University of Chicago

The University consists of the College of the University of Chicago, various graduate programs and interdisciplinary committees organized into four divisions, six professional schools, and a school of continuing education. The University enrolls approximately 5,000 students in the College and about 14,000 students overall.

In 2008, the University spent $423.7 million on scientific research.University of Chicago scholars have played a role in the development of the Chicago School of economics, the Chicago School of sociology, the law and economics movement in legal analysis, and the physics leading to the world's first man-made, self-sustaining nuclear reaction. The University is also home to the largest university press in the United States

 Founding–1910s

The University of Chicago was created and incorporated as a coeducational, secular institution in 1890 by the American Baptist Education Society and a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller. It emerged from a Baptist university of the same name that had closed in 1886 due to financial difficulties. William Rainey Harper became the modern University's first president on July 1, 1891, and the first classes were held on October 1, 1892.

1920s–1980s

In 1929, the University's fifth president, Robert Maynard Hutchins, took office; the University underwent many changes during his 24-year tenure. Hutchins eliminated varsity football from the University in an attempt to deemphasize athletics over academics, instituted the undergraduate college's liberal-arts curriculum known as the Common Core, and organized the University's graduate work into its current four divisions.In 1933, Hutchins proposed an unsuccessful plan to merge the University of Chicago and Northwestern University into a single university. During his term, the University of Chicago Hospitals (now called the University of Chicago Medical Center) finished construction and enrolled its first medical students, and the Committee on Social Thought was created.

In the early 1950s, student applications declined as a result of increasing crime and poverty in the Hyde Park neighborhood. In response, the University became a major sponsor of a controversial urban renewal project for Hyde Park, which profoundly affected both the neighborhood's architecture and street plan.

The University experienced its share of student unrest during the 1960s, beginning in 1962, when students occupied President George Beadle's office in a protest over the University's off-campus rental policies. In 1969, more than 400 students, angry about the dismissal of a popular professor, Marlene Dixon, occupied the Administration Building for two weeks. After the sit-in ended, when Dixon turned down a one-year reappointment, 42 students were expelled and 81 were suspended, the most severe response to student occupations of any American university during the student movement.

In 1978, Hanna Holborn Gray, then the provost and acting president of Yale University, became President of the University of Chicago, in which capacity she served for 15 years.

1990s–2000s

In 1999, then-President Hugo Sonnenschein announced plans to relax the University's famed core curriculum, reducing the number of required courses from 21 to 15. When The New York Times, The Economist, and other major news outlets picked up this story, the University became the focal point of a national debate on education. The changes were ultimately implemented, but the controversy played a role in Sonnenschein's decision to resign in 2000

In the past decade, the University began a number of multi-million dollar expansion projects. In 2008, the University of Chicago announced plans to establish the Milton Friedman Institute. The institute will cost around $200 million and occupy the buildings of the Chicago Theological Seminary. Some faculty members and students have signed petition against these plans. During the same year, investor David G. Booth donated $300 million to the University's Graduate School of Business, which is the largest gift in the University's history and the largest gift ever to any business school. In 2009, planning or construction on several new buildings, half of which cost $100 million or more, was underway.

A recent two billion dollar campaign has brought substantial expansion to the campus, including the unveiling of the Max Palevsky Residential Commons, the South Campus Residence Hall, the Gerald Ratner Athletics Center, a new hospital, and a new science building. Current construction projects include: the Jules and Gwen Knapp Center for Biomedical Discovery, a ten-story medical research center, as well as further additions to the medical campus of the University of Chicago Medical Center.