Syracuse University
Private university in Syracuse, New York, US From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Private university in Syracuse, New York, US From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU)[10] is a private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920.[11] Located in the city's University Hill neighborhood, east and southeast of Downtown Syracuse, the large campus features an eclectic mix of architecture, ranging from nineteenth-century Romanesque Revival to contemporary buildings. Syracuse University is organized into 13 schools and colleges and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".[12]
| |
| Motto | Suos Cultores Scientia Coronat (Latin) |
|---|---|
Motto in English | "Knowledge crowns those who seek her" |
| Type | Private research university |
| Established | March 24, 1870[1] |
| Accreditation | MSCHE |
Religious affiliation | Nonsectarian; historically affiliated with the United Methodist Church[2] |
Academic affiliations | |
| Endowment | $1.90 billion (2023)[3] |
| Budget | $1.637 billion (2023)[4][5] |
| Chancellor | Kent Syverud |
| Provost | Lois Agnew (interim) |
Academic staff | 1,848[6] |
Administrative staff | 3,848[6] |
| Students | 22,698 (2022)[6] |
| Undergraduates | 15,421 (2022)[6] |
| Postgraduates | 6,552 (2022)[6] |
| Location | , New York , United States 43.0376°N 76.1340°W |
| Campus | Midsize city[7], 683 acres (276.4 ha)[8] |
| Newspaper | The Daily Orange |
| Colors | Orange[9] |
| Nickname | Orange |
Sporting affiliations | |
| Mascot | Otto the Orange |
| Website | syracuse |
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Syracuse University athletic teams, the Orange, participate in 20 intercollegiate sports. SU is a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) for all NCAA Division I athletics,[13] except for the men's rowing and women's ice hockey teams.[14][15] SU is also a member of the Eastern College Athletic Conference.[16] Alumni, faculty, and affiliates include President Joe Biden, three Nobel Prize laureates, one Fields Medalist, 36 Olympic Medalists, thirteen Pulitzer Prize recipients, Academy Award winners, Grammy Award winners, two Rhodes Scholars, six Marshall Scholars, governors, and members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
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The institution's roots can be traced to the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary. The seminary was founded in 1831 by the Genesee annual conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Lima, New York, south of Rochester.[17] In 1850, it was resolved to enlarge the institution from a seminary into a college, or to connect a college with the seminary, becoming Genesee College. However, the location was soon thought by many to be insufficiently central. Its difficulties were compounded by a new railroad that competed with the Erie Canal and reconfigured the region's primary economic conduits to bypass Lima. The trustees of the struggling college decided to seek an alternate locale whose economic and transportation advantages could provide a surer base of support.
The college began looking for a new home at the same time that Syracuse, ninety miles to the east, was searching to bring a university to the city after having failed to convince Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White to locate Cornell University in Syracuse rather than in Ithaca.[18][19] Syracuse resident White pressed that the new university should relocate on the hill in Syracuse (the current location of Syracuse University) due to the city's attractive transportation hub, which would ease the recruitment of faculty, students, and other persons of note. However, as a young carpenter working in Syracuse, Cornell had been twice robbed of his wages[20][21] and thereafter considered Syracuse a Sodom and Gomorrah, insisting the university be in Ithaca on his large farm on East Hill, overlooking the town and Cayuga Lake.[citation needed]
Meanwhile, there were several years of dispute between the Methodist ministers, Lima, and contending cities across the state over proposals to move Genesee College to Syracuse.[22] At the time, the ministers wanted a share of the funds from the Morrill Land Grant Act for Genesee College. They agreed to a quid pro quo donation of $25,000 from Senator Cornell in exchange for their (and their Methodist constituents') support for his bill. Cornell insisted the bargain be written into the bill and Cornell became New York State's Land Grant University in 1865.[citation needed] In 1869, Genesee College obtained New York State approval to move to Syracuse but Lima got a court injunction to block the move, and thus Genesee stayed in Lima until it was dissolved in 1875.[23] By that time, however, the court injunction had been made moot by the founding of a new university on March 24, 1870.[22][24][25] On that date the State of New York granted the new Syracuse University its own charter independent of Genesee College.[23] The Methodist church subscribed an endowment of $400,000 and the City of Syracuse offered $100,000 to establish the school.[26][23] Bishop Jesse Truesdell Peck had donated $25,000 to the proposed school[27] and was elected the first president of the Board of Trustees.[19][28]
Daniel Steele, a former Genesee College president, served as the first administrative leader of Syracuse until its Chancellor was appointed.[19]: 2 The university opened in September 1871 in rented space downtown.[23][29][30] Judge George F. Comstock, a member of the new university's board of trustees, had offered the school 50 acres (200,000 m2) of farmland on a hillside to the southeast of the city center.[31] Comstock intended Syracuse University and the hill to develop as an integrated whole; a contemporary account described the latter as "a beautiful town ... springing up on the hillside and a community of refined and cultivated membership ... established near the spot which will soon be the center of a great and beneficent educational institution."[32]
