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The Johns Hopkins University, founded in 1876, is a private institution of higher learning located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States.
Johns Hopkins offers its main undergraduate and graduate programs at the Homewood campus in Baltimore and maintains full-time campuses in greater Maryland, Washington, D.C., Italy, and China. Johns Hopkins was the first university in the United States to emphasize research applying the German university model developed by Alexander von Humboldt and Friedrich Schleiermacher.
The Johns Hopkins University is named for Johns Hopkins, who left $7 million in his 1867 incorporation papers and 1873 will for the foundation of the university and Johns Hopkins Hospital. At the time, this was the largest philanthropic bequest in U.S. history, the equivalent of over $131 million in the year 2006. The only donation larger than that original bequest was made by Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg's confirmed personal donations total over $200 million during the last two decades, making him the largest individual benefactor in the university's history.[1] The university opened on February 22, 1876, with the stated goal of "The encouragement of research... and the advancement of individual scholars, who by their excellence will advance the sciences they pursue, and the society where they dwell."[2] The university's first president was Daniel Coit Gilman, and its motto in Latin is Veritas vos liberabit – "The truth shall make you free." The undergraduate student population at Hopkins was all male until 1970 although many graduate programs were integrated earlier.
Johns Hopkins was the first American research university,[3] and the first American university to teach through seminars, instead of solely through lectures.[4] The university was the first in America to offer an undergraduate major (as opposed to a purely liberal arts curriculum) and the first American university to grant doctoral degrees.[5] Johns Hopkins was a model for most large research universities in the United States, particularly the University of Chicago.[6]
The opportunity to be involved in important research is one of the distinguishing characteristics of an undergraduate education at Johns Hopkins. About 80 percent of the university's undergraduates engage in some form of independent research during their four years, most often alongside top researchers in their fields.[7] Johns Hopkins receives more federal research grants than any other university in the United States.[8] The university is affiliated with 31 Nobel laureates. It boasts a wide spectrum in terms of its academic strengths, particularly in art history, biological and natural sciences, biomedical engineering, creative writing, English, history, economics, international studies, medicine, neuroscience, political theory, public health, public policy, and the Romance languages.
Johns Hopkins is one of fourteen founding members of the Association of American Universities (AAU) and a member of the Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE).
The Johns Hopkins University performed $1.44 billion in science, medical and engineering research in fiscal year 2005, making it the leading U.S. academic institution in total R&D spending for the 27th year in a row, according to a new National Science Foundation ranking.[9] The university also ranked first on the NSF's separate list of federally funded research and development, spending $1.277 billion in FY2005 on research supported by such agencies as the National Institutes of Health, NASA, the NSF and the Department of Defense.[10] In FY2002, Johns Hopkins became the first university to cross the $1 billion threshold on either list, recording $1.14 billion in total research and $1.023 billion in federally sponsored research that year. To date, no other institution has reached the $1 billion mark.[11]
Milton Eisenhower, a president of JHU, was once invited to speak to a convention in Pittsburgh. Making a common mistake, the emcee introduced him as "President of John Hopkins." Eisenhower retorted that he was "glad to be here in Pittburgh."[12]
The peculiar first name of philanthropist Johns Hopkins is the surname of his great-grandmother, Margaret Johns, who married Gerard Hopkins. They named their son Johns Hopkins, and his name was passed on to his grandson, the university's founder (1795-1873).
In a commencement address to the undergraduate Class of 2001, university president William R. Brody had the following to say about the name:[13] "In 1888, just 12 years after the university was founded, Mark Twain wrote about this university in a letter to a friend. He said:
A few months ago I was told that the Johns Hopkins University had given me a degree. I naturally supposed this constituted me a Member of the Faculty, and so I started in to help as I could there. I told them I believed they were perfectly competent to run a college as far as the higher branches of education are concerned, but what they needed was a little help here and there from a practical commercial man. I said the public is sensitive to little things, and they wouldn't have full confidence in a college that didn't know how to spell the name 'John'.
