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College Of William And Mary

College of William and Mary

The College of William and Mary in Virginia is the second-oldest institution of higher education in the United States (after Harvard). The Reverend Dr. James Blair founded the College in 1693 by virtue of a Royal Charter issued by King William III and Queen Mary II of England, Orange, Scotland and Ireland. Named in their honor, William and Mary is a small, public university located in Williamsburg, Virginia. It is considered a Public Ivy. In conjunction with its liberal-arts undergraduate program, William and Mary has several professional schools (law, education and business) as well as numerous graduate programs in the arts and sciences. Although it would be called a university in traditional American usage, the original charter specified that it "always and forever" retain its formal name: "The College of William and Mary in Virginia." Today, as a gesture to that requirement and the traditional importance placed on its undergraduate program, the entire university is often called simply "The College" by those close to it (also called William & Mary or W&M for short). Well before university-level education was the norm, the College educated many of America's founding leaders, including such notables as Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Tyler, and John Marshall. On the College's campus, the historic Wren Building was reconstructed during the 1930s along with the adjacent restored area of Colonial Williamsburg. The College is highly selective, enrolling 5,700 undergraduate and 2,000 graduate students on an historic and picturesque campus. The College is known for the high quality of its undergraduate programs in the sciences, government, religion, philosophy, theatre and international relations, among others, and for its Law School and doctoral program in U.S. Colonial history. Notably, all undergraduate classes are taught by professors rather than teaching assistants. In support of its committment to undergraduate teaching, the College maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio of 11:1 (approximately 11 students for every professor) and is recognized as one of the most "unwired" colleges in America due to its wireless campus. Graduates of its undergraduate program traditionally experience one of the highest acceptance rates to law and medical schools among Virginia's universities and among the Public Ivies. Recently, William and Mary made great strides in private fund raising (the College has over 75,000 alumni) and increased its endowment. Thanks to a restructuring initiative passed by the Virginia General Assembly in 2005, the publicly-funded institution now enjoys increased autonomy over its affairs. On October 4, 2005, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Sandra Day O'Connor was named as the 23rd Chancellor of the College, replacing former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.

Early History

Henry Kissinger]] The history of the College's founding begins in the seventeenth century in the Virginia Colony, which was first established at Jamestown in 1607. A school of higher education had long been a goal of the original colonists and a notable effort was made at Henricus (but the plan unfortunately disappeared, along with the entire Henricus community in the Indian Massacre of 1622). Indian Massacre of 1622] In 1691 the House of Burgesses sent James Blair (the colony's top religious leader) to England to secure a charter to establish "a certain Place of Universal Study, a perpetual College of Divinity, Philosophy, Languages, and the good arts and sciences...to be supported and maintained, in all time coming." Blair journeyed to London and began a vigorous campaign. With support from his friends, Henry Compton, the Bishop of London, and John Tillotson (Archbishop of Canterbury), Blair was ultimately successful. The College was founded on February 8, 1693, under a Royal Charter secured by Blair. Named in honor of the reigning monarchs King William III and Queen Mary II, the College was one of the original Colonial colleges. Fittingly, the Royal Charter named Blair as the College's first president (a lifetime appointment which he held until his death in 1743). The Royal Charter called for a center of higher education consisting of three schools: the Grammar School, the Philosophy School and the Divinity School. The Philosophy School instructed students in the advanced study of moral philosophy (logic, rhetoric, ethics) as well as natural philosophy (physics, metaphysics, and mathematics); upon completion of this coursework, the Divinity School prepared these young men for ordination into the Church of England. These early offerings in moral and natural philosophy were precursors to the College's present-day liberal arts program. In 1693, the College was given a seat in the House of Burgesses and it was determined that the College would be supported by tobacco taxes and export duties on furs and animal skins. In 1694, Blair returned from England and William & Mary opened in the original "College Building." The College Building (the precursor to today's Wren Building) was completed in 1699 on a picturesque site comprised of 330 acres. The present-day College is still located upon those grounds. 1699 Williamsburg served as the capital of Colonial Virginia from 1699 to 1780. During this time, the College served as a law center and its buildings frequently were utilized by lawmakers. It was also during this period that the College educated future U.S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and John Tyler. Most notably, a sixteen year old Thomas Jefferson arrived at the College in 1760. As a young student, Jefferson developed a keen interest in science, mathematics and political philosophy from Professor William Small; Small introduced Jefferson to the writings of John Locke, Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton. By most accounts, Jefferson studied incessantly as a William & Mary student, always carrying his Greek grammar book with him. He perfected his French but also found time to practice the violin and cello. And by studying in Williamsburg, Jefferson was able to view the operation of a colonial government; Jefferson would later join the leaders of that government. [http://www.wm.edu/about/jefferson/jefferson_college.php] Jefferson completed the coursework and graduated with high honors in 1762. Jefferson later went on to author the U.S. Declaration of Independence (signed by alums George Wythe, Benjamin Harrison V and Carter Braxton) and become the third U.S. President (1801-1809), among other accomplishments. In 1783, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the College. Doctor of Laws George Wythe also attended the College as a young man, but dropped out unable to afford the fees. Wythe went on to become one of the more distinguished jurists of his time. Under Wythe's tutelage, Thomas Jefferson studied law (1762-1767); Jefferson, who later referred to Wythe as "my second father," was then admitted to the bar of Virginia. By 1779, Wythe held the nation's first Law Professorship at the College. Wythe is widely regarded as a pioneer in American legal education -- some of his other students included Henry Clay, James Monroe and John Marshall. [http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/signers/wythe.htm]

Post-Colonial History

The colonies gained their independence in 1776 and William & Mary severed formal ties to England; thereafter, the Royal Charter lapsed in 1882, but the College subsequently received a new charter from Virginia. Yet the College's connection to regal history remains as a distinct point of pride; it maintains a relationship with the British monarchy and includes Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher among its former Chancellors. The College is the only American institution of higher learning with a pre-Revolutionary coat of arms, issued in 1694 by the College of Arms in England. [http://www.wm.edu/vitalfacts/seventeenth.php] After the Revolutionary War, General George Washington served as the College's first post-colonial era Chancellor (1788-1799). George Washington In 1819, a young man from Baltimore, Maryland -- William Barton Rogers -- arrived at the College to commence his undergraduate studies (1819-1824). Rogers later returned to Williamsburg to hold the College's Professorship of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry from 1828 to 1835 (the same professorship previously held by his father Patrick Kerr Rogers from 1819 until his death in 1828). William Barton Rogers is widely known for founding the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1861. MIT retains a facsimile of a William & Mary undergraduate report detailing Rogers's "flattering improvement" in mathematics and chemistry. [http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/wbr/w&m-report.html] Today, Rogers Hall, named in his honor, is home to the College's chemistry department. During portions of the American Civil War (1861-1865), William and Mary was occupied by Union troops. The Battle of Williamsburg was fought nearby during the Peninsula Campaign of 1862; on September 9, 1862, drunken soldiers of the 5th Pennsylvania Cavalry set fire to the College Building. The College's 16th president, Benjamin S. Ewell, sought war reparations from Congress. But Ewell was unsuccessful and the College suspended classes in 1882 due to lack of funds from Union occupation and investments in Confederate bonds. The Royal Charter, lacking a beneficiary, lapsed while the institution lay dormant. Nonetheless, myth has it that President Ewell continued to ring the College bell at the start of each academic year, reminding the Williamsburg community of the College. This suspension was temporary: in 1888, the Commonwealth of Virginia reconstituted William and Mary as an institution of the state, taking over the grounds of the colonial institution by an act of the General Assembly. In that same year, Lyon Gardiner Tyler (son of US President and alumnus John Tyler) became the 17th president of the College, and William & Mary has remained publicly-funded ever since. Lyon Tyler (as well as 18th president J.A.C. Chandler) expanded the College into a 20th century institution. By 1918, William and Mary was one of the first universities in Virginia to become coeducational. In celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Virginia Resolutions for American Independence, U.S. President Calvin Coolidge spoke at the College on May 15, 1926, and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. During president J.A.C. Chandler's visionary tenure, the College increased enrollment from 333 to 1,269 students. In October of 1934, John Stewart Bryan succeeded Chandler as president of the College -- U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt attended the ceremony and received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. Significant campus construction continued under president Bryan: in 1935, for example, the architecturally-noteworthy Sunken Garden was laid out on the campus mall, just west of the Wren Building. This sunken landscape feature had long been planned by Dr. J.A.C. Chandler, based on a similar treatment of grounds adjacent to Chelsea Hospital in London. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visited the College on October 16, 1957. The Queen spoke to the College community from the balcony of the Wren Building, marking the first visit to the College by a reigning British sovereign. At the 1974 Charter Day Convocation, the first Thomas Jefferson Award (established by the Robert Earll McConnell Foundation in 1963) was presented to Dudley Warner Woodbridge, dean of the Law School. In 1974, Ash Lawn-Highland -- the 466-acre historic Charlottesville estate where William and Mary alumnus and President of the United States James Monroe once lived -- was willed to the College by Jay Winston Johns. The College restored this historic Presidential home and opened it to the public. [http://www.ashlawnhighland.org/] James Monroe By the 1950's, the financial backing of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was instrumental to further campus construction -- for example, Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall (or "PBK") opened in 1957. President Gerald R. Ford and Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter engaged in a Presidential Debate at PBK in the fall of 1976. Beginning in the 1970's, the College strengthened its theatre program which has since produced some notable actors and television writers. Entertainers Glenn Close and Jon Stewart graduated from the College in 1974 and 1984, respectively. Stewart is the popular host of the Daily Show. The April 18, 2005 issue of TIME Magazine listed Stewart as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. By the 1990's, the College was adjusting to limited state funding -- a national issue for public universities. In 2005, dean of the law school of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Gene R. Nichol became the 26th president of the College, replacing Timothy J. Sullivan. During Sullivan's 13-year stewardship, the College's endowment swelled to just over $400 million; and in 2005 the College restructured its relationship with the state, due in large part to Sullivan's efforts.