The university was founded as coeducational and racially integrated: "open to men and women, white and black."[29] President Peck stated at the opening ceremonies, "The conditions of admission shall be equal to all persons... there shall be no invidious discrimination here against woman.... brains and heart shall have a fair chance... "[33] Syracuse implemented this policy with a high proportion of women students for its era. In the College of Liberal Arts, the ratio between male and female students during the 19th century was approximately even. The College of Fine Arts was predominantly female, while lower ratios of women enrolled in the College of Medicine and the College of Law.[33] Men and women were taught together in the same courses, and many extra-curricular activities were coeducational as well. Syracuse also developed "women-only" organizations and clubs.[33]
Coeducation at Syracuse traced its roots to the early days of Genesee College where educators and students like Frances Willard and Belva Lockwood were heavily influenced by the Women's movement in nearby Seneca Falls, New York. However, the progressive "co-ed" policies practiced at Genesee would soon find controversy at the new university in Syracuse.[19] Colleges and universities admitted few women students in the 1870s. Administrators and faculty argued women had inferior minds and could not master mathematics and the classics. Erastus Otis Haven, Syracuse University chancellor and former president of the University of Michigan and Northwestern University, maintained that women should receive the advantages of higher education. He enrolled his daughter Frances at Syracuse, where she joined the other newly admitted female students in founding the Gamma Phi Beta sorority.[19] The inclusion of women in the early days of the university led to the proliferation of various women's clubs and societies. Frank Smalley, a Syracuse professor coined the term "sorority" specifically for Gamma Phi Beta.[34]
In the late 1880s, the university engaged in a rapid building spree. Holden Observatory (1887)[35] was followed by two Romanesque Revival buildings – von Ranke Library (1889), now Tolley Humanities Building,[36] and Crouse College (1889).[37] Together with the Hall of Languages, these first buildings formed the basis for the "Old Row," a grouping which, along with its companion Lawn, established one of Syracuse's most enduring images.[32] The emphatically linear organization of these buildings along the brow of the hill follows a tradition of American campus planning which dates to the construction of the "Yale Row" in the 1790s. At Syracuse, "The Old Row" continued to provide the framework for growth well into the twentieth century.[32]
From its founding until the early 1920s, the university grew rapidly. It offered programs in the physical sciences and modern languages, and in 1873, Syracuse added one of the first architecture programs in the U.S.[39] It was also the first institution to grant a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree in the United States.[40] In 1874, Syracuse created the nation's first bachelor of fine arts degree.[41] In 1876, the school offered its first post-graduate courses in the College of Arts and Sciences.[39] SU created its first doctoral program in 1911.[42] In 1919, Syracuse added its business school which contains multiple MBA programs.[43] SU's school of journalism, now the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, was established at Syracuse in 1934.[44]
The growth of Syracuse University from a small liberal arts college into a major comprehensive university was due to the efforts of two men, Chancellor James Roscoe Day and John Dustin Archbold. James Roscoe Day was serving the Calvary Church in New York City, where he befriended Archbold. Together, the two dynamic figures would oversee the first of two great periods of campus renewal in Syracuse's history.[19]
John Dustin Archbold was a capitalist, philanthropist, and President of the Board of Trustees at Syracuse University. He was known as John D. Rockefeller's right-hand man and successor at the Standard Oil Company. He was a close friend of Syracuse University Chancellor James R. Day and gave almost $6 million to the University over his lifetime.[19] Said a journalist in 1917:
Mr. Archbold's ... is the president of the board of trustees of Syracuse University, an institution which has prospered so remarkably since his connection with it that its student roll has increased from hundreds to over 4,000, including 1,500 young women, placing it in the ranks of the foremost institutions of learning in the United States.[45]
In 1905, James D. Phelps secured a donation of $150,000 from Andrew Carnegie for a new university library provided the University raised an equal sum as an endowment for the library. The University raised the required endowment in a little over a month, with the largest share being contributed by Archbold.[49] On September 11, 1907, the transfer of the Von Ranke collection from the old library building marking the opening of the new Carnegie library with a collection of over 71,000 volumes.[47]
In addition to keeping the University financially solvent during its early years, Archbold also contributed funds for eight buildings, including the full cost of Archbold Stadium (opened 1907, demolished 1978), Sims Hall[50] (men's dormitory, 1907), the Archbold Gymnasium (1909, nearly destroyed by fire in 1947, but still in use), and the oval athletic field.