More than a century later, we continue to bestow our diplomas only upon individuals of outstanding capabilities and great talent. And we continue to spell Johns with an 's'."
Baltimore is a city located in the state of Maryland in the United States of America. In 2005, the population of Baltimore City was 641,943 and the Baltimore-Towson metropolitan area (MSA) had approximately 2.6 million residents. Baltimore is also part of the even bigger Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area (CMSA) of approximately 8.1 million residents. Baltimore is the largest city in Maryland; its metropolitan area is the 19th largest in the country.
The city is named after the founding proprietor of the Maryland Colony, Lord Baltimore in the Irish House of Lords. Baltimore took his title from Baltimore in County Longford in Ireland, which is the English transliteration of the Irish language Baile an Tí Mór, or "Townland of the big house".[5] Baltimore became the second leading port of entry for immigrants to the United States during the 1800s. The city is a major U.S. seaport, situated closer to major Midwestern markets than any other major seaport on the East Coast.
Because there is also a Baltimore County surrounding (but not including) the city, it is sometimes referred to as Baltimore City when a clear distinction is desired.
The Johns Hopkins University consists of nine academic divisions: the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Carey Business School, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Peabody Institute, School of Education, School of Medicine, School of Nursing, and Whiting School of Engineering.
Johns Hopkins is particularly regarded for its hospital and schools of medicine, public health, and international studies. The Johns Hopkins Hospital was ranked as the top hospital in the United States for the seventeenth year in a row by the U.S. News and World Report annual ranking of American hospitals.[14] For medical research, U.S. News ranked the School of Medicine second nationally for 2007,[15] and, in an August 2005 study,[16] the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) was ranked as the top master's program in international relations.
The Chronicle of Higher Education ranking placed the Economics department at The Johns Hopkins University 4th in 2006, the current year's ranking is yet to be released.
In its annual National Universities ranking, U.S. News ranked The Johns Hopkins University 16th for 2007,[17] down from 13th in 2006. Hopkins is also one of a select group of universities to have been ranked one of the top 10 in the nation.[18]
Located at the university’s Homewood campus at the Charles Village neighborhood in northern Baltimore, the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences is one of nine divisions of the Johns Hopkins University. Directly descended from the original Johns Hopkins University, which was founded as the nation’s first research university in 1876, the Krieger School is the core institution of the university and offers undergraduate and graduate programs.[19] With over 60 undergraduate majors and minors and over 40 full-time and part-time graduate programs, the Krieger School’s educational offerings also summer programs available to high school students, undergraduate students from any college or university, and a post-baccalaureate pre-medical program.[20] Among these academic programs, the Krieger School’s Astronomy, Biology, Creative Writing, English, German, History, and History of Art departments are among the top-ranked in the nation.[21] In addition, not only are faculty members expected to spend as much time researching as teaching, but also, there are numerous research opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students, ranging from the university-sponsored Woodrow Wilson Undergraduate Research Program to the nationwide Fulbright Hays Program for graduate students.[22] The most recent enrollment figures available number that the Krieger School has 2,790 undergraduate students, 32 post-baccalaureate students, 924 full-time graduate students, and 1,379 part-time graduate students.[23]
The Krieger School contains many degree-granting departments, programs, and centers:
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Notably, the French department was recognized as a "Center of Excellence" in the study of French culture and language by the government of France, one of only four in the United States. The Writing Seminars department, a program in creative writing, was ranked second-best in the nation by US News and World Report.
Engineering at Johns Hopkins was originally created in 1913 as an educational program that included exposure to liberal arts and scientific inquiry.[24] In 1919, the engineering department became a separate school, known as the School of Engineering. By 1937, over 1,000 students had graduated with engineering degrees. By 1946 the school had six departments.
In 1961, the School of Engineering changed its name to the School of Engineering Sciences and, in 1979, was renamed the G.W.C. Whiting School of Engineering. The school's named benefactor is George William Carlyle Whiting, co-founder of the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company.
