Northwestern University
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Northwestern University is a private, coeducational, non-sectarian university, located in Evanston, Illinois and Chicago, Illinois. Northwestern's main campus is a 240-acre (970,000 m²) parcel in Evanston, along the shore of Lake Michigan. Several of Northwestern's professional schools are located in Chicago, on a 25-acre (101,000 m²) campus near the Magnificent Mile. As of August 31, 2004, Northwestern's endowment stood at $4.34 billion.

Northwestern University enrolls approximately 14,000 full-time students (including approximately 8,000 undergraduates) and employs nearly 7,100 faculty and staff members.

Northwestern's student newspaper is The Daily Northwestern and its student radio station is WNUR. It is a member of the Big Ten Conference for college athletics.

According to US News & World Report, as of 2005, Northwestern's undergraduate program ranks 12th among all American undergraduate programs. Likewise, many of Northwestern's graduate programs are highly esteemed. For example, Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management is consistently ranked as one of the world's finest business schools, Northwestern's School of Law consistently ranks among America's top ten law schools, and Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism as widely regarded to be one of America's top three journalism schools. In addition, US New & World Report ranks Northwestern's Materials science program 2nd overall, and Northwestern's Theatre, Communications, and Music programs are also highly regarded.

The university was founded in 1851 by Methodists from Chicago (including John Evans, after whom Evanston is named), and opened in 1855 with two faculty members and ten students. The University's name, Northwestern, came from its founders' desire to serve citizens of the states that occupied the area of the former Northwest Territory: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

Northwestern's school colors are purple and white. (For this reason, the Chicago Transit Authority's elevated train running through Evanston is called the Purple Line. The Purple Line stations that serve Northwestern University are Davis, Foster, Noyes, and Central.) The phrase on Northwestern University's seal is Quaecumque sunt vera -- in Latin, "Whatsoever things are true" from Phillipians 4:8.

The Rock is one of Northwestern's best-known landmarks, a quartzite boulder set in a plaza in the middle of campus. Originally a simple stone monument, and later a fountain, vandalism of the Rock gradually increased, particularly during the Vietnam War. It became a canvas for student art, opinions, advertising, messages, proposals, and jokes. Tradition holds that if a student wishes to paint something on the Rock, he/she must guard it for twenty-four hours beforehand.

At the kick-off of NU football games, students throw marshmallows and jingle car keys. Of the marshmallows, Northwestern archivist Patrick Quinn says that students were likely "trying to get them into the tubas, and then started throwing them at each other," leading to the tradition of throwing marshmallows at the field. Jingling car keys began as an arrogant taunt; Big Ten rivals often bested Northwestern at football, and the keys implied 'while your school may win the football game, in a few years your school's graduates will be parking Northwestern graduates' cars.'

In the 1990s, routine classroom demonstrations for introductory chemistry courses evolved into the annual Halloween Chemistry Shows. These feature spectacular chemical reactions demonstrated by costumed faculty members, and performances by musicians, dancers, and members of the NU Marching Band.

Each winter, on the second-to-last weekend of the quarter, hundreds of students participate in Dance Marathon. The 30-hour event raises considerable sums for local charities.

Thrice-yearly, at 9 p.m. on the Sunday before finals week, students scream bloody murder; this tradition is known as the Primal Scream.

Each spring, on the Saturday before Memorial Day, an all-day music festival known as Armadillo Day, or more commonly Dillo Day, is held on Northwestern's Lakefill -- an area of land reclaimed from Lake Michigan. The event was founded in the 1970s as a small party by a group of students from Texas, hence 'Armadillo'. It is the culmination of Northwestern's Mayfest, an end-of-school-year celebration that dates back to the 1890s.

Northwestern University is the only private university member of the Big Ten Conference, of which it was a founding member. Northwestern has eight men's and eleven women's Division I sports teams. Northwestern's athletic history is somewhat checkered. The football team once had the longest losing streak in NCAA Division I-A history at 34 games. The men's basketball team has never made it to the NCAA tournament. The school has put most of its athletic woes behind it, however, and currently fields some very competitive teams. Notable programs that are usually ranked in the Top 20 include men's swimming, and women's tennis, fencing and lacrosse. The football team was recently ranked 21 by the AP poll and 23 by the Coach's poll, marking the team's first appearance in a national poll in 4 years. The Wildcats finished the year ranked 25 by BCS and will play against UCLA in the Sun Bowl.

Yearly, Northwestern and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign play football for the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk; however, no real rivalry exists between the schools.

In 2005 Northwestern won the national championship in Women's Lacrosse. The women's lacrosse team, after only 4 years as a varsity sport, was able to defeat many long-established east-coast schools to capture the school's first national championship in over 50 years. Soon after, the team made national news when members appeared in a White House photo with President Bush wearing flip flops instead of heels.