UNIVERSITY of
ROCHESTER
Rochester, NY
Est. 1850
Ranking
#30
Top 100 US Universities
(topuniversities.com)
Est.
1850
Students
12,500
Other Rankings
- #2 in “30 Best Master’s in Data Science Degree Programs 2019” by datasciencedegreeprograms.net.
- #3 in ” Top 10 data science master’s degree programs” by cio.com.
- #1 “The 10 Best Accredited Nursing Schools in New York for the Year” by nursingprocess.org.
- #15 in “25 Best Value Schools for Biomedical Engineering” by bestvalueschools.com.
Mascot
- Rocky the Yellowjacket
Website
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Ever Better.
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About
The University of Rochester (U of R , UR, or Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees.
The University of Rochester enrolls approximately 6,800 undergraduates and 5,000 graduate students. Its 158 buildings house over 200 academic majors. Additionally, the university is the largest employer in the Greater Rochester area and the 2nd largest employer in New York. According to the National Science Foundation ranking of total research and development expenditures, the University of Rochester spent $346 million on R&D in 2016, the 66th highest figure, nationally.
The College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering is home to departments and divisions of note. The Institute of Optics was founded in 1929 through a grant from Eastman Kodak and Bausch and Lomb as the first educational program in the US devoted exclusively to optics, awards approximately half of all optics degrees nationwide, and is widely regarded as the premier optics program in the nation. The Departments of Political Science and Economics have made a significant and consistent impact on positivist social science since the 1960s, and historically rank in the top 5 in their fields. The Department of Chemistry is noted for its contributions to synthetic organic chemistry, including the first lab based synthesis of morphine. The Rossell Hope Robbins Library serves as the university’s resource for Old and Middle English texts and expertise. The university is also home to Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a US Department of Energy supported national laboratory.
The University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music ranks first among undergraduate music schools in the U.S. The Sibley Music Library at Eastman is the largest academic music library in North America and holds the third largest collection in the United States.
History
Early history
18th century
The University of Rochester traces its origins to The First Baptist Church of Hamilton (New York), which was founded in 1796. The church established the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York, later renamed the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, in 1817. This institution gave birth to both Colgate University and The University of Rochester. Its function was to train clergy in the Baptist tradition. When it aspired to grant higher degrees, it created a collegiate division separate from the theological division.
The collegiate division was granted a charter by the State of New York in 1846, after which its name was changed to Madison University. John Wilder and the Baptist Education Society urged that the new university be moved to Rochester, New York. However, legal action prevented the move. In response, dissenting faculty, students, and trustees defected and departed for Rochester, where they sought a new charter for a new university.
Founding
–
Asahel C. Kendrick, professor of Greek, was among the faculty that departed Madison University for Rochester. Kendrick served as acting president while a national search was conducted. He reprised this role until 1853, when Martin Brewer Anderson of the Newton Theological Seminary in Massachusetts was selected to fill the inaugural posting.
The University of Rochester’s new charter was awarded by the Regents of the State of New York on January 31, 1850. The charter stipulated that the university have $100,000 in endowment within five years, upon which the charter would be reaffirmed. An initial gift of $10,000 was pledged by John Wilder, which helped catalyze significant gifts from individuals and institutions.
Classes began that November, with approximately 60 students enrolled, including 28 transfers from Madison. From 1850 to 1862, the university was housed in the old United States Hotel in downtown Rochester on Buffalo Street near Elizabeth Street, today, West Main Street near the I-490 overpass.
For the next 10 years, the college expanded its scope and secured its future through an expanding endowment, student body, and faculty. In parallel, a gift of 8 acres of farmland from local businessman and Congressman Azariah Boody secured the first campus of the university, upon which Anderson Hall was constructed and dedicated in 1862. Over the next sixty years, this Prince Street Campus grew by a further 17 acres and was developed to include fraternities houses, dormitories, and academic buildings including Anderson Hall, Sibley Library, Eastman and Carnegie Laboratories, the Memorial Art Gallery, and Cutler Union.
Twentieth century
Coeducation
The first female students were admitted in 1900, the result of an effort led by Susan B. Anthony and Helen Barrett Montgomery. During the 1890s, a number of women took classes and labs at the university as “visitors” but were not officially enrolled nor were their records included in the college register. President David Jayne Hill allowed the first woman, Helen E. Wilkinson, to enroll as a normal student, although she was not allowed to matriculate or to pursue a degree. Thirty-three women enrolled among the first class in 1900, and Ella S. Wilcoxen was the first to receive a degree, in 1901. The first female member of the faculty was Elizabeth Denio who retired as Professor Emeritus in 1917. Male students moved to River Campus upon its completion in 1930 while the female students remained on the Prince Street campus until 1955.
Expansion
Major growth occurred under the leadership of Benjamin Rush Rhees over his 1900-1935 tenure. During this time, George Eastman became a major donor, giving more than $50 million to the university during his life. Under the patronage of Eastman, the Eastman School of Music was created in 1921. In 1925, at the behest of the General Education Board and with significant support for John D. Rockefeller, George Eastman, and Henry A. Strong’s family, medical and dental schools were created.