The Whiting School contains ten departments:
In addition to the graduate programs at the Homewood campus, Johns Hopkins has several internationally respected graduate professional schools:
The university also offers education abroad through centers in Germany, Singapore, and Italy. The university operates the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, which specializes in research for the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA and other Government agencies. The Space Telescope Science Institute is located on the Homewood campus and controls, analyzes, and collects data from the Hubble Space Telescope. The recently opened Information Security Institute [26] is the newest addition to the graduate programs affiliated with Johns Hopkins. The Institute is the "university's focal point for research and education in information security, assurance and privacy." JHUISI is the only Institute in the Whiting School with an academic degree program, offering the Master of Science in Security Informatics (MSSI).
The original main university campus was in downtown Baltimore City. However, this location did not permit room for growth and the trustees began to look for a place to move. Eventually, they would relocate to the estate of Charles Carroll of Carrollton and Homewood House, a wedding gift from Charles to his son Charles Jr.
The park-like main campus of Johns Hopkins, Homewood, is set on 140 acres (0.57 km²) in the northern part of Baltimore. The architecture was modeled after the Georgian-inspired Federalist style of Homewood House. Most newer buildings resemble this style, being built of red brick with white marble trim, but lack the details. Homewood House was later used for administrative offices but now is preserved as a museum.
As a part of the donation, Hopkins was required to donate part of the land for art. As a result, the Baltimore Museum of Art, which is not part of the university, is situated next to the University's campus, just southeast of Shriver Hall.
The Decker Gardens, bordered by the Greenhouse, Nichols House and the Johns Hopkins Club, were originally known as the Botanical Gardens and were used by members of the Department of Biology to grow plants for research. By the early 1950s, the gardens no longer served an educational purpose, and in 1958, when Nichols House was built as the president's residence, they were completely re-landscaped with aesthetic criteria in mind. In 1976, the gardens were done over again, and named for trustee Alonzo G. Decker, Jr. and members of his family in appreciation for their generosity to Hopkins.
The statue in the middle of the pool, the Sea Urchin, was sculpted by Edward Berge. It stood in Mount Vernon Place, near the Washington Monument, for 34 years before being replaced by a 7'10" copy, which fit in better with its monumental surroundings. Frank R. Huber, the man who left the city the money to make the copy, asked that the original be given to Paul M. Higinbotham, who donated it to the university. North of the campus, also on Charles Street, we find the Evergreen House, one Hopkins' museums.
14,842 high school seniors applied for regular admission to Johns Hopkins Class of 2011, an increase of 7 percent over the total for the Class of 2010 and of 30 percent over the Class of 2009.[28]Regular decision admission was offered to 3,145 students; those who enroll will join the 443 who were admitted early. The target class size is 1,205, with 800 enrolled in Arts and Sciences and 405 in Engineering.[29] The highest number of acceptances went out to, in order, applicants from New York, California, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The total of admits includes 325 who identified themselves as African-American, 302 Hispanic and 21 Native American.[30]
Students residing in all 50 states, D.C., two U.S. territories (Guam and Puerto Rico) and 57 countries were offered admission this year. The total number of non-U.S. citizens admitted was 189.[31]Once again, Baltimore students are well-represented in the admitted class, with 31 students selected for the Baltimore Scholars Program. The admittance rate was a strikingly low 24 percent. Just two years ago, the rate was 35 percent.[32]
Johns Hopkins accepted 27 percent of 13,869 applicants for entrance into the fall 2006 freshman class. Undergraduate students matriculate from all 50 states and more than 50 countries. Within six years of graduation, 85 percent of Hopkins students earn graduate degrees, the highest percentage in the nation.
