice presidential debate with specially written songs about Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. The Ghost Lights, founded in 2010, is the campus's newest and only Broadway, Movies, and Television soundtrack group. They have performed multiple philanthropic concerts in the greater St. Louis area and were honored in November 2010 with the opportunity to perform for Nobel Laureate Douglass North at his birthday celebration.
The campus newspaper is Student Life. The paper is published twice a week under the auspices of Washington University Student Media, Inc., an independent not-for-profit organization incorporated in 1999. The paper was first founded in 1878, making it one of the oldest student newspapers in the country.
The campus political/entertainment talk radio podcast is WURD, which streams for free on iTunes. Its listenership spans multiple continents and its host website has been visited by thousands of listeners.
Greek life
Washington University has twelve fraternities and nine sororities on campus. Approximately 45% of women and 30% of men participate in Greek life, totaling 35% of the student body.
- Washington University Interfraternity Council
- Alpha Delta Phi
- Alpha Epsilon Pi
- Beta Theta Pi
- Kappa Sigma
- Phi Delta Theta
- Sigma Alpha Epsilon
- Sigma Chi
- Sigma Nu
- Sigma Phi Epsilon
- Tau Kappa Epsilon
- Theta Xi
- Zeta Beta Tau
- Washington University Panhellenic Council
- Alpha Epsilon Phi
- Alpha Omicron Pi
- Alpha Phi
- Chi Omega
- Delta Gamma
- Gamma Phi Beta
- Kappa Delta
- Kappa Kappa Gamma
- Pi Beta Phi
Residences
Washington University is number one on the Princeton Review’s “Best College Dorms†list for 2013.
Over 50% of undergraduate students live on campus. Most of the residence halls on campus are located on the South 40, named because of its adjacent location on the south side of the Danforth Campus and its size of 40 acres (160,000Â m2). It is the location of all the freshman buildings as well as several sophomore buildings, which are set up in the traditional residential college system. All of the residential halls are co-ed. The South 40 is organized as a pedestrian-friendly environment wherein residences surround a central recreational lawn known as the Swamp. Bear's Den (the largest dining hall on campus), the Habif Health and Wellness Center (Student Health Services), the Residential Life Office, University Police Headquarters, various student-owned businesses (e.g. the laundry service, Wash U Wash), and the baseball, softball, and intramural fields are also located on the South 40.
Another group of residences, known as the Village, is located in the northwest corner of Danforth Campus. Only open to upperclassmen and January Scholars, the North Side consists of Millbrook Apartments, The Village, Village East on-campus apartments, and all fraternity houses except the Zeta Beta Tau house, which is off campus and located just northwest of the South 40. Sororities at Washington University do not have houses by their own accord. The Village is a group of residences where students who have similar interests or academic goals apply as small groups of 4 to 24, known as BLOCs, to live together in clustered suites along with non-BLOCs. Like the South 40, the residences around the Village also surround a recreational lawn.
In addition to South 40 and North Side residence halls, Washington University owns several apartment buildings within walking distance to Danforth Campus, which are open to upperclassmen.
Student media
Washington University supports four major student-run media outlets. The university's student newspaper, Student Life, is available for students. KWUR (90.3 FM) serves as the students' official radio station; the station also attracts an audience in the immediately surrounding community due to its eclectic and free-form musical programming. WUTV is the university's closed-circuit television channel. The university's main student-run political publication is the Washington University Political Review (nicknamed "WUPR"), a self-described "multipartisan" monthly magazine. Washington University undergraduates publish two literary and art journals, The Eliot Review and Spires Intercollegiate Arts and Literary Magazine. A variety of other publications also serve the university community, ranging from in-house academic journals to glossy alumni magazines to WUnderground, the student-run satirical newspaper.
Athletics
Washington University's sports teams are called the Bears. They are members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association and participate in the University Athletic Association at the Division III level. The Bears have won 19 NCAA Division III Championshipsâ€" one in women's cross country (2011), one in men's tennis (2008), two in men's basketball (2008, 2009), five in women's basketball (1998â€"2001, 2010), and ten in women's volleyball (1989, 1991â€"1996, 2003, 2007, 2009) â€" and 144 UAA titles in 15 different sports. The Athletic Department was headed by John Schael for 34 years, who served as director of athletics in the period 1978-2014. The 2000 Division III Central Region winner of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics/Continental Airlines Athletics Director of the Year award, Schael helped orchestrate the Bears athletics transformation into one of the top departments in Division III. Schael was succeeded by Josh Whitman, 2014-2016. The department is now led by Anthony J. Azama.
Washington University also has an extensive club sports program, with teams ranging from men's volleyball to women's Ultimate Frisbee. The Washington University men's club water polo team has been particularly successful, capturing the Collegiate Water Polo Association Division III Club National Championship title in 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. Funding for club sports comes from the Student Union budget, as each club is deemed a campus group.
Washington University is home of Francis Field, site of the 1904 Summer Olympics. Francis Field is also home of the Washington University football, soccer, and track and field teams.
Traditions
- WILD â€" Walk In, Lay Down, the semesterly concert in the Quad which brings in popular musical acts.
