University

Phoenix University

2010-10-06T21:44:00.000-07:00

The University of Phoenix (UPX) is a for-profit institution of higher learning. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Apollo Group Inc. which is publicly traded (NASDAQ: APOL), an S&P 500 corporation based in Phoenix, Arizona.

As the university with a student body in North America second only to the State University of New York, it has a current enrollment of 420,700 undergraduate students and 78,000 graduate students, or 224,880 full-time equivalent students.

The university has more than 200 campuses worldwide and confers degrees in over 100 degree programs at the associate's, bachelor's, master's and doctoral levels.

University of Phoenix has an open enrollment admission policy other than requiring a high-school diploma, GED, or its equivalent. The school also provides associate's or bachelor's degree applicants opportunity for advanced placement through its Prior Learning Assessment, which, aside from previous coursework, college credit can come from experiential learning essays, corporate training, and certificates or Licenses.

The University of Phoenix is frequently cited as the most prominent example of for-profit colleges that operate primarily for the purpose of exploiting the government for educational subsidies. Students of such schools often find their degrees to be not as highly valued by employers as those of traditional universities, Such students may be less likely to find the employment necessary to repay student loans.

UniversityofPhoenix

Alumni
Alumni of UOPX include U.S. Navy Admiral Kirkland H. Donald, current White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt, former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters '94, four-time NBA Championship-winner Shaquille O’Neal '05, and three-time WNBA MVP Lisa Leslie.

Princeton University

2010-08-03T15:54:00.000-07:00

Princeton University
is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution.

Princeton provides undergraduate and graduate instruction in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. Princeton does not offer professional schooling generally, but it does offer professional master's degrees (mostly through the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs) and doctoral programs.

Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, as the College of New Jersey, the university moved to Newark in 1747, then to Princeton in 1756 and was renamed Princeton University in 1896. (The present-day The College of New Jersey in nearby Ewing, New Jersey, is an unrelated institution.)

Princeton was the fourth institution of higher education in the U.S. to conduct classes. The university, unlike most American universities that were founded at the same time, did not have an official religious affiliation. At one time, it had close ties to the Presbyterian Church, but today it is nonsectarian and makes no spiritual demands of its students. The university has ties with the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the Westminster Choir College of Rider University.

Princeton University

Notable alumni and faculty
Princeton University has been and is home to a renowned group of scholars, scientists, writers, chief justices, and statesmen who include four United States presidents, two of whom graduated from the university. James Madison and Woodrow Wilson graduated from Princeton, Grover Cleveland was not an alumnus but served as a trustee, Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth; for several years while he spent his retirement in the town of Princeton, and John F. Kennedy spent his freshman fall at the university before leaving due to illness and later transferring to Harvard College.

Cornell University

2009-08-03T15:22:00.000-07:00

Cornell University, located in Ithaca, New York, USA, is a private university and a member of the Ivy League.

Cornell is often considered as one of the top universities in the world, with consistent top 15 rankings. Cornell counts more than 255,000 living alumni, 28 Rhodes Scholars and 40 Nobel laureates affiliated with the university as faculty or students. The student body consists of over 13,000 undergraduate and 6,000 graduate students from all fifty states and one hundred and twenty-two countries. Cornell produces more graduates that go on to become doctors than any other university in the USA. It also produces the largest number of graduates in the life sciences who continue for Ph.D. degrees, and is ranked fourth in the world in producing the largest number of graduates who go on to pursue Ph.D.s at American institutions. Research is a central element of the university's mission; in 2006 Cornell spent $649 million on research and development. In 2007, Cornell ranked fifth among universities in the U.S. in fund-raising, collecting $406.2 million in private support.

Cornell was founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White as a coeducational, non-sectarian institution where admission was offered irrespective of religion or race. It was inaugurated shortly after the American Civil War; its founders intended that the new university would teach and make contributions in all fields of knowledge—from the classics to the sciences and from the theoretical to the applied. These ideals, unconventional for the time, are captured in Cornell's motto, an 1865 Ezra Cornell quotation: "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study."

Following the spirit of its motto, Cornell offers world-class educations in traditional liberal arts studies as well as in fields as diverse as engineering, agriculture, hotel administration, and city and regional planning. To accomodate this breadth of study, the university is organized into seven undergraduate colleges and seven graduate divisions at its main Ithaca campus, with each college and division defining its own academic programs in near autonomy. Cornell also administers two satellite medical campuses, one in New York City and one in Education City, Qatar. Since the mid-20th century, the university has been expanding both its campus resources and influence worldwide. From a new residential college housing system to its 2001 founding of its medical college in Qatar, Cornell claims "to serve society by educating the leaders of tomorrow and extending the frontiers of knowledge." Cornell is one of two private land grant universities, and its seven undergraduate colleges include four state-supported statutory or contract colleges.