The number of applicants has increased by 156 percent from 2002, one of the largest increases in the U.S. In 2006 the pool of admitted students closely resembled that of 2005. The average SAT score remained constant at 1440, while average high school GPA has increased by only 0.02 points, to 3.85.[33] Approximately 48 percent of undergraduates receive financial aid at Johns Hopkins University. The average need-based financial aid package for freshmen totals $29,472 for the Class of 2010. Further, the total grants and scholarships awarded to students in 2004-2005 was $41,570,000. [34]
There are multiple scholarships available for students including, but not limited to the Baltimore Scholars Program, Bloomberg Scholarship, Hodson-Gilliam Success Scholarship, Hodson Trust Scholarship, ROTC (Army) Scholarship, Trustee Scholarship, Charles R. Westgate Scholarship, and the Woodrow Wilson Undergraduate Research Fellowship.[35]
The blueprints for a new programming board called The Hopkins Organization for Programming ("The HOP") were drawn on up during the summer and fall of 2006.
Johns Hopkins currently supports 11 fraternities and four sororities sponsored by the Inter-Fraternity Council and Panhellenic society, including the fraternities Sigma Phi Epsilon ("SigEp"), Sigma Chi, Sigma Alpha Epsilon ("S.A.E."), Lambda Phi Epsilon, Beta Theta Pi, Alpha Delta Phi ("Wawa"), Alpha Epsilon Pi, Phi Kappa Psi ("Phi Psi"), Phi Gamma Delta ("Fiji"), and Pi Kappa Alpha ("Pike"), and the sororities Alpha Phi, Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, and Phi Mu. Approximately 1/3 of male undergraduates and 1/10 of female undergraduates belong to the Greek system. Most of the fraternities maintain houses off campus; the sororities tend not to do so. As at many American universities, it is a widely believed rumor that the sororities are not permitted to have houses because of a state "Brothel Law" prohibiting the cohabitation of more than eight women. The Johns Hopkins News-Letter even reported the existence of such a law in 2001.[36] Snopes.com reports that such laws do not exist.[37]
In addition Charles Village, the region of North Baltimore surrounding the university, has undergone several restoration projects, and the university has gradually bought the property around the school for additional student housing and dormitories. ''The Charles Village Project'', scheduled for completion in 2008, will bring new commercial spaces to the neighborhood. The project includes Charles Commons, a new, modern residence hall that includes a Barnes & Noble and a Starbucks.[38] A Chipotle Mexican Grill and Starbucks have moved in, and the university itself has installed a new Einstein Bros. Bagels[39] franchise in Wolman Hall.
Hopkins has also invested heavily in improving campus life for its students with creation in 2001 of an arts complex, the Mattin Center; and a three-story sports facility, the O'Connor Recreation Center. The large on-campus dining facilities at Homewood were renovated in the summer of 2006, and the caterer was switched from Sodexho to Aramark.
Hopkins has also advertised the "Collegetown" atmosphere it shares with neighboring institutions, including Loyola College, UMBC, Goucher College, and Towson University, as well as the proximity of downtown Baltimore's Inner Harbor.
Hopkins has many publications that are produced entirely by students. The Johns Hopkins News-Letter, founded in 1896, is the oldest continuously published college newspaper in the nation, and is published weekly.[38] The Hopkins Donkey is a political newspaper with a Democratic perspective on international, national and state-wide political topics. The Carrollton Record is a political newspaper with an American conservative perspective on campus and city-wide politics.[39] Zeniada and j.mag are literary magazines. Prometheus is the undergraduate philosophy journal.[40] Frame of Reference is an annual magazine that focuses on film and film culture [41]. The Diplomat is the multi-disciplinary international relations journal.