Academics

The College pioneered in the teaching of political economy and natural philosophy. Benjamin Franklin received the College's first honorary degree in 1756. William and Mary soon became notable for a number of academic milestones. The Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society was founded at the College in 1776. In 1779, pursuant to Thomas Jefferson's Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge, William and Mary became the first college in America to achieve the status of University with the addition of the College of Law and School of Modern Languages (soonafter, in 1803, the College became the first university in America to have a School of Modern History). In his capacity as Governor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson further guided the College to adopt the nation's first elective system of study and introduced the first student-policed Honor System. In 1779, also at Jefferson's behest, the College appointed George Wythe with the first Professorship of Law in America, predating the establishment of Harvard Law School's faculty in 1817. In 1780, John Marshall attended Wythe's law lectures and later went on to become Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. William and Mary's Marshall-Wythe Law School is one of America's oldest and is named after these founding jurists. William Van Alstyne, a noted constitutional law scholar, left Duke University to join the Law School faculty in 2004. Today, the College's small class size and involved faculty distinguish it from larger universities. Reflecting the importance placed on the undergraduate experience, all undergraduate classes are taught by professors rather than teaching assistants; this is rare for a public university. Yet despite its small enrollment, the College has produced a fair number of Rhodes Scholars (5 since 1988), Marshall Scholars, Bienecke Scholars, Truman Scholars and Goldwater Scholars as well as 45 Fulbright Fellowships and numerous National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowships. William and Mary consistently is ranked among the premier public universities in America. In its 2006 edition (for the 2005-2006 school year), US News and World Report ranked William & Mary #6 of all public universities in the United States. [http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/natudoc/natudoc_pub_brief.php] Competition for admission is therefore quite selective. For the 2003 admissions year, over 10,000 students applied for 1,300 places in the freshman class. In that enrolling class, an impressive 85% came from the top ten percent of their high school class and their average SAT score was 1342 (the highest among Virginia's universities). [http://www.wm.edu/about/facts.php] In addition, William and Mary is considered by some to occupy a particular niche: best small public university in the United States. For the 2005-2006 school year, Newsweek Magazine selected William & Mary as the "hottest small public university" in the United States in recognition of its small class seminars, personal focus on the undergraduate teaching experience and recent surge in applications. [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8939242/page/2/]

The Priorities of the College

(From the Wren Building plaque presented by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities in 1854) First college in the United States in its antecedents which go back to the College proposed at Henricus (1619). Second to Harvard University in actual operation. First American College to receive its charter from the Crown under the Seal of the Privy Council, in 1693. Hence it was known as “'their Majesties’ Royal College of William and Mary.” First and ONLY American College to receive a Coat-of-Arms from the College of Arms in London, 1694. First College in the United States to have a full Faculty, consisting of a President, six Professors, usher; and writing master, 1729. First College to confer metallic prizes; the gold medals donated by Lord Botetourt in 1771. First College to establish an inter collegiate fraternity, the Phi Beta Kappa, December 5, 1776. First College to have the Elective system of study, 1779. First College to have the Honor System (inked by Thomas Jefferson), 1779. First College to become a University, 1779. First College to have a school of Modern Languages, 1779. First College to have a school of Municipal and Constitutional Law, 1779. First College to have a school of Modern History, 1803.

Graduate Placement

Graduates of the College's undergraduate program traditionally experience a high rate of acceptance to professional and graduate schools; this is due, in part, to the reputation of its liberal arts program and a perceived lack of grade inflation. For example, the Virginia Council of Higher Education found recent W&M grads to enjoy an 80% acceptance rate at medical schools. [http://research.schev.edu/roie/four_year/CWM/body.asp?i=1] In 2003, the Wall Street Journal ranked the College among the top ten public universities in the United States based on the percentage of alums who attend one of the top five graduate programs in business, law or medicine (so-called "feeder" schools). [http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/college/feederschools.htm]

The Wren Building and Sir Christopher Wren

The College Building is officially referred to as the "Wren Building" because tradition has it that the building was designed by the English architect Sir Christopher Wren who was famous for designing St. Paul's Cathedral in London. However, the extent of Wren's hand in designing the actual College Building (completed in 1699) is unverifiable and, therefore, has been disputed by some historians. The College recently published an article exploring the Wren Building's history, including Sir Christoper Wren's involvement. [http://www.wm.edu/alumni/WMAA/Magazine/Fall05/pages/Fall05_Wren.htm] In the early 20th century, the Reverend Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin and John D. Rockefeller Jr. undertook a massive restoration project in Williamsburg -- the project culminated into Colonial Williamsburg. As part of this undertaking, the Wren Building was the first major structure to be extensively restored. It is worth noting that the descendants of the original ivy grown on the Wren Building were kept in a preservation; it is from this original preservation that all of the ivy on the building has been planted, including throughout all of the buildings incarnations. Today, two other buildings complete a triangle at the end of "Old Campus": the Brafferton (built in 1723 and originally housing the Indian School) and the President's House (built in 1732).

Other cofounders

While James Blair is widely known as the founder of the College of William and Mary, recent research indicates that 17 other individuals should possibly join Dr. Blair with co-founder status. John H. Garrett Jr., who was President of the W&M Class of 1940, has identified those who he determined also played important roles as co-founders of the institution. Alphabetically, these are: Nathaniel Bacon (cousin of the leader of Bacon's Rebellion earlier), John Banister, William Byrd, Miles Cary, William Cole, John Farnifold, Stephen Fouace, Benjamin Harrison, Henry Hartwell, John Lear, Thomas Milner, Royal Governor Francis Nicholson, John Page, Christopher Robinson, John Smith (not the one from 1607 and Jamestown fame), and Ralph Wormley. [http://www.wm.edu/news/index.php?id=2705]

Training America's Early Leaders

Francis Nicholson William & Mary is among the Presidential alma maters (only Harvard and Yale have educated more U.S. presidents). Three of the earlier U.S. Presidents -- Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe (pictured) and John Tyler -- were educated at William and Mary and a fourth, George Washington, received his surveyor's certificate from the College. George Washington was appointed one of the College's first Chancellors in 1788 and served continuously until his death in 1799. The College also educated three U.S. Supreme Court Justices (John Marshall, Philip Pendleton Barbour and Bushrod Washington) as well as several important members of government including Peyton Randolph, Henry Clay and George Wythe (a signer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence). John Marshall went on to become the fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and is famous for creating the doctrine of judicial review, considered particularly influential for shaping the early powers of the United States Supreme Court.