Cornellians are persons affiliated with Cornell University, commonly including alumni, current and former faculty members, students, and others. Here follows a list of notable Cornellians.

40 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Cornell as faculty members or students, placing it among the top ten universities in the world in numbers of Nobel affiliates.

Cornell's faculty for the 2005-06 academic year included three Nobel laureates, a Crafoord Prize winner, two Turing Award winners, a Fields Medal winner, two Legion of Honor recipients, a World Food Prize winner, an Andrei Sakharov Prize winner, three National Medal of Science winners, two Wolf Prize winners, five MacArthur award winners, four Pulitzer Prize winners, two Eminent Ecologist Award recipients, a Carter G. Woodson Scholars Medallion recipient, four Presidential Early Career Award winners, 20 National Science Foundation CAREER grant holders, a recipient of the National Academy of Sciences Award for Initiatives in Research, a recipient of the American Mathematical Society's Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement, a recipient of the Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics, three Packard Foundation grant holders, a Keck Distinguished Young Scholar, two Beckman Foundation Young Investigator grant holders, and two NYSTAR (New York State Office of Science, Technology, and Academic Research) early career award winners.

University of California, Berkeley

2009-06-16T00:53:00.000-07:00

The University of California, Berkeley (also referred to as Cal, California, Berkeley and UC Berkeley) is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines. The university occupies 6,651 acres (2,692 ha) with the central campus resting on approximately 200 acres (80.9 ha).

The University was founded in 1868 in a merger of the private College of California and the public Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College. Berkeley was a founding member of the Association of American Universities. Sixty-two Nobel Laureates have been affiliated with the university as faculty, researchers, or alumni.

The Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked UC Berkeley 3rd internationally. Newsweek and Webometrics Ranking of World Universities ranked Berkeley 5th in the World. UC Berkeley ranks 1st among public universities and ranks 21st overall in the USNWR "National University" Ranking. It ranked 2nd for undergraduate engineering and 3rd for its undergraduate business program.

Organization and administration

Berkeley is the oldest of the ten major campuses of the University of California. The University of California is governed by a 26-member Board of Regents, 18 of which are appointed by the Governor of California to 12-year terms, 7 serving as ex officio members, and a single student regent.The position of Chancellor was created in 1952 to lead individual campuses. The Board appointed Robert J. Birgeneau to be the 9th Chancellor of the university in 2004.12 vice chancellors report directly to the Chancellor. The Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost serves as the chief academic officer and is the office to which the deans of the 14 colleges and schools report.

Haas School of Business

Berkeley's 130-plus academic departments and programs are organized into 14 colleges and schools. "Colleges" are both undergraduate and graduate, while "Schools" are generally graduate only, though some offer undergraduate majors, minors, or courses.

College of Chemistry
College of Engineering
College of Environmental Design
College of Letters and Science
College of Natural Resources
Graduate School of Education
Graduate School of Journalism
Haas School of Business
Goldman School of Public Policy
School of Information
School of Law
School of Optometry
School of Public Health
School of Social Welfare

The 2006-2007 budget totaled $1.7 billion; 33% came from the State of California. In 2006-2007, 7,850 donors contributed $267.9 million and the endowment was valued at $2.89 billion.

UC Berkeley employs 24,700 people directly and employees are permitted to unionize and are represtented by AFSCME, CNA, CUE, UAW, UC-AFT, and UPTE.

