Washington University in St. Louis

Washington University in St. Louis (Wash U, WUSTL) is a private research university located in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1853, and named for George Washington, the university has students and faculty from all fifty U.S. states and more than 110 nations. Twenty-two Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Washington University, nine having done the major part of their pioneering research at the university. Washington University's undergraduate program is ranked 14th in the nation and 7th in admissions selectivity by US News and World Report. The university is also ranked 30th in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities. In 2006, the university received $434 million in federal research funds, ranking seventh among private universities receiving federal research and development support, and in the top four in funding from the National Institutes of Health.

Washington University is made up of seven graduate and undergraduate schools that encompass a broad range of academic fields. Officially incorporated as "The Washington University", the university is occasionally referred to as WUSTL, an acronym derived from the initials of the university's name plus "STL" for St. Louis. More commonly, however, students refer to the college as "WashU". To prevent confusion over its location, the Board of Trustees added the phrase "in St. Louis" in 1976.

Early History (1853–1900)
Washington University was conceived by seventeen St. Louis business, political, and religious leaders concerned by the lack of institutions of higher learning in the Midwest. Missouri State Senator Wayman Crow and Unitarian minister William Greenleaf Eliot, grandfather of the poet T.S. Eliot, led the effort.

The university's first chancellor was Joseph Gibson Hoyt. Crow secured the university charter from the Missouri General Assembly in 1853, and Eliot was named President of the Board of Trustees. Early on, Eliot solicited support from members of the local business community, including John O'Fallon, but Eliot failed to secure a permanent endowment. Washington University is unusual among major American universities in not having had a prior financial endowment. The institution had no backing of a religious organization, single wealthy patron, or earmarked government support.

During the three years following its inception, the university bore three different names. The board first approved "Eliot Seminary", but William Eliot was uncomfortable with naming a university after himself and objected to the establishment of a seminary, which would implicitly be charged with teaching a religious faith. He favored a nonsectarian university. In 1854, the Board of Trustees changed the name to "Washington Institute" in honor of George Washington. Naming the University after the nation's first president, only seven years before the American Civil War and during a time of bitter national division, was no coincidence. During this time of conflict, Americans universally admired George Washington as the father of the United States and a symbol of national unity. The Board of Trustees believed that the university should be a force of unity in a strongly divided Missouri. In 1856, the University amended its name to "Washington University." The university amended its name once more in 1976, when the Board of Trustees voted to add the suffix "in St. Louis" to distinguish the university from the nearly two dozen other universities bearing Washington's name.

Although chartered as a university, for many years Washington University functioned primarily as a night school located on 17th Street and Washington Avenue in the heart of downtown St. Louis. Owing to limited financial resources, Washington University initially used public buildings. Classes began on October 22, 1854, at the Benton School building. At first the university paid for the evening classes, but as their popularity grew, their funding was transferred to the St. Louis Public Schools. Eventually the board secured funds for the construction of Academic Hall and a half dozen other buildings. Later the university divided into three departments: the Manual Training School, Smith Academy, and the Mary Institute.

In 1867, the university opened the first private nonsectarian law school west of the Mississippi River. By 1882, Washington University had expanded to numerous departments, which were housed in various buildings across St. Louis. Medical classes were first held at Washington University in 1891 after the St. Louis Medical College decided to affiliate with the University, establishing the School of Medicine. During the 1890s, Robert Sommers Brookings, the president of the Board of Trustees, undertook the tasks of reorganizing the university's finances, putting them onto a sound foundation, and buying land for a new campus.

Modern Era (1900–1955)
Washington University spent its first half century in downtown St. Louis bounded by Washington Ave., Lucas Place, and Locust Street. By the 1890s, owing to the dramatic expansion of the Manual School and a new benefactor in Robert Brookings, the University began to move west. The University Board of Directors began a process to find suitable ground and hired the landscape architecture firm Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot of Boston. A committee of Robert S. Brookings, Henry Ware Eliot, and William Huse found a site of 103 acre just beyond Forest Park, located west of the city limits in St. Louis County. The elevation of the land was thought to resemble the Acropolis and inspired the nickname of "Hilltop" campus, renamed the Danforth campus in 2006 to honor former chancellor William H. Danforth.