The Black & Blue Jay is among the nation's oldest humor magazines. It was founded in 1920.[40] According to The Johns Hopkins News-Letter, it was the magazine's name which led the News-Letter to first use the moniker Blue Jays to refer to a Hopkins athletic team in 1923.[41] While the magazine enjoyed popularity among students, it received repeated opposition from the university administration, reportedly for its vulgar sense of humor. In October 1934, Dean Edward R. Berry removed financial support for the magazine; without funding, the magazine continued under the name The Blue Jay until Berry threatened to expel the editors in 1939. The magazine had a revival in 1984, and has published intermittently since then.[42]
This urban campus is in the East Baltimore neighborhood and is home to the School of Medicine, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the School of Nursing. It comprises several city blocks spreading from the original Johns Hopkins Hospital building and its trademark dome. The School of Medicine of the Johns Hopkins University is associated with clinical practice at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
The Johns Hopkins University Library system houses more than 3.6 million volumes.[43] It includes ten main divisions: the Sheridan Libraries at Homewood, the Medical Institutions Libraries, the School of Nursing Library, Abraham M. Lilienfeld Library at the Bloomberg School, the Peabody Institute Library, the Carey Business School and School of Education libraries, the School of Advanced International Studies Libraries (Sydney R. and Elsa W. Mason Library and Bologna Center Library), the R.E. Gibson Library at the Applied Physics Laboratory Library and other minor satellite locations, as well as the archives.
The Milton S. Eisenhower Library (called "MSE" by students), located on the Homewood campus, is the main library. It houses over 2.6 million volumes and over 20,000 journal subscriptions. The Eisenhower Library is a member of the university's Sheridan Libraries encompassing collections at the Albert D. Hutzler Reading Room (called "The Hut" by students) in Gilman Hall, the John Work Garrett Library at Evergreen House, and the George Peabody Library at Mount Vernon Place. Together these collections provide the major research library resources for the university, serving Johns Hopkins academic programs worldwide. The library was named for Milton S. Eisenhower, former president of the university and brother of former U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Only two of the MSE library's six stories are above ground; the rest are beneath, though architects designed the building so that every level has windows and natural light. The design accords with a bit of traditional campus lore which says no structure on campus can be taller than Gilman Hall, the oldest academic building. There is no written rule regarding building height, however, and the library's design was chosen for architectural and aesthetic reasons when it was finally built in the 1960s.
The Peabody Institute Library was begun with the June 16, 1852 donation from George Peabody. George Peabody was born in South Danvers (now Peabody) in 1795 and by the year of 1851 had risen in the business world to become an investment banker in London. Danvers Mechanic Institute's decision to name George Peabody as an honorary member. Proud of their native son, the Danvers Mechanic Institute named George Peabody an honorary member on January 5, 1852. This subscription based institute, located in South Danvers , was both library and lyceum. Though the committee selected to inform Peabody of this honor waited until after Danvers was informed of the donation, it is possible his awareness of this institution influenced Peabody in deciding the type of institution he wished to create.
The Johns Hopkins University was named in 2007 as a university making significant commitments to sustainability. As a major formal step towards sustainability, the University hired its first Manager of Energy and Environmental Stewardship in the spring of 2006. Soon after, the University launched a Sustainability Initiative to coordinate sustainability activities and to develop new programs that will help to reduce the University’s environmental impact. The Sustainable Development Institute gave Johns Hopkins a C+ for their environmental efforts. [44]
The new Manager of Energy and Environmental Stewardship began work in spring 2006 to upgrade inefficient appliances and lighting on campus. Energy retrofits in certain buildings have resulted in energy conservation of over 50 percent.[45] Carbon emissions are currently being inventoried and electric vehicles are used for some campus transportation needs. Another portion of transportation needs on the main campus are being met by a partnership with Flexcar, which has four vehicles stationed on-site. The University intends to secure a percentage of green electricity by working with wind power developers and with a local dairy farm that converts food and farm wastes into green electricity through anaerobic digestion. Plans are being developed to install solar thermal panels on the recreation center to provide heating and hot water needs.[45]
Johns Hopkins recently switched its dining services providers from Sodexho to Aramark, citing improved environmental services as an influential reason for the change. Dining services managers prioritize the purchasing of locally sourced produce and seafood, and organic food is being integrated into the menu.[45] In addition, the smaller cafés around campus sell exclusively organic, shade-grown coffees. There is currently a small pilot composting program on the undergraduate campus.[45]
The University is currently pursuing LEED certification for several new and existing buildings and typically considers the feasibility of LEED programs for all new projects that involve upgrades of existing buildings or new construction. For minor renovations, the University uses LEED principals as guideposts.[45] Retrofits include a green roof deck, experimentation with waterless urinals and low-flow shower heads, and upgraded fluorescent lighting that has reduced lighting load on one campus by over 40 percent. Similar lighting retrofits are underway at all other campuses. In 2004, one campus completed a water conservation retrofit that annually saves over eight million gallons of water.[45]
The Johns Hopkins University, working with Collegetown Development Alliance, a joint venture team comprised of Struever Brothers, Eccles & Rouse and Capstone Development recently teamed up to develop a mixed use project featuring student housing, a central dining facility and a major campus bookstore.
