Northwestern University

The founding of Northwestern University was spearheaded by the physician and politician John Evans, for whom the town of Evanston, Illinois, is named. The school is a private institution whose campus lies along Lake Michigan, just north of Chicago.

Northwestern was originally intended to serve the needs of the geographical area corresponding to the former Northwest Territory (Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and eastern Minnesota)—hence the school’s name.

The university is particularly renowned for its many distinguished professional schools, including the:

• Bienen School of Music
• Medill School of Journalism, Media, and Integrated Marketing Communications
• Pritzker School of Law
• Kellogg School of Management
• Feinberg School of Medicine
• McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

Northwestern is also home to several multi-disciplinary and more-focused research initiatives, including the:

• Institute for Global Health
• Institute for Sustainability and Energy
• Global and Research Opportunities
• Pritzker School of Law’s celebrated Exoneration Initiative

In addition, Northwestern is a premier research university in the arts and sciences; its enormous library holdings comprise some five million volumes.

Now with campuses in Chicago itself (including the state-of-the-art Northwestern Memorial Hospital complex only blocks from Lake Michigan) and in Doha, Qatar, Northwestern is one of the top private research universities in between the East and West Coasts. Situated as it is on the Great Lakes, Northwestern contributes greatly—together with the University of Chicago several miles to the south—to making the greater Chicago area the intellectually vibrant “third coast” of the United States.

Altogether, some 19 Northwestern-connected individuals have received the Nobel Prize, including:

• George Stigler—economics
• Franco Modigliani—economics
• Robert Lucas—economics
• Saul Bellow—literature
• Ralph Bunche—peace

Northwestern’s Department of Philosophy was the long-time home of the distinguished Canadian philosopher, Charles Taylor, while Northwestern University Press played a pivotal role in introducing the translated writings of Continental authors working in the phenomenological, existentialist, poststructuralist, and postmodern traditions to an English-speaking philosophical audience.

Other notable Northwestern alumni and faculty include the:

• Anthropologist, Mary Douglas
• Actors, Patricia Neal, Jennifer Jones, Charlton Heston, Warren Beatty, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, & Zooey Deschanel
• Television personalities, Jerry Springer & Stephen Colbert

Northwestern University's most influential alumni faculty include professors and professionals in the fields of Communications, Business, and Political Science. Northwestern University’s most academically influential people include Saul Bellow, Stephen Colbert, and George Stigler.