Brown University

Brown University is a private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Founded in 1764 as The College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine Colonial Colleges established before the American Revolution.At its foundation, Brown was the first college in the United States to accept students regardless of their religious affiliation.Its engineering program, established in 1847 was the first in the Ivy League. Brown's New Curriculum sometimes referred to in education theory as the Brown Curriculum was adopted by faculty vote in 1969 after a period of student lobbying; the New Curriculum eliminated mandatory general education" distribution requirements, made students "the architects of their own syllabus  and allowed them to take any course for a grade of satisfactory or unrecorded no-credit.In 1971 Brown's coordinate women's institution, Pembroke College, was fully merged into the university.Undergraduate admissions is among the most selective in the country, with an acceptance rate of 9.5 percent for the class of 2019, according to the university. The University comprises The College, the Graduate School, Alpert Medical School, the School of Engineering, the School of Public Health, and the School of Professional Studies which includes the IE Brown Executive MBA program. Brown's international programs are organized through the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, and the university is academically affiliated with the Marine Biological Laboratory and the Rhode Island School of Design. The Brown/RIDS Dual Degree Program, offered in conjunction with the Rhode Island School of Design is a five-year course that awards degrees from both institutions.Brown's main campus is located in the College Hill Historic District in the city of Providence, the third largest city in New England. The University's neighborhood is a federally listed architectural district with a dense concentration of Colonial era buildings. On the western edge of the campus, Benefit Street contains one of the finest cohesive collections of restored seventeenth- and eighteenth-century architecture in the United States.Brown has produced 7 Nobel Prize winners, 57 Rhodes Scholars,Manning arrived at Newport in July 1763 and was introduced to Stiles, who agreed to write the Charter for the College. Stile's first draft was read to the General Assembly in August 1763 and rejected by Baptist members who worried that the College Board of Fellows would under represent the Baptists. A revised Charter, written by Stiles and Ellery, was adopted by the Assembly on March 3, 1764.

In September 1764 the inaugural meeting of the College Corporation was held at Newport. Governor Stephen Hopkins was chosen chancellor, former and future governor Samuel Ward was vice chancellor, John Tilling hast treasurer, and Thomas Eyre secretary. The Charter stipulated that the Board of Trustees comprise 22 Baptists, five Quakers, five Episcopalians, and four Congregationalists. Of the 12 Fellows, eight should be Baptists including the College preside and the rest indifferently of any or all Denominations.The Charter was not, as is sometimes supposed, the grant of King George III, but rather an Act of the colonial General Assembly. In two particulars the Charter may be said to be a uniquely progressive document. First, where other colleges had curricular strictures against opposing doctrines, Brown's Charter asserted that Sectarian differences of opinions, shall not make any Part of the Public and Classical Instruction. Second, according to University historian Walter Bronson, "the instrument governing Brown University recognized more broadly and fundamentally than any other the principle of denominational cooperation.The oft-repeated statement that Brown's Charter alone prohibited a religious test for College membership is inaccurate; other college charters were also liberal in that particular.James Manning was sworn in as the College's first president in 1765 and served until 1791. In 1770 the College moved from Warren, Rhode Island, to the crest of College Hill overlooking Providence. Solomon Browne, a freshman in the class of 1773  wrote in his diary on March 26 1770 five National Humanities Medalists,eight billionaire graduates,and 10 National Medal of Science laureates, and has also produced Fulbright, Marshall, and Mitchell scholars.The origins of Brown University may be dated to 1761 when three residents of Newport, Rhode Island, drafted a petition to the General Assembly of the colony.The Brown family Nicholas Brown, his son Nicholas Brown, Jr., class of 1786, John Brown, Joseph Brown, and Moses Brown were instrumental in moving the College to Providence and securing its endowment. Joseph became a professor of natural philosophy at the College, John served as its treasurer from 1775 to 1796 and Nicholas, Junior, succeeded his uncle as treasurer from 1796 to 1825.On September 8,180 the Corporation voted, That the donation of $5000 Dollars, if made to this College within one Year from the late Commencement, shall entitle the donor to name the College. In a letter dated September 6, 1804, that appeal was answered by College treasurer Nicholas Brown, Junior, and the Corporation honored its promise: In gratitude to Mr. Brown, the Corporation at the same meeting voted, 'That this College be called and known in all future time by the Name of Brown University.Over the years, the benefactions of Nicholas Brown, Jr, would total nearly $160,000, an enormous sum for that period, and included the buildings Hope College and Manning Hall, built 1821- 22 and 1834- 35.

