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College And University Rankings

College and university rankings

In higher education, college and university rankings are listings of educational institutions in an order determined by any combination of factors. Rankings can be based on subjectively perceived "quality," on some combination of empirical statistics, or on surveys of educators, scholars, students, prospective students, or others. Such rankings are often consulted by prospective students as they choose which schools they will apply to or which school they will attend. Rankings vary significantly from country to country. A Cornell University study found that the rankings in the United States significantly affected colleges' applications and admissions. In the United Kingdom, several newspapers publish league tables which rank universities.

International rankings

Organizations which have provided worldwide rankings include the much-publicized Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranking project, which was a large-scale Chinese project to provide independent rankings of Universities around the world on behalf of the Chinese government. The Times Higher Education Supplement, a British publication, annually publishes the Times Higher World University Rankings, a list of 200 ranked universities from around the world. The webometrics ranking of universities is based entirely on the web-presence of the University (a computerised assessment of the size and sophistication of the website). As such it is unlikely to accurately reflect the academic performance directly, but will reflect the internet based activities of the universities in a way which is free of national or language bias.

Regional and national rankings

The U.S. News & World Report rankings of US universities

The best-known American college and university rankings have been compiled since 1983 by the magazine U.S. News and World Report based on a combination of statistics provided by institutional researchers and surveys of university faculty and staff members. The college rankings were not published in 1984, but were published in all years since. The precise methodology used by the U.S. News rankings has changed many times, and the data are not all available to the public, so peer review of the rankings is limited. (A private 1997 review by the National Opinion Research Center, commissioned by U.S. News itself, was later published by the Washington Monthly; it appeared to contain several serious criticisms of the rankings' methodology.) The U.S. News rankings, unlike some other such lists, create a strict hierarchy of colleges and universities in their "top tier," rather than ranking only groups or "tiers" of schools; the individual schools' order changes significantly every year the rankings are published. The most important factors in the rankings are:
- Peer assessment: a survey of the institution's reputation among presidents, provosts, and deans of admission of other institutions
- Retention: six-year graduation rate and first-year student retention rate
- Student selectivity: standardized test scores of admitted students, proportion of admitted students in upper percentiles of their high-school class, and proportion of applicants accepted
- Faculty resources: average class size, faculty salary, faculty degree level, student-faculty ratio, and proportion of full-time faculty
- Financial resources: per-student spending
- Graduation rate performance: difference between expected and actual graduation rate
- Alumni giving rate All these factors are combined according to statistical weights determined by U.S. News. The weighting is often changed by U.S. News from year to year, and is not empirically determined (the NORC methodology review said that these weights "lack any defensible empirical or theoretical basis"). The first four such factors account for the great majority of the U.S. News ranking (80%, according to U.S. News's 2005 methodology), and the "reputational measure" (which surveys high-level administrators at similar institutions about their perceived quality ranking of each college and university) is especially important to the final ranking (accounting by itself for 25% of the ranking according to the 2005 methodology).

Other rankings of US universities

Other organizations which compile general US annual college and university rankings include the Fiske Guide to Colleges and the Princeton Review. Many specialized rankings are available in guidebooks for undergraduate and graduate students, dealing with individual student interests, fields of study, and other concerns such as geographical location, financial aid, and affordability. Among the best-known rankings dealing with individual fields of study is the Philosophical Gourmet Report or "Leiter Report" (after its founding author, Brian Leiter of the University of Texas at Austin), a ranking of departments of analytic philosophy. This report has been at least as controversial within its field as the general U.S. News rankings, attracting criticism from many different viewpoints, but it is also extremely popular and well regarded by many in the profession. Notably, practitioners of continental philosophy, who perceive the Leiter report as unfair to their field, have compiled alternative rankings. Avery et al. recently published a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research titled [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=601105 "A Revealed Preference Ranking of U.S. Colleges and Universities."] Rather than ranking programs by traditional criteria, their analysis uses a statistical model based on applicant preferences. They based their data on the applications and outcome of 3,240 high school students. The authors feel that their ranking is less subject to manipulation compared to conventional rankings (see criticism below).

Rankings of UK universities

The Research Assessment Exercises (RAE) are attempts by the UK government to evaluate the quality of research undertaken by British Universities. Each subject, called a unit of assessment is given a ranking by a peer review panel. The rankings are used in the allocation of funding each university receives from the government. The last assessment was made in 2001. The RAE provides quality ratings for research across all disciplines. Panels use a standard scale to award a rating for each submission. Ratings range from 1 to 5
- , according to how much of the work is judged to reach national or international levels of excellence. Higher education institutions (HEIs) which take part receive grants from one of the four higher education funding bodies in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Criticisms of rankings

College and university rankings, especially the well-known U.S. News rankings, have drawn significant criticism from within and without higher education. Critics feel that the rankings are arbitrary and based on criteria unimportant to education itself (especially wealth and reputation); they also charge that, with little oversight, colleges and universities inflate their reported statistics. Beyond these criticisms, critics claim that the rankings impose ill-considered external priorities on college administrations, whose decisions are sometimes driven by the need to create the most desirable statistics for reporting to U.S. News rather than by sound educational goals. Furthermore, some have suggested that the formulae and methodologies used to turn the various data into a ranking are arrived at specifically, if unconsciously, to keep a few key institutions at the top of the chart — not because of any undue partisanship among the editors; but simply due to a subconscious assumption that a system which flies in the face of conventional wisdom must somehow be faulty. Hence editorial decisions would tend to reinforce preconceptions. In other words, if the public, as it is argued, looks to ranking publications not so much for guidance as for confirmation of its own assumptions, then mightn't the editors of U.S. News (as proud as they are of the annual "fine-tuning" they give their methodology), have a predisposition to overlook methodologies which "rock the boat" to the extent of dropping Harvard (say) out of the top handful of schools? Some of the specific data used for quantification are also frequently criticized. For instance, Rice University, with a top 5 per-student endowment and a generous Financial Aid department, is ranked in the mid-twenties for per-student "Financial Resources". As another example, the "Peer Assessment" equally weighs the opinions of administrators at less-known schools such as Florida Atlantic and North Dakota State with those of say, Harvard and Stanford. Students with their sights set on the best graduate schools may not be interested in knowing which programs the administrators of bottom schools have heard of, or vice versa. Other critics, seeing the issue from students' and prospective students' points of view, claim that the quality of a college or university experience is not quantifiable, and that the ratings should thus not be weighed seriously in a decision about which school to attend. Individual, subjective, and random factors all influence the educational experience to such an overwhelming extent, they say, that no general ranking can provide useful information to an individual student. Suppose, as these critics illustrate, that the difference between an "excellent" school and a "good" one is often that most of the departments in the excellent school are excellent, while only some of the departments in the good school are excellent. And the difference between an excellent department and a good one might be, similarly, that most of the professors in the excellent department are excellent, while only some in the good department are. For an individual student, depending on the student's choices of field of study and professors, this will often mean that there is no difference between an excellent college or university and a merely good one; the student will be able to find excellent departments and excellent faculty to work with even at an institution which might be ranked "second-tier" or lower. Statistically, the rankings are distributions with large variances and small differences between the individual universities' means (averages). Complicating matters further, as most educators and students observe, individuals' opinions about the excellence of academic departments and, especially, of professors, exhibit a wide range of variation depending on personal preferences. And the quality of an individual student's education is most determined by whether or not the student happens to encounter a small number of professors that "click" with and inspire him or her. Similarly, the main difference between a "good" or "second-tier" large state university and an "excellent" or "top-tier" prestigious smaller institution, for the student, is often just that, at the larger school, the student needs to work a bit harder and be a bit more assertive and motivated in order to actively extract a good education. For many students this will not be difficult enough to justify a preference for the smaller institution, though some individuals do prefer a smaller school.