In 1899, the university opened a national design contest for the new campus. The renowned Philadelphia firm Cope & Stewardson won unanimously with its plan for a row of Collegiate Gothic quadrangles inspired by Oxford and Cambridge Universities. The cornerstone of the first building, Busch Hall, was laid on October 20, 1900. The construction of Brookings Hall, Ridgley, and Cupples began shortly thereafter. The school delayed occupying these buildings until 1905 to accommodate the 1904 World's Fair and Olympics. The delay allowed the university to construct ten buildings instead of the seven originally planned. This original cluster of buildings set a precedent for the development of the Danforth Campus; Cope & Stewardson’s original plan and its choice of building materials have, with few exceptions, guided the construction and expansion of the Danforth Campus to the present day. By 1915, construction of a new medical complex was completed on Kingshighway in what is now St. Louis’s Central West End. Three years later, Washington University admitted its first women medical students.

In 1922, a young physics professor, Arthur Holly Compton, conducted a series of experiments in the basement of Eads Hall that demonstrated the "particle" concept of electromagnetic radiation. Compton’s discovery, known as the “Compton Effect”, earned him the Nobel Prize in physics in 1927.

During World War II, as part of the Manhattan Project, a cyclotron at Washington University was used to produce small quantities of the newly discovered element plutonium via nuetron bombardment of uranium nitrate hexahydrate. The plutonium produced there in 1942 was shipped to the Metallurgical Laboratory Compton had established at the University of Chicago where Glenn Seaborg's team used it for extraction, purification, and characterization studies of the exotic substance.

After working for many years at the University of Chicago, Arthur Holly Compton returned to St. Louis in 1946 to serve as Washington University’s ninth chancellor. Compton reestablished the Washington University football team, making the declaration that athletics were to be henceforth played on a "strictly amateur" basis with no athletic scholarships. Under Compton’s leadership, enrollment at the University grew dramatically, fueled primarily by World War II veterans' use of their GI Bill benefits.

In 1947, Gerty Cori, a professor at the School of Medicine, became the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Professors Carl and Gerty Cori became Washington University's fifth and sixth Nobel laureates for their discovery of how glycogen is broken down and resynthesized in the body.

The process of desegregation at Washington University began in 1947 with the School of Medicine and the School of Social Work. During the mid and late 1940s, the University was the target of critical editorials in the local African American press, letter-writing campaigns by churches and the local Urban League, and legal briefs by the NAACP intended to strip its tax-exempt status. In spring 1949, a Washington University student group, the Student Committee for the Admission of Negroes (SCAN), began campaigning for full racial integration. In May 1952, the Board of Trustees passed a resolution desegregating the school's undergraduate divisions.

Recent History (1955–present)
During the latter half of the 20th century, Washington University transitioned from a strong regional university to a national research institution. In 1957, planning began for the construction of the “South 40,” a complex of modern residential halls. With the additional on-campus housing, Washington University, which had been predominately a “streetcar college” of commuter students, began to attract a more national pool of applicants. By 1964, over two-thirds of incoming students came from outside the St. Louis area.

In 1971, the Board of Trustees appointed Chancellor William Henry Danforth, who guided the university through the social and financial crises of the 1970s and strengthened the university’s often strained relationship with the St. Louis community. During his 24-year chancellorship, Danforth significantly improved the School of Medicine, established 70 new faculty chairs, secured a $1.72 billion endowment, and tripled the amount of student scholarships.

In 1995, Mark S. Wrighton, former Provost at MIT, was elected the university’s 14th chancellor. During Chancellor Wrighton's tenure undergraduate applications to Washington University have more than doubled. Since 1995, the University has added more than 190 endowed professorships, revamped its Arts & Sciences curriculum, and completed more than 30 new buildings.

The growth of Washington University’s reputation has coincided with a series of record-breaking fund-raising efforts during the last three decades. From 1983 to 1987, the “Alliance for Washington University” campaign raised $630.5 million, which was then the most successful fund-raising effort in national history. From 1998 to 2004, the “Campaign for Washington University” raised $1.55 billion, which has been applied to additional scholarships, professorships, and research initiatives.

U.S. Presidential and Vice Presidential debates
Washington University has been selected by the Commission on Presidential Debates to host more presidential and vice presidential debates than any other institution in history. The University has been selected to host a presidential or vice presidential debate in every United States presidential election since 1992. United States presidential election debates were held at the Washington University Athletic Complex in 1992, 2000, and 2004. A presidential debate was planned to occur in 1996, but owing to scheduling difficulties between the candidates, the debate was canceled. The university hosted the only 2008 vice presidential debate, between Republican Sarah Palin and Democrat Joe Biden, on October 2, 2008, also at the Washington University Athletic Complex.

