University of Maryland, College Park

The University of Maryland, College Park is a public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, approximately 4 miles  from the northeast border of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1856, the university is the flagship institution of the University System of Maryland. With a fall 2010 enrollment of more than 37,000 students, over 100 undergraduate majors, and 120 graduate programs, Maryland is the largest university in the state and the largest in the Washington Metropolitan Area. It is a member of the Association of American Universities and competes in athletics as a member of the Big Ten Conference.The University of Maryland's proximity to the nation's capital has resulted in research partnerships with the Federal government. Members of the faculty receive research funding and institutional support from agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Aeronautics and Space Administrate the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Department of Homeland Security.On March 6, 1856, the forerunner of today's University of Maryland was chartered as the Maryland Agricultural College. Two years later, Charles Benedict Calvert, a future U.S. Congressman, purchased 420 acres  of the River dale Plantation in College Park. Calvert founded the school later that year. On October 5, 1859, the first 34 students entered the Maryland Agricultural College. The school became a land grant college in February 1864.The state took control of the school in 1916, and the institution was renamed Maryland State College. That year, the first female students enrolled at the school. On April 9, 1920, the college became part of the existing University of Maryland, replacing St. John's College, Annapolis as the University's undergraduate campus. In the same year, the graduate school on the College Park campus awarded its first PhD degrees and the university's enrollment reached 500 students. In 1925 the university was accredited by the Association of American Universities.By the time the first black students enrolled at the university in 1951, enrollment had grown to nearly 10,000 students  4,000 of whom were women. Prior to 1951, many black students in Maryland were enrolled at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore.In 1957 President Wilson H. Eakins made a push to increase academic standards at the University. His efforts resulted in the creation of one of the first Academic Probation Plans. The first year the plan went into effect, 1,550 students 18% of the total student body faced expulsion.The campus of the university is noted for its red-brick Georgian buildings and its large central lawn, named McKenzie Mall.White columns decorate many buildings, with around 770 columns existing on campus. Spanning the university's 1,250 acres  are 7,500 documented trees and garden plantings, leading the American Public Gardens Association to designate the campus the University of Maryland Arboretum & Botanical Garden in 2008. The designation has allowed the university to showcase species and gardens, including native plantings. There are arboretum tours, such as the centralized Tree Walking Tour which is based around McKenzie Mall and features 56 specimen trees.

Additionally, there are nearly 400 acres of urban forest located on campus and the National Arbor Day Foundation has named the university to its 'Tree Campus USA' list. The recreational Paint Branch Trail, part of the Constantia Tributary Trails system, cuts through campus, as does the Paint Branch stream, a tributary of the Northeast Branch Constantia River.McKenzie Mall serves as the center of campus. On the east and west ends of McKenzie Mall lie the Main Administration Building and McKenzie Library. Academic buildings surround McKenzie Mall on the north and south ends, and are the homes to many departments in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, College of Arts and Humanities, and the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. West of McKenzie Mall is the North Hill Community, and south of McKenzie Mall lies Merrill Hall and the Merrill Quad, which was the original center of campus. South of the Merrill Quad are the South Hill and South Campus Commons Communities, and to the southwest is the Southwest Mall and the Robert H. Smith School of Business. Running parallel to McKenzie Mall to the north is Campus Drive, the main thoroughfare through campus.The Adele H. Stamp Student Union sits along Campus Drive near the center of campus, and serves as a transit center for campus, where Shuttle UM the university's bus service and municipal buses pick up and drop off passengers. Horn bake Plaza home to Horn bake Library and several buildings housing academic departments also lies on Campus Drive, east of Stamp.