After World War II, Syracuse University transformed into a major research institution. Enrollment increased in the four years after the war due to the G.I. Bill, which paid tuition, room, board, and a small allowance for veterans returning from World War II.[51] In 1946, the University admitted 9,464 freshmen, nearly four times greater than the previous incoming class.[44] Branch campuses were established in Endicott, New York, and Utica, New York, which became Binghamton University and Utica University respectively.
By the end of the 1950s, Syracuse ranked twelfth nationally in terms of the amount of its sponsored research, and it had over four hundred professors and graduate students engaging in that investigation.[39] From the early 1950s through the 1960s, Syracuse University added programs and staff that continued the transformation of the school into a research university. In 1954, Arthur Phillips was recruited from MIT and started the first pathogen-free animal research laboratory. The lab focused on studying medical problems using animal models. The School of Social Work, which eventually merged into the College of Human Ecology, was founded in 1956.[52] Syracuse's College of Engineering also founded the nation's second-oldest computer engineering and bioengineering programs. In 1962, Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr. donated $15 million to begin construction of a school of communications, eventually known as the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. In 1966, Syracuse University was admitted to the Association of American Universities.[53]
On December 21, 1988, 35 Syracuse University students were killed in the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The students were returning from a study-abroad program in Europe. That evening, Syracuse University went on with a basketball game just hours after the attack, for which the university was severely criticized and the university's chancellor subsequently apologized.[54][55] The bombing of Flight 103 was the deadliest terrorist attack against the United States prior to the attacks on September 11, 2001.[56][57]
In April 1990, Syracuse University dedicated a memorial wall to the students killed on Flight 103, constructed at the entrance to the main campus in front of the Hall of Languages. Every year the university holds "Remembrance Week" during the fall semester to commemorate the students. The university also maintains a link to the tragedy with the "Remembrance Scholars" program, when 35 senior students receive scholarships during their final year at the university. With the "Lockerbie Scholars" program, two graduating students from Lockerbie Academy study at Syracuse for one year.[58]
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The university is set on a campus that features an eclectic mix of buildings, ranging from nineteenth-century Romanesque Revival structures to contemporary buildings designed by renowned architects such as I.M. Pei. The center of campus, with its grass quadrangle, landscaped walkways, and outdoor sculptures, offers students the amenities of a traditional college experience. The university overlooks downtown Syracuse, a medium-sized city of approximately 150,000 residents in Central New York.[59]
The school also owns an on-campus Sheraton Hotel;[60] Marshall Square Mall;[61] the Drumlins Country Club, a nearby, 36-hole golf course to the east of South Campus;[62] the Marshall, a 287-bed student housing complex;[63] the Fisher Center and Joseph I. Lubin House in New York City;[64] the Paul Greenberg House in Washington, D.C.;[65] the Minnowbrook Conference Center, a 28-acre (121,000 m2) retreat in the Adirondack mountains of Upstate New York;[66] and various properties surrounding its University Hill campus.[67][68]
Also called "North Campus," the Main Campus contains nearly all academic buildings and residence halls. Its centerpiece is The Kenneth A. Shaw Quadrangle, more affectionately known as "The Quad",[69] which is surrounded by academic and administrative buildings, including Hendricks Chapel.[70][71] The North Campus represents a large portion of the University Hill neighborhood. Buses run to South Campus, as well as downtown Syracuse and other locations in the city.[72]
About 70 percent of students live in university housing. First- and second-year students are required to live on campus. All 22 residence halls are coeducational, and each contains a lounge, laundry facility, and various social/study spaces. Residence halls are secured with a card access system. Residence halls are located on both Main Campus and South Campus, the latter of which is a five-minute ride via bus. Learning communities and interest housing options are also available. Food facilities include six residential dining centers, two food courts, and several cafes. A few blocks walk from Main Campus on East Genesee Street, the Syracuse Stage