Forget U.S. News Coalition

In the 1990s a coalition of student activists calling themselves the Forget U.S. News Coalition (and occasionally substituting a coarser word for "Forget") arose, based initially at Stanford University. FUNC attempted to influence college and university administrations to reconsider their cooperation with the U.S. News rankings. They met with limited success, finding administrations encouraged the development of alternatives to the rankings, though most institutions (including Stanford) continued to cooperate with U.S. News. Critics of FUNC question its motives claiming that the organization is dissatisfied with the rankings not for principled objections to the ranking process, but rather because they are disatisfied that Stanford has ranked below Harvard, Yale, and Princeton for the past 10 years. One school which has criticized US News, but also has held steady in the rankings is Emory University which generally ranks in the top 20 colleges nationwide.

Colleges and criticism of U.S. News rankings

Reed College has not cooperated with the U.S. News rankings nor submitted any institutional data to U.S. News since 1994; its administration has been outspoken in its criticism of the rankings. Critics charge, and Rolling Stone magazine reported, that Reed's "second-tier" or lower ranking in U.S. News's lists, which was based on U.S. News estimates of non-submitted data, is artificially depressed by U.S. News as retribution for Reed's harsh criticism of the rankings. Since the refusal to cooperate with U.S. News, Reed has seen its applicant pool grow tremendously and improve in academic quality, and the school is now among the most selective liberal arts colleges in the nation, and routinely receives stellar praise as a superior academic institution. Ohio Wesleyan University and St. John's College are also colleges which haven't been cooperative with the U.S. News rankings.

See also


- Academic Ranking of World Universities

External links


- [http://gateway.library.uiuc.edu/edx/rankoversy.htm Rankings Caution and Controversy reference page] from Education and Social Science Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; see also their [http://www.library.uiuc.edu/edx/rankbib.htm bibliography]
- [http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/about/05rank_brief.php U.S. News description of ranking methodology]
- [http://www.asian-nation.org/best-colleges.shtml Asian-Nation: Best Colleges for Asian Americans] by C.N. Le, Ph.D.
- [http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0109.graham.thompson.html "Broken Ranks," an article from Washington Monthly]
- [http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2000/norc.html A review of U.S. News methodology by the National Opinion Research Center]
- [http://web.reed.edu/apply/college_rankings.html Reed College statement on rankings]
- [http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/99/12.2.99/rankings-matter.html reference to Cornell study on rankings' effect]
- [http://www.yaledailynews.com/articlefunctions/Printerfriendly.asp?AID=7791 "Ivy Council criticizes U.S. News rankings," a story from Yale Daily News]
- [http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/stanfordtoday/ed/9705/9705fea101.shtml FUNC story from Stanford news page]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-3/rankings.htm College Rankings]
- [http://www.stanford.edu/dept/pres-provost/president/speeches/970418rankings.html Stanford University seeks alternatives to U.S. News rankings]

Rankings on the Web

World university rankings


- [http://www.thes.co.uk/worldrankings/ Times Higher World University Rankings]
- [http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2004/top500list.htm Shanghai Jiao Tong World University Rankings and Resources]

Asian university rankings


- [http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/features/universities2000/ Asia's Best Universities]
- [http://rank2003.netbig.com/en/rnk_1_0_0.htm Ranking of Chinese Universities]

Australian university rankings


- [http://www.melbourneinstitute.com/publications/reports/MelbIndex.pdf/ Melbourne Institute Rankings of Australian Universities]

Canadian university rankings


- [http://www.macleans.ca/universities/article.jsp?content=20031106_133237_3292 Universities] by Maclean's Magazine
- [http://www.researchinfosource.com/top50.shtml Top 50 Universities] by Research Infosource

Germany university rankings


- [http://www.che-ranking.de/ CHE-Ranking]

United States university rankings


- [http://www.usnews.com/usnews/rankguide/rghome.htm U.S. News Rankings & Guides]

United Kingdom university rankings


- Research Assessment Exercise [http://www.hero.ac.uk/rae/ RAE 2001]
- [http://education.guardian.co.uk/universityguide2004/0,14558,1215839,00.html University Guide] by The Guardian Category:Education

Higher education

Higher education is education provided by universities and other institutions that award academic degrees, such as community colleges, and liberal arts colleges. Higher education includes both the teaching and the research activities of universities, and within the realm of teaching, it includes both the undergraduate level (sometimes referred to as tertiary education) and the graduate (or postgraduate) level (sometimes referred to as quaternary education or graduate school). Higher education differs from other forms of post-secondary education such as vocational education. However, most professional education is included within higher education, and many postgraduate qualifications are strongly vocationally or professionally oriented, for example in disciplines such as law and medicine. In most developed countries a high proportion of the population (up to 50%) now enter higher education at some time in their lives. Higher education is therefore very important to national economies, both as a significant industry in its own right, and as a source of trained and educated personnel for the rest of the economy; it is often argued that in a modern economy the quantity and quality of such human capital is the most important factor underlying economic growth.

Working in higher education

Universities are fairly large employers. Depending on the funding, a university has a teacher per 3-20 students. According to the ideal of research-university, the university teaching staff is actively involved in the research of the institution. In addition, the university usually also has dedicated research staff and a considerable support staff. Typically to work in higher education as a member of the academic faculty, one must first obtain a doctorate in an academic field, although some lower teaching positions require only master's degree. Member of the staff or administration have usually such education that is necessary for the fulfilment of their duties. Typically institutes of the university have some technical support personnel and a secretary. Depending on the organization of the university, the main adminstration is more or less centralized. Typically most of the adminstrative staff works in different adminstrative sections, such as Student Affairs. In addition, there may be central support units, such as a university library which have a dedicated staff. The professional field involving the collection, analysis, and reporting of higher education data is called institutional research. Professionals of this field can be found, in addition to universities, in e.g. state educational departments.

Further reading

Higher education in the United States
- Davies, Antony and Thomas W. Cline (2005). [http://www.business.duq.edu/faculty/davies/research/roimba.pdf The ROI on the MBA,] BizEd.
- El-Khawas, E. (1996). Campus trends. Washington, DC.: American Council on Education.
- Ewell, P.T. (1999). Assessment of higher education and quality: Promise and politics. In S.J. Messick (Ed.), Assessment in higher education: Issues of access, quality, student development, and public policy. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
- Finn, C. E. (1988, Jul.-Aug.). Judgment time for higher education: In the court of public opinion. Change, 20(4), 34-39.
- Green, Madeleine, F., ed. 1988. Leaders for a New Era: Strategies for Higher Education. New York: Macmillan.
- Snyder, Benson R. (1970). The Hidden Curriculum. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Veblen, Thorstein (1918). The Higher Learning in America: A Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Businessmen. New York: Huebsch
- Forest, James and Kevin Kinser (2002). Higher Education in the United States: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. Higher education in Canada
- Bakvis, Herman and David M. Cameron (2000), [http://www.irpp.org/po/archive/po0500.htm#sufa "Post-secondary education and the SUFA"]. IRPP.