Notable people

List of Nobel laureates associated with University of California, Berkeley

14th Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren, BA 1912, J.D. 1914	Steven Chu, Ph.D. 1976, Nobel laureate and current United States Secretary of Energy	Norman Mineta, BS 1953, 14th United States Secretary of Transportation and namesake of the Mineta San Jose International Airport	Haakon Magnus, Crown Prince of Norway (center), BA 1999	First female Jennifer Granholm, BA 1984
Steve Wozniak, BS 1986, co-founder of Apple Computer	Gordon Moore, BS 1950, co-founder of semiconductor company Intel	Thomas Schelling, BA 1944, Nobel laureate	Hamilton O. Smith, BA 1952, Nobel laureate	Robert Laughlin, BA 1972, Nobel laureate
Andrew Fire, BA 1978, Nobel laureate	Dana Scott, BS 1954, recipient of the Turing Award	Turing Award laureate Ken Thompson (left), BS 1965, MS 1966, with fellow laureate and colleague Dennis Ritchie (right); together, they created Unix	The computer mouse was invented by Turing Award laureate Doug Engelbart, B. Eng. 1952, Ph.D. 1955	Jay Miner, BS 1959, "father of the Amiga computer"
Academy Award winning actor Gregory Peck, BA 1939	Academy Award winning documentary director Freida Lee Mock, BA 1961	Emmy- and Golden Globe Award- award winning actress Kathy Baker, BA 1977	Scott Adams, MBA 1986, creator of the comic strip Dilbert	Singer Stephan Jenkins, BA 1987, of Third Eye Blind
Guitarist Jade Puget, BA 1996, of AFI	Natalie Coughlin, BA 2005, Olympic gold medalist	Jonny Moseley, BA 2007, Olympic gold medalist	Tom Anderson, BA 1998, Co-founder and president of MySpace	Captain Glen Edwards, BS 1941, namesake of Edwards Air Force Base (where the space shuttle has landed 53 times )
Astronaut James van Hoften, BS 1966	Astronaut Margaret Rhea Seddon, BS 1970	First Chinese-American astronaut Leroy Chiao, BS 1983	Astronaut Rex Walheim, BS 1984	First repeat space tourist and Microsoft billionaire Charles Simonyi, BS 1972
Roxann Dawson, BA 1980, actress ( B'Elanna Torres on the television series Star Trek: Voyager), director, author, and playwright	Chris Pine, BA 2002, actor (Captain James Tiberius Kirk in the 2009 movie Star Trek)	John Cho, BA 1996, actor ( Hikaru Sulu in the 2009 movie Star Trek)	Celebrity chef Alice Waters, BA 1967, founder of Chez Panisse and the originator of California cuisine; food activist in the slow food movement	Lillian Moller Gilbreth,BA 1900, MA 1902, industrial/organizational psychologist and subject of the book (and film) Cheaper by the Dozen

Stanford University

2009-06-09T16:07:00.000-07:00

Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university located in Stanford, California, United States.

Stanford University was founded in 1885 by former California governor and senator Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane Lathrop Stanford, as a memorial to their son Leland Stanford Jr., who died of typhoid in Europe a few weeks before his 16th birthday. The Stanfords used their farm lands to establish the university hoping to create a large institution in California.

Stanford University enrolls about 6,700 undergraduate and about 8,000 graduate students from the United States and around the world every year. The university is divided into a number of schools such as the Stanford Business School, Stanford Law School, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford School of Engineering, etc.

Stanford University is in Silicon Valley, and its alumni have founded companies like Nike, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Nvidia, Yahoo!, Cisco Systems, Silicon Graphics and Google.

Faculty residences One of the benefits of being a Stanford faculty member is the "Faculty Ghetto," where faculty members can live within walking or biking distance of campus. Similar to a condominium, the houses can be bought and sold but the land under the houses is rented. The Faculty Ghetto is composed of land owned entirely by Stanford. A faculty member cannot buy a lot, but he or she can buy a house, renting the underlying land on a 99-year lease. The cost of owning a house in Silicon Valley remains high, however, and the average price of single family homes on campus is actually higher than in Palo Alto. The rapid capital gains of Silicon Valley landowners are enjoyed by Stanford, although Stanford, by the terms of its founding cannot sell the land. Houses in the "Ghetto" may appreciate or may depreciate but not as rapidly as overall Silicon Valley land prices.

Stanford University alumni started companies including Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, NVIDIA, SGI, VMware, MIPS Technologies Yahoo!, Google, Sadim Enterpises, and Sun Microsystems—indeed, "Sun" originally stood for "Stanford University Network."

Stanford University's current community of scholars includes: 18 Nobel Prize laureates; 135 members of the National Academy of Sciences; 82 members of National Academy of Engineering; 224 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; 21 recipients of the National Medal of Science; three recipients of the National Medal of Technology; 26 members of the National Academy of Education; 41 members of American Philosophical Society; 4 Pulitzer Prize winners; 23 MacArthur Fellows; 7 Wolf Foundation Prize winners; 7 Koret Foundation Prize winners; 7 Presidential Medal of Freedom winners. NFL quarterbacks Jim Plunkett and John Elway, NFL receiver Gordon Banks, MLB left-fielder Carlos Quentin, and U.S. President Herbert Hoover are alumni.