Founders of Educational Institutions

Two William & Mary alums went on to establish educational institutions: In 1819, Thomas Jefferson, in his so-called retirement from public life, founded the University of Virginia and William Barton Rogers, a former chemistry professor at the College, founded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1861.

Founding of Phi Beta Kappa, Secret Societies

The Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society was founded at the College of William and Mary by John Heath and William Short (Class of 1779) on December 5, 1776. It began as a secret literary and philosophical society at the College; additional chapters were soon established at Harvard, Yale and other schools. [http://www.shsu.edu/~eng_wpf/frat_hist.html] Alums John Marshall and Bushrod Washington were two of the earliest members of Phi Beta Kappa, elected in 1778 and 1780, respectively. [http://www.pbk.org/about/history.htm] The Bishop James Madison Society, a secret society that remains active today, was also founded there. A number of other secret societies exist at the school, including the Flat Hat Club (Thomas Jefferson was a member of FHC), the Alpha Club, the Seven Society, and the 13 Club.

300th Anniversary of the Royal Charter

On February 13, 1993, William and Mary celebrated the 300th anniversary of its Royal Charter which is also known at the College simply as Charter Day. As part of this celebration, or Tercentenary, the College observed Charter Day in William and Mary Hall. There, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales (making a second visit to the campus) presided and brought special greetings to the College from his mother, Queen Elizabeth II of Britain. Then, on May 16, 1993, Commencement ceremonies were held in Walter J. Zable Stadium to accommodate an extensive celebration; in attendance were entertainer Bill Cosby, the Commencement speaker; Virginia Governor L. Douglas Wilder; and former United States Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, the College's then-Chancellor. Finally, on June 3, 1993, as part of this Tercentenary observance, Queen Elizabeth II met with then-President Timothy Sullivan (along with a William and Mary delegation of over 300 members) at a special reception in Drapers' Hall in London. [http://www.wm.edu/vitalfacts/twentieth4.php] The 1993 Homecoming ceremonies marked the following: the dedication and unveiling of two large statues (one of Lord Botetourt in the Wren Yard and the other of founder and first President Rev. James Blair between Tyler and Blair Hall); the unveiling of The College of William and Mary: A History, a two-volume, 1,000-page history of the College written by Thaddeus W. Tate, Ludwell H. Johnson, Susan H. Godson, Richard B. Sherman and Helen C. Walker; and a 300th birthday party celebration at nearby Busch Gardens park and brewery. Finally, William and Mary opened a new building, Tercentenary Hall (later renamed McGlothlin-Street Hall, in recognition of the McGlothlin and Street Families' contributions to the College), to commemorate this 300th anniversary. McGlothlin-Street Hall is home to the College's Applied Sciences, Geology and Computer Science departments. Finally, as a gift commemorating the College's 300th, the University of Virginia gave the College a bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson; the life-size statue stands between Washington and McGlothlin-Street Hall. The College maintains gentlemanly relations with this peer institution; they share a history as the top two Virginia universities, both "Public Ivies."

Current leadership

Public Ivies On July 1, 2005, Gene R. Nichol (the former Dean and Burton Craige Professor of the Law School of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) was sworn in as the College's 26th President, replacing Timothy J. Sullivan. President Sullivan (Class of 1966, PBK) was successful in elevating the College's profile as a top public institution. Now, President Nichol is carrying that torch; he recently introduced the Gateway William and Mary Program extending debt-free undergraduate education to outstanding applicants from underprivileged economic backgrounds. On October 4, 2005, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Sandra Day O'Connor replaced Henry Kissinger as the 23rd Chancellor of the College.[http://www.wm.edu/news/index.php?id=5234&readMore=true] Kissinger had previously stated that he would step down when the former president of the College, Timothy J. Sullivan, retired. The post of Chancellor has been important in the history of the College. Until 1776, the Chancellor was an English subject, usually the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London, who served as the College’s advocate to the crown, while a colonial President oversaw the day-to-day activities of the Williamsburg campus. Following the Revolutionary War, General George Washington was appointed as the first American chancellor; later President John Tyler held the post. In recent times, the College has been led by a distinguished succession of Chancellors: former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Warren E. Burger, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. It is important to note that the term Chancellor at William & Mary is somewhat different than at many other universities, as the person in this position does not live at the college, or even in Virginia, and rarely makes appearences at the college.

Past Presidents of the College

#Reverend James Blair, founder, 1693-1743 #Reverend William Dawson, 1743-1752 #Reverend William Stith, 1752-1755 #Reverend Thomas Dawson, 1755-1760 #Reverend William Yates, 1761-1764 #Reverend James Horrocks, 1764-1771 #Reverend John Camm, 1771-1776 #Bishop James Madison, 1776-1812 #Reverend John Bracken, 1812-1814 #Dr. John Augustine Smith, 1814-1826 #Dr. William Holland Wilmer, 1826-1827 #Reverend Adam Empie, 1827-1836 #Thomas Roderick Dew, 1836-1846 #Robert Saunders, Jr., 1847-1848 #Bishop John Johns, 1849-1854 #Benjamin S. Ewell, 1854-1888 #Lyon Gardiner Tyler, 1888-1919 #Dr. Julian Alvin Carroll Chandler, 1919-1934 #John Stewart Bryan, 1934-1942 #Dr. John Edward Pomfret, 1942-1951 #Alvin Duke Chandler, 1951-1960 #Dr. Davis Young Paschall, 1960-1971 #Dr. Thomas Ashley Graves, Jr., 1971-1985 #Dr. Paul Robert Verkuil, 1985-1992 #Timothy J. Sullivan, 1992-2005

Traditions

Henry Kissinger William and Mary boasts a rich history of traditions. One is the Yule Log Ceremony which is held just prior to the Winter Holidays. At YLC, the College president dresses as Santa Claus and reads "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" while the dean of student affairs reads "'Twas the Night Before Finals" -- the stories are updated yearly to reflect current events at the College. YLC ends with the students tossing holly onto the Yule Log, symbolizing the tossing away of the past year's worries and hardships. Another tradition is Opening Convocation. Here, all incoming Freshmen class walk through the entrance of the Wren Building and are officially welcomed as the newest members of the College. Four year later, on the morning of graduation, this class will take the Senior Walk through campus. At Senior Walk, all graduates again process through the Wren Building (but in full academic regalia and in the opposite direction they walked as Freshmen) across the campus to Commencement at William and Mary Hall (a bottle of cold champagne is typically tucked under the gown for the trip). And although the campus eventually expanded to the west side of the Wren Building, the tradition of freshmen "entering" the College and seniors "exiting" stuck and remains to this day. William and Mary also boasts a number of unofficial traditions. One is the Triathlon -- three tasks which legend states must be completed by each student prior to graduation. The first task, admittedly illegal, is to jump the Governor's Palace Wall in Colonial Williamsburg, and run the hedge-maze found within, avoiding the bench in the middle of the maze due to Colonial Williamsburg ghost stories. The second task (also illegal) is to streak (i.e., run naked) through the Sunken Gardens, located in the middle of "Old Campus." The third and final task is to jump into the Crim Dell (pictured) -- a widened section of a stream that runs from Old Campus to New, crossed by a scenic bridge. Since a student death in 2003, jumping into the Crim Dell has been replaced with wading into it from the side and swimming to the wooden bridge. A number of traditions center around Crim Dell, voted by Playboy magazine as the second most-romantic locale on a college campus. According to legend, if you kiss your love in the middle of the Crim Dell bridge, you are destined to be together forever. If things turn sour, the only way to break the "curse" is to toss the person you kissed off the bridge. It should be noted, however, that if you cross the bridge alone, you are fated to be alone forever. The small amphitheater facing this bridge is also the site of many planned or impromptu musical and theatrical offerings.

