École Normale Supérieure Paris

The École normale supérieure (also known as Normale Sup', Normale, ENS, ENS-Paris, ENS-Ulm or Ulm) is a prestigious French grande école, possibly the most prestigious. This establishment of higher education, with small attendance, focuses on training future academics in a variety of fields.

History

The École normale supérieure of today is the result of the merger, completed in 1985 between the École normale supérieure of the rue d'Ulm and the École normale supérieure de jeunes filles (Sèvres).

The first began in 1794. 9 Brumaire an III, on the report Lakanal speaking on behalf of the Committee of Public Instruction, the Convention decreed that "it is established in Paris a Normal School, which will be invited from all parts of the Republic, citizens who are already educated in the sciences useful to learn under the most skilled teachers in every genre, the art of teaching. "

The École normale supérieure de Sèvres was established in 1881, one year after the Act Sée (1880) on secondary education of girls, and three years before the creation of an aggregation of women in science (1884).

The decree of 26 August 1987, which establishes the new school provides in Article 2 that "The ENS is preparing a cultural and scientific high-level, students intending to basic or applied scientific research at the university education and in the preparatory classes for the Grandes Ecoles and secondary education and, more generally, for the State administrations and local authorities, their public institutions and enterprises. "

Campus

Its main campus is located around the rue d'Ulm (Ulm Street, the main building being at 45, rue d'Ulm) in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. The ENS has annex campuses on Boulevard Jourdan (48.822439, 2.331312, in Paris) and in Montrouge (a suburb; 48.820742, 2.315180), as well as a biology annex in the countryside at Foljuif.

Three other "écoles normales supérieures" have been established: the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (sciences); the École Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines (humanities) in Lyon; the École Normale Supérieure de Cachan (pure and applied sciences, sociology, economics and management, English language) in Cachan. They make up the informal ENS-group. For this reason the ENS in Paris is often called 'ENS-Paris' or 'ENS-Ulm'.

Originally meant to train high school teachers through the agrégation, it is now an institution training researchers, professors, high-level civil servants, as well as business and political leaders. It focuses on the association of training and research, with an emphasis on freedom of curriculum.

Its alumni include eight laureates of the Fields Medal (all French holders of the Fields medal were educated at the École Normale Supérieure), which is the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for the mathematical sciences, as well as Nobel Prize winners in both science and literature.

As in many other grandes écoles, the ENS mostly enrolls its students two or three years after high school. The majority of them come from prépas (preparatory classes, see grandes écoles) and have to pass France's most selective competitive exams. Studies at ENS last four years. Many devote the third year to the agrégation which allows them to teach in high schools or universities. ENS-Ulm annually enrolls about 100 students in science and 100 in the humanities.

The normaliens, as the students of the ENS are known, keep a level of excellence in the various disciplines in which they are trained. Normaliens from France and other European Union countries are considered civil servants in training, and as such paid a monthly salary, in exchange for an agreement to serve France for 10 years, including those of studies. Although it is seldom applied in practice, this exclusivity clause is redeemable (often by the hiring firm).

Apart from the normaliens, ENS also welcomes select foreign students ("international selection"), as well as select students from neighboring universities, to follow the same curriculum but without the reception of a stipend. It also participates in various graduate programs and has extensive research laboratories.

The professors at the ENS are called the "caïmans", and the goldfish in the pond the "Ernests".

The fictitious mathematician Nicolas Bourbaki's "association of collaborators" is based at ENS.

The Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa was founded in 1810 as a branch of the École normale supérieure and later gained independence.

The ENS group has opened a branch at the ECNU in Shanghai.

Academics

Training through research at the ENS involves a wide range of scientific disciplines and literary whose teachings are grouped in thirteen departments or literary and scientific sections (biology, chemistry, cognitive studies, geography, history, science, literature and languages, pure and applied mathematics, philosophy, physics, sciences of antiquity, social sciences, earth-atmosphere-ocean). In each of these departments or sections, research laboratories and educational services are closely intertwined. If the original mission to train teachers remains the essential purpose of the School, it has considerably expanded our days, and opportunities of students are very diverse.

It entered the contest by ENS at the end of at least two years of college. Schooling at the École normale supérieure lasts four years. It starts with an undergraduate training provided by a second cycle (Bachelor, Master) and DEA, which usually hold two to three years of schooling (in science, These lessons are grouped into a master). It continues in principle by the beginning of a thesis, and has possibly at a variable fees, the preparation of an aggregation. In these four years, during which the normaliens french and European officials are paid as interns (about 1200 Euros per month), may be added, ongoing studies, one or two years' leave without pay which is often abroad with scholarships and exchange agreements.

Students make a university to get their diplomas and Master's Degree, usually in the context of masters cohabilités by ENS where they can be enrolled in the ENS.