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, established 1636, whose history, influence and wealth have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Established originally by the Massachusetts legislature and soon thereafter named for John Harvard its first benefactor Harvard is the United States' oldest institution of higher learning, and the Harvard Corporation formally, the President and Fellows of Harvard Colleges its first chartered corporation. Although never formally affiliated with any denomination, the early College primarily trained Congregationalist and Unitarian clergy. Its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized during the 18th century, and by the 19th century Harvard had emerged as the central cultural establishment among Boston elites. Following the American Civil War, President Charles W. Eliot's long tenure 1869 1909 transformed the college and affiliated professional schools into a modern research university Harvard was a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. James Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war. The undergraduate college became coeducational after its 1977 merger with Radcliffe College. The University is organized into eleven separate academic units ten faculties and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study with campuses throughout the Boston metropolitan area: its 209-acre 85 ha main campus is centered on Harvard Yard in Cambridge, approximately 3 miles 5 km northwest of Boston; the business school and athletics facilities, including Harvard Stadium, are located across the Charles River in the Alston neighborhood of Boston and the medical, dental, and public health schools are in the Long wood Medical Area. Harvard's $37.6 billion financial endowment is the largest of any academic institution. Harvard is a large, highly residential research university. The nominal cost of attendance is high, but the University's large endowment allows it to offer generous financial aid packages' operates several arts, cultural, and scientific museums, alongside the Harvard Library, which is the world's largest academic and private library system, comprising 79 individual libraries with over 18 million volumes. Harvard's alumni include eight U.S. presidents, several foreign heads of state, 62 living billionaires, 335 Rhodes Scholars, and 242 Marshall Scholars. To date, some 150 Nobel laureates and 5 Fields Medalists when awarded have been affiliated as students, faculty, or staff

Throughout the 18th century, Enlightenment ideas of the power of reason and free will became widespread among Congregationalist ministers, putting those ministers and their congregations in tension with more traditionalist, Calvinist parties. When the Hollis Professor of Divinity David Tap pan died in 1803 and the president of Harvard Joseph Willard died a year later, in 1804, a struggle broke out over their replacements. Henry Ware was elected to the chair in 1805, and the liberal Samuel Weber was appointed to the presidency of Harvard two years later, which signaled the changing of the tide from the dominance of traditional ideas at Harvard to the dominance of liberal, Armenian ideas defined by traditionalists as Unitarian ideas. In 1846 the natural history lectures of Louis Agassiz were acclaimed both in New York and on the campus at Harvard College. Agassiz's approach was distinctly idealist and posited Americans 'participation in the Divine Nature and the possibility of understanding intellectual existences. Agassiz's perspective on science combined observation with intuition and the assumption that a person can grasp the divine plan in all phenomena. When it came to explaining life-forms, Agassiz resorted to matters of shape based on a presumed archetype for his evidence. This dual view of knowledge was in concert with the teachings of Common Sense Realism derived from Scottish philosophers Thomas Reid and Donald Stewart, whose works were part of the Harvard curriculum at the time. The popularity of Agassiz's efforts to "soar with Plato" probably also derived from other writings to which Harvard students were exposed, including Platonic treatises by Ralph Cud worth, John Norris and, in a Romantic vein, Samuel Coleridge. The library records at Harvard reveal that the writings of Plato and his early modern and Romantic followers were almost as regularly read during the 19th century as those of the official philosophy of the more empirical and more deistic Scottish school.