Tribe Pride

Recently, the National Collegiate Athletic Association asked William and Mary -- along with 30 other colleges and universities -- to determine whether the Native American nickname and logo associated with its athletic program are “hostile and abusive.” This fall, President Nichol appointed Provost Geoff Feiss to chair a steering committee preparing the College’s self-evaluation. After careful consideration, the self-evaluation committee, the Board of Visitors and Nichol found no basis for concluding that the use of the term “Tribe” violates NCAA standards. On the contrary, the “Tribe” moniker communicates ennobling sentiments of commitment, shared idealism, community and common cause. Notably, Nichol had engaged in conversations with nearby Virginia Indian tribes; the tribes affirmed their acceptance of the nickname, highlighting the historical connection between the College and its role in educating Native Americans. Meanwhile, the College's "unofficial" mascot Colonel Ebirt (an amorphous green blob with a tri-cornered hat) was discontinued, fomenting student controversy. The Flat Hat, William & Mary's student newspaper, reported that Colonel Ebirt was not officially considered a mascot by the athletic department. For now, the general student body is exploring a new mascot; one suggested mascot is "King William."

Songs of the College

Alma Mater
Hark the students' voices swelling,
Strong and true and clear
Alma Mater's love they're telling
Ringing far and near.
CHORUS
William and Mary loved of old
Hark, upon the gale,
Hear the thunder of our chorus
Alma Mater, hail!
All thy sons are faithful to thee
Through their college days;
Singing loud from hearts that love thee
Alma Mater's praise.
Iron shod or golden sandaled
Shall the years go by -
Still our hearts shall weave about thee
Love that cannot die.
God our Father, hear our voices
Listen to our cry
Bless the college of our fathers
Let her never die.
William and Mary Fight Song
To be sung every time the Tribe football team scores
"Oh, we will fight, fight, fight for the Indians,
And when the Big Green team appears
We will yell like hell for the Indians,
And they will heed our mighty cheers.
And we will lead our team on to victory,
And give a shout for the colors bold -
We'll have a
Touchdown! Touchdown! Indians!
For the Green and Gold!"

Notable William and Mary Alumni

See List of Notable Alumni from the College of William and Mary for a more extensive list William and Mary has produced a large number of notable alumni including four United States Presidents: Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Tyler, and George Washington (who received his surveyor's certificate from the College). Many other important figures from American history have attended the College such as John Marshall and Peyton Randolph. More recent alumni include entertainers Jon Stewart and Glenn Close.

Friends of the College

- Sandra Day O'Connor, current Chancellor, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
- Henry Kissinger, former Chancellor, former US Secretary of State
- Margaret Thatcher, former Chancellor, former UK Prime Minister
- Warren E. Burger, former Chancellor, former Chief Justice of the United States, donated all of his legal papers to the College
- Lawrence Eagleburger, current member of the Board of Visitors, former Secretary of State
- Michael K. Powell, (Class of 1985), current member of the Board of Visitors, former chairman of FCC
- William H. Rehnquist, former Chief Justice of the United States, donated all of his legal papers to the College
- Colgate W. Darden, Jr., former Chancellor, former Governor of Virginia
- William Barton Rogers, former student and professor, founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.)
- Thomas Jefferson, former student, his 1778 Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge heralded key academic reforms at the College
- George Washington, former Chancellor

Notable Professors

- James L. Axtell, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Humanities; inducted to American Academy of Arts and Sciences as Fellow (2004)
- Mitchell Byrd, Professor of Biology, expert on ecology and conservation
- Clayton Clemens, Professor of Government
- Ronald Hoffman, Director of College's Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
- Brian Holloway, Assistant Professor of Applied Science, research scientist on nanostructures and thin films
- Fred Lederer, Professor of Law, Director of William and Mary's Courtroom 21
- John McGlennon, Professor of Government
- Robert Maximilian de Gaynesford, Professor of Philosophy
- Kris Lane, Professor of History
- C. Lawrence Evans, Professor of Government, Co-Editor, Legislative Studies Quarterly
- Robert Fritts, Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy, former United States Ambassador to Rwanda and Ghana
- George Grayson, Professor of Government, Adjunct Fellow, Center for Strategic & International Studies
- Melvin Patrick Ely, Newton Family Professor of History and Black Studies; author of Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War; recipient of the Bancroft Prize (2005)
- Mitchell Reiss, Professor of Government and Law, Director of Policy Planning (U.S. Department of State)
- Joseph L. Scott, Professor of Biology
- Ron Schechter, Professor of History, Recipient of the Leo Gershoy Award
- Dale Hoak, Professor of History, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
- William Van Alstyne, Professor of Law, constitutional law scholar
- Cindy Lee VanDover, Associate Professor of Biology, expert in marine biology and hydrothermal vents; first female pilot of ALVIN
- Dirk Walecka, Professor of Physics, recipient of Tom Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics from American Physical Society; former director of CEBAF/JLAB
- General (Ret.) Anthony Zinni, Government instructor; retired U.S. General and former U.S. special envoy to the Middle East

External links

- [http://www.wm.edu/ College of William and Mary: Official Site]
- [http://www.wm.edu/about/wren/wrenchapel/htmls/wmaerials.html Aerial Views of William & Mary Grounds]
- [http://www.swem.wm.edu/departments/special-collections/exhibits/exhibits/charter/charter/ The Charter of the College]
- [http://www.shsu.edu/~eng_wpf/frat_hist.html The Founding of Phi Beta Kappa at W&M]
- [http://www.wm.edu/constitutionday/index.php Constitution Day Lecture by William Van Alstyne]
- [http://www.wm.edu/law/ William and Mary Law School]
- [http://www.jstor.org/journals/00435597.html The William and Mary Quarterly]
- [http://www.wm.edu/oieahc/ College's Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture]
- [http://www.ashlawnhighland.org/ James Monroe's Ash Lawn-Highland Home]
- [http://www.tribeathletics.com Tribe Athletics]
- [http://mba.wm.edu/ Mason School of Business]
- [http://www.vims.edu/ Virginia Institute of Marine Science]
- [http://fsweb.wm.edu/ccb/ Center for Conservation Biology]
- [http://www.wm.edu/environment/KeckLab.html Keck Lab for Environmental Sciences]
- [http://swem.wm.edu/ Earl Gregg Swem Library]
- [http://flathat.wm.edu/ The Flat Hat College Newspaper]
- [http://www.wm.edu/so/choir William and Mary Choir]
- [http://www.wm.edu/news/index.php?id=2705 William and Mary online news article from 2003: W&M Founders Include Blair and 17 Others]
- [http://www.compsci.wm.edu/SciClone/index.html W&M's Supercomputer: Largest Academic Academic Sun Microsystems Cluster in Western Hemisphere]
- [http://www.courtroom21.net W&M Law School's Courtroom 21 Project: World's Most Advanced Courtroom] Category:College of William and Mary ja:ウィリアム・アンド・メアリー大学

Colonial colleges

Nine institutions of higher education, sometimes called colonial colleges, were chartered in the American Colonies before the American Revolution (1775–1783). These nine have long been considered together, notably in the survey of their origins in the 1907 Cambridge [http://www.bartleby.com/227/1613.html History of English and American Literature]. Although today most of these institutions refer to themselves as "universities", they are called "colonial colleges" partly because, at the time of the revolution, only Pennsylvania called itself a "university". Each had assumed the power to grant degrees, a power in Europe only held by universities; several were offering some graduate instruction. (See college for more on American usage of that word.) The nine colonial colleges are listed below in order of antiquity under the name by which they were known for the bulk of the colonial period. Also listed are the religious groups that were instrumental in each college's foundation and early history. In most cases the listed religious links, although often strong, were de facto rather than official. (At any rate, all have long since affirmed their secularity.) In addition to the religious/secular boundary, the line between state and private control was also far blurrier than today: as the distinction crystalized over time, some schools became fully independent and others part of their state's higher-education system. Seven of the nine colonial colleges are part of the Ivy League: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Columbia, Brown, and Dartmouth. The eighth member of the Ivy League, Cornell University, was founded in 1865. Conversely, the two colonial colleges not in the Ivy League are both public universities—the College of William and Mary (which retains the historical appellation "College" in its name by virtue of its Royal Charter from England) and Rutgers University (today the state university of New Jersey). Interestingly, both universities have been considered as part of the public ivies, though The College of William and Mary more consistently so because of its state-assisted status and its high caliber academic programs. Notes: An earlier attempt to found a "University of Henrico" at Henricopolis (also known as Henricus) in the Colony of Virginia received a charter in 1618; but only a small school for Indians had begun operation by 1622, when the town was destroyed in an Indian raid. The site of the town and university was just outside modern Richmond, Virginia in Chesterfield County (formerly part of Henrico County). The University of Pennsylvania was established in 1749 as the Publick Academy of Philadelphia (instruction began in 1751), continuing the work of the short-lived Academy and Charitable School in the Province of Pennsylvania which was established in 1740.
Dartmouth College was chartered in 1769, a reestablishment of Moor's Charity School which was established in 1753 in Lebanon, Connecticut and was granted a charter in 1754. After founder Eleazar Wheelock received Dartmouth's charter in 1769, he selected a site for it and the charity school in Hanover, New Hampshire and subsequently moved both there during 1770.