In addition, the School issues a certificate of establishment that punishes the training it provides. This training leads to the preparation of the PhD, often from the 4th grade, and also hosts students from preparatory schools to large universities or French or foreign, selected according to criteria of excellence

The influence abroad of the university can be seen by its positioning in international university rankings. In the 2006 THES - QS World University Rankings, the university ranked 18th in the world, and 5th in Europe.

ENS-Paris ranked 26th in the 2007 THES-QS World University Ranking

ENS-Paris ranked 28th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking
ENS-Paris ranked 28th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking
ENS-Paris ranked 33rd in the 2010 QS World University Ranking

ENS-Paris ranked 33rd in the 2011 QS World University Ranking

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

The Johns Hopkins University, founded in 1876, is a private institution of higher learning located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States.

Johns Hopkins offers its main undergraduate and graduate programs at the Homewood campus in Baltimore and maintains full-time campuses in greater Maryland, Washington, D.C., Italy, and China. Johns Hopkins was the first university in the United States to emphasize research, applying the German university model developed by Wilhelm von Humboldt and Friedrich Schleiermacher.

History

The Johns Hopkins University is named for Johns Hopkins, who left $7 million in his 1867 incorporation papers and 1873 will for the foundation of the university and Johns Hopkins Hospital. At the time, this was the largest philanthropic bequest in U.S. history, the equivalent of over $131 million in the year 2006. Hopkins is no stranger to significant monetary gifts; in 2001, Sidney Kimmel, founder and chairman of Jones Apparel Group, donated $150 million for cancer research. Though Kimmel’s gift is the largest single gift in the university’s history, alumnus Michael Bloomberg's confirmed personal donations total over $200 million. Bloomberg, whose first donation of $5 was given in 1964, the year he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering, is the largest individual benefactor in the university's history.

The university opened on February 22, 1876, with the stated goal of "The encouragement of research... and the advancement of individual scholars, who by their excellence will advance the sciences they pursue, and the society where they dwell."The university's first president was Daniel Coit Gilman. Its motto in Latin is Veritas vos liberabit – "The truth shall make you free." The undergraduate student population at Hopkins was all male until 1970 although many graduate programs were integrated earlier.

Johns Hopkins was the first American research university,and the first American university to teach through seminars, instead of solely through lectures. The university was the first in America to offer an undergraduate major (as opposed to a purely liberal arts curriculum) and the first American university to grant doctoral degrees. Johns Hopkins was a model for most large research universities in the United States, particularly the University of Chicago.

Johns Hopkins is particularly regarded for its hospital and schools of medicine, public health, and international studies. The Johns Hopkins Hospital was ranked as the top hospital in the United States for the seventeenth year in a row by the U.S. News and World Report annual ranking of American hospitals. For medical research, U.S. News ranked the School of Medicine second nationally and School of Public Health first nationally for 2007, and, in an August 2005 study, the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) was ranked as the top master's program in international relations.

Academics

Homewood Campus

The original main university campus was in downtown Baltimore City. However, this location did not permit room for growth and the trustees began to look for a place to move. Eventually, they would relocate to the estate of Charles Carroll of Carrollton and Homewood House, a wedding gift from Charles to his son Charles Jr.

The park-like main campus of Johns Hopkins, Homewood, is set on 140 acres (0.57 km²) in the northern part of Baltimore. The architecture was modeled after the Georgian-inspired Federalist style of Homewood House. Most newer buildings resemble this style, being built of red brick with white marble trim, but lack the details. Homewood House was later used for administrative offices but now is preserved as a museum.

Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences: Located at the university’s Homewood campus, the Krieger School is the core institution of the university and offers undergraduate and graduate programs,[with more than 60 undergraduate majors and minors and more than 40 full-time and part-time graduate programs.

G.W.C Whiting School of Engineering: The Whiting School is located on the main Homewood campus of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and offers undergraduate and graduate engineering programs.

School of Education: The School of Education was established in 2007, incorporating divisions of the former School of Professional Studies in Business and Education.

Medical Institutions campus.

School of Medicine: The School of Medicine is headquartered at the university's Medical Institutions campus in East Baltimore with Johns Hopkins Hospital. The School of Medicine is widely regarded as one of the best medical schools and biomedical research institutes in the world.

School of Nursing: The School of Nursing, is located in East Baltimore and is affiliated with Johns Hopkins Hospital and the School of Medicine

Bloomberg School of Public Health: The Bloomberg School was founded in 1916, is the first and largest public health school in the world. It has consistently been ranked the number one school of public health by U.S. News & World Report.

Downtown Baltimore

Carey Business School: The Carey Business School was established in 2007, incorporating divisions of the former School of Professional Studies in Business and Education.