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania  is a private, Ivy League, research university located in Philadelphia. Incorporated as The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn is one of 14 founding members of the Association of American Universities and one of the nine original Colonial Colleges. Penn is one of several universities that claims to be the first university in the United States of America.Benjamin Franklin, Penn's founder, advocated an educational program that focused as much on practical education for commerce and public service as on the classics and theology although Franklin's curriculum was never adopted. The university coat of arms features a dolphin on the red chief, adopted directly from the Franklin family's own coat of arms.Penn was one of the first academic institutions to follow a multidisciplinary model pioneered by several European universities, concentrating multiple faculties.g., theology, classics, medicine into one institution. It was also home to many other educational innovations. The first school of medicine in North America (Perelman School of Medicine, 1765 the first collegiate business school Wharton School of Business, 1881 and the first student union building and organization Houston Hall 1896were all born at Penn.Penn offers a broad range of academic departments, an extensive research enterprise and a number of community outreach and public service programs. It is particularly well known for its medical school, dental school, design school, business school, law school, engineering school, communications school, nursing school, veterinary school, its social sciences and humanities programs, as well as its biomedical teaching and research capabilities. Its undergraduate program is also among the most selective in the country, with an acceptance rate of 10 percent.One of Penn's most well known academic qualities is its emphasis on interdisciplinary education, which it promotes through numerous double degree programs, research centers and professorships, a unified campus, and the ability for students to take classes from any of Penn's schools the One University PolicyAll of Penn's schools exhibit very high research activity. Penn is consistently ranked among the top research universities in the world, for both quality and quantity of research. In fiscal year 2015, Penn's academic research budget was $851 million, involving more than 4,300 faculty, 1,100 postdoctoral fellows and 5,500 support staff/graduate assistants.As one of the most active and prolific research institutions, Penn is associated with several important innovations and discoveries in many fields of science and the humanities. Among them are the first general purpose electronic computer the rubella and hepatitis B vaccines, Retin-A, cognitive therapy, conjoint analysis and others.Penn's academic and research programs are led by a large and highly productive faculty.Twenty-eight Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Penn. Over its long history the university has also produced many distinguished alumni. These include 12 heads of state including one U.S. president three United States Supreme Court justices plus a number of state Supreme Court justices; founders of technology companies, international law firms, and global financial institutions; and university presidents. According to a 2014 study, the University of Pennsylvania has produced the most billionaires of any university at the undergraduate level.Penn's endowment, at $10.1 billion as of June 30, 2015 is the tenth largest university endowment in the United States and the thirtieth-largest on a per-student basis.

The University considers itself the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States as well as the first university in the United States with both undergraduate and graduate studies.This statue of Benjamin Franklin donated by Justus C. Straw bridge to the City of Philadelphia in 1899 now sits in front of College Hall.In 1740, a group of Philadelphia's joined together to erect a great preaching hall for the traveling evangelist George Whitefield, who toured the American colonies delivering open air sermons. The building was designed and built by Edmund Woolly and was the largest building in the city at the time, drawing thousands of people the first time it was preached in 26 It was initially planned to serve as a charity school as well; however, a lack of funds forced plans for the chapel and school to be suspended. According to Franklin's autobiography, it was in 1743 when he first had the idea to establish an academy, "thinking the Rev. Richard Peters a fit person to superintend such an institution.However, Peters declined a casual inquiry from Franklin and nothing further was done for another six years.:30 In the fall of 1749, now more eager to create a school to educate future generations, Benjamin Franklin circulated a pamphlet titled Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvanian,his vision for what he called a Public Academy of Philadelphia.Unlike the other Colonial colleges that existed in 1749Harvard, William and Mary, Yale and Princeton Franklin's new school would not focus merely on education for the clergy. He advocated an innovative concept of higher education, one which would teach both the ornamental knowledge of the arts and the practical skills necessary for making a living and doing public service. The proposed program of study could have become the nation's first modern liberal arts curriculum, although it was never implemented because William Smith, an Anglican priest who was provost at the time, and other trustees preferred the traditional curriculum.