Rochester Institute of Technology

Rochester Institute of Technology is a private research university located within the town of Henrietta in the Rochester, New York metropolitan area.Rochester Institute of Technology is composed of nine academic colleges, including National Technical Institute for the Deaf. The Institute is one of only a small number of engineering institutes in the State of New York, including New York Institute of Technology, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. It is most widely known for its fine arts, computing, engineering, and imaging science programs; several fine arts programs routinely rank in the national Top 10according to the US News & World Report.The Institute as it is known today began as a result of an 1891 merger between Rochester Athenæum, a literary society founded in 1829 by Colonel Nathaniel Rochester and associates, and Mechanics Institute, a Rochester institute of practical technical training for local residents founded in 1885 by a consortium of local businessmen including Captain Henry Lomb, the co-founder of Bausch & Lomb. The name of the merged institution at the time was called Rochester Athenæum and Mechanics Institute.In 1944, the university changed its name to Rochester Institute of Technology.The Institute originally resided within the city of Rochester, New York, proper, on a block bounded by the Erie Canal, South Plymouth Avenue, Spring Street, and South Washington Street.Its art department was originally located in the Bevier Memorial Building. By the middle of the twentieth century, RIT began to outgrow its facilities, and surrounding land was scarce and expensive; additionally, in 1959, the New York Department of Public Works announced a new freeway, the Inner Loop, was to be built through the city along a path that bisected the Institute's campus and required demolition of key Institute buildings. In 1961, an unanticipated donation of $3.27 million $25,894,176 today from local Grace Watson, for whom RIT's dining hall was later named, allowed the Institute to purchase land for a new 1,300 acre  campus several miles south along the east bank of the Genesee River in suburban Henrietta. Upon completion in 1968, the Institute moved to the new suburban campus, where it resides today
                            The current campus is housed on a 1,300 acres  property. This property is largely covered with woodland and fresh-water swamp making it a very diverse wetland which is home to a number of somewhat rare plant species. The campus comprises 237 buildings and 5.1 million square feet of building space. The nearly universal use of bricks in the campus's construction  estimated at 14,673,565 bricks in late 2006 prompted students to give it the semi affectionate nickname Brick City, reflected in the name of events such as the annual Brick City Homecoming. Though the buildings erected in the first few decades of the campus's existence reflected the architectural style known as brutalism, the warm color of the bricks softened the impact somewhat. More recent additions to the campus have diversified the architecture while still incorporating the traditional brick colors. In October 2013, Travel+Leisure named it as one of the ugliest college campuses in the United States, citing the monotone brick and the suburbanization, leaving almost no youth activities within walking distance of the campus.

Alliant International University

Alliant International University is a private, benefit corporation higher education institution based in San Diego, California. The university is also known synonymous as Alliant. It offers programs in six California campuses in San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Irvine, Sacramento, and Fresno and three international campuses in Mexico City, Mexico,Tokyo, Japan and Hong Kong. Its enrollment is approximately 4,000 students, of whom 95% are post-graduate.Alliant International University receives its name from the merger of three legacy institutions: San Francisco Law School founded in 1909, United States International University  founded in 1927, and California School of Professional Psychology  founded in 1969. In 2001, USIU and CSPP merged forming Alliant International with San Francisco Law School joining in 2010. Through multiple name changes and campus relocations, one constant among the institutions has been a legacy of employing noteworthy faculty and graduating high achieving students. Together they have impacted the world in a profound way.San Francisco Law School first opened its doors in the Bay area in 1909. SFLS was the first evening law program in the western United States and was among the first law schools to actively recruit women. SFLS continues to focus on students who may not have opportunities for traditional legal education. The Law School graduated former California Governor Edmund Pat Brown, former Lieutenant Governor Leo T. McCarthy, and former Undersecretary of the United States Department of Energy Joseph Salgado.
             In 1927 Leland Ghent Stanford chartered a private graduate institution called Balboa Law College, the first law school in San Diego. Balboa Law College expanded to include undergraduate and graduate studies beginning with the Department of Accounting in 1945, changing its name to Balboa University. The law school was closed in 1946.In 1952, Balboa University changed its name to California Western University and relocated to Point Loma, south of downtown San Diego. The law school reopened soon thereafter.In 2015, Alliant International University joined Arist Education System’s global network of universities dedicated to health and human sciences. As a result, Alliant transitioned to a benefit corporation structure that enables the university to attract capital investments to further enhance program offerings, technology, student services, and student outcomes while retaining a primary commitment to Alliant’s social benefit mission of education and professional training.2015 also saw the creation of the Alliant Educational Foundation, an independent, non-profit organization that operates in coordination with and as partial owner of the university. The foundation oversees scholarships, donations, grants, contracts, research and clinical training, and professional service centers affiliated with the university.