Other colonial-era foundations

Several other colleges and universities can be traced to colonial-era "academies" or "schools", but are not considered Colonial Colleges because they were not chartered as "colleges" with the power to grant degrees (and in fact did not grant degrees) until after the American Declaration of Independence in 1776. There were nine colleges in the colonies in 1770; all of them still exist, meaning that the colleges listed below are no older, whatever their origins as grammar schools. (Washington & Lee, in particular, has [http://ir.wlu.edu/about/nintholdest.htm claimed] erroneously to be the ninth-oldest college in the country and older than Columbia University.) There is also the case of Queen's College, in the town of Charlotte, North Carolina, which was granted a charter by the Colonial Legislature in December, 1770. However, this charter was repealed by royal proclamation (because of the school's ties to Presbyterians) and the institution ultimately failed.

Harvard University

:"Harvard" redirects here. For information about undergraduate education at Harvard University, see Harvard College. For other uses of the name Harvard, see Harvard (disambiguation). Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and a member of the Ivy League. It was founded on September 8, 1636, by a vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, making it the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. In 1893, Baedeker's guidebook called it "the oldest, richest, and most famous of American seats of learning." Originally referred to simply as the New College, it was named Harvard College on March 13, 1639, after its first principal donor, a young clergyman named John Harvard. A graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, John Harvard bequeathed a few hundred books in his will to form the basis of the college library collection, along with several hundred pounds. The earliest known official reference to Harvard as a "university" rather than a "college" occurred in the new Massachusetts constitution of 1780. Seventy-five Nobel prize winners are affiliated with the university, and since 1974, nineteen Nobel Prize winners and fifteen Pulitzer Prize winners have served on the Harvard faculty. There are 167 Harvard faculty in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Currently, Harvard has the world's largest university library collection (third overall after the Library of Congress and the British Library) and the largest financial endowment of any academic institution, standing at $25.9 billion as of 2005.

Institution

financial endowment" statue in Harvard Yard is a frequent target of pranks, hacks, and humorous decorations, such as the colorful lei shown above.]] A faculty of about 2,300 professors serves about 6,650 undergraduate and 13,000 graduate students. The school color is crimson, which is also the name of the Harvard sports teams and the daily newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. The color was unofficially adopted (in preference to magenta) by an 1875 vote of the student body, although the association with some form of red can be traced back to 1858, when Charles William Eliot, a young graduate student who would later become Harvard's president, bought red bandannas for his crew so they could more easily be distinguished by spectators at a regatta.

Admissions

Harvard's overall undergraduate acceptance rate for 2005 was 9.1%.. The 2006 figures from U.S. News indicated that the business school admitted 14.3% of its applicants, the engineering division admitted 12.5%, the law school admitted 11.3%, the education school admitted 11.2%, and the medical school admitted 4.9%.

Organization

Harvard today has nine faculties, listed below in order of foundation: Charles William Eliot
- The Faculty of Arts and Sciences and its sub-faculty, the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which together serve:
- Harvard College, the University's undergraduate portion (1636)
- The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (organized 1872)
- The Harvard Division of Continuing Education, including Harvard Extension School and Harvard Summer School
- The Faculty of Medicine, including the Medical School (1782) and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine (1867, the first U.S. dental school).
- Harvard Divinity School (1816)
- Harvard Law School (1817)
- Harvard Business School (1908)
- The Graduate School of Design (1914)
- The Graduate School of Education (1920)
- The School of Public Health (1922)
- The John F. Kennedy School of Government (1936) In 1999, the former Radcliffe College was reorganized as the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study The Harvard University Library System, centered in Widener Library and comprising over 90 individual libraries and over 14.5 million volumes, is the largest university library system in the world and, after the Library of Congress, the second-largest library system in the United States. Harvard operates several art museums, including the Fogg Museum of Art (with galleries featuring history of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present, with particular strengths in Italian early Renaissance, British pre-Raphaelite, and 19th-century French art); the Adolph Busch Museum (formerly Busch-Reisinger Museum, formerly Germanic Museum) (central and northern European art; and a Flentrop pipe organ, familiar from recordings by E. Power Biggs); the Sackler Museum (ancient, Asian, Islamic and later Indian art); the Museum of Natural History, which contains the famous Blaschka Glass Flowers exhibit; the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology; and the Semitic Museum. Glass Flowers Prominent student organizations at Harvard include the aforementioned Crimson; the Harvard Lampoon, a humor magazine; the Harvard Advocate, one of the nation's oldest literary magazines; and the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, which produces an annual burlesque and celebrates notable actors at its Man of the Year and Woman of the Year ceremonies; and the Harvard Glee Club, the oldest college chorus in America. The Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, composed mainly of undergraduates, was founded in 1808 as the Pierian Sodality and has been performing as a symphony orchestra since the 1950s. The radio station WHRB (95.3FM Cambridge), is run exclusively by Harvard students, and is given space on the Harvard campus in the basement of Pennypacker Hall, a freshman dormitory. Known throughout the Boston metropolitan area for its classical, jazz, underground rock and blues programming, WHRB uses the radio "Orgy" format, where the entire catalog of a certain band, record, or artist is played in sequence. Harvard's athletic rivalry with Yale is intense in every sport in which they meet, coming to a climax in their annual football meeting, which dates to 1875 and is usually called simply The Game. While Harvard's football team is no longer one of the country's best, as it often was a century ago during football's early days, today Harvard does field top teams in several other sports, such as ice hockey, rowing, and squash. As of 2003, there were 43 Division I intercollegiate varsity sports teams for women and men at Harvard, more than at any other college in the country. Harvard College has traditionally drawn many of its students from private schools, though today the majority of undergraduates come from public schools across the United States and around the globe. sports Harvard has a friendly rivalry with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology which dates back to 1900, when a merger of the two schools was frequently mooted and at one point officially agreed upon (ultimately cancelled by Massachusetts courts). Today, the two schools cooperate as much as they compete, with many joint conferences and programs, including the [http://hst.mit.edu/ Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology], the [http://www.hmdc.harvard.edu/ Harvard-MIT Data Center] and the [http://dibinst.mit.edu/ Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology]. In addition, students at the two schools can cross-register without any additional fees, for credits toward their own school's degrees. Over its history, Harvard has graduated many famous alumni, along with a few infamous ones. Among the best-known are political leaders John Hancock, John Adams, and John F. Kennedy; philosopher Henry David Thoreau and author Ralph Waldo Emerson; poets Wallace Stevens, T. S. Eliot and E. E. Cummings; composer Leonard Bernstein; actor Jack Lemmon; architect Philip Johnson; civil rights leader W. E. B. Du Bois; and terrorist Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber). Among its most famous faculty members are biologists James D. Watson and E. O. Wilson. For a fuller listing of famous faculty and alumni, see List of Harvard University people. Harvard affiliates' politics are generally liberal (center-left): Richard Nixon famously attacked it as the "Kremlin on the Charles". In 2004, the Harvard Crimson found that Harvard undergraduates favored Kerry over Bush by 73% to 19%, consistent with Kerry's margin in major eastern cities such as Boston and New York City. At the same time, Harvard has been criticized from the Left as the "incubator for an American ruling class" (Douthat) and "hostile to progressive intellectuals". (Trumpbour) President George W. Bush, in fact, graduated from the Harvard Business School. Indeed, there are both prominent conservative and prominent liberal voices among the faculty of the various schools. Though Harvard has been featured in many US films, including Legally Blonde, The Firm, The Paper Chase, Good Will Hunting, With Honors, How High, and Harvard Man, the University has not allowed any movies to be filmed on its campus since Love Story in the 1960s; most films are shot in look-alike cities, such as Toronto, and colleges such as Wheaton and Bridgewater State . Also set in Harvard is Korean hit TV series Love Story in Harvard, filmed at University of Southern California. Many movies have characters identified as Harvard graduates, including A Few Good Men, American Psycho, and Two Weeks Notice.