External links


- [http://www.study-in-europe.info/ Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges in Europe]
- [http://www.vidyasoochika.co.in VidyaSoochika - Higher Education Opportunities]
- [http://www.higher-ed.org Higher Education Resource Hub]
- [http://www.higher-ed.org/heus Encyclopedia of Higher Education in the United States]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/2002-3/finance.htm How Minority Students Finance Their Higher Education]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-3/quality.htm Ensuring Quality and Productivity in Higher Education]
- [http://www.cdtl.nus.edu.sg/success Writings on Higher Education Practice from the National University of Singapore]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-3/reform.htm Reform Initiatives in Higher Education]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9219/higher.htm Budgeting for Higher Education at the State Level: Enigma, Paradox, and Ritual]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-926/blue.htm Blue Ribbon Commissions and Higher Education]
- [http://www.fullyemployedmba.com/x374.php Part Time MBA - Balancing Life, Work and School - Article]
- [http://www.acenet.edu/ American Council on Education]
- [http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/heri.html Higher Education Research Institute]
- [http://www.ashe.ws/ Association for the Study of Higher Education] Category:Educational stages Category:Education ja:高等教育



Student

] Etymologically derived through Middle English from the Latin second-type conjugation verb "stŭdērĕ", which means "to direct one's zeal at"; hence a student is one who directs zeal at a subject. Also known as a disciple in the sense of a religious area of study, and/or in the sense of a "discipline" of learning. In widest use, student is used to mean a school or class attendee. In many countries, the word student is however reserved for higher education or university students; persons attending classes in primary or secondary schools being called pupils. Currently, many children and teenagers are subject to compulsory education: by law they are required to attend some form of school. Laws vary from country to country, but most students are allowed to abandon their education when they reach the legal age of consent. Researchers, educators, and education administrators around the world are increasingly heeding student voice, a common reference to the experiences, opinions, ideas, and actions of children and youth in schools. This practice provides authenticity and efficacy for school improvement efforts. November 17 is the International Students Day, which commemorates those students killed at the beginning of World War II who called for peace; specifically, the date was chosen as a memory to Jan Opletal, and events following his death. In the UK, the word "student" generally refers to someone studying at an advanced level (non-compulsory education), for example, college and University. The word "pupil" is used for someone attending compulsory education such as High School.

Years

In the USA, where undergraduate degree courses commonly last four years, the following terms are generally used, sometimes also adopted in other countries :
- A freshman (or fresher, frosh, newbie etc.) is a first-year student in college or university, or, chiefly in the United States, in high school. (This word came from England, replaced there since by the term "fresher", but is now used far more frequently in U.S. English.) A growing number of people prefer the term "freshmore" as a gender-neutral alternative. At universities in the United Kingdom the term fresher is used to describe new students. Unlike the American term freshman it sometimes only applies in the first few months of a student's first year; the North American equivalent would be frosh (in singular and plural). The week before the start of a new year is called Freshers Week at many universities, with a programme of special events to welcome new students. The ancient Scottish University of St Andrews uses the terms bejant for a first year (from the French bec-jaune 'yellow beak', fledgling). Second years are called semi-bejants, third years known as tertians and finally fourth years, or others in their final year of study, even if sooner, are called magistrands. Although freshman has not been as touched by political correctness as other gender-suggesting words (such as chairman), some have begun calling first-year students freshpersons, and some colleges prefer the British "freshers." It should also be noted that freshman are generally picked on more than other classes, generally done by seniors. In many traditions (particularly in the USA, and less nowadays in some countries) there is a remainder of the ancient (boarding, pre-commuting) tradition of fagging, he or she may be subjected to a period of hazing as a pledge or rookie, especially if joining a fraternity/sorority or certain other clubs, mainly athletic teams. For example many US High Schools have initiation methods for freshmen including, but not limited to, Freshman Duct-taped Throw, Freshman races, Freshman Orientation, Freshman Freshening (refering to poor hygene among freshman), and the Freshman Spread. Even after that, specific rules may apply depending on the school's traditions (e.g. wearing a distinctive beanie), non-observance of which can be punished, even by a paddle line
- A sophomore is a second-year student. Folk-Etymologically, the word is said to mean "wise fool"; consequently sophomoric means "pretentious, bombastic, inflated in style or manner; immature, crude, superficial" (according to the Oxford English Dictionary). While it appears to be formed from Greek sophos, meaning "wise", and moros meaning "foolish", it is in truth from the word sophumer, an obsolete variant of sophism http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=sophomore&searchmode=none.
- A junior is a student in the penultimate (usually third) year of high school or college.
- The term middler is used to describe a third-year student of a school (generally college) which offers five years of study. In this situation, the fourth and fifth years would be referred to as "junior" and "senior" years, respectively.
- A senior is a student in the last (usually fourth) year at a high school, college, or university. A student taking more than normal (usually four years) to graduate is sometimes referred to as a super senior. The United States military academies do not use non-numerical terms. In order from first year to fourth year, students in these institutions are officially referred to as fourth-class, third-class, second-class, and first-class cadets or midshipmen. Freshman and sophomore are sometimes used figuratively, mainly in US English usage, to refer for example to a first or second effort ("the singer's freshman album"), or to a politician's first or second term in office ("sophomore senator") or an athlete's first or second year on a professional sports team. Junior and senior aren't used in this figurative way to refer to third and fourth years or efforts, because of those words' broader meanings of 'younger' and 'older'. (A junior senator is therefore not one who is in his or her third term of office, but rather merely one who has not been in the Senate as long as the other senator from his or her state.)

See also


- AEGEE
- AIESEC
- BEST
- International student
- Student society
- Student activism
- Student think tank
- Student engagement
- School district drug policies Category:Academia ja:在学生

Cornell University

Cornell University is a research university based in Ithaca, New York. The youngest of the Ivy League universities, Cornell was founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell, a self-made businessman involved in the formation of the Western Union Telegraph Company , and Andrew Dickson White, a respected scholar and politician. With an initial enrollment of 412 students, the university's opening day ceremonies were held on October 7, 1868. Current undergraduate enrollment is now over 13,500, the largest of any Ivy League university, and almost 20,300 total students including graduate and professional students in Ithaca and medical students at the New York City campus, a number comparable to the total populations of other Ivy League institutions. Cornell's alma mater song, Far Above Cayuga's Waters, is one of the few such songs widely known outside of the institution it celebrates. Cornell ranked 12th globally in an Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2005 , 13th in the 2006 U.S. News and World Report "National Universities" ranking,, and 4th in the country in the Washington Monthly College Guide

History

U.S. News and World Report When Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White first met in 1863 in the New York senate, their eventual partnership seemed unlikely. Besides both being liberal Democrats who valued egalitarianism, science, and education, they shared little else. Cornell was an austere, pragmatic telegraph mogul who shunned aesthetics and high minded pursuits. He envisioned a technical school which taught the applied sciences, engineering, and agriculture. This populist ideal can be seen today in the Cornell motto, an 1865 quotation by Ezra Cornell: "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study." White, on the other hand, was a well-traveled, Yale-educated scholar who loved architectural grandeur and the liberal arts. White desired to build a university that was Oxonian in appearance, while being secular and modernist in curriculum. The two had their chance to implement their plans when the New York State Senate was charged with appropriating the educational funds provided by the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act. Cornell wanted to divide the money between two state colleges and, concurrently, was planning to donate $300,000 of his own money and his farm in Ithaca, NY to do "whatever shall do the greatest good to the greatest number of the industrial classes of my state." White countered Ezra's proposal by claiming that the greatest good would be achieved by pooling all the funds along with the sale of Cornell's farm to create a new university (Rudolph, 266). They agreed to build the University on Cornell's condition that it be constructed on his farm, far away from the supposed immorality of city life. Though White argued that such a remote location would hinder their ability to attract students and professors, he conceded so that the opportunity would not be lost. Thus, after much debate in the state senate, on April 27, 1865, the governor of New York, Reuben Fenton, signed a bill formally creating Cornell University. Cornell's founding principles included nonsectarianism and coeducation. In his 1868 dedication speech, Ezra Cornell said "It shall be our aim to make true Christian men, without dwarfing or paring them down to fit the narrow gauge of sect," and voiced confidence that the school "woud prove highly beneficial to the poor young men and poor young women of our country." The first women were admitted in 1870, putting Cornell in the vanguard of post-Civil-War coeducation and making it the first of the Ivy League schools to admit women. Other Cornell "firsts" include: awarding the first university degrees in veterinary medicine and journalism, teaching the first course in American History, forming the first university publishing company, and awarding the nation's first doctorates in Electrical Engineering and Industrial Engineering. The School of Hotel Administration and New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations are the first four-year schools devoted to those fields. In 2001, Cornell opened the American medical school outside of the United States in Doha, Qatar. Historian Frederick Rudolph once called Cornell "the first American university" (a distinction also claimed by the University of Pennsylvania[http://www.upenn.edu/about/heritage.php]).