Peabody Institute: founded in 1857, is the oldest continuously active music conservatory in the United States. Located in Baltimore's Mount Vernon neighborhood, it became a division of Johns Hopkins in 1977. The Conservatory retains its own student body and grants its own degrees in musicology, though both Hopkins and Peabody students may take courses at both institutions.

Washington D.C.

Johns Hopkins' Washington, DC campus located near Dupont Circle is home to the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and the part-time graduate program Advanced Academic Programs (AAP). SAIS is devoted to international studies, particularly international relations, diplomacy, and economics.

Laurel, MD

Applied Physics Laboratory: The university operates the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, which specializes in research for the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA and other Government agencies. The Space Telescope Science Institute is located on the Homewood campus and controls, analyzes, and collects data from the Hubble Space Telescope.

At the collegiate level, in its annual National Universities ranking U.S. News placed The Johns Hopkins University 14th (tied with Brown University and Northwestern University) for 2008,up from 16th in 2007. Hopkins ranked 8th in that publication's peer assessment category this year, and is also one of a select group of universities to have ever been top 10 in the nation overall.

Meanwhile, comprehensively, the 2007 Academic Ranking of World Universities, popularized by The Economist and produced by Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Institute of Higher Education, ranked Johns Hopkins 19th amongst universities globally in terms of quality of scientific research leading towards numerous awards. Further, in the annual rankings by the The Times Higher Education Supplement, based on a subjective peer review by scholars, Hopkins placed 10th nationally and 15th worldwide.. Finally, in its 2007 evaluation of universities on the dual basis of distinction in research and international diversity, Newsweek ranked the Johns Hopkins University 15th worldwide.

Johns Hopkins University ranked 15th in the 2007 THES-QS World University Ranking

Johns Hopkins University ranked 13th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

Johns Hopkins University ranked 13th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

Johns Hopkins University ranked 17th in the 2010 THES-QS World University Ranking

Johns Hopkins University ranked 16th in the 2011 THES-QS World University Ranking

McGill University

McGill University is a publicly funded, co-educational research university located in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. McGill's main campus is set upon 320,000 square metres (80 acres) at the foot of Mount Royal in Montreal's downtown district. A second campus—Macdonald Campus—is situated on 6.5 square kilometres (1,600 acres) of fields and forested land in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, 30 kilometres west of the downtown campus. McGill has 21 faculties and professional schools and offers degrees and diplomas in over 300 fields of study. The university also has field research stations in Mont-Saint-Hilaire and Schefferville, Quebec; Axel Heiberg Island in Nunavut; and Holetown, Barbados.

History

McGill was founded in 1821 from a bequest by James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant, who left an endowment in addition to the property on which the university now stands. McGill would become the first non-denominational university in the British Empire.

McGill's Redpath Museum, commissioned in 1880 and opened in 1882, is the oldest building built specifically as a museum in North America. Its natural history collections boast material collected by the same individuals who founded the collections of the Royal Ontario Museum and the Smithsonian.

Resting at the foot of Mont Royal, McGill University owes its origins to the vision and philanthropy of James McGill, a wealthy fur trader and merchant who left £10,000 and a 46-acre estate towards the establishment of a college or a university bearing his name.

Founded in 1821, "McGill College" began holding classes on January 27 in 1829 in the merchant's former country house. Four years later, the College awarded a Doctor of Medicine and Surgery to its first graduate, William Leslie Logie. Construction on the Arts Building began in 1839, as the college had quickly outgrown the country house. This iconic structure still anchors the downtown campus today.

The Importance of Philanthropy
Philanthropy continued to shape McGill in the ensuing decades. With the arrival of the charismatic and world-renowned geologist, Sir William Dawson, Principal from 1855-1893, McGill grew in both size and prestige. Under his leadership, the great benefactors of the day—Lord Strathcona, Sir William Macdonald, William Molson and Peter Redpath—supported a major expansion of campus, which included the construction of more than ten new buildings. In 1885, the name McGill University was formally adopted by the college's Board of Governors.

A Tradition of Innovation
With investment came innovation and progress. Lord Strathcona established a special fund for the education of women which led to the admission of McGill's first female students in 1884. One graduate, Carrie Derick, BA1890, was the first woman to become a professor in Canada, teaching botany at McGill. Large gifts from Sir William Macdonald around the turn of the century allowed McGill to add a second campus in Ste Anne de Bellevue and attract professors such as Ernest Rutherford, whose Nobel Prize-winning research on the nature of the radioactivity began a long tradition of McGill innovation, which has included the invention of the world's first artificial cell and Plexiglas.

Rapid Growth
McGill's reputation for excellence continued to grow as the post-war years dramatically transformed the University. The influx of returning soldiers, and then the Baby Boom generation tripled McGill's enrolment. The shift from a purely private institution to a publicly funded one opened its doors to more students. At the same time, the campus grew, with modern concrete and glass structures springing up alongside McGill's older stone buildings.

