University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in the Hyde Park community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States.
The university is composed of an undergraduate college and four graduate research divisions: the Arts & Humanities Division, the Biological Sciences Division, the Physical Sciences Division, and the Social Sciences Division, all of which include various organized departments and institutes. In addition, the university operates seven professional schools in the fields of business, social work, theology, public policy, law, medicine, and molecular engineering, and a school of continuing studies. The university maintains satellite campuses and centers in London, Hong Kong, Paris, Beijing, Delhi, Luxor, and downtown Chicago.
University of Chicago scholars have played a role in the development of many academic disciplines, including economics, law, literary criticism, mathematics, physics, religion, sociology, and political science, establishing the Chicago schools of thought in various fields. Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory produced the world's first human-made, self-sustaining nuclear reaction in Chicago Pile-1 beneath the viewing stands of the university's Stagg Field. Advances in chemistry led to the "radiocarbon revolution" in the carbon-14 dating of ancient life and objects. The university research efforts include administration of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the Argonne National Laboratory, as well as the Marine Biological Laboratory. The university is also home to the University of Chicago Press, the largest university press in North America.
As of 2025, the university's students, faculty, and staff have included 101 Nobel laureates. The university's faculty members and alumni also include 10 Fields Medalists, 4 Turing Award winners, 58 MacArthur Fellows, 30 Marshall Scholars, 55 Rhodes Scholars, 27 Pulitzer Prize winners, 20 National Humanities Medalists, and 6 Olympic medalists.
History
Old University of Chicago
The first University of Chicago was founded by a small group of Baptist educators and incorporated in 1857 after a land endowment from Senator Stephen A. Douglas and a fundraising campaign directed by the first president of the institution, John C. Burroughs. It closed in 1886 after decades of financial struggle, exacerbated by the Great Chicago Fire and the Panic of 1873, when the university's property was foreclosed on by its creditors. In 1890, its trustees elected to change the university's name to the "Old University of Chicago" so that the new university could go by the name of the city; a year later, the new university voted to recognize the alumni of the old as alumni of the new.Early years
In 1890, the American Baptist Education Society incorporated a new University of Chicago as a coeducational institution, using $400,000 donated to the ABES to supplement a $600,000 donation from Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller and land donated by Marshall Field. The Hyde Park campus’ construction was financed by donations from wealthy Chicagoans such as Silas B. Cobb, donor of the campus's first building, Cobb Lecture Hall; Charles L. Hutchinson, trustee, treasurer and donor of Hutchinson Commons; and Martin A. Ryerson, president of the board of trustees and donor of the Ryerson Physical Laboratory.William Rainey Harper became the university's president on July 1, 1891, and classes first began on October 1, 1892. Harper offered large salaries to attract senior faculty, and in two years had a faculty of 120, including eight former university or college presidents. The undergraduate program was divided into two parts, with the first two years making up the Academic College, focusing on preparation for higher learning, and the last two years comprising the University College, with more advanced courses. The university operated on a quarter system, with 36 courses required to graduate. Harper brought the Baptist seminary, which had historical ties to the Old University of Chicago, to the university. This became the Divinity School in 1891, the first graduate professional school at the University of Chicago. Harper was a supporter of intercollegiate athletics, recruiting Amos Alonzo Stagg in 1892 to coach the football team and defending athletics from faculty opposition. In 1894, the university adopted maroon as its official color after initially selecting goldenrod. The Maroons became the university's nickname during the same year. During this period, the university founded the university extension, which offered evening courses for adults and correspondence courses, and the University of Chicago Press.
Rockefeller continued to provide significant contributions to the university after its founding. Harper's efforts to finance faculty research projects, expand the campus, and support university initiatives caused significant deficits covered by Rockefeller donations, with annual deficits between 1894 and 1903 averaging $215,000. In 1898, the board of trustees made a commitment to use new gifts to eliminate the deficit rather than to further expand programs, but structural deficits remained until after Harper's presidency.
1906–1929
After Harper's death in 1906, the board of trustees named Harry Pratt Judson, head of the Department of Political Science, acting president; in 1907, the appointment was made permanent. Judson initiated a policy of financial austerity, which renewed Rockefeller's confidence in the university and resulted in a series of large gifts to the endowment between 1906 and 1910, including a final gift of $10 million in 1910 that balanced the university's budget. In 1911, the university adopted a Latin motto of Crescat scientia; vita excolatur, which translates to "Let knowledge grow from more and more; and so be human life enriched." In 1912, Judson successfully encouraged the board to create a faculty pension fund.During World War I, Judson, as well as faculty members such as Albion Small and Paul Shorey, published works supporting the war. On the other hand, student reaction was mixed, with most not participating in newly formed voluntary military training programs such as the ROTC. In 1918, the Student Army Training Corps program was announced by the War Department, which requisitioned the campus to be run by army officers for military training, but the November armistice soon ended the program. After the war, the Oriental Institute, now the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, was founded by Egyptologist James Henry Breasted to support and interpret archeological work in what was then called the Near East.
In 1923, senior scholar Ernest D. Burton succeeded Judson as president. Burton launched the first major fundraising campaign of the university to improve the research environment of the faculty as well as invest in residential halls for undergraduates, finding initial success despite faculty opposition to the perceived prioritization of undergraduate over graduate interests. Burton's sudden death in 1925 led to his replacement by physicist Max Mason, who ended the citywide fundraising drive early in favor of a quieter outreach among local businessmen. During Burton's term, and later Mason's, the Chicago Schools of thought began to emerge in the social sciences, with new organizations being established such as the Social Science Research Council in 1923.
1929–1950
In 1929, the 30-year-old dean of Yale Law School, Robert Maynard Hutchins, became president. In 1930, Hutchins organized the graduate departments under four independent divisions and united the undergraduate colleges into one college. In 1931, alongside dean of the college Chauncey Boucher, Hutchins implemented a new two-year general education curriculum called the "New Plan", which formed the basis for the university's core curriculum. Later in the 1930s, Hutchins became unsatisfied with departmental influence on the undergraduate curriculum and pushed for further expansion to the general education curriculum. In 1942, Hutchins transferred jurisdiction of the BA degree from the graduate divisions to the college, thus removing divisional leverage to shape the curriculum. The same year, the college reformed the BA degree with four years of prescribed general education.Budget shortfalls caused by the Great Depression led to significant austerity measures and staffing cuts, though Hutchins protected the salaries of those who remained. In 1933, Hutchins proposed a plan to alleviate the financial situation by merging the university with Northwestern University, though it was ultimately abandoned. Financial woes contributed to the decision to end the university's football program in 1939. With substantial budget gaps remaining and support from the Rockefeller Foundation having dried up, a second major fundraising campaign was launched between 1939 and 1941 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the university's founding with mixed results. Large deficits persisted after World War II, leaving future presidents to balance the budget.
During the war, the university recruited a number of refugee scientists from Europe, including Enrico Fermi, Rudolf Carnap, and James Franck. The university's Metallurgical Laboratory contributed to the Manhattan Project, with Enrico Fermi engineering the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction under the stands of Stagg Field, the university's football stadium, in 1942. In 1945, Hutchins announced the formation of the Institute for Nuclear Studies and the Institute for the Study of Metals in order to continue work done during the war. These were later renamed the Enrico Fermi Institute and the James Franck Institute, respectively. The university came under public scrutiny before and after the war for alleged communist influence, with university leadership called to testify before the Illinois General Assembly on the loyalty of its student body and faculty in 1935 and 1949.