Organization

Academic units

Cornell is a private institution, receiving most of its funding through tuition, research grants, and alumni contributions. However, three of its undergraduate colleges as well as the graduate-level College of Veterinary Medicine, called contract or statutory colleges, also receive partial funding from the state of New York to support their research and service mission in niche fields. Residents of New York enrolled in the statutory colleges enjoy reduced tuition. Further, the governor of the state serves as an ex-officio member of the board of trustees. It is a common misconception that Cornell's contract colleges are public institutions. They are not—they are private institutions that Cornell operates by contract with the state government. Cornell is highly decentralized; its colleges and schools have wide autonomy. Each defines its own academic programs, organizes its own admissions and advising programs, and confers its own degrees; the only university-wide requirements for a baccalaureate degree are to pass a swimming test and take two physical education courses. Periodically, the university attempts to resolve naturally arising redundancies by creating special interschool departments. While students may take courses offered by the division, their enrollment remains with their individual college or school. With that said, any student may take any course in any of the colleges, provided they have fulfilled the pre-requisites for enrollment. Seven schools offer undergraduate programs. Students pursuing graduate degrees in departments of these schools are enrolled in the Cornell University Graduate School. In addition, there are six units offering graduate and professional programs.

Undergraduate colleges and schools

Endowed colleges

- College of Architecture, Art and Planning
- College of Arts and Sciences
- College of Engineering
- School of Hotel Administration
Contract colleges

- New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
- New York State College of Human Ecology
- New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations

Graduate/Professional colleges and schools

All of Cornell's graduate and professional schools are endowed, except for the statutory veterinary school.
- Cornell Law School
- S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management
- Weill Cornell Medical College (New York City)
- Weill Cornell Medical College (Qatar)
- Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences (New York City)
- New York State College of Veterinary Medicine
- Cornell Institute for Public Affairs

Other


- School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions.

Non-academic units

Cornell University Library

The Cornell University Library consists of twenty units. It holds 7 million volumes in open stacks, 7 million microforms, 5 million computer files, and some 76,000 sound recordings in its collections in addition to extensive digital resources and the University Archives; it is one of the twelve largest (by volume) academic research libraries in the United States. It was the first among all U.S. colleges and universities to allow undergraduates to borrow books from its libraries.

Cornell University Press

Cornell University Press, established in 1869, was the first university publishing enterprise in the United States and is one of the country's largest university presses. It produces approximately 150 titles each year in various disciplines including anthropology, classics, cultural studies, history, literary criticism and theory, medieval studies, philosophy, politics and international relations, psychology and psychiatry, and women's studies.

The campuses

Main campus

1869] Cornell's main campus, is located on the eastern hill of Ithaca, New York, overlooking the city. Day Hall, the administration building, is located on East Avenue. The campus itself is situated on a rolling site of 745 acres (3 km²) on East Hill, overlooking Cayuga Lake and downtown Ithaca two miles (3 km) to the west. The 260 or so major buildings are mostly divided into quads for the Arts, Engineering, and Agriculture, a science lab complex, and the athletic complex. Central campus is bounded to its north and south by spectacular limestone gorges and waterfalls. Dormitories, fraternity and sorority houses, and student centers are located on North Campus, north of Fall Creek Gorge, and on West Campus, at the bottom of the Library Slope ("Libe Slope"); after snowfalls, students are known to sled down the Slope on trays from the dining hall. East of the main campus lie the Cornell Plantations, approximately 3,600 acres (15 km²) encompassing an arboretum and botanical gardens as well as natural woodlands, trails, streams, and gorges. South of Cascadilla Gorge lies the student-oriented Collegetown business and residential district. Cayuga Lake The first building, Morrill Hall, was erected in 1868, although Cascadilla Hall, a dormitory purchased some years later, is slightly older. Cornell's signature landmark is McGraw Tower, which rises 173 feet and 161 steps from the ground. Constructed in 1891 adjoining Uris Library, it features the Cornell Chimes, 21 bells on which the Cornell chimesmasters play three daily concerts. The clock tower has been the target of a number of pranks. In 1997, a large pumpkin was placed on spire of the clocktower and a discoball in 2005. How either prank was engineered has not been discovered. Contrasting with the Gothic, Victorian, and Neo-Classical buildings on the Arts Quad is the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, designed by I. M. Pei. Other notable buildings: Willard Straight Hall, one of the earliest student unions; Martha Van Rensselaer Hall, the largest academic building in the eastern United States; Duffield Hall, one of the world's most advanced nanotechnology facilities; and the Statler Hotel, adjacent to and associated with the School of Hotel Administration.

New York City campus

The New York Weill Cornell Medical Center is located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. It is home to the Weill Cornell Medical College and Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, and has a long affiliation with the New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Although their faculty and academic divisions remain separate, the Medical Center shares its administrative functions with the Columbia University Medical Center, and is also affiliated with the Sloan-Kettering Institute for cancer research. In addition to the medical facilities, Cornell in New York City includes offices of; Cornell Cooperative Extension, the College of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR), and Operations Research Manhattan Center.

Other campuses

The New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, operated by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is located in Geneva, New York, 50 miles (80 km) northwest of the main campus. The facility now comprises 20 major buildings on 130 acres (0.5 km²) of land, as well as over 700 acres (2.8 km²) of test plots and other lands devoted to horticultural research. It also operates three substations, Vineyard Research Laboratory in Fredonia, Hudson Valley Laboratory in Highland and the Long Island Horticultural Research Laboratory in Riverhead. The Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, located in Education City, near Doha, is housed in a large two-story structure designed by Arata Isozaki. Arata Isozaki The Shoals Marine Laboratory, a seasonal marine field station dedicated to undergraduate education and research operated in conjunction with the University of New Hampshire, is located on the 95 acre (0.4 km²) Appledore Island off the Maine–New Hampshire coast. The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, site of the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, is operated by Cornell. The current and upcoming missions to Mars are managed by Steven Squyres and the Cornell Astronomy Department. Cornell University maintains facilities in Washington, D.C. and New York City for its Cornell in Washington, Urban Semester, and Urban Scholars Programs. Other facilities include
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Sapsucker Woods in Ithaca, New York
- Cornell Biological Field Station at Shackelton Point in Bridgeport
- Punta Cana and EsBaran biodiversity field stations in the Dominican Republic and Peru
- Arnot Teaching and Research Forest natural resources center in Tompkins and Schuyler Counties.
- Animal Science Teaching and Research Center in Harford, and Duck Research Laboratory in Eastport, New York
- Offices of the New York Sea Grant, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and School of Industrial and Labor Relations Extension Service throughout New York State
- Offices for Cornell-administered study abroad programs such as the Cornell-Nepal Study Program and Cornell-in-Rome

Reputation

Many of Cornell's programs are regarded as exceptional. For example, in its 2005 ranking of engineering programs at universities in the United States, U.S. News and World Report has placed Cornell first in engineering science and engineering physics. Cornell's reputation reflects in its competitive admissions. For the Class of 2009, 25.1% of applicants were admitted. Over 88% of them graduated in the top 10% of their high school class (among schools reporting class rank).. Cornell attracts students from all corners of the globe, who represent over 120 countries and all fifty United States. Eastport, New York Recently, [http://ezra.cornell.edu/posting.php?timestamp=1074142800#question5 complaints] by students regarding the "Big Red Box" logo, Cornell's falling rankings (from number 6 in 1999 to the mid-teens in recent years the USNWR Rankings), and a poor selection of branded merchandise, led a group of students to form an ad hoc committee of the Student Assembly in order to improve Cornell's image. Armed with a 32-page report, "Cornell: A Brand in Crisis," the Image Committee raised campus awareness regarding the importance of marketing in improving Cornell's recruitment efforts and rankings status. Working directly with then-president Jeffrey S. Lehman and other members of the administration, the Image Committee assisted with the development of a new identity program, improved merchandising, and a revitalized website. In 2004, Cornell replaced the short-lived "Big Red Box" logo (seen on the right) with a modernized version of the University's shield.