General Information

McGill's student population includes, both full-time and part-time, 23,758 undergraduate and 7,323 graduate students in over 340 academic programs in eleven faculties (as of 2007-2008). Its students represent a diverse geographic and linguistic background. Of the entire student population, 57.3% are from Quebec, while 23.7% come from the rest of Canada, and 19.0% are international. As their mother tongue, 52.8% of all students speak English, while 18.1% speak French, and 29.1% speak a language other than English or French.

About 90% of students ranked in the top 10% of their high school graduating class.McGill has produced 128 Rhodes Scholars, more than any other Canadian university, as well as seven Nobel Laureates.

Nearly 30% of all students are enrolled in the Faculty of Arts, McGill's largest academic unit. Of the other larger faculties, the Centre for Continuing Education enrolls 13%, the Faculty of Science enrolls 14%, and the Faculty of Engineering enrolls 10%. The Desautels Faculty of Management enrolls 10%, and the Faculty of Medicine enrolls 12%. The remainder of all students are enrolled in McGill's smaller schools, including the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Dentistry, Faculty of Education, Faculty of Law, Schulich School of Music, and the Faculty of Religious Studies.

Comprising nearly 20% of the university's student body, international students are a significant presence on the McGill campus. The majority of McGill's international students are from the United States, making up 37% of all international students and 49% of all undergraduate international students. A growing number of American students are attending McGill, with such students representing 9.7% of all undergraduates and 6.9% of all students at the university.

Many are attracted to the culture and dynamism of Montreal, the university's reputation, and the relatively low tuition in comparison to many top public and private universities in the United States. However, this trend is being repeated at many other Canadian universities, particularly those close to the Canada/U.S. border. In turn, many Canadian universities, including McGill, are stepping up their recruitment efforts at U.S. high schools.

Academics

McGill faculties and Schools

Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

Faculty of Arts

Centre for Continuing Education

Faculty of Dentistry

Faculty of Education

Faculty of Engineering

Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies

Faculty of Law

Desautels Faculty of Management

Faculty of Medicine

Schulich School of Music

Faculty of Religious Studies

Faculty of Science

Since 1996, McGill, in accordance with the Ministère de l'Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport (MELS), has had eight categories qualifying certain international students an exemption from paying international fees. These categories include students from France, a quota of students from select countries which have agreements with MELS (including Algeria, China, and Morocco), students holding diplomatic status (and their dependants), and students enrolled in certain language programs leading to a degree in French.

There are nearly 1,600 tenured or tenure-track professors, plus another 4,300 adjunct and visiting professors teaching at the university.McGill consistently leads the rest of Canada in terms of research dollars per full-time faculty member and number of refereed publications per full-time faculty member. According to a study by Research Infosource, research funding represents approximately $259,100 per faculty member, the fourth highest in the country. Overall, in 2007, Research Infosource ranked McGill the second-best research university in the country, after the University of Toronto.McGill also has one of the most per faculty research dollars nationwide from federal and provincial sources of funding (including the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council).

McGill professors have won 26 Prix du Québec, 14 Prix de l'Association francophone pour le savoir and 13 Killam Prizes.

McGill is Canada's top-ranked medical-doctoral university, ranking first in Canada for the third consecutive year in the Maclean's 17th annual University Rankings issue. The university has held first place in student awards for nine consecutive years, and consistently ranks first for reputation and average size and number of social sciences/humanities grants per full-time faculty.

In the THES - QS World University Rankings 2007, McGill University was ranked the best public university in North America, 8th overall in North America, and 12th in the world. In the world, McGill ranked 26th in the natural sciences, 10th in the life sciences and biomedicine, 27th in technology, 12th in the social sciences, and 12th in the humanities. This achievement has been regarded as the "highest rank to be reached by a Canadian institution."

Shanghai Jiao Tong University, in its Academic Ranking of World Universities 2007, ranked McGill third in Canada, 44th in the Americas, and 63nd in the world.

In 2006, Newsweek also ranked McGill third in Canada, 30th in North America, and 42nd worldwide.

McGill is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization of research-intensive universities in North America. It is also a member of Universitas 21, an international association of research-driven universities. In addition, it is a member of the G13, a group of prominent research universities in Canada.

McGill University ranked 11th in the 2007 THES-QS World University Ranking

McGill University ranked 20th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking
McGill University ranked 18th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking
McGill University ranked 19th in the 2010 QS World University Ranking

McGill University ranked 17th in the 2011 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. Founded in 1890 by the American Baptist Education Society and the oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, the University of Chicago held its first classes on October 1, 1892, and was a founding member of the Big Ten Conference. Chicago was one of the first universities in the country to be conceived as a combination of the American interdisciplinary liberal arts college and the German research university.