Although Chancellor Wrighton had noted after the 2004 debate that it would be "improbable" that the University will host another debate and was not eager to commit to the possibility, he subsequently changed his view and the University submitted a bid for the 2008 debates. "These one-of-a-kind events are great experiences for our students, they contribute to a national understanding of important issues, and they allow us to help bring national and international attention to the St. Louis region as one of America's great metropolitan areas," said Wrighton.

Rankings and reputation
Washington University's undergraduate program is ranked 14th in the nation, and 7th in admissions selectivity, in the 2011 U.S. News & World Report National Universities ranking. Additionally, 19 undergraduate disciplines are ranked among the top 10 programs in the country. In 2011, Washington University received a record 28,823 applications for a freshman class of 1,500. More than 90% of incoming freshmen were ranked in the top 10% of their high school classes. In 2006, the University ranked fourth overall and second among private universities in the number of enrolled National Merit Scholar freshmen, according to the National Merit Scholar Corp.'s annual report. In 2008, Washington University was ranked number one for quality of life according to the Princeton Review, among other top rankings. In addition, the Olin Business School's undergraduate program is among the top 12 in the country. The Olin Business School's undergraduate program is also among the country's most competitive, admitting only 14% of applicants in 2007 and ranking No. 1 in SAT scores according to BusinessWeek.

Graduate schools include the School of Medicine, currently ranked 4th in the nation, and the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, currently ranked 1st. The program in occupational therapy at Washington University currently occupies the top spot for the U.S. News and World Report rankings (tied for #1) and the program in physical therapy is ranked 2nd (tied for #2). For the 2011 edition, the School of Law is ranked 18th and the Olin Business School is ranked 20th. Additionally, the Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design was ranked 4th in the nation by the journal DesignIntelligence in its 2012 edition of "America's Best Architecture & Design Schools."

Global rankings include 30th in the Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2010, that assesses the quality of scientific research leading toward a Nobel Prize. In 2010, Washington University ranked 38th in the world according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Geography & campus
Although the school includes St. Louis in its name, the majority of the school's main campus (including Brookings Hall) is located in unincorporated St. Louis County and suburban Clayton. The school's Medical Campus is in the City of St. Louis on the east end of Forest Park. Some administrative offices are in the City of St. Louis in what is called the North Campus. The 560 Music Center and the Lewis Center are in University City. The school has also two campuses (South and West) in Clayton as well as the Tyson Research Center in St. Louis County. In total, Washington University's campuses comprise 11 million square feet (1 million m²) of building space.

Danforth Campus
Distinguished by its collegiate gothic architecture, the 169 acre Danforth Campus lies at the western boundary of Forest Park. Formerly known as the Hilltop Campus, the Danforth Campus was officially dedicated with a formal university ceremony on September 17, 2006, in honor of William H. Danforth, the 13th Chancellor of the University, the Danforth family, and the Danforth Foundation.

The construction of Danforth Campus was accelerated through a profitable lease of several buildings to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. At the fair's conclusion, the newly constructed buildings assumed their original functions as classrooms and administrative offices. Additionally, Francis Field, the grounds of the 1904 Summer Olympics, and Francis Gymnasium were converted for use by the Washington University athletic department.

The Danforth Campus is accessible by the University City-Big Bend and Skinker stations on the MetroLink's recently opened cross-county extension, which provides easy access to the Washington University Medical Campus, the North Campus, and the West Campus.

Medical Campus
Washington University Medical Center comprises 164 acre spread over approximately 12 city blocks, located along the eastern edge of Forest Park within the Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis. The campus is home to the Washington University School of Medicine and its associated teaching hospitals, Barnes-Jewish Hospital and St. Louis Children's Hospital. Many of the buildings are connected via a series of skyways and corridors.

The School's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty Physicians & Nurse Practitioners also serve as the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, which are part of BJC HealthCare. Washington University and BJC have taken on many joint venture projects, such as the Center for Advanced Medicine, completed in December 2001. BJC Institute of Health at Washington University is the newest research building with 680000 sqft.

Olin Residence Hall, named for Spencer T. Olin, provides residential services for 200 medical and graduate students.

The Medical Campus is accessible via the Central West End MetroLink station, which provides a quick link to the Danforth, North, and West Campuses.