Student life

Activities

Cornell has more than 800 registered student organizations, running the gamut from kayaking to full-armor jousting, from varsity and club sports and a cappella groups to improvisational theatre, from political clubs and publications to chess and video game clubs. Many groups are subsidized financially by the Student Assembly Finance Commission, a student-run organization that gives nearly $1,000,000 a year to clubs and organizations. Cornell also hosts one of the largest fraternity and sorority systems in North America, with over 60 chapters involving 30 percent of undergraduate students. Alpha Phi Alpha, the oldest intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans was founded at Cornell in 1906. The oldest student organization is the internationally recognized Cornell University Glee Club. The Cornell Daily Sun is the oldest continuously independent college daily in the United States, having been published since September, 1880.

Housing

1880 University housing is broadly divided into three sections: West Campus, Collegetown and North Campus. As a result of President Hunter R. Rawlings III's 1997 Residential Initiative West Campus houses mostly transfer and returning students, whereas North Campus is almost entirely populated by freshmen. The only options for living on North Campus for upperclassmen are the program houses: Risley Residential College, Just About Music (JAM), the Ecology House, Holland International Living Center (HILC), the Multicultural Living Learning Unit (MLLU), the Latino Living Center (LLC), Akwe:kon, and Ujaama. In an attempt to create a sense of community and an atmosphere of education outside the classroom, the University has undertaken the $250 million residential college project on West Campus. In line with Andrew Dickson White's vision of the University, the West Campus housing will be demolished and rebuilt as five residential colleges. The first House, the Alice Cook House, was opened to students in 2004, followed by the Carl Becker House in 2005. The next house will be the Hans Bethe House. The names of the Houses come from notable Cornell professors. The idea of building a House system can be attributed in part to the success of Risley Residential College, the oldest continually-in-use residential college at Cornell. Like Risley, the new houses will have their own dining halls, student governments, in-house lectures, House trips, and crests. The completion of the five-"House" "residential college" campus will occur in 2010 . A variety of off-campus housing options exist. Many homes in the East Hill neighborhoods adjacent to the University have been converted to apartments, and several high-rise apartment complexes have been constructed in the Collegetown neighborhood. A significant number of undergraduate students live in fraternity and sorority houses. Many "co-op" or other independent living units such as Watermargin, Telluride House, Young Israel, and the Wait Cooperative also exist. The campus dining services have been rated as one of the top college dining services many times in recent years.

Athletics

Telluride House] Cornell has one of the most diverse varsity athletic programs in the country. It sponsors 36 varsity teams. An NCAA Division I institution, Cornell is a member of the Ivy League and also competes in Eastern College Athletic Conference, the largest athletic conference in North America. Cornell's traditional football rival is the University of Pennsylvania; in 1993, the two institutions celebrated the 100th anniversary of their first game. More keenly followed in the present day are the men's ice hockey contests with Harvard University, although the rivalry has been somewhat one-sided in recent years, with Cornell leading 22-5-2 since the 95-96 season, inlcuding ECAC Championship Game wins in 1996, 2003, and 2005. In addition to the school's varsity athletics, a wide variety of club sports teams have been organized as student organizations under the auspices of the Dean of Students. Cornell's intramural program includes 30 sports. In addition to such familiar sports such as flag football, squash, or horseshoes, such unusual offerings as "inner tube water polo," and formerly "broomstick polo" have been offered, as well as a sports trivia competition. See Cornell Big Red for more Cornell Athletics information.

Suicides

Two deep gorges cut through the Cornell campus which have become infamous for student suicides. According to Cornell's Gannett Health Services over 10 years the average number of student suicides at Cornell is two per year, consistent with national epidemiological data for college student suicides (1 per 10,000). This is half the national rate for individuals in this age group who are not in college. The myth that Cornell features one of the nation's highest suicide rates is most likely promulgated by:
- Suicides in the gorges by Ithaca residents and visitors
- A media focus on Cornell
- The persistence and promulgation of urban legends
- Accidental deaths of students in the gorges Cornell is involved in a collaboration with the Jed Foundationand several other universities to enhance and evaluate university-wide efforts to identify and intervene with students in distress, prevent suicides, reduce harm related to mental health problems, and enhance student mental health.

Faculty

Cornell University has over 1,550 full-time and part-time academic faculty members, and an additional 1,600 affiliated with its medical divisions. The 2003-04 Cornell faculty included 4 Nobel laureates, a Crawford Prize winner, 2 Turing Award winners, a Fields Medal winner, 2 Legion of Honor recipients, a World Food Prize winner, 4 National Medal of Science winners, 2 Wolf Prize winners, 4 MacArthur Award winners, 3 Pulitzer Prize winners, 13 Alexander von Humboldt Award winners, 2 Eminent Ecologist Award recipients, a Carter G. Woodson Scholars Medallion recipient, 3 Presidential Early Career Award holders, 23 National Science Foundation CAREER grant holders, a recipient of the National Academy of Sciences Award for Initiatives in Research, a winner of the American Mathematical Society's Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement, a recipient of the Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics, a Packard Foundation grant holder, a Searle Scholar, a Keck Distinguished Young Scholar, 2 Beckman Foundation Young Investigator grant holders, and a NYSTAR (New York State Office of Science, Technology, and Academic Research) early career award winner. In total, Cornell is affiliated to 32 Nobel laureates. Among Cornell's notable former professors are Carl Sagan, Norman Malcolm, Vladimir Nabokov, Hans Bethe, Richard Feynman, Kip S. Thorne, and Allan Bloom.

Alumni

As of August 2003 Cornell University counted over 220,000 living alumni. The Office of Alumni Affairs and Development sponsors a wide variety of affinity programs, activities, and organizations, including annual Reunion Weekend and Homecoming Weekend festivities in Ithaca, and the International Spirit of Zinck's Night sponsored by Cornell offices and organizations around the world. The various classes, regional clubs, and special interest associations are coordinated by the Cornell Alumni Federation. Cornell ranked first in gifts and bequests from alumni and third in total support from all sources (alumni, friends, corporations, and foundations) among U.S. colleges and universities reporting voluntary gift support received in fiscal year 2003-4. Cornell boasts many notable alumni; see Cornellians for a listing.

Cornelliana

The school colors are carnelian (a shade of red) and white, a play on "Cornellian" and Andrew Dickson White. The name of Cornell's athletic teams is the "Big Red"; a bear is commonly used as the unofficial mascot, which dates back to the introduction of the mascot "Touchdown" in 1915, a live bear who was brought onto the field during football games. The sports teams participate in the Ivy League and the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC). At sporting events, Cornellians sing the University's alma mater "Far Above Cayuga's Waters" and fight song "Give My Regards to Davy". People associated with the University are called "Cornellians"; "Cornellian" may also be used as an adjective and is the name of the university's annual. Other unique parts of Cornell's culture can be found at Cornelliana.