History

Two Weeks Notice Harvard's foundation in 1636 came in the form of an act of the colony's Great and General Court. By all accounts the chief impetus was to allow the training of home-grown clergy so the Puritan colony would not need to rely on immigrating graduates of England's Oxford and Cambridge universities for well-educated pastors, "dreading," as a 1643 brochure put it, "to leave an illiterate Ministry to the Churches." In its first year, seven of the original nine students left to fight in the English Civil War. Harvard was also founded as a school to educate American Indians in order to train them as ministers among their tribes. Harvard's Charter of 1650 calls for "the education of the English and Indian youth of this Country in knowledge and godliness". Indeed, Harvard and missionaries to the local tribes were intricately connected. The first Bible to be printed in the entire North American continent was printed at Harvard in an Indian language, Massachusett. Termed the Eliot Bible since it was translated by John Eliot, this book was used to facilitate conversion of Indians, ideally by Harvard-educated Indians themselves. Harvard's first American Indian graduate, Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck from the Wampanoag tribe, was a member of the class of 1665. Caleb and other students-- English and American Indian alike-- lived and studied in a dormitory known as the Indian College, which as founded in 1655 under then-President Charles Chauncy. In 1698 it was torn down owing to neglect. The bricks of the former Indian College were later used to build the first Stoughton Hall. Today a plaque on the SE side of Matthews Hall in Harvard Yard, the approximate site of the Indian College, commemorates the first American Indian students who lived and studied at Harvard University. The connection to the Puritans can be seen in the fact that, for its first few centuries of existence, the Harvard Board of Overseers included, along with certain commonwealth officials, the ministers of six local congregations (Boston, Cambridge, Charlestown, Dorchester, Roxbury and Watertown), who today, although no longer so empowered, are still by custom allowed seats on the dais at commencement exercises. Despite the Puritan atmosphere, from the beginning the intent was to provide a full liberal education such as that offered at European universities, including the rudiments of mathematics and science ('natural philosophy') as well as classical literature and philosophy. Nonetheless, Harvard became the bastion of a distinctly Protestant elite--the so-called Boston Brahmin class--well into the 20th century. Its discriminatory policies against immigrants, Catholics and Jews were partly responsible for the founding of Boston College in the 19th century and Brandeis University in 1948. The social milieu at Harvard is depicted in Owen Wister's Philosophy 4, set in the 1870s, which contrasts the character and demeanor of two undergraduates who "had colonial names (Rogers, I think, and Schuyler)" with that of their tutor, one Oscar Maironi, whose "parents had come over in the steerage." Myron Kaufman's 1957 novel Remember Me to God follows the life of a Jewish undergraduate in 1940s Harvard, navigating the shoals of casual antisemitism as he desperately seeks to become a gentleman, be accepted into The Pudding, and marry the Yankee protestant Wimsy Talbot.

Recent developments

Myron Kaufman On March 15, 2005, members of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which instructs graduate students in GSAS and undergraduates in Harvard College, passed 218-185 a motion of "lack of confidence" in the leadership of the current president Lawrence Summers, with 18 abstentions. In response, Summers convened two committees to study this issue: the Task Force on Women Faculty and the Task Force on Women in Science and Engineering. Summers has also pledged $50 million to support their recommendations and other proposed reforms. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Harvard, along with numerous other institutions of higher education across the United States and Canada, offered to take in students who were unable to attend universities and colleges that were closed for the fall semester. Twenty-five students were admitted to the College, and the Law School made similar arrangements. Tuition was not charged and housing was provided.

Criticism of Harvard

Harvard is the target of a number of persistent criticisms from both external and internal sources. Some of the criticisms, such as admissions bias and under-representation of women and minorities on faculty, have also been leveled at comparable Ivy League institutions, such as Yale and Princeton.

Grade inflation

The high percentage of honors awarded prior to 2005 raised concerns about declining standards. Harvard conferred honors upon 91% of its graduating seniors, while other schools in the Ivy League ranged from 51% (Yale) to 8% (Cornell). [http://www.dartreview.com/archives/2002/03/01/grade_inflation_at_the_other_ivies.php] These accusations prompted reforms in grading and honors determinations. In June 2005, less than 60% of the class graduated with honors, a 50% reduction from 2004, and more in line with comparable Ivy League institutions such as Yale and Princeton. [http://www.registrar.fas.harvard.edu]. In addition, it has been accused of grade inflation, like other Ivy League institutions and Stanford University..

Teaching issues

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, The New York Times, and some students have criticized Harvard for its reliance on teaching fellows in undergraduate education, as many in the faculty are engaged in research (assistant teaching is not taken into account by the major college and university rankings); they consider this to be detrimental to the quality of education. The New York Times article also detailed that the problem was prevalent in other comparable Ivy League universities as well, such as Yale. According to some internal faculty and external observers, including former Harvard president Derek Bok, the Harvard Corporation exercises disproportionate power, negatively compromising the independence of Harvard academics. However, the former Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Henry Rosovsky, who was once appointed as a member of the corporation, sees it as instrumental in maintaining a long-term view and sound stewardship.

Undergraduate experience

The Harvard Crimson Magazine leveled a number of criticisms against the quality of the Harvard undergraduate experience, including widespread student dissatisfaction, exhaustion of the students, complacency of the administration, inattentiveness of professors, problems with the residential housing system, lack of campus community, and the dearth of on-campus social options. [http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=350153] [http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=350154] In fairness, the Harvard Crimson has also quoted some professors and students with a more positive perspective on Harvard's undergraduate experience. [http://thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=509925] [http://thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=509921] [http://thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=509907] In an internal memo from October 2004 that referenced the COFHE (Consortium on Financing Higher Education) student satisfaction survey of 31 top universities including the Ivy League and Stanford, Harvard's administration acknowledged that: "Harvard students are less satisfied with their undergraduate educations than the students at almost all of the other COFHE schools. Harvard student satisfaction compares even less favorably to satisfaction at our closest peer institutions." Harvard students who participated in the COFHE survey rated Harvard below average on faculty availability, quality of instruction, advising in the major, social life on campus, and sense of community. Former Dean of Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell said, "I think we have to concede that we are letting our students down." [http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/03/29/student_life_at_harvard_lags_peer_schools_poll_finds/]

Admissions bias

Harvard's undergraduate admissions policy has been criticized as well. In particular, the undergraduate admissions office's preference for children of alumni and wealthy benefactors has been the subject of much scrutiny and debate. As documented by sociologist Jerome Karabel in his book "The Chosen", Harvard's current admissions policies, like those of other Ivy League institutions such as Yale and Princeton, originated in the 1920s, when the school sought to limit the number of Jewish students. Harvard officials worried that admissions based purely on academic promise and intelligence would result in a large proportion of Jews in the student body, which in turn would degrade the school's social standing. The officials sought to prevent this by introducing more "well rounded" admissions criterion such as participation in sports and other extracurricular activities, which they felt would benefit white protestant candidates. See also [http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/articles/051010crat_atlarge]. Defenders of Harvard assert that, whatever the unsavory origins of the policy, the benefits of a diverse student body outweigh the cost in lowered academic standards. They further point out that even with the liberalized admission policy, Harvard's academic standards are still among the highest in the country. Its preference for underrepresented minorities, shared with many other schools, is also the subject of much debate. The New York Times considers minorities and women underrepresented on the faculty of Harvard, as at several other Ivy League universities. The College is not the sole target of criticism: the Business School has been criticized for over-reliance on the case method,.