Medical Campus Includes:
 * Barnes-Jewish Hospital
 * Central Institute for the Deaf
 * St. Louis Children's Hospital
 * Rehabilitation Institute of Saint Louis
 * Siteman Cancer Center
 * Center for Advanced Medicine
 * Eric P. Newman Education Center (conference and convention center)

North and West Campuses
Washington University's North Campus and West Campus principally house administrative functions that are not student focused. North Campus lies in St. Louis City near the Delmar Loop. The University acquired the building and adjacent property in 2004, formerly home to the Angelica Uniform Factory. Several University administrative departments are located at the North Campus location, including offices for Quadrangle Housing, Accounting and Treasury Services, Parking and Transportation Services, Army ROTC, and Network Technology Services. The North Campus location also provides off-site storage space for the Performing Arts Department. Renovations are still ongoing; recent additions to the North Campus space include a small eatery operated by Bon Appétit Management Company, the University's on-campus food provider, completed during spring semester 2007, as well as the Family Learning Center, operated by Bright Horizons and opened in September 2010.

The West Campus is located about to the west of the Danforth Campus in Clayton, Missouri, and primarily consists of a three-story former department store building housing mostly administrative space. The West Campus building was home to the Clayton branch of the Famous-Barr department store until 1990, when the University acquired the property and adjacent parking and began a series of renovations. Today, the basement level houses the Library archives and a conference center. The ground level still remains a retail space. The upper floors consolidated capital gifts, portions of alumni and development, and information systems offices from across the Danforth and Medical School campuses. There is also a music rehearsal room on the second floor. The West Campus is also home to the Center for the Application of Information Technologies (CAIT), which provides IT training services.

Both the North and West Campuses are accessible by the St. Louis MetroLink, which, with the Delmar Loop and Forsyth MetroLink Stations directly adjacent to these campuses, provides easy travel around the St. Louis metropolitan area, including all of Washington University's campuses.

Tyson Research Center
Tyson Research Center is a 2000 acre field station located west of St. Louis on the Meramec River. Washington University obtained Tyson as surplus property from the federal government in 1963. It is used by the University as a biological field station and research/education center. In 2010 the Living Learning Center was named one of the first two buildings accredited nationwide as a "living building" under the Living Learning Challenge, opened to serve as a biological research station and classroom for summer students.

Arts & Sciences


Arts & Sciences at Washington University comprises three divisions: the College of Arts & Sciences, the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, and University College in Arts & Sciences. Gary Wihl is Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. James E. McLeod was the Vice Chancellor for Students and Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences; according to a University news release he died at the University's Barnes-Jewish Hospital on Tuesday, September 6, 2011 of renal failure as a result of a two-year-long struggle with cancer. Richard J. Smith is Dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.


 * The College of Arts & Sciences is the central undergraduate unit of the University with 330 tenured and tenure-track faculty along with over 100 research scientists, lecturers, artists in residence, and visitors serving more than 3,700 undergraduates in 40 academic departments divided into divisions of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences and Mathematics. The College of Arts & Sciences has an average class size of 18 students, with over 80% having fewer than 24. Almost one-half of the undergraduate classes have fewer than 10 students. The student-faculty ratio is 7:1.


 * The Graduate School serves over 1,800 students pursuing Master's and PhD degrees.


 * University College grants both graduate and undergraduate degrees, offering courses primarily in the evenings for adult and continuing education.


 * The College of Arts & Sciences offers courses in over a dozen languages, including Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, German, French, Swahili, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Greek, Italian, Hindi, Portuguese, and Latin. University College in Arts & Sciences also offers course work in Swedish, Vietnamese, and Czech.

Business
Founded as the School of Commerce and Finance in 1917, the Olin Business School was named after entrepreneur John M. Olin in 1988. The school's academic programs include BSBA, MBA, Professional MBA (PMBA), Executive MBA (EMBA), MS in Finance, MS in Supply Chain Management, Master of Accounting, and Doctorate programs, as well as non-degree executive education. In 2002, an Executive MBA program was established in Shanghai, in cooperation with Fudan University.

Olin has a network of more than 16,000 alumni worldwide. Over the last several years, the school’s endowment has increased to $213 million (2004) and annual gifts average $12 million per year. Simon Hall was opened in 1986 after a donation from John E. Simon.

Undergraduate BSBA students take 40–60% of their courses within the business school and are able to formally declare majors in eight areas: accounting, entrepreneurship, finance, healthcare management, marketing, managerial economics and strategy, organization and human resources, international business, and operations and supply chain management. Graduate students are able to pursue an MBA either full time or part time. Students may also take elective courses from other disciplines at Washington University, including law and many other fields. Mahendra R. Gupta is the Dean of the Olin Business School.