University of Colorado Boulder

The University of Colorado Boulder  is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado, United States. It is the flagship university of the University of Colorado system and was founded five months before Colorado was admitted to the union in 1876.In 2010, the university consisted of nine colleges and schools and offered over 150 academic programs and enrolled 29,952 students. Twelve Nobel Laureates, nine MacArthur Fellows, and 18 astronauts have been affiliated with CU-Boulder as students, researchers, or faculty members in its history. The university received nearly $454 million in sponsored research in 2010 to fund programs like the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, and JAIL.The Colorado Buffaloes compete in 17 varsity sports and are members of the NCAA Division I Pac-12 Conference. The Buffaloes have won 28 national championships: 20 in skiing, seven total in men's and women's cross country, and one in football. Approximately 1,500 students participate in 34 intercollegiate club sports annually as well On March 14, 1876, the Colorado territorial legislature passed an amendment to the state constitution that provided money for the establishment of the University of Colorado in Boulder, the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, and the Colorado Agricultural College in Fort Collins.Two cities competed for the site of the University of Colorado: Boulder and Canon City. The consolation prize for the losing city was to be home of the new Colorado State Prison. Canon City was at a disadvantage as it was already the home of the Colorado Territorial Prison.The cornerstone of the building that became Old Main was laid on September 20, 1875. The doors of the university opened on September 5, 1877. At the time, there were few high schools in the state that could adequately prepare students for university work, so in addition to the University, a preparatory school was formed on campus. In the fall of 1877, the student body consisted of 15 students in the college proper and 50 students in the preparatory school. There were 38 men and 27 women, and their ages ranged from 12- 23 years.During World War II, Colorado was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a navy commission.

The main CU-Boulder campus is located south of the Pearl Street Mall. It consists of academic and residential buildings as well as research facilities. The East Campus is about a quarter mile from the main campus and is composed mainly of athletic fields and research buildings.Currently Freshmen and others attending the University of Colorado Boulder have an option of 22 on and off campus residence halls.Residence halls have 17 varieties of room types from singles to four-person rooms and others with apartment style amenities.There are several communities of residence halls located throughout the campus, and in a separate area called Williams Village which is connected to the main campus via the Buff Bus service. The University also offers Residential Academic Programs  in many of its Residence Halls. Raps provide students with in-dorm classes tailored to academic interests (international affairs, environmental studies etc.The Engineering Center is located on the North-East side of campus, on the corner of Colorado and Regent. The Engineering Center consists of 660,000 square feet (61,000 m2) of classrooms, computing facilities, offices, and laboratories. There are six unique engineering departments which are: Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering. Rankings published by the US World and News report ranked the Undergraduate Engineering Programs at 34th overall and 19th among public engineering programs nationwide. Graduate Engineering Programs at CU are ranked 34th overall and 20th among public engineering programs nationwide. This architecturally distinctive and modern center is home to the nation's largest nontechnical centrifuge, ion-implantation and microwave-propagation facilities, spectrometers, electron and other microscopes, and a structural analysis facility.CU Engineering houses many signature programs. The Integrated Teaching and Learning Program gives students hands on design experience in the award winning ITL Laboratory. The 34,000-sq. ft learning facility provides students and educators with a flexible, visible learning environment.The Design Center Colorado  is situated within the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. The DCC gives students hands on experience by connecting them with faculty and industrial advisers on sponsored projects. CU Engineering is also part of the K-12 Engineering Outreach, pioneering new engineering programs for students and teachers at the elementary, middle and high school levels, and directing the national Teach Engineering digital library collection of free science, math and engineering lessons and activities available to teachers.