- Bauhaus â€" Annual Halloween costume party sponsored by the Architecture School Council, held in a large tent in front of Givens Hall.
- Thurtene Carnival â€" The oldest and largest student-run carnival in the nation, run by Thurtene Honorary.
- Vertigo â€" A dance party put on by the Engineering School Council (EnCouncil), featuring an innovative 8-by-16-foot (2.4 by 4.9 m) computer-controlled modular LED illuminated dance floor built by students.
- Cultural shows â€" Each year Washington University student groups put on several multicultural shows, one of which sells out within hours of tickets going on sale (Diwali). Ashoka, the South Asian student association, puts on a performance for Diwali, the Indian festival of lights, that includes a skit and dances; Black Anthology is a student-run performance arts show celebrating black culture; Lunar New Year Festival is a collaboration between the many East Asian organizations on campus culminating in a show to celebrate the holiday with a skit and dances from Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cultures; celebrating African culture, Africa Week and the African Film Festival are annual events hosted by the African Students Association; the Association of Latin American Students showcases various forms of Latin and Spanish dances during their performance, Carnaval.
Notable people
- Washington University counts more than 114,000 living alumni, 29 Rhodes Scholars, and 24 Nobel laureates affiliated with the university as faculty or students.
- Notable recent graduates of the college include: former Missouri Senator Jim Talent, Nevada Senator Chic Hecht, and former Nebraska Congressman Hal Daub; George Zimmer, founder of Men's Wearhouse; Phil Radford, CEO of Greenpeace; Avram Glazer, chairman of Manchester United; Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Ken Cooper and Hank Klibanoff; Jim McKelvey, co-founder and director of Square, Inc.; Jon Feltheimer, CEO of Lionsgate films; actors Peter Sarsgaard (Boys Don't Cry, An Education, Flight Plan) and Harold Ramis (Ghostbusters, Caddyshack); baseball player Dal Maxvill; and science-show host Deanne Bell (Design Squad).
- Earlier undergraduate alumni include J. C. R. Licklider, pioneer in artificial intelligence; Charles Nagel, founder of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Julian W. Hill, co-inventor of nylon; Clyde Cowan, co-discoverer of the neutrino; James R. Thompson, Governor of Illinois; David R. Francis, Governor of Missouri; William H. Webster, former Director of the FBI; U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Sam Fox; Edward Singleton Holden, president of the University of California; Thomas Lamb Eliot, founder of Reed College; and Abram L. Sachar, founding president of Brandeis University. Graduates of the College of Architecture include George Hellmuth, Gyo Obata, and George Kassabaum, founders of HOK, the world's fourth-largest architectural firm.
- The School of Medicine graduated Nobel laureates Earl Sutherland, Edwin Krebs, and Daniel Nathans. Businessman and adventurer Steve Fossett earned his MBA from the business school. Law school graduate, Joseph Poindexter was governor of Hawaii during the Pearl Harbor attack. Doctoral alumni include the former Presidents of Johns Hopkins, Clemson, Wake Forest, Morehouse, Mount Union, Yonsei, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. An alumnus of the Graduate School of Architecture, C. P. Wang (M.Arch 1973), designed Taipei 101, the world's second-tallest building.
- Famous students who dropped out: Charles Eames (who was expelled for defending modernist architecture); Tennessee Williams (who left in protest at not winning a playwriting prize); Enterprise Rent-a-Car founder Jack C. Taylor (who withdrew to fight in World War II); actor Robert Guillaume (who withdrew to study opera); Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author Bill Dedman (who left to become a newspaper reporter); and IQ-record holder Marilyn vos Savant (who says she withdrew because she was bored).
- List of Washington University faculty and staff (past and present): economist and Nobel Memorial Prize winner Douglass North; husband and wife biochemists and co-Nobel Prize winners Carl and Gerty Cori; physicist and Nobel Prize winner Arthur Holly Compton; novelists Stanley Elkin and William Gass; poets Carl Phillips and Mary Jo Bang; architect Fumihiko Maki; neurologist and Nobel Prize winner Rita Levi-Montalcini; notable artist Max Beckmann; sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson; Poets Laureate Howard Nemerov and Mona Van Duyn; sociologist and "outlaw Marxist" Alvin Ward Gouldner; attorney, former Counsel to Vice-President Al Gore and former Tennessee Attorney General Charles Burson; writer and culture critic Gerald Early; economist, and former Chair of President Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisors, Murray Weidenbaum; chemist Joseph W. Kennedy, co-discoverer of the element plutonium; computer scientist Jonathan S. Turner, internationally renowned expert in computer networking; computer scientist Raj Jain, pioneer in the field of network congestion; Law Professor Troy A. Paredes, currently on leave as a commissioner of the SEC; and Law Professor Peter Mutharika, president of Malawi.
References
Bibliography
- Ralph E. Morrow, Washington University in St. Louis: A History St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 1996.
- Candace O'Connor, Beginning a Great Work: Washington University, 1853â€"2003 St. Louis: Washington University in St. Louis, 2003.
External links
- Official website
- Washington University Athletics website
- Â "Washington University". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.Â
- Â "Washington University". Popular Science Monthly. 64. February 1904.Â