Design & Visual Arts
Created in 2005 by merging the existing Colleges of Art and Architecture, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts combines the strengths of these fields into a single collaborative unit offering both undergraduate and graduate programs. The School comprises: Architecture offers BS and BA degrees as well as M. Arch and MUD. There is a combined six-year BS and M. Arch degree program as well as joint M. Arch programs with most of the other schools in the University. The Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design was ranked 5th in the nation by the journal DesignIntelligence in its 2008 edition of "America's Best Architecture & Design Schools".
 * College of Architecture
 * Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design
 * College of Art
 * Graduate School of Art
 * Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, considered one of the most distinguished university art collections in the country

Art offers the BFA and MFA in Art in the context of a full university environment. Students take courses in the College of Arts & Sciences as well as courses in the College of Art to provide a well rounded background. One third of students in the school pursue a combined study degree program, second major, and/or minors in other undergraduate divisions at Washington University. U.S. News & World Report ranked the MFA program 15th in the nation in 2008.

In October 2006 the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum moved into new facilities designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect, and former faculty member, Fumihiko Maki.

Carmon Colangelo is the Dean of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Bruce Lindsey is Dean of the College of Architecture and the Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design. Franklin "Buzz" Spector is the Dean of the College and Graduate School of Art.

Engineering


The Washington University School of Engineering was ranked 43 in the 2007–2008 U.S. News undergraduate engineering program ratings. The biomedical engineering graduate program was ranked 10th by U.S. News in 2008–2009. Graduate programs are also offered through the School of Engineering and part-time programs through the Sever Institute of Continuing Studies. Ralph Quatrano is Dean of Engineering & Applied Science.

Departments include:
 * Biomedical Engineering
 * Computer Science and Engineering
 * Electrical and Systems Engineering
 * Energy, Environmental, and Chemical Engineering- will be housed in 2010 in the new Brauer Hall building, named after Hunter Engineering Company CEO and former Ambassador to Belgium Stephen F. Brauer and his wife Camilla
 * Mechanical Engineering, and Materials Science

Law
Washington University School of Law offers joint-degree programs with the Olin Business School, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Medicine, and the School of Social Work. It also offers an LLM in Intellectual Property and Technology Law, an LLM in Taxation, an LLM in US Law for Foreign Lawyers, a Master of Juridical Studies (MJS), and a Juris Scientiae Doctoris (JSD). The law school offers 3 semesters of courses in the Spring, Summer, and Fall, and requires at least 85 hours of coursework for the JD.

In the 2011 US News & World Report America's Best Graduate Schools, the law school is ranked 18th nationally, out of over 180 law schools. In particular, its Clinical Education Program is currently ranked 4th in the nation. This year, the median score placed the average student in the 96th percentile of test takers. The law school offers a full-time day program, beginning in August, for the J.D. degree. The law school is located in a state-of-the-art building, Anheuser-Busch Hall (opened in 1997). The building combines traditional architecture, a five-story open-stacks library, an integration of indoor and outdoor spaces, and the latest wireless and other technologies. National Jurist ranked Washington University 4th among the "25 Most Wired Law Schools."

Kent D. Syverud is the Dean of the School of Law.

Medicine
The Washington University School of Medicine is highly regarded as one of the world's leading centers for medical research and training. The School ranks first in the nation in student selectivity. Among its many recent initiatives, The Genome Center at Washington University (directed by Richard K. Wilson) played a leadership role in the Human Genome Project, having contributed 25% of the finished sequence. The School pioneered bedside teaching and led in the transformation of empirical knowledge into scientific medicine. The medical school partners with St. Louis Children's Hospital and Barnes-Jewish Hospital (part of BJC HealthCare), where all physicians are members of the school's faculty.

Within the medical school, the Program in Physical Therapy is also highly reputable. It is ranked 2nd in the nation for "Best Physical Therapy Schools" according to U.S. News & World Report. The Program offers a Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) at both the professional and post-professional levels. In its 60-year history, more than 1,500 students, most of whom are still actively involved in the physical therapy profession, have graduated from the Program.

The Program in Occupational Therapy is currently tied for 1st in the nation for "Best Occupational Therapy Schools" according to U.S. News & World Report. The Program offers a Master of Science degree as well as the Occupational Therapy Doctorate (OTD) at the professional and post-professional levels. M. Carolyn Baum, PhD, serves as the program director and was the most recent president of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA).

Dr. Larry J. Shapiro, MD, is the Dean of Washington University School of Medicine.

Social Work
The George Warren Brown School of Social Work (commonly called the Brown School or Brown) is currently ranked first among Master of Social Work (MSW) programs in the United States. Brown also offers a PhD in Social Work in cooperation with the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and a Master of Public Health. The school was endowed by Bettie Bofinger Brown and named for her husband — George Warren Brown — a St. Louis philanthropist and co-founder of the Brown Shoe Company. The school is housed within Brown and Goldfarb halls. It has a center for Native American research, as well as acclaimed scholars in social security, health, individual development accounts, etc. The school's current dean is Edward F. Lawlor.