References

# # [http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/Ezra-exhibit/EC-life/EC-life-6.html Ezra Cornell:A 19th Century Life] – From the Cornell University Library Archives # [http://www.cornell.edu/about/facts/faq_profile.cfm?id=915 How old is Cornell?] - From the Cornell University official website # [http://www.cornell.edu/about/facts/stats.cfm Facts about Cornell] - From the Cornell University official website # # # # # # # # # # # # #
- Rudolph, Frederick, American College and University: A History, University of Georgia Press, 1991

External links


- [http://www.cornell.edu/ Cornell University], official website
- [http://admissions.cornell.edu/ Cornell Undergraduate Admissions]
- [http://cuinfo.cornell.edu/ CUinfo], campus information portal
- [http://www.alumni.cornell.edu/ alumni.cornell], alumni classes and organizations portal
- [http://www.cornelldailysun.com/ The Cornell Daily Sun], student newspaper (independent)
- [http://www.cornellbigred.com/ Cornell Big Red], official athletics site
- [http://cybertower.cornell.edu/ Cornell Cybertower], collection of Cornell lectures available online
- [http://www.cornellclubnyc.com/ The Cornell Club], private alumni club in New York City
- [http://www.law.cornell.edu/ Legal Information Institute], public information service of Cornell Law School
- [http://www.explore.cornell.edu/scene.cfm?scene=Sites%20and%20Landmarks A Virtual Tour of Cornell] Category:Association of American Universities Category:Cornell University Category:Ivy League Category:Land-grant universities Category:Sea-grant universities Category:Space-grant universities Category:Sun-grant universities Category:Tompkins County, New York Category:Universities and colleges in New York Category:Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools ko:코넬 대학교 ja:コーネル大学

United Kingdom

:For other meanings of the terms "United Kingdom" and "UK" , see United Kingdom (disambiguation) and UK (disambiguation). :For an explanation of terms like England, (Great) Britain and United Kingdom see British Isles (terminology). The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (usually shortened to the United Kingdom or the UK) is a country located off the north-western coast of continental Europe, surrounded by the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea, the Irish Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean. It is composed of four constituent parts: three constituent countries—England, Scotland, and Wales—on the island of Great Britain, and the province of Northern Ireland on the island of Ireland. The border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland forms the United Kingdom's principal international land border, although there is a nominal frontier with France in the middle of the Channel Tunnel. The UK has several overseas territories and the Crown dependencies of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands come under the UK's sovereignty. The UK also has close relationships with the fifteen other Commonwealth Realms, as they all share the same head of state. The UK is also one of the largest member states of the European Union and a founding partner of both the UN and NATO.

Terminology


- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: The official name for the sovereign state
- United Kingdom: an abbreviation of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Britain: an informal term that sometimes means United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and sometimes means Great Britain
- British: an informal term that sometimes means from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and sometimes means from Great Britain
- Great Britain (as a geographical term): the largest island of the British Isles
- Great Britain (as a political term): England + Wales + Scotland
- British Isles (as a geographical term): Great Britain + Ireland + many smaller surrounding islands. This term is disputed, please see below.
- Ireland (as a geographical term): the second largest island of the British Isles
- Ireland (as a political term): an abbreviation of the Republic of Ireland, a sovereign state on the island of Ireland
- Northern Ireland: a political region of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Ulster (as a geographical term): Often used to refer to Northern Ireland. It is derived from the Irish Language term 'Ulad.' It was one of the ancient Irish provinces (the others were Connaught, Leinster and Munster.). Although it is normally used to refer to Northern Ireland, Ulster also (traditionally) includes Counties Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal, which lie in the Republic of Ireland. The term Ulster is often favoured by the Protestant community.

History

Protestant Today's state is the latest of several unions formed over the last 1000 years. Scotland and England have existed as separate unified entities since the 10th century. Wales, under English control since the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284, became part of the Kingdom of England by the Laws in Wales Act 1535. With the Act of Union 1707, the separate kingdoms of England and Scotland, having shared the same monarch since 1603, agreed to a permanent union as the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Act of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland, which had been gradually brought under English control between 1169 and 1691, to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was formed in 1922, after bitter fighting which echoes down to the current political strife, the Anglo-Irish Treaty partitioned Ireland into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland, with the latter remaining part of the United Kingdom. As provided for in the treaty, Northern Ireland, which consists of six of the nine counties of the Irish province of Ulster, immediately opted out of the Free State and to remain in the UK. The nomenclature of the UK was changed in 1927 to recognise the departure of most of Ireland, with the current name being adopted. 1927 The United Kingdom, the dominant industrial and maritime power of the 19th century, played a leading role in developing Western world ideas of property, liberty, capitalism and parliamentary democracy - to say nothing of its part in advancing world literature and science. At its zenith, the British Empire stretched over one quarter of the Earth's surface and encompassed a third of its population. The first half of the 20th century saw the UK's strength seriously depleted from the effects of World War I and World War II. The second half witnessed the dismantling of the Empire and the UK rebuilding itself into a modern and prosperous nation. The UK has been a member of the European Union since 1973. Its attitude towards further integration is conservative, and there is significant Euroscepticism in UK politics. It has not chosen to adopt the Euro, owing to internal political considerations and the government's judgement of the prevailing economic conditions.

Government and politics

The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy, with executive power exercised on behalf of the Queen by the Prime Minister and other cabinet ministers who head departments. The cabinet, including the Prime Minister, and other ministers collectively make up Her Majesty's Government. These ministers are drawn from and are responsible to Parliament, the legislative body, which is traditionally considered to be "supreme" (that is, able to legislate on any matter and not bound by decisions of its predecessors). The UK is one of the few countries in the world today that does not have a codified constitution, relying instead on customs and separate pieces of constitutional law. While the monarch is Head of State and holds all executive power, it is the Prime Minister who is the head of government. The government is answerable chiefly to the House of Commons and the Prime Minister is drawn from this chamber of Parliament by constitutional convention. The majority of cabinet members will be from the House of Commons, the rest from the House of Lords. Ministers do not, however, legally have to come from Parliament, though that is the modern day custom. The British system of government has been emulated around the world - a legacy of the United Kingdom's colonial past - most notably in the other Commonwealth Realms. The Prime Minister is chosen as the MP who can command a majority in the House of Commons - usually the leader of the largest party or, if there is no majority party, the largest coalition. The current Prime Minister is Tony Blair of the Labour Party, who has been in office since 1997. In the United Kingdom the monarch has extensive theoretical powers, but his or her role is mainly, though not exclusively, ceremonial. The monarch is an integral part of Parliament (as the "Crown-in-Parliament") and theoretically gives Parliament the power to meet and create legislation. An Act of Parliament does not become law until it has been signed by the Queen (being given Royal Assent), although no monarch has refused to assent to a bill that has been approved by Parliament since Queen Anne in 1708. Although the abolition of the monarchy has been suggested several times, the popularity of the monarchy remains strong in spite of recent controversies. Support for a British republic usually fluctuates between 15% and 25% of the population, with roughly 10% undecided or indifferent [http://www.mori.com/mrr/2000/c000616.shtml]. The current monarch is Queen Elizabeth II who acceded to the throne in 1952 and was crowned in 1953. Parliament is the national legislature of the United Kingdom. It is the ultimate legislative authority in the United Kingdom, according to the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. It is bicameral, composed of the elected House of Commons and the unelected House of Lords, whose members are mostly appointed. The House of Commons is the more powerful of the two houses. The House of Commons has 646 members who are directly elected from single-member constituencies based on population. The House of Lords has 724 members (though this number is not fixed): hereditary peers, life peers, and bishops of the Church of England. The Church of England is the established church of the state in England. established church]] The two largest political parties are the Labour Party and Conservative Party. The UK has long had a two-party system, but in the last 20 years the Liberal Democrats have re-emerged as a large third party. The electoral system used for general elections is first-past-the-post. The constitution of the United Kingdom is un-codified and partially unwritten, which means that no single document regulates how the government works, and unwritten constitutional conventions are used extensively. The constitution is based on the principle that Parliament is the ultimate sovereign body in the country. There has long been a widespread sense of national identity in the Celtic nations. Throughout the late 19th century the UK debated giving Ireland home rule. The Scottish National Party was founded in 1934, and Plaid Cymru (Party of Wales) in 1925. Referenda for devolution succeeded in 1997 for Scotland and Wales and in 1998 for Northern Ireland. In 1999, the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales were established, the former having primary legislative power. Proportional representation is used for the elections, which has resulted in a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition government in Scotland. Due to internal disagreements, the Northern Ireland Assembly has been suspended since 2002.