Self promotion

Harvard and Harvard students have frequently been criticized for self-promotion in various forms. In "A Flood of Crimson Ink" (Wall Street Journal, April, 2005) [http://www.opinionjournal.com/forms/printThis.html?id=110006623], the author asserts that one reason Harvard receives a great deal of press coverage is because "Harvard graduates are disproportionately represented in the upper echelons of American journalism." Many articles and books arguing for or making representations of Harvard's pre-eminent prestige have been written by Harvard graduates, such as "GWB: HBS MBA" [http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=3378]. Some critical pieces, however, end up balancing out the more self-serving ones -- such as in Privilege : Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class, Harvard is described as "a terrible mess of a place... an incubator for an American ruling class that is smug, self-congratulatory, and intellectually adrift" while his undergraduate experience was "a combination of vacuous classroom assignments, cruel social climbing and feverish networking". But overall, critics of Harvard graduates' marketing approach charge that the school is filled with students "specifically selected for their skills at self-promotion" [http://maroon.uchicago.edu/viewpoints/articles/2005/05/09/its_no_surprise_that.php].

Campus

Privilege : Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class]The main campus is centered around Harvard Yard in central Cambridge, and extends into the surrounding Harvard Square neighborhood, approximately two miles (3.2 km) from the MIT campus. The Harvard Business School and many of the university's athletics facilities, including Harvard Stadium, are located in Allston, on the other side of the Charles River from Harvard Square. Harvard Medical School is located in the Longwood district of Boston. Harvard Yard itself contains the central administrative offices and main libraries of the University, several academic buildings and the majority of the freshman dormitories. Upperclass students live in twelve residential Houses; three Houses are located at the Quadrangle, in a residential neigborhood half a mile northwest of the Yard, and the other nine are in a largely commercial district south of the Yard, situated along or close to the banks of the Charles River. Radcliffe Yard, the center of the campus of the former Radcliffe College (and now Radcliffe Institute), is west of Harvard Yard, adjacent to the Graduate School of Education.

Major campus expansion

Throughout the past several years, Harvard has purchased large tracts of land in Allston, a short walk across the Charles River from Cambridge, with the intent of major expansion southward. The university now owns approximately fifty percent more land in Allston than in Cambridge. Various proposals to connect the traditional Cambridge campus with the new Allston campus include new and enlarged bridges, a shuttle service and/or a tram. One of the foremost driving forces for Harvard's pending expansion is its goal of substantially increasing the scope and strength of its science and technology programs. The university plans to construct two 500,000 square foot (50,000 m&sup2;) research complexes in Allston, which would be home to several interdisciplinary programs, including the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and an enlarged Engineering department. In addition, Harvard intends to relocate the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Harvard School of Public Health to Allston. The university also plans to construct several new undergraduate and graduate student housing centers in Allston, and it is considering large-scale museums and performing arts complexes as well.

Harvard University people

- List of Harvard University people
- Presidents of Harvard

External links

- [http://www.harvard.edu/ Official site]
- [http://www.fas.harvard.edu/ Faculty of Arts and Sciences]
- [http://www.gocrimson.com/ Official Harvard athletics site]
- [http://www.commencement.harvard.edu/ Harvard Commencement Information]
- [http://www.thecrimson.com/ The Harvard Crimson] (student newspaper)
- [http://www.hpronline.org/ The Harvard Political Review]
- [http://www.harvardgeo.org/ Harvard Geographic Society]
- [http://hir.harvard.edu/ Harvard International Review]
- [http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~hapr/ Harvard Asia Pacific Review]
- [http://www.hpair.org/ Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations]
- [http://www.harvardlawreview.org/ Harvard Law Review]
- [http://rooseveltinstitution.org/harvard Harvard chapter of the Roosevelt Institution]

References

# Zachary M. Seward. "Endowment Up 21 Percent". The Harvard Crimson. September 15, 2004. http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=503347 # "World University Rankings". The Times Educational Supplement. http://www.thes.co.uk/worldrankings/ # Daniel J. T. Schuker. "Admissions Rate Sets New Low". The Harvard Crimson. April 4, 2005. http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=506804 # Don Peck. "The Selectivity Illusion". The Atlantic Monthly. November 2003. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200311/peck # "The Best Graduate Schools 2006". U.S. News & World Report. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/rankindex_brief.php # Rebecca D. O'Brien. "Kerry Tops Crimson Poll". The Harvard Crimson. October 29, 2004. http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=504151 # Ty Burr. "Reel Boston". The Boston Globe. February 27, 2005. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2005/02/27/reel_boston/ # Linda Wertheimer. "Harvard Grade Inflation". All Things Considered. National Public Radio. November 21, 2001. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1133702 # Rebecca M. Milzoff, Amit R. Paley, and Brendan J. Reed. "Grade Inflation is Real". Fifteen Minutes. March 1, 2001. http://www.thecrimson.com/fmarchives/fm_03_01_2001/article4A.html # "Princeton becomes first to formally combat grade inflation". Associated Press. April 26, 2004. http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2004-04-26-princeton-grades_x.htm # David L. Hicks. "Should Our Colleges Be Ranked?" Letter to The New York Times. September 20, 2002. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9803E5D71130F933A1575AC0A9649C8B63 # John Merrow. "Grade Inflation: It's Not Just an Issue for the Ivy League". Carnegie Perspectives. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. June 2004. http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/perspectives/perspectives2004.June.htm # Mark Alden Branch. "Who's Teaching Whom?" Yale Alumni Magazine. Summer 1999 http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/99_07/GESO.html # http://www.dartreview.com/archives/1998/04/29/harvard_research_and_destroy.php # Bok, in Derek Bok, Universities in the Marketplace, Princeton (2003) # Rosovsky, in Henry Rosovsky, The University: An Owner's Manual, Norton (1990) # John Trumpbour, ed., How Harvard Rules, South End (1989) # http://www.digitas.harvard.edu/~perspy/old/issues/1997/nov/second.html # http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/01/education/01college.html # http://www.cfoeurope.com/displayStory.cfm/1777470 # http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=503493 Category:Association of American Universities Category:Ivy League Category:New England Association of Schools %26 Colleges Category:Colonial colleges  Category:Cambridge, Massachusetts  Category:Boston, Massachusetts ko:하버드 대학교 ja:ハーバード大学

James Blair (clergyman)

James Blair D.D. (1656 – April 18, 1743) was a Scottish Episcopalian clergyman, missionary and educator, best known as the founder of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Youth and education

James Blair was born in Banffshire, Scotland as one of five children. His father, Robert Blair, was a clergyman. James Blair was educated at Marischal College, University of Aberdeen and the University of Edinburgh. After completing his education, in 1679 he was ordained in the national Church of Scotland (known officially at this time as the Kirk of Scotland, see kirk). During the entire seventeenth century the Kirk had been experiencing passionate internal conflicts between Presbyterians and Episcopalians (see, for example, the Bishops' Wars). The Episcopalians were in the ascendancy during this period and the Church of Scotland was briefly aligned with the Church of England during the reign of Charles II of Scotland. Charles was a strong opponent of Presbyterianism and converted to Roman Catholicism on his deathbed. In 1681, Blair, aligned with the Episcopalians, was deprived of his parish in Edinburgh due to the conflict within the Episcopalian movement between those supporting the Roman Catholic Church and those advocating a continued Protestant Episcopalian national church. Discouraged, Blair relocated to London later that year.

Missionary to the Virginia Colony

In London, 1685, he became ordained in the Church of England, and at the request of Henry Compton, the Bishop of London (responsible for the colonies), Blair traveled to the New World with a mission to "revive and reform the church in the Virginia Colony." [http://www.answers.com/topic/james-blair]. His initial assignment was to serve as rector of the Parish of Henrico at Varina. He developed good relationships with prominent political familes, such as the Harrisons, whose daughter Sarah became his wife in 1685. The leaders of the Virginia Colony had long desired a school of higher education. An earlier attempt to establish a university at Henricus around 1618 had been promising, but failed after the Indian Massacre of 1622 wiped out the entire settlement, which was not rebuilt. With encouragement from the Colony's House of Burgesses and other prominent individuals, Blair prepared a plan, believed by some historians to be modeled after the earlier one from Henricus, and returned to England in 1691 to petition the monarchy for a new college.