Former Schools
Founded as the Missouri Dental College in 1866, the Washington University School of Dental Medicine was the first dental school west of the Mississippi River and the sixth dental school in the U.S. The school closed in 1991.

Museums and library system
With 14 libraries, the Washington University library system is the largest in the state of Missouri, containing over 4.2 million volumes. The main library, Olin Library, is centrally located on the Danforth Campus. Other libraries in the system include:
 * Kranzberg Art & Architecture Library
 * Business Library
 * Chemistry Library
 * East Asian Library
 * Law Library
 * Medical Library (Becker)
 * Music Library
 * Physics Library
 * Social Work Library
 * Special Collections & Archives
 * West Campus Library

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, established in 1881, is one of the oldest teaching museums in the country and the first art museum established west of the Mississippi River. The collection includes works from 19th, 20th, and 21st century American and European artists, including George Caleb Bingham, Thomas Cole, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Alexander Calder, Jackson Pollock, Rembrandt, Robert Rauschenberg, Barbara Kruger, and Christian Boltanski. Also in the complex is the 3000 sqft Newman Money Museum. In October 2006, the Kemper Art Museum moved from its previous location, Steinberg Hall, into a new facility designed by former faculty member Fumihiko Maki. Interestingly, the new Kemper Art Museum is located directly across from Steinberg Hall, which was Maki's very first commission in 1959.

Research, Research Centers and Institutes


Virtually all faculty members at Washington University engage in academic research, offering opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students across the University's 7 schools. Known for its interdisciplinarity and departmental collaboration, most research centers and institutes at Washington University are collaborative efforts between many areas on campus. More than 60% of undergraduates are involved in faculty research across all areas; it is an institutional priority for undergraduates to be allowed to participate in advanced research, which is rather unique among leading private research universities. According to the Center for Measuring University Performance, it is considered to be one of the top 10 private research universities in the nation. A dedicated Office of Undergraduate Research is located on the Danforth Campus and serves as a resource to post research opportunities, advise students in finding appropriate positions matching their interests, publish undergraduate research journals, and award research grants to make it financially possible to perform research.

During fiscal 2007, $537.5 million was received in total research support, including $444 million in federal obligations. The University has over 150 National Institutes of Health funded inventions, with many of them licensed to private companies. Governmental agencies and non-profit foundations such as the NIH, United States Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, and NASA provide the majority of research grant funding, with Washington University being one of the top recipients in NIH grants from year-to-year. Nearly 80% of NIH grants to institutions in the state of Missouri went to Washington University alone in 2007. Washington University and its Medical School play a large part in the Human Genome Project, where it contributes approximately 25% of the finished sequence. The Genome Sequencing Center has decoded the genome of many animals, plants, and cellular organisms, including the platypus, chimpanzee, cat, and corn.

NASA hosts its Planetary Data System Geosciences Node on the campus of Washington University. Professors, students, and researchers have been very involved with many unmanned missions to Mars. Professor Ray Arvidson has been co-investigator of the Phoenix Rover robotic arm and chair of the Mars Exploration Rover landing site group.

Washington University professor Joseph Lowenstein, with the assistance of several undergraduate students, has been involved in editing, annotating, making a digital archive of the first publication of poet Edmund Spencer's collective works in 100 years. A large grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities has been given to support this ambitious project centralized at Washington University with support from other colleges in the United States.

Student organizations
Washington University has over 200 undergraduate student organizations on campus. Most are funded by the Washington University Student Union, which has a $2 million plus annual budget that is completely student controlled and is one of the largest student government budgets in the country. Known as SU for short, Student Union sponsors large-scale campus programs including WILD (a semesterly concert in the quad), free copies of the New York Times, USA Today, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch through The Collegiate Readership Program; the Assembly Series, a weekly lecture series; and the campus television station, WUTV and the radio station, KWUR. KWUR was named best radio station in St. Louis of 2003 by the Riverfront Times despite the fact that its signal reaches only a few blocks beyond the boundaries of the campus. There are 12 fraternities and 7 sororities. The Congress of the South 40 (CS40) is a Residential Life and Events Programming Board, which operates outside of the SU sphere. CS40's funding comes from the Housing Activities Fee of each student living on the South 40.