Subdivisions

The United Kingdom is a country that is divided into four constituent parts:
- England
- Scotland
- Northern Ireland
- Wales The constituent parts of the United Kingdom have administrative subdivisions as follows:
- The regions and administrative counties of England
- The council areas of Scotland
- The counties and county boroughs of Wales
- The districts of Northern Ireland The Laws in Wales Act 1535 incorporated Wales and England into England and Wales for legal purposes. Although all four have historically been divided into counties, England's population is an order of magnitude larger than the others so in recent years it has for some purposes been divided into nine intermediate-level Government Office Regions. Each region is made up of counties and unitary authorities, apart from London, which consists of London boroughs. Although at one point it was intended that each or some of these regions would be given its own regional assembly, the plan's future is uncertain, as of 2004, after the North East region rejected its proposed assembly in a referendum. Scotland consists of 32 Council Areas. Wales consists of 22 Unitary Authorities, styled as 10 County Boroughs, 9 Counties, and 3 Cities. Northern Ireland is divided into 26 Districts. Also sometimes associated with the United Kingdom, though not constitutionally part of the United Kingdom itself, are the Crown dependencies (the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey, and the Isle of Man) as self-governing possessions of the Crown, and a number of overseas territories under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.

Military

The armed forces of the United Kingdom are known as the British Armed Forces or Her Majesty's Armed Forces, officially the Armed Forces of the Crown. Their Commander-in-Chief is the Queen and they are managed by the Ministry of Defence. Ministry of Defence The British Armed Forces are charged with protecting the United Kingdom and its overseas territories, promoting the United Kingdom's wider security interests, and supporting international peacekeeping efforts. They are active and regular participants in NATO and other coalition operations. The United Kingdom fields one of the most powerful and comprehensive military forces in the World. Its global power projection capabilities are second only to those of the United States Armed Forces. The British Army had a reported strength of 112,700 in 2004, including 7,600 women, and the Royal Air Force a strength of 53,400. The 40,900-member Royal Navy is in charge of the United Kingdom's independent strategic nuclear arm, which consists of four Trident Ballistic Missile Submarines, while the Royal Marines provide infantry units for amphibious assault and for specialist reinforcement forces in and beyond the NATO area. This puts total active duty military troops in the 210,000 range, currently deployed in over 80 countries. The UK's special forces, principally the SAS, provides elite commandos trained for quick, mobile, military responses; often where secrecy or covert operations are required. The Royal Navy is the second largest navy in the World in terms of gross tonnage. Despite the United Kingdom's wide ranging capabilities, recent pragmatic defence policy has a stated assumption that any large operation would be undertaken as part of a coalition. Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq (Granby, No-Fly-Zones, Desert Fox and Telic) may all be taken as precedent - indeed the last true war in which the British military fought alone was the Falklands War of 1982, in which military action was initiated by Argentina and the UK was fighting a defensive, rather than offensive, campaign. The British army has been actively involved in the Troubles in Northern Ireland. However, a programme of demilitarisation is being gradually implemented.

Geography

Troubles World Factbook Map of the United Kingdom]] Most of England consists of rolling lowland terrain, divided east from west by more mountainous terrain in the Northwest (Cumbrian Mountains of the Lake District) and north (the upland moors of the Pennines) and limestone hills of the Peak District by the Tees-Exe line. The lower limestone hills of the Isle of Purbeck, Cotswolds, Lincolnshire and chalk downs of the Southern England Chalk Formation. The main rivers and estuaries are the Thames, Severn and the Humber Estuary. The largest urban area is Greater London. Near Dover, the Channel Tunnel links the United Kingdom with France. There is no peak in England that is 1000 metres (3,300 ft) or greater. Wales is mostly mountainous, the highest peak being Snowdon at 1085 metres (3,560 ft) above sea level. North of the mainland is the island of Anglesey. The largest and capital city is Cardiff, located in South Wales. Scotland's geography is varied, with lowlands in the south and east and highlands in the north and west, including Ben Nevis, the UK's highest mountain at 1343 metres (4,406 ft). There are many long and deep-sea arms, firths, and lochs. A multitude of islands west and north of Scotland are also included, notably the Hebrides, Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands. The largest city is Glasgow. Northern Ireland, making up the north-eastern part of Ireland, is mostly hilly. The main cities are Belfast ('Beal Feirste' in Irish) and Londonderry / Derry ('Doire' in Irish). The province is home to one of the UK’s World Heritage Sites, the Giant's Causeway, which consists of more than 40,000 six-sided basalt columns up to 40 feett (12 m) high. In total it is estimated that the UK includes around 1098 small islands, some being natural and some being crannogs, a type of artificial island which was built in past times using stone and wood, gradually enlarged by natural waste building up over time.

Economy

artificial island The United Kingdom, a leading trading power and financial centre, has an essentially capitalist economy, the fourth largest in the world in terms of market exchange rates and the sixth largest by purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates. Over the past three decades, the government has greatly reduced public ownership by means of privatisation programmes, and has contained the growth of the Welfare State. Agriculture is intensive, highly mechanised, and efficient by European standards, producing about 60% of food needs with only 1% of the labour force. The UK has large coal, natural gas, and oil reserves; primary energy production accounts for 10% of GDP, one of the highest shares of any industrial state. Services, particularly banking, insurance and business services, account for by far the largest proportion of GDP. Industry continues to decline in importance, although the UK is still Europe's largest manufacturer of armaments, petroleum products, personal computers, televisions, and mobile telephones. Tourism is also important: with over 24 million tourists a year, between China (33) and Austria (19.1), the United Kingdom is ranked as the sixth major tourist destination in the world. The Blair government has put off the question of participation in the Euro system, citing five economic tests that would need to be met before they recommend that the UK adopts the Euro, and hold a referendum.

Society

Demographics

At the April 2001 census, the United Kingdom's population was 58,789,194, the third-largest in the European Union (behind Germany and metropolitan France) and the twenty-first largest in the world. Its overall population density is one of the highest in the world. Almost one-third of the population lives in England's prosperous south-east and is predominantly urban and suburban--with about 7.2 million in the capital of London. The United Kingdom's high literacy rate (99%) is attributable to universal public education introduced for the primary level in 1870 and secondary level in 1900 (except in Scotland where it was introduced in 1696). Education is mandatory from ages five through sixteen. referendum The Church of England and the Church of Scotland function as the official national religions in their respective countries, but most religions found in the world are represented in the United Kingdom. Anglicanism is the state religion that has been established in England since 1534 during the reign of King Henry VIII. During his reign, England broke ties with the Roman Catholic church and established the Church of England as the offical religion of England. Reforms to the nature of the church's relationship to the state have been ongoing, especially concerning the nature of the House of Lords and the appointment of a fixed amount of the lordships going to Lords Temporal, bishops of the Church of England. A group of islands close to continental Europe, the British Isles have been subject to many invasions and migrations, especially from Scandinavia and the continent, including Roman occupation for several centuries. Contemporary Britons are descended mainly from the varied ethnic stocks that settled there before the eleventh century. The pre-Celtic, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Norse influences were blended on Great Britain under the Normans, Scandinavian Vikings who had lived in Northern France. Although Celtic languages persist in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, the predominant language is English, which is a West Germanic language descended from Old English, featuring a large amount of borrowings from Norman French.The other indigenous languages include the Celtic languages; Welsh, the closely related Irish and Scots Gaelic, and the Cornish language; as well as Lowland Scots, which is closely related to English; Romany; and British Sign Language (Northern Ireland Sign Language is also used in Northern Ireland). Celtic dialectal influences from Cumbric persisted in Northern England for many centuries, most famously in a unique set of numbers used for counting sheep. Recent immigrants, especially from the Commonwealth, speak many other languages, including Bengali, Cantonese, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu. The United Kingdom has the largest number of Hindi speaking peoples outside of the Indian sub continent.