During World War II, Rochester 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. In 1942, the university was invited to join the American Association of Universities as an affiliate member and it was made a full member by 1944. Between 1946 and 1947, in infamous uranium experiments researchers at the university injected uranium-234 and uranium-235 into six people to study how much uranium their kidneys could tolerate before becoming damaged.
In 1955, the separate colleges for men and women were merged into The College on the River Campus. In 1958, three new schools were created in engineering, business administration, and education. The Graduate School of Management was named after William E. Simon, former Secretary of the Treasury in 1986. He committed significant funds to the school because of his belief in the school’s free market philosophy and grounding in economic analysis.
Expansion
In 1995, university president Thomas H. Jackson announced the launch of a “Renaissance Plan” for The College that reduced enrollment from 4,500 to 3,600, creating a more selective admissions process. The plan also revised the undergraduate curriculum significantly, creating the current system with only one required course and only a few distribution requirements, known as clusters. Part of this plan called for the end of graduate doctoral studies in chemical engineering, comparative literature, linguistics, and mathematics, the last of which was met by national outcry. The plan was largely scrapped and mathematics exists as a graduate course of study to this day.
Twenty-first century
Present
Shortly after taking office, university president Joel Seligman commenced the private phase of the Meliora Challenge, a $1.2 billion capital campaign, in 2005. The campaign reached its goal in 2015, a year before the campaign was slated to conclude. In 2016, the university announced the Meliora Challenge had exceeded its goal and surpassed $1.36 billion. These funds were allocated to support over 100 new endowed faculty positions and nearly 400 new scholarships.
On September 1, 2017, a complaint was filed by eight current and former faculty members at the University of Rochester with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The complaint includes allegations of sexual misconduct/harassment perpetrated by Florian Jaeger, a tenure track faculty member, and condemnation of the response of University administration. The university’s initial public response to the complaint was a claim that the allegations were thoroughly investigated and could not be substantiated. Later, the university’s board of trustees announced a new, independent investigation into the allegations. The Board retained Mary Jo White, Senior Chair of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP and past United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to lead the investigation. On January 11, 2018, the Debevoise & Plimpton released the report and held a press conference about the findings of the independent investigation. The team found the individuals covered in the report had not violated policy; however, significant recommendations were made to push the university towards leadership in policy regarding relationships between faculty, staff, employees, and students.
On the same day as the release of the report, university president Joel Seligman publicly announced his previously tendered resignation. Board chair Danny Wegman accepted the resignation and tapped Richard Feldman, Professor of Philosophy and previous Dean of the College, to serve as interim president.
On December 8, 2017 nine plaintiffs in the 2017 EEOC complaint filed a lawsuit with attorney Ann Olivarius against the university and two university employees in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York (Case No: 6:17-cv-06847, Aslin et al. v. University of Rochester et al.). Allegations in the lawsuit include a number of the matters raised by plaintiffs in the EEOC complaint. The plaintiffs seek “damages in an amount not yet quantified but to be proven at trial, for costs and attorneys’ fees, and for any other and further relief which is just and proper.” After Lawrence Vilardo, the federal judge hearing the case, upheld the legal validity, in whole or in part, of 16 of the 17 claims in the lawsuit, the parties in March 2020 agreed to a settlement in which the University of Rochester paid $9.4 million to the plaintiffs, with the plaintiff Jessica Cantlon (now of Carnegie Mellon University) writing, “We consider it a major victory for all of the faculty and students who were harassed,” and “[the settlement is] going to have a really powerful impact on how seriously universities take women who come forward with complaints of sexual harassment. This is something that universities will notice.”
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Campus
The River Campus is in a bend of the Genesee River about 2 miles (3 km) south of downtown Rochester and covers around 200 acres (81 ha). It is bounded by Bausch & Lomb Riverside Park, an 18-acre (7.3 ha) public park along the east bank of the Genesee River formerly known as the Olmstead River Walk, and Mount Hope Cemetery, where the grave sites of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass can be found. The River Campus was acquired in the late 1920s from the Oak Hill Country Club through a land swap deal orchestrated in part by Edwin Sage Hubbell and funded largely by George Eastman.
Notable Alumni
In its history, 7 university alumni, 4 faculty, and 1 senior research associate have been awarded Nobel Prizes; 32 faculty serve in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; 12 alumni and faculty members have won a Pulitzer Prize, and 20 faculty members have been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Steven Chu
American physicist; Nobel laureate; and the 12th United States Secretary of Energy
University of Rochester
Richard Thaler
American economist and the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics.
University of Rochester
Arthur R. Miller
leading scholar in the field of American civil procedure.
University of Rochester
Paul Singer
American billionaire hedge fund manager; activist investor; and philanthropist,
University of Rochester
FAIR USE STATEMENT
This page may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Most of the time, however, we give credits to the author of quotes, photos and other related materials. We sourced these materials from various internet sites, in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, geographical, anthropological, biological, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific, cultural and social justice issues, etc.
Source:
https://www.rochester.edu/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Rochester#Notable_alumni_and_faculty
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/
https://www.topuniversities.com/