Many of these organizations and other campus life amenities are housed in the $43 million Danforth University Center on the Danforth Campus, also dedicated in honor of the Danforth family. The building opened on August 11, 2008 and earned LEED Gold certification for its environmentally friendly design.

Greek life
Washington University has twelve fraternities and seven sororities on campus.

Washington University Interfraternity Council


 * Alpha Epsilon Pi
 * Beta Theta Pi
 * Kappa Sigma
 * Phi Delta Theta
 * Sigma Alpha Epsilon
 * Sigma Alpha Mu
 * Sigma Chi
 * Sigma Nu
 * Sigma Phi Epsilon
 * Tau Kappa Epsilon
 * Theta Xi
 * Zeta Beta Tau

Washington University Panhellenic Council


 * Alpha Epsilon Phi
 * Alpha Omicron Pi
 * Alpha Phi
 * Chi Omega
 * Delta Gamma
 * Kappa Kappa Gamma
 * Pi Beta Phi
 * Kappa Delta (Colony beginning Spring 2013)

Residences


75% of undergraduate students live on campus. Most of the residence halls on campus are located on the South 40, named because of its adjacent location on the south side of the Danforth Campus and its size of 40 acre. It is the location of all the freshman dorms as well as several upperclassman dorms, which are set up in the traditional residential college system. All of the dorms are co-ed. The South 40 is organized as a pedestrian-friendly environment wherein residences surround a central recreational lawn known as the Swamp. Wohl Student Center, the Habif Health and Wellness Center (Student Health Services), the Residential Life Office, University Police Headquarters, various student-owned businesses (e.g. the laundry service, Wash U Wash), and the baseball, softball, and intramural fields are also located on the South 40.

Another group of residences, known as the Village, is located in the northwest corner of Danforth Campus. Only open to upperclassmen and January Scholars, the North Side consists of Millbrook Apartments, The Village, Village East on-campus apartments, and all fraternity houses except the Sigma Alpha Mu and Zeta Beta Tau houses, which are off campus and located just northwest of the South 40 and just north of the Village, respectively. Sororities at Washington University do not have houses by their own accord. The Village is a group of residences where students who have similar interests or academic goals apply as small groups of 4 to 24, known as BLOCs, to live together in clustered suites along with non-BLOCs. Like the South 40, the residences around the Village also surround a recreational lawn.

Student media
Washington University supports four major student-run media outlets. The university's student newspaper, Student Life, is available for students. KWUR (90.3 FM) serves as the students' official radio station; the station also attracts an audience in the immediately surrounding community due to its eclectic and free-form musical programming. WUTV is the university's closed-circuit television channel. The university's main student-run political publication is the Washington University Political Review (nicknamed "WUPR"), a self-described "multipartisan" monthly magazine. Washington University undergraduates publish two literary and art journals, The Eliot Review and Spires Intercollegiate Arts and Literary Magazine. A variety of other publications also serve the university community, ranging from in-house academic journals to glossy alumni magazines to WUnderground, campus' student-run satirical newspaper.

Athletics


Washington University's sports teams are called the Bears. They participate in the University Athletic Association and the NCAA Division III. The Bears have won 19 NCAA Division III Championships— one in women's cross country (2011), one in men's tennis (2008), two in men's basketball (2008, 2009), five in women's basketball (1998–2001, 2010), and ten in women's volleyball (1989, 1991–1996, 2003, 2007, 2009) – and 144 UAA titles in 15 different sports. The Athletic Department is headed by John Schael who has served as director of athletics since 1978. The 2000 Division III Central Region winner of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics/Continental Airlines Athletics Director of the Year award, Schael has helped orchestrate the Bears athletics transformation into one of the top departments in Division III.

Washington University also has an extensive club sports program, with teams ranging from men's volleyball to women's Ultimate Frisbee. Funding for club sports comes from the Student Union budget, as each club is deemed a campus group.

Washington University is home of Francis Field, site of the 1904 Summer Olympics. Francis Field is also home of the Washington University football, soccer, and track and field teams.