Affiliated with 81 Nobel Prize laureates, the University of Chicago is widely regarded as one of the world's foremost universities. Historically, the university is noted for the unique undergraduate core curriculum pioneered by Robert Maynard Hutchins in the 1930s, and for influential academic movements such as the Chicago School of Economics, the Chicago School of Sociology, the Chicago School of Literary Criticism, and the law and economics movement in legal analysis. The University of Chicago was the site of the world's first man-made self-sustaining nuclear reaction. It is also home to the largest university press in the United States.

The University of Chicago is principally located seven miles (11 km) south of downtown Chicago, in the Hyde Park and Woodlawn neighborhoods. The campus is bisected by Frederick Law Olmsted's Midway Plaisance, a large linear park created for the 1893 World's Fair. While the bulk of the campus is located north of the Midway, some of the professional schools are located south of the Midway. The quadrangles of the main campus feature a botanical garden and neo-Gothic buildings constructed mostly out of limestone in the late 19th century. The tallest building is Rockefeller Chapel, designed by Bertram Goodhue. Buildings of the original quadrangles were deliberately patterned after the layouts of Oxford University and Cambridge University. Mitchell Tower, for example, is a smaller-sized reproduction of Oxford's Magdalen Tower, and the University Commons, Hutchinson Hall, is a duplicate of Oxford's Christ Church Hall.

Contemporary buildings have attempted to complement the style of the original architecture. Notable examples include the Laird Bell Law Quadrangle by Eero Saarinen, the School of Social Service Administration by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and the Robie House by Frank Lloyd Wright. The largest modern addition is the Regenstein Library, designed by architect Walter Netsch and constructed on the grounds of the former Stagg Field, the site of the world's first nuclear reaction.



The University of Chicago also maintains a number of facilities apart from its main campus. The university's Graduate School of Business maintains campuses in Singapore, London and in downtown Chicago, while the Paris Center, a campus located on the left bank of the River Seine in Paris, hosts various undergraduate and graduate study programs.

The university's Yerkes Observatory, constructed in 1897 and located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, is home to the largest refracting telescope ever built. Although Yerkes was never able to match the observation conditions afforded by the mountaintop location of its main competitor, the Lick Observatory, the telescope was a leader in astrophysics. Yerkes was the first telescope to determine the spiral structure of the Milky Way Galaxy and the first to observe carbon in stellar spectra.

The University of Chicago campus is also home to the Oriental Institute, an internationally renowned archeology museum and research center for ancient Near Eastern studies. The Institute is housed in an unusual Gothic and Art Deco building designed by the architectural firm Mayers Murray & Phillip. The Museum has artifacts from digs in Egypt, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. Notable possessions include the famous Megiddo Ivories, various treasures from Persepolis, the old Persian capital, a 40-ton human-headed winged lamassu from Khorsabad, the capital of Sargon II, and a monumental statue of King Tutankhamun.

Across the street from the Oriental Institute is the Seminary Co-op bookstore, located in the basement of the Chicago Theological Seminary. The Co-op stocks the largest selection of academic volumes in the United States.

The University of Chicago's economics department is particularly well-known. In fact, an entire school of thought (the Chicago School of Economics) bears its name. Led by Nobel Prize laureates such as Milton Friedman, Ronald Coase, George Stigler, Gary Becker, Robert Lucas, James Heckman, and Robert Fogel, the university's economics department has played an important role in shaping ideas about the free market. The Chicago School of Economics is also famous for applying economic principles to every aspect of human life, as famously demonstrated by University of Chicago Professor Steven Levitt in his best-selling book, Freakonomics.

The university is also known for creating the first sociology department in the United States, which later gave birth to the Chicago School of Sociology. Scholars affiliated with this school are considered pioneers in the field and include Albion Small, George Herbert Mead, Robert E. Park, W. I. Thomas, and Ernest Burgess.

The university is home to several committees for interdisciplinary scholarship, the most famous of which is the Committee on Social Thought. One of several Ph.D-granting committees at the university, it was started in 1941 by University of Chicago president Robert Maynard Hutchins along with historian John U. Nef, economist Frank Knight, and anthropologist Robert Redfield. The committee is interdisciplinary, but it is not centered on any specific topic. Since its inception, the committee has drawn together noted academics and writers to "foster awareness of the permanent questions at the origin of all learned inquiry". Members of the committee have included Hannah Arendt, T. S. Eliot, David Grene, Leo Strauss, Allan Bloom, Friedrich von Hayek, Leon Kass, Mark Strand, Wayne Booth, Joseph Rutherford Hicks, and J.M. Coetzee.

In 1983, the University of Chicago implemented the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project, a comprehensive mathematics program for students from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Today, an estimated 3.5 to 4 million students in elementary and secondary schools in every state and virtually every major urban area are now using UCSMP materials.