Harvard University

2009-05-20T16:48:00.000-07:00

Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. It is also the first and oldest corporation in North America. Harvard University is made up of ten schools.

Initially called "New College" or "the college at New Towne", the institution was renamed Harvard College on March 13, 1639. It was named after a young clergyman named John Harvard, who bequeathed the College his library of four hundred books and £779 (which was half of his estate). The earliest known official reference to Harvard as a "university" occurs in the new Massachusetts Constitution of 1780.

During his 40-year tenure as Harvard president (1869–1909), Charles William Eliot radically transformed Harvard into the pattern of the modern research university. Eliot's reforms included elective courses, small classes, and entrance examinations. The Harvard model influenced American education nationally, at both college and secondary levels.

Harvard is consistently ranked at or near the top of international college and university rankings, and has the second-largest financial endowment of any non-profit organization (behind the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), standing at $28.8 billion as of 2008. Harvard and Yale have been rivals in academics, rowing, and football for most of their history, competing annually in The Game and the Harvard-Yale Regatta.

Harvard is governed by two boards, one of which is the President and Fellows of Harvard College, also known as the Harvard Corporation and founded in 1650, and the other is the Harvard Board of Overseers. The President of Harvard University is the day-to-day administrator of Harvard and is appointed by and responsible to the Harvard Corporation.

Harvard today has nine faculties, listed below in order of foundation:

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences and its sub-faculty, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which together serve:
- Harvard College, the university's undergraduate portion (1636)
- The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (organized 1872)
- The Harvard Division of Continuing Education, including Harvard Extension School (1909) and Harvard Summer School (1871)
The Faculty of Medicine, including the Medical School">Medical School (1782) and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine (1867).
Harvard Divinity School (1816)
Harvard Law School (1817)
Harvard Business School (1908)
The Graduate School of Design (1914)
The Graduate School of Education (1920)
The School of Public Health (1922)
The John F. Kennedy School of Government (1936)

In 1999, the former Radcliffe College was reorganized as the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT

2009-05-18T02:03:00.000-07:00

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological research. MIT is one of two private land-grant universities[b] and is also a sea-grant and space-grant university.

MIT is chartered as a non-profit organization and is owned and governed by a privately-appointed board of trustees known as the MIT Corporation. The current board, with 74 members drawn from scientific, engineering, industry, education, and public service leaders, is chaired by Dana G. Mead. The corporation approves the budget, new programs, degrees, and faculty appointments as well as electing the President to serve as the chief executive officer of the university and presiding over the Institute's faculty. Susan Hockfield is the 16th president and has served since December 2004. MIT's endowment and other financial assets are managed through a subsidiary MIT Investment Management Company (MITIMCo). Valued at $10.068 billion in 2008, MIT's endowment is the sixth-largest among American colleges and universities.

MIT is "a university polarized around science, engineering, and the arts." It has five schools (Science, Engineering, Architecture and Planning, Management, and Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences) and one college (Whitaker College of Health Sciences and Technology), but no schools of law or medicine. The chair of each of MIT's 32 academic departments reports to the dean of that department's school, who in turn reports to the Provost under the President. However, faculty committees assert substantial control over many areas of MIT's curriculum, research, student life, and administrative affairs.

MIT students refer to both their majors and classes using numbers or acronyms alone. Majors are numbered in the approximate order of when the department was founded; for example, Civil and Environmental Engineering is Course I, while Nuclear Science & Engineering is Course XXII. Students majoring in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, the most popular department, collectively identify themselves as "Course VI." MIT students use a combination of the department's course number and the number assigned to the class to identify their subjects; the course which many American universities would designate as "Physics 101" is, at MIT, simply "8.01."

University

2009-05-13T07:02:00.002-07:00

A university is an institution of higher education and research. A university grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education. The word university is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, roughly meaning "community of teachers and scholars".

Across the world there are differing standards for the legal definition of the term "university" and formal accreditation of institutions. There is no nationally standardized definition of the term in the United States, although the term is primarily used to designate research institutions and is often reserved for doctorate-granting institutions, but some US states, such as Massachusetts, will only grant a school "university status" if it grants at least two doctoral degrees.

In the United Kingdom, an institution can only use the term if it has been granted by the Privy Council, under the terms of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992.

In many regions of the world, a university is any institution of higher education and research which grants autonomously a range of academic degrees in several fields, from bachelor's degrees to doctorate degrees, including masters' degrees, as well as honoris causa degrees and agrégation/habilitation diplomas in the places where these are used. Independently performed research conducted by universities includes both fundamental research and applied research.