Northwestern University (NU) is a nonsectarian, coeducational, private research university located in Evanston, Illinois and downtown Chicago, Illinois, United States. Northwestern's main campus is a parcel in Evanston, along the shore of Lake Michigan. Several of Northwestern's professional schools such as the School of Law, the Feinberg School of Medicine, and parts of the Kellogg School of Management are located in the Streeterville neighborhood of downtown Chicago.

Northwestern was founded in 1851 to serve the people of the Northwest Territory. A tract of farmland along Lake Michigan north of Chicago was chosen as the new Evanston campus. The university is organized into eleven schools and colleges and in 2007, enrolled 8,284 undergraduate and 9,744 graduate and professional students and granted 2,089 bachelor's degrees and 3,543 graduate and professional degrees. Northwestern employs 2,925 full-time faculty members and had $284 million in research expenditures in 2007.

The Northwestern Wildcats compete in 19 intercollegiate sports in the NCAA's Division I Big Ten Conference.

History

main: History of Northwestern University

The phrase on Northwestern's seal is Quaecumque sunt vera -- in Latin, "Whatsoever things are true" from Philippians 4:8. Also on Northwestern's seal is a Greek phrase inscribed on the pages of an open book: ho logos pleres charitos kai aletheias, which translates as "The Word... full of grace and truth." This phrase comes from the Gospel of John 1:14: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we behold His glory, and the glory was of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Both the Latin and Greek phrases express the values of the University's founders, and recall Northwestern's Methodist heritage.

Northwestern's founding charter granted the school a permanent exemption from paying property taxes. For this reason, Northwestern has often endured a difficult relationship with Evanston's government. Tensions have arisen regarding building codes, law enforcement, and politics. Recently, factions of Evanston's government have attempted to divide Northwestern's campus into several different wards, in order to reduce students' voting power.

In 1873, the Evanston College for Ladies merged with Northwestern, and Frances Willard, who later gained fame as a suffragist, became the school's first dean of women. Northwestern first became co-educational in 1869 at the insistence of Dean Erastus Haven, and the first female student graduated in 1874.

Purple became Northwestern's official school color in 1892, replacing black and gold; a university committee thought that too many other universities used those colors. Today, Northwestern only has one official color, royal purple. However, tradition has firmly established white as a de facto if not de jure official color. As a result, the University's Alma Mater mentions white in conjunction with purple ("Hail to purple, hail to white"), and both are listed in the university guidelines.purple