Academics

Biological Sciences Division
Booth School of Business
The College (undergraduate studies)
Divinity School
Graham School of General Studies
Harris School of Public Policy Studies
Humanities Division
Law School
Physical Sciences Division
Pritzker School of Medicine
School of Social Service Administration
Social Sciences Division

University of Chicago ranked 7th (tied with Caltech) in the 2007 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Chicago ranked 8th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Chicago ranked 7th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Chicago ranked 8th in the 2010 QS World University Ranking

University of Chicago ranked 8th in the 2011 QS World University Ranking

California Institute of Technology

The California Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Caltech) is a private, coeducational research university located in Pasadena, California, in the United States. Caltech maintains a strong emphasis on the natural sciences and engineering. Caltech also operates and manages the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), an autonomous-space-flight complex that oversees the design and operation of most of NASA's space-probes. Caltech is a small school, with only about 2100 students, but is ranked in the top 10 universities worldwide by metrics such as citation index, Nobel Prizes, and general university rankings.

History

Caltech began as a vocational school founded in Pasadena in 1891 by local businessman and politician Amos G. Throop. The school was known successively as Throop University, Throop Polytechnic Institute, and Throop College of Technology, before acquiring its current name in 1921. Caltech and the Polytechnic School, a private, college-preparatory academy across the street, were part of the same institution until 1907.

Astronomer George Ellery Hale played an important role in Caltech's early development, helping to mold the school into a major scientific institution. Hale joined Throop's board of trustees after coming to Pasadena in 1907 as the first director of the Mount Wilson Observatory. At a time when scientific research in the United States was still in its infancy, Hale saw an opportunity to create in Pasadena an institution for serious research and education in engineering and the natural sciences. Hale succeeded in attracting private gifts of land and money that were used to build well-equipped, modern laboratory facilities. He then convinced two of the leading American scientists of the time, physical chemist Arthur Amos Noyes and experimental physicist Robert Andrews Millikan, to join Caltech's faculty and assist in establishing the college as a center for science and technology.




In 1917 Hale hired architect Bertram Goodhue to produce a master plan for the 22-acre (89,000 m²) campus. Goodhue conceived the overall layout of the campus and designed the physics building, Dabney Hall, and several other structures, in which he sought to be consistent with the local climate, the character of the school, and Hale's educational philosophy. Goodhue's designs for Caltech were also influenced by the traditional Spanish mission architecture of Southern California.

Caltech remains, to this day, a small and highly focused university, with approximately 900 undergraduates, 1300 graduate students, and over 1000 faculty members (including 293 professors, 104 emeritus professors, 66 permanent research faculty, 87 visiting faculty, and over 500 postdoctoral scholars). A private institution, Caltech is governed by its Board of Trustees.


As of 2006, Caltech has 31 Nobel laureates to its name. This figure includes 17 alumni, 14 non-alumni professors, and 4 professors who were also alumni (Carl D. Anderson, Linus Pauling, William A. Fowler, and Edward B. Lewis). The number of awards is 32, because Pauling received prizes in both Chemistry and Peace. With fewer than 25,000 alumni in total, nearly one in a thousand have received the Nobel Prize — a ratio unmatched by any other university. Five faculty and alumni have received a Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, while 47 have been awarded the U.S. National Medal of Science, and 10 have received the National Medal of Technology.Other distinguished researchers have been affiliated with Caltech as postdoctoral scholars (e.g., Barbara McClintock, James D. Watson, and Sheldon Glashow) or visiting professors (e.g., Albert Einstein and Edward Witten).

The Spitzer Science Center (SSC), located on the Caltech campus, is the data analysis and community support center for NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
The SSC, part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), works in collaboration with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Academics

Caltech is divided into six divisions, each of which offer several degree programs, plus a number of interdisciplinary programs. The six divisions are:
Division of Biology
Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
Division of Engineering and Applied Science
Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences
Division of Humanities and Social Sciences
Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy

California Institute of Technology ranked 7th in the 2007 THES-QS World University ranking

California Institute of Technology ranked 5th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

California Institute of Technology ranked 10th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

California Institute of Technology ranked 9th in the 2010 QS World University Ranking

California Institute of Technology ranked 12th in the 2011 QS World University Ranking

Leicester University

The University of Leicester is a major research led university based in Leicester, England, with approximately eighteen thousand registered students - about ten thousand of them full-time students, and six thousand of them distance-learning students. The main campus is about a mile from the city centre, adjacent to Victoria Park and Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I College.

The University was founded as Leicestershire and Rutland College in 1918. The site for the University was donated by a local textile manufacturer, Thomas Fielding Johnson, in order to create a living memorial for those who lost their lives in World War I. This is reflected in the University's motto Ut Vitam Habeant — 'so that they may have life'. The central building, now known as the Fielding Johnson building and housing the University's administration offices and Faculty of Law, dates from 1837 and was formerly the Leicestershire and Rutland Lunatic Asylum.