Traditions

 * WILD – Walk In, Lay Down, the semesterly concert in the Quad which brings in popular acts such as R.E.M., Guster, Lil' Jon, Ben Folds, Busta Rhymes, Live, The Black Eyed Peas, Passion Pit, and K'naan. For the 2011 Fall W.I.L.D. Mike Posner, The White Panda and OCD: Moosh & Twist performed on the campus.
 * Bauhaus – Annual Halloween costume party sponsored by the Architecture School Council, held in a giant tent in front of Givens Hall.
 * Thurtene Carnival – The oldest and largest student-run carnival in the nation, run by Thurtene Honorary.
 * Vertigo – A dance party put on by the Engineering School Council (EnCouncil), featuring an innovative 8 ft by 16 ft computer-controlled modular LED illuminated dance floor built by students. The dance floor has since become a hit in St. Louis.
 * Cultural Shows – Each year Washington University student groups put on several multicultural shows, one of which sells out within hours of tickets going on sale (Diwali). Ashoka, the South Asian student association, puts on a performance for Diwali, the Indian festival of lights, that includes a skit and dances; Black Anthology is a student-run performance arts show celebrating black culture; Lunar New Year Festival is a collaboration between the many East Asian organizations on campus culminating in a show to celebrate the holiday with a skit and dances from Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cultures; the Association of Latin American Students showcases various forms of Latin and Spanish dances during their performance, Carnaval.

Chancellors
Since its founding, Washington University has been led by 14 Chancellors, beginning with Joseph Gibson Hoyt in 1858. Mark Stephen Wrighton serves as the current Chancellor of the University.

Notable people

 * Washington University counts more than 114,000 living alumni, 26 Rhodes Scholars, and 22 Nobel laureates affiliated with the university as faculty or students.


 * Notable recent graduates of the college include:  former Missouri Senator Jim Talent, Nevada Senator Chic Hecht, and former Nebraska Congressman Hal Daub; George Zimmer, founder of Men's Wearhouse; Avram Glazer, chairman of Manchester United; Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Ken Cooper and Hank Klibanoff; Jon Feltheimer, CEO of Lionsgate films; actors Peter Sarsgaard (Boys Don't Cry, An Education Flight Plan) and Harold Ramis (Ghostbusters, Caddyshack); U.S. Ambassador Sam Fox; baseball player Dal Maxvill; and science-show host Deanne Bell (Design Squad).


 * Earlier graduates include J. C. R. Licklider, pioneer in artificial intelligence; Charles Nagel, founder of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Julian Hill, co-inventor of nylon; Clyde Cowan, co-discoverer of the neutrino; James R. Thompson, Governor of Illinois; David R. Francis, Governor of Missouri; William H. Webster, former Director of the FBI; Edward Singleton Holden, President of the University of California; Nathan O. Hatch, president of Wake Forest University; Thomas Lamb Eliot, President of Reed College; and Abram L. Sachar, founding President of Brandeis University. Graduates of the College of Architecture include George Hellmuth, Gyo Obata, and George Kassabaum, founders of HOK, the world's fourth-largest architectural firm.


 * The School of Medicine graduated Nobel laureates Earl Sutherland, Edwin Krebs, and Daniel Nathans. Businessman and adventurer Steve Fossett earned his MBA from the business school.  Doctoral alumni include the former Presidents of Johns Hopkins, Clemson, Wake Forest, Morehouse, Mount Union, Yonsei, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. An alumnus of the Graduate School of Architecture, C. P. Wang (M.Arch 1973), designed Taipei 101, the world's second-tallest building.


 * Famous students who dropped out: Charles Eames (who was expelled for defending modernist architecture); Tennessee Williams (who left in protest of not winning the poetry prize); Enterprise Rent-a-Car founder Jack C. Taylor (who withdrew to fight in World War II); actor Robert Guillaume (who withdrew to study opera); Pulitzer Prize winner Bill Dedman (who left to become a newspaper reporter); and IQ-record holder Marilyn vos Savant (who says she withdrew because she was bored).


 * List of Washington University faculty and staff: economist and Nobel Memorial Prize winner Douglass North; husband and wife biochemists and co-Nobel Prize winners Carl and Gerty Cori; physicist and Nobel Prize winner Arthur Holly Compton; novelists Stanley Elkin and William Gass; poets Carl Phillips and Mary Jo Bang; architect Fumihiko Maki; neurologist and Nobel Prize winner Rita Levi-Montalcini; sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson; Poets Laureate Howard Nemerov and Mona Van Duyn; sociologist and "outlaw Marxist" Alvin Ward Gouldner; attorney, former Counsel to Vice-President Al Gore and former Tennessee Attorney General Charles Burson; writer and culture critic Gerald Early; Economist, and former Chair of President Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisors, Murray Weidenbaum; chemist Joseph W. Kennedy, co-discoverer of the element plutonium; computer scientist Jonathan S. Turner, internationally renowned expert in computer networking; computer scientist Raj Jain, pioneer in the field of network congestion; and Law Professor Troy A. Paredes, currently on leave as a commissioner of the SEC.