Columbia University

Columbia University  is a private Ivy League research university in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It was established in 1754 as King's College by royal charter of George II of Great Britain. Columbia is the oldest college in New York State and the fifth chartered institution of higher learning in the country, making it one of nine colonial colleges founded before the Declaration of Independence. After the revolutionary war King's College briefly became a state entity, and was renamed Columbia College in 1784. A 1787 charter placed the institution under a private board of trustees before it was renamed Columbia University in 1896 when the campus was moved from Madison Avenue to its current location in Morning side Heights occupying land of 32 acres  Columbia is one of the fourteen founding members of the Association of American Universities, and was the first school in the United States to grant the M.D. degree.he university is organized into twenty schools, including Columbia College, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the School of General Studies. The university also has global research outposts in Amman, Beijing, Istanbul, Paris, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Asunción and Nairobi. It has affiliations with several other institutions nearby including Teachers College, Barnard College, and Union Theological Seminary, with joint undergraduate programs available through the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Sciences Po Paris and the Julliard School.Columbia annually administers the Pulitzer Prize.Notable alumni and former students including those from King's College include five Founding Fathers of the United States; nine Justices of the United States Supreme Court living billionaires .Academy Award winners and 29 heads of state, including three United States Presidents.Additionally, some 100 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Columbia as students, faculty or staff.

                        Discussions regarding the founding of a college in the Province of New York began as early as 1704 at which time Colonel Lewis Morris wrote to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the missionary arm of the Church of England, persuading the society that New York City was an ideal community in which to establish a college however, not until the founding of Princeton University across the Hudson River in New Jersey did the City of New York seriously consider founding a college.In 1746 an act was passed by the general assembly of New York to raise funds for the foundation of a new college. In 1751 the assembly appointed a commission of ten New York residents, seven of whom were members of the Church of England, to direct the funds accrued by the state lottery towards the foundation of a college.The majority of Columbia's graduate and undergraduate studies are conducted in Morning side Heights on Seth Low's late-19th century vision of a university campus where all disciplines could be taught in one location. The campus was designed along Beaux-Arts principles by architects Micki Mead, and White. Columbia's main campus occupies more than six city blocks or 32 acres in Morning side Heights, New York City, a neighborhood that contains a number of academic institutions. The university owns over 7,800 apartments in Morning side Heights, housing faculty, graduate students, and staff. Almost two dozen undergraduate dormitories purpose-built or converted are located on campus or in Morning side Heights. Columbia University has an extensive underground tunnel system more than a century old, with the oldest portions predating the present campus. Some of these remain accessible to the public, while others have been cordoned off.

California Institute of Technology

The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Although founded as a preparatory and vocational school by Amos G. Troop in 1891, the college attracted influential scientists such as George Ellery Hale, Arthur Amos Noyes, and Robert Andrews Millikan in the early 20th century. The vocational and preparatory schools were disbanded and spun off in 1910, and the college assumed its present name in 1921. In 1934, Cal tech was elected to the Association of American Universities, and the antecedents of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which Cal tech continues to manage and operate, were established between 1936 and 1943 under Theodore Von Kármán.The university is one among a small group of Institutes of Technology in the United States which tends to be primarily devoted to the instruction of technical arts and applied sciences.Cal tech has six academic divisions with strong emphasis on science and engineering, managing $332 million in 2011 in sponsored research. Its 124 acre  primary campus is located approximately 11 mi  northeast of downtown Los Angeles. First-year students are required to live on campus, and 95% of undergraduates remain in the on-campus house system. Although Cal tech has a strong tradition of practical jokes and pranks,student life is governed by an honor code which allows faculty to assign take-home examinations. The Cal tech Beavers compete in 13 intercollegiate sports in the NCAA Division Wii's Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.Cal tech started as a vocational school founded in Pasadena in 1891 by local businessman and politician Amos G. Troop. The school was known successively as Troop University, Troop Polytechnic Institute and Manual Training School] and Troop College of Technology, before acquiring its current name in 1920. The vocational school was disbanded and the preparatory program was split off to form an independent Polytechnic School in 1907.At a time when scientific research in the United States was still in its infancy, George Ellery Hale, a solar astronomer from the University of Chicago, founded the Mount Wilson Observatory in 1904. He joined Troop's board of trustees in 1907, and soon began developing it and the whole of Pasadena into a major scientific and cultural destination. He engineered the appointment of James A. B. Scherzo, a literary scholar untutored in science but a capable administrator and fund raiser, to Troop's presidency in 1908. Schemer persuaded retired businessman and trustee Charles W. Gates to donate $25,000 in seed money to build Gates Laboratory, the first science building on campus.
     
        Cal tech's 124 acre primary campus is located in Pasadena, California, approximately 11 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is within walking distance of Old Town Pasadena and the Pasadena Playhouse District and therefore the two locations are frequent getaways for Cal tech students.In 1917 Hale hired architect Bertram Good hue to produce a master plan for the 22 acres campus. Good hue conceived the overall layout of the campus and designed the physics building, Delaney 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. Good hue's designs for Cal tech were also influenced by the traditional Spanish mission architecture of Southern California.