Culture

Urdu The United Kingdom contains many of the world's leading universities, including the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and the University of London (which incorporates, amongst others, Imperial College and University College London), and has produced many great scientists and engineers including Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Isambard Kingdom Brunel; the nation is credited with many inventions including the locomotive, vaccination, television, vacuum, and both the internal combustion and the jet engine. The English language has spread to all corners of the world (primarily because of the country’s empire) and is referred to as a ‘global language’. It is now taught as a second language more than any other around the world. Over the next few decades, it is estimated that approximately half the world’s population will be proficient in the language. Playwright William Shakespeare is arguably the most famous writer in the history of the English language; other well-known writers from the United Kingdom include the Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne), Jane Austen, William Thackeray, J. R. R. Tolkien, John Milton, H. G. Wells and Charles Dickens. Important poets include Lord Byron, Robert Burns, Lord Tennyson and William Blake. Notable composers from the United Kingdom have included William Byrd, John Taverner, William Lawes, John Dowland, Thomas Tallis, and Henry Purcell from the 16th and early 17th centuries, and, more recently, Sir Edward Elgar, Sir Arthur Sullivan (most famous for working with librettist Sir W. S. Gilbert), Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten in the 19th and 20th. George Frideric Handel spent most of his composing life in England. The BBC is the oldest and perhaps the most respected broadcasting network on the globe, with the BBC World Service radio channel and its news output held in particularly high regard. The other main television networks are ITV, Channel 4, five (TV) and Sky Television. Popular programmes in the UK include the three soaps Eastenders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale, as well as the comedy news quiz Have I Got News For You and Reality TV shows Big Brother and The X Factor. Various British TV formats have been exported to other nations, notably Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, The Weakest Link and The Office. The UK was, with the US, one of the two main contributors in the development of rock and roll, and the UK has provided some of the most famous rock stars, including the Beatles, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, The Who and many others. The UK was at the forefront of punk rock music in the 1970s with bands such as the Sex Pistols and The Clash, and the subsequent rebirth of heavy metal with bands such as Motörhead and Iron Maiden. In mid to late '90s, the Britpop phenomenon has seen bands such as Oasis, Blur, Radiohead and Coldplay gain international fame. The UK is also at the forefront of electronica, with British artists such as Aphex Twin, Talvin Singh, Nitin Sawhney and Lamb at the cutting edge. The United Kingdom was also associated with music from the Caribbean, with a large number of Jamaicans and other Caribbean nationals being present in the UK.

Sport

A great number of major sports originated in the United Kingdom, including football, golf, cricket, rugby, tennis and boxing. The national sport of the UK is association football, but the UK does not compete as a nation in any major football tournament. Instead, the home nations compete individually as England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is because of this unique four-team arrangement that the UK currently does not compete in football events at the Olympic Games. However, a united team will probably take part in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, as these are hosted in London. The English and Northern Irish football associations have confirmed participation in this team while the Scottish FA and the Welsh FA have declined to participate. The UK also hosts many world-renowned football clubs, such as Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal in England and Rangers and Celtic in Scotland. Clubs compete in national leagues and competitions and some go on to compete in European competitions. Both forms of rugby are national sports. Rugby League originates from and is generally played in the North of England, whilst Rugby Union is played all over Britain. In Rugby League the UK plays as one nation - Great Britain - whilst in union it is represented by the four nations. England are the current holders of the Rugby Union World Cup. Every four years the British and Irish Lions (comprising the best players from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland) tour other countries. Cricket is also played in the UK, although it is focussed in England. The Wimbledon Championships are an international tennis event held in Wimbledon in south London every summer and are seen as the most prestigious of the tennis calendar. Golf is one of the most popular participation sports played in the UK and St Andrews in Scotland is the sport's home course.

Miscellaneous topics

External links


- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/state/nations/ BBC Nations] History of the nations within the UK.
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)]
- [http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/uk.html CIA World Factbook: UK.]
- [http://www.direct.gov.uk Gateway to UK governmental services and websites.]
- [http://www.number-10.gov.uk Number 10 Downing Street]
- [http://www.statistics.gov.uk Office of National Statistics]
- [http://www.opsi.gov.uk Office of Public Sector Information] Source for all UK legislation 1987-present (successor to Her Majesty's Stationery Office).
- [http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/britishisles/ The British Isles] Independent view of the UK.
- [http://www.royal.gov.uk The British Monarchy]
- [http://www.parliament.uk/ The United Kingdom Parliament]
- [http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=5703&Pos=&ColRank=1&Rank=272 Official Yearbook of the UK] factbook produced by the Office for National Statistics (years 2000 to 2005 available online).
- [http://www.ukcities.co.uk UK Cities] lists a variety of useful resources for every city in the UK.
- [http://www.justuk.org UK travel guide] United Kingdom for travellers.
- [http://www.world66.com/europe/unitedkingdom World66 Guide to United Kingdom] A travel guide written by its users.
- [http://www.multimap.co.uk www.multimap.co.uk] provides online maps and aerial photographs of the UK.
- [http://www.streetmap.co.uk www.streetmap.co.uk] an alternative to multimap.
- [http://www.freeworldmaps.net/europe/united-kingdom/map.html Physical map of United Kingdom.]
- [http://www.upmystreet.com www.upmystreet.com] detailed localised information about places in the United Kingdom.
- [http://www.parks.it/world/UK/Eindex.html UK Parks] National parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and other protected areas. ----
Category:British Isles Category:European countries Category:European Union member states Category:Members of the Commonwealth of Nations Category:Monarchies A als:Grossbritannien und Nordirland zh-min-nan:Liân-ha̍p Ông-kok ko:영국 ms:United Kingdom ja:イギリス simple:United Kingdom th:สหราชอาณาจักร

League Tables of British Universities

League Tables of British Universities, which rank the performances of universities in the United Kingdom on a number of criteria, have been published every year by The Times newspaper since the early 1990s. The factors used to assess universities include quality of teaching and research (which are assessed by external inspectors), entry standards and dropout rates. These league tables have become increasingly popular over the last few years and several other papers such as The Guardian and The Sunday Times now publish their own tables annually. These tables are often used by students when deciding which universities to apply to. Some league tables are more specific, ranking universities on their strength in individual subjects, and not just overall teaching and research across a range of subjects. Although the various tables differ slightly in how they assess universities, the same names tend to dominate the top positions. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge have typically headed the lists, based on their superior funding and prestige (stemming from the fact that they have significantly longer histories than other English universities). This allows them to attract some of the country's best students, lecturers and researchers. Cambridge has generally fared better, claiming first place in most of the newspapers' tables, with Oxford normally in second position. Oxford has recently been top of some lists though, based on differences in the way some league tables are now calculated. For example, The Times has begun to put more emphasis on facilities spending, and Cambridge has come off worse because more of Oxford's money goes through the central university, whereas at Cambridge the individual colleg