College of William and Mary

The trip to London proved successful. Blair was supported in his efforts by John Tillotson, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1693, a charter was granted for The College of William and Mary in Virginia, named to honor King William III of England and Queen Mary II of Great Britain, the reigning monarchs. Blair was made president of the new school for life. After Blair returned to Virginia, the trustees of the new college bought a parcel of 330 acres from Thomas Ballard for the new school. The location chosen was at Middle Plantation, a high point on the Virginia Peninsula so named because its was equidistant from the James and York Rivers. Middle Plantation had served as a fortress during periodic conflicts with the Native Americans since its establishment in 1632. The College was given a seat in the House of Burgesses. Financial income was to come by taxation of a penny per pound on tobacco exported from Maryland and Virginia to countries other than England, and from other similar sources, such as an export duty on furs and animal skins. The new school opened in temporary buildings in 1694. Properly called the "College Building," the first version of the Wren Building was built at Middle Plantation beginning on August 8, 1695 and occupied by 1700. Today, according to the College, the Wren Building is the oldest academic structure still in use in America. (Incidentally, it is called the "Wren Building" because tradition has it that the building was designed by the famed English architect Sir Christopher Wren who had designed St. Paul's Cathedral in London. His actual involvement with the College Building completed in 1700 is disputed by some historians).

Capital of Virginia, Williamsburg

The State House at Jamestown burned again (for the third time) in 1698, and as it had in the past, the legislature again took up temporary quarters at Middle Plantation. On May 1, 1699, Blair and five students of the College of William and Mary appeared before the House of Burgesses (which was meeting nearby in temporary quarters) to suggest that they designate Middle Plantation (soon to renamed Williamsburg in honor of King William III), as the new capital of Virginia, and a month later, the legislators agreed. Williamsburg served as the capital of Virginia for 81 years, until 1780, when the capital was moved to Richmond for security reasons at the outset of the American Revolution. Incidentally, primarily due to fire hazards in the Colonial era, the current building in Richmond, known as the Virginia State Capitol, is the eighth one.

Religious leadership, writing

James Blair served as a member and for a time, president of the Governor's Council in Virginia. As representative of the Bishop of London, Blair was in a position of great power and responsibility in the period in Virginia before the separation of church and state became a fundamental political concept in Virginia which was put into place after the American Revolution. Blair worked to improve the moral condition of the people while he also defended them against the tyranny of the royal governors. he had great influence in England, and reportedly was involved with the recall to England of 3 royal governors: Edmund Andros, Francis Nicholson, and Alexander Spotswood. He was also the Rector of Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg from 1710 until his death. Dr. Blair organized the construction of the now-historic church building, which began in 1711. It was beautifully restored in the early 20th century under then-rector Reverend Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin, a project which inspired Goodwin to advocate further restorations of other buildings, and seek sources of funding to do so, which led him to Colonial Williamsburg greatest benefactor, Standard Oil fortune heir John D. Rockefeller, Jr.. In 1722, Blair published Our Savior's Divine Sermon on the Mount, a five-volume collection of his sermons from 1707 to 1721. With Henry Hartwell and Edward Chilton, Blair wrote The Present State of Virginia and the College, which was published in 1727.

Death, burial at Jamestown

James Blair died on April 18, 1743 at the age of 87, after a long career. Dr. Blair was buried next to his wife Sarah (née Harrison) Blair (who had died earlier in 1713) at Jamestown Island, where Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA), owns the original site of Jamestown, including the church and cemetery.

Heritage

During the Colonial period, Dr. Blair was instrumental in reviving and reforming the Church of England in Virginia. Dr. Blair's contributions to education in Virginia are recognized not only at the College of William and Mary, but in the naming of various schools, including James Blair Middle School in James City County, Virginia, (formerly James Blair High School) and James Blair Middle School in Norfolk, Virginia. On the William and Mary campus in the city of Williamsburg, a large portrait of Dr. Blair is displayed in the Great Hall. Nearby, there is a statue of him prominently displayed. In 2005, the Cypher Society of the College announced it was taking responsibility for a site restoration and beautification of the Blair graves at Jamestown Island in anticipation of Jamestown 2007, which will celebrate the settlement's 400th anniversary.

Sources

- [http://www.answers.com/topic/james-blair James Blair at answers.com]
- [http://www.history.org/Almanack/places/hb/hbwren.cfm Colonial Williamsburg, Wren Building web page]
- [http://ww2.nps.k12.va.us/education/school/schoolhistory.php?sectiondetailid=62 Norfolk Virginia Public Schools, James Blair Middle School web page]
- [http://www.electricscotland.com/history/other/blair_james.htm Electricscotland.com, James Blair web page]
- [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9015575 Encyclopedia Britannica online edition]
- [http://www.brutonparish.org/history.htm Bruton Parish Church, history web pages]
- [http://www.wm.edu/news/index.php?id=3499 new about College of William and Mary's Cypher Society] group plans to restore James and Sarah Blair grave site at Jamestown

External links

- [http://www.wm.edu/ College of William and Mary, official website]
- [http://www.lva.lib.va.us/ Library of Virginia webpage] collections at this State Library include rare documents, correspondence, and published work of James Blair Blair, James Blair, James Blair, James Blair, James Blair, James Blair, James Blair, James Blair, James Blair, James Blair, James Blair, James

Charter

:Alternate use, see charter airline, yacht charter, bare-boat charter or Charter Communications. A charter is a document bestowing certain rights on a town, city, university or institution; sometimes used as a loan of money. The term derives from a root word meaning "paper".

Origin

As John Fiske described in his 1890 treatise on the Origin of Civil Government in the United States: :The word "charter" originally meant simply a paper or written document, and it was often applied to deeds for the transfer of real estate. In contracts of such importance papers or parchment documents were drawn up and carefully preserved as irrefragable evidences of the transaction. And so, in quite significant phrase the towns zealously guarded their charters as the "title-deeds of their liberties." :After a while the word charter was applied in England to a particular document which specified certain important concessions forcibly wrung by the people from a most unwilling sovereign. This document was called Magna Carta, or the "Great Charter," signed at Runnymede, June 15, 1215, by John, king of England.

History

Charters were issued in medieval times by Royal decree, perhaps giving a particular town the right to hold a weekly market, or to levy a toll on a road or bridge.

Legal status

A charter is a legally binding document incorporating an organization or institution and specifying its purpose, remit or bylaws. Organisations such as the Institution of Civil Engineers in the UK is chartered to maintain and advance the science and practice of civil engineering in the UK, and by this charter has the right to regulate the business of civil engineering in the UK; this gives rise to a status of a chartered engineer - one who satisfies the requirements of the charter holding organisation.

Charter schools

In education, charter schools are becoming quite common.

Charter colony

A charter colony is a type of colony that was established by a group of settlers that received a charter.

Charter member

The term charter member refers to a person or group who was among those participating in the creation of any chartered organisation.

External links

- [http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Ap/Mc/Charter.asp The Royal Charter for the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council]
- The International [http://www.icharter.org Charter] Organization
- [http://en.constitution.wikicities.com/ Create your own ideological charter] Category:Law

Mary II of England

Mary II (30 April 1662–28 December<

College of William and Mary

Early History

Post-Colonial History

Academics

The Priorities of the College

Graduate Placement

The Wren Building and Sir Christopher Wren

Other cofounders

Training America's Early Leaders

Founders of Educational Institutions

Founding of Phi Beta Kappa, Secret Societies

300th Anniversary of the Royal Charter

Current leadership

Past Presidents of the College

Traditions

Tribe Pride

Songs of the College

Notable William and Mary Alumni

Friends of the College

Notable Professors

External links

Colonial colleges

Other colonial-era foundations

See also

Harvard University

Institution

Admissions

Organization

History

Recent developments

Criticism of Harvard

Grade inflation

Teaching issues

Undergraduate experience

Admissions bias

Self promotion

Campus

Major campus expansion

Harvard University people

Further reading

External links

References

James Blair (clergyman)

Youth and education

Missionary to the Virginia Colony

College of William and Mary

Capital of Virginia, Williamsburg

Religious leadership, writing

Death, burial at Jamestown

Heritage

Sources

See also

External links

Charter

Origin

History

Legal status

Charter schools

Charter colony

Charter member

See also

External links

Mary II of England