College Profile: University of Chicago

The University of Chicago (UChicago) is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. Founded by the oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, the University has traditionally dated its establishment to July 1, 1891, when William Rainey Harper became President and the first member of the faculty. The University of Chicago held its first classes on October 1, 1892. The University of Chicago was one of the first universities in the United States to be conceived as a combination of the American liberal arts college and the German research university. Known for its rigorous devotion to academic scholarship and intellectual life, the University of Chicago is sometimes jokingly referred to as the school "where fun comes to die." Affiliated with 82 Nobel Prize laureates, the University of Chicago is widely regarded as one of the world's foremost universities. Historically, the university is noted for the unique undergraduate core curriculum pioneered by Robert Hutchins in the 1930s, and for influential academic movements such as the Chicago School of Economics, the Chicago School of Sociology, and the Law and Economics movement in legal analysis. The University of Chicago was the site of the world's first man-made self-sustaining nuclear reaction. It is also home to the Committee on Social Thought, an interdisciplinary graduate research program, and to the largest university press in the United States.

 

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