Students were first admitted to the college in 1921. In 1927, after it became University College, Leicester, students sat the examinations for external degrees of the University of London. In 1957 the college was granted its Royal Charter, and has since then had the status of a University with the right to award its own degrees. The University won the first ever series of University Challenge, in 1963.


Two names commonly associated with the University of Leicester are Richard and David Attenborough. Their father Frederick Attenborough was Principal of the University College from 1932 until 1951. The brothers grew up on the campus (with their younger brother John), in a house which is currently home to the careers service (and is now near to the Attenborough tower, the tallest building on the campus and home to many of the arts and humanities departments). They were educated at the adjacent grammar school before attending the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the University of Cambridge respectively. Both have maintained links with the university - David Attenborough was made an honorary Doctor of Letters in 1970 and opened the Attenborough Arboretum in Knighton in 1997. In the same year, the Richard Attenborough Centre for Disability and the Arts was opened by Diana, Princess of Wales. Both brothers were made Distinguished Honorary Fellows of the University at the 13 July 2006 afternoon degree ceremony.

History

The University of Leicester is one of the older universities in the country. Founded in 1921 with nine students, the fledgling college gained full degree-awarding powers in 1957 when it was granted its Royal Charter.

The site for the University was given by a local textile manufacturer, Thomas Fielding Johnson, in order to create a living memorial for those who gave their lives in the First World War. This is reflected in the University motto 'Ut Vitam Habeant' - so that they may have life.

Famous names associated with the University include: Lord Richard and Sir David Attenborough; poet Philip Larkin; authors C.P. Snow, Malcolm Bradbury and Sue Townsend; astronaut Jeff Hoffman; astronomers Patrick Moore and Heather Couper; TV personalities Michael Nicholson and Sue Cook; the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir John Stevens; the Government's Chief Medical Officer, Professor Liam Donaldson and comic Bob Mortimer.

Academics

The University is organised into six faculties:

Faculty of Medicine and Biological Sciences
Faculty of Arts
Faculty of Law
Faculty of Science
Faculty of Social Sciences (expanded in 2004 to include the Faculty of Education)
Faculty of Engineering

Leceister University ranked:

185th in the 2007 THES-QS World University Ranking

177th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

196th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

169th in the 2010 QS World University Ranking

195th in the 2011 QS World University Rankings

University of Geneva

University of Geneva

The University of Geneva (Université de Genève) is a university in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded by John Calvin in 1559. Initially a theological seminary, it also taught law. It remained heavily theological into the 17th century, at which point it began adding other disciplines as it became a center for Enlightenment scholarship. In 1873 it dropped its religious associations and acquired the secular status of University. Today The University of Geneva is the second largest university in Switzerland and it plays a leading role in many fields–its location in Geneva gives it a prime location for diplomatic and international affairs studies, and it is also considered among the top scientific research universities in Europe, making notable discoveries in planetary science and genetics, among other fields. It pursues three missions: teaching (classes are, in general, taught in French), research, and service to the wider community.

It is a member of the Coimbra Group and the LERU. In 2006, it was revealed that several professors were suspected of fraud. A full investigation revealed that some of them claimed travel expenses for trips which never happenend, while others failed to inform the University that they were receiving salaries from other bodies than the University, even though they are legally required to do so and give a share of these salaries back to the University. One of the professors suspected was vice-rector of the University, which prompted the rector and the vice-rectors to resign as of 1 August 2006. As of July 2006, a full investigation is in progress.

In an article published on August 13, 2006 by the American magazine Newsweek, the University of Geneva was ranked the 32nd best global university in the world. Schools were evaluated on some of the measures used in well-known rankings published by Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Times Higher Education Survey. Fifty percent of the score came from equal parts of three measures used by Shanghai Jiatong: the number of highly-cited researchers in various academic fields, the number of articles published in Nature and Science, and the number of articles listed in the ISI Social Sciences and Arts & Humanities indices. Another 40 percent of the score came from equal parts of four measures used by the Times: the percentage of international faculty, the percentage of international students, citations per faculty member (using ISI data), and the ratio of faculty to students. The final 10 percent came from library holdings (number of volumes).

Before 2005, the University applied the French education model with some minor differences. The academic degrees were the Demi-Licence, Licence, DEA / DESS, Doctorate. The University now follows the requirements of the Bologna process.