The site, called Charles Commons and completed in September 2006, is located at 33rd Street between Charles and St. Paul Streets. The approximate 350,000 sq. ft development includes housing for approximately 618 students, with supporting amenity spaces; a central dining facility and specialty dining area with seating capacity of approximately 330; an approximately 25,000 sq. ft. bookstore run by Barnes and Noble.
The Decker Quadrangle development comprehends the last large building site on the contiguous Homewood campus of the Johns Hopkins University, making it the most important project on campus since the development of the two original quadrangles. In this first phase, the project will include a visitors and admissions center, a computational sciences building, and an underground parking structure, creating a new quadrangle, south of Garland Hall, named in honor of Alonso G. and Virginia G. Decker. Importantly, the project will establish a new public entrance for the campus and recognize the potential for future growth of campus activities sited across Wyman Park Drive.
Recently, the university announced a $73 million renovation of Gilman Hall, the academic centerpiece of the Homewood Campus. The renovation will include updating all classrooms in the building, as well as a full replacement of the infrastructure of the building. Gilman hall, superficially renovated in the 1980s will now include a movie theater and a large atrium, with a glass roof. The atrium will have a sky-walk from the entrance of the building to the Hutzler Undergraduate Reading Room and will contain the university's premier archaeological collection. The project is slated for completion for the 2010-2011 academic year.[46]
Athletic teams at Johns Hopkins are called the Blue Jays. The university's athletic colors are Columbia blue and black. (Sable and gold are used for academic robes.) Hopkins celebrates Homecoming in the spring to coincide with the height of the lacrosse season. Outside of the Men's and Women's Division I lacrosse teams, Hopkins participates in the NCAA's Division III and the Centennial Conference.
The school's most prominent sports team is its men's lacrosse team, which has won 44 national titles - nine NCAA Division I (2007, 2005, 1987, 1985, 1984, 1980, 1979, 1978, 1974), 29 USILA, and six ILA titles. Hopkins' primary national lacrosse rivals are Princeton University, Syracuse University, and the University of Virginia; its primary intrastate rivals are Loyola College, Towson University, the United States Naval Academy, and the University of Maryland, which is considered the most important rival in college lacrosse, the schools having met 103 times, with two of those meetings in the playoffs.
The Lacrosse Museum and National Hall of Fame, governed by US Lacrosse, is located on the Homewood campus and is adjacent to Homewood Field. Past Johns Hopkins lacrosse teams have represented the United States in international competition. At the 1932 Summer Olympics lacrosse demonstration event Hopkins played for the US. They have also gone to Melbourne, Australia to win the 1974 World Lacrosse Championship.
Hopkins also has an acclaimed fencing team, which has ranked in the top three of Division III teams in the past few years and in 2007 defeated University of North Carolina, a Division I team, for the first time. The Swimming team also has ranked in the top two of Division III for the last 10 years. Hopkins also has a century-old rivalry with McDaniel College (formerly Western Maryland College), playing the Green Terrors 83 times in football since the first game in 1894.
See: List of Johns Hopkins University people
Other Hopkins Campuses
For a number of other affiliated fictional characters, see List of Johns Hopkins University people#Fictional associations.
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