University of Geneva, Switzerland ranked 105th in the 2007 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Geneva, Switzerland ranked 68th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Geneva, Switzerland ranked 72nd in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Geneva, Switzerland ranked 71st in the 2010 QS World University Ranking

University of Geneva, Switzerland ranked 69th in the 2011 QS World University Ranking

University of Manchester

Manchester University

The University of Manchester is a university located in Manchester, England. With over 40,000 students studying 500 academic programmes, more than 10,000 staff and an annual income of nearly £600 million it is the largest single-site University in the United Kingdom and receives more applications from prospective students than any other university in the country, with more than 60,000 applications for undergraduate courses alone. According to the The Sunday Times, "Manchester has a formidable reputation spanning most disciplines, but most notably in the life sciences, engineering, humanities, economics, sociology and the social sciences".

The present University was formed in 2004 by the dissolution of the Victoria University of Manchester (which was commonly known as the University of Manchester) and UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) and the subsequent formation of a single institution. The University of Manchester is a member of the Russell Group and was named University of the Year 2006. This followed the awarding by the inaugural Times Higher Education Supplement's University of the Year prize in 2005.

History

While the present University was formed in 2004, its constituent parts date from as early as 1824. The University's history is closely linked to Manchester's emergence as the world's first industrial city. John Dalton together with Manchester businessmen and industrialists established the Mechanics' Institute (later to become UMIST) in 1824 to ensure that workers could learn the basic principles of science. Similarly, John Owens, a Manchester textile merchant, left a bequest of £96,942 in 1851 for the purpose of founding a college for the education of males on non-sectarian lines. Owens College (to become the Victoria University of Manchester) was established and granted a Royal Charter in 1880 to become England's first civic university. It was initially housed in a building, complete with Adams staircase, on the corner of Quay Street and Byron Street which had been the home of the philanthropist Richard Cobden, and subsequently was to house Manchester County Court.

By 1905 the two institutions were a large and active force in the area, with the Mechanics' Institute, the forerunner of the modern UMIST, forming a Faculty of Technology and working alongside the Victoria University of Manchester. Before the merger, the Universities between them counted 23 Nobel Prize winners amongst their former staff and students. Manchester has traditionally been particularly strong in the sciences, with the nuclear nature of the atom being discovered at Manchester, and the world's first programmable electronic computer coming into being in the city.

Famous scientists associated with the university including the physicists John Dalton, Niels Bohr, Ernest Rutherford, James Chadwick, Arthur Schuster, Hans Geiger, Ernest Marsden and Balfour Stewart. However, the university has also contributed in many other fields, and the mathematicians Paul Erdős and Alan Turing, the author Anthony Burgess, philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Alasdair MacIntyre, the Pritzker Prize and RIBA Stirling Prize winning architect Norman Foster and the composer Peter Maxwell Davies all attended, or worked in, Manchester. Well-known figures among the current academic staff include author Martin Amis, computer scientist Steve Furber, literary critic Terry Eagleton.

The newly merged University of Manchester was officially launched on 22 October 2004 when the Queen handed over the Royal Charter. It has the largest number of full time students in the UK, unless the University of London is counted as a single university. It teaches more academic subjects than any other British University. The President and Vice-Chancellor of the new University is Alan Gilbert, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne. One of the stated ambitions of the newly combined university is to 'establish it by 2015 among the 25 strongest research universities in the world on commonly accepted criteria of research

excellence and performance'.

This followed the awarding by the inaugural Times Higher Supplement's University of the Year prize in 2005.The Academic Ranking of World Universities 2007 published by the Institute of Higher Education of Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranked Manchester 5th in the UK, 9th in Europe and 48th in the world. According to High Fliers Research Limited's survey, 'The Graduate Market in 2007', University of Manchester students are being targeted by more top recruiters for 2007 graduate vacancies than any other UK university students.

Manchester has the largest total income of all UK universities, standing at £590 million as of 2005 but its deficit for the 2005/6 financial year stands at £20.6 million.. Some 750 posts will go, with 1100 staff applying for redundancy.Its research income of £200 million is the fifth largest of any university in the country.

Academics

The University of Manchester is divided into only four faculties, each sub-divided into schools:

Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences consisting of the Schools of Medicine; Dentistry; Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work; Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences; and Psychological Sciences.

Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences consisting of the Schools of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science; Chemistry; Computer Science; Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Science; Physics and Astronomy; Electrical & Electronic Engineering; Materials; Mathematics; and Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering.

Faculty of Humanities includes the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures (a rather catchall title incorporating Archaeology; Art History; Classics and Ancient History; Drama; English and American Studies; History; Music; and Religions and Theology). The other Schools are Education; Environment and Development; Architecture; Informatics (formed from the UMIST Department of Computation); Languages, Linguistics and Cultures; Law; Social Sciences and the Manchester Business School.

Faculty of Life Sciences unusually consisting of a single school.

University of Manchester ranked 30th in the 2007 THES-QS World University Ranking

University of Manchester ranked 29th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking
University of Manchester ranked 26th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking
University of Manchester ranked 30th in the 2010 QS World University Ranking

University of Manchester ranked 29th in the 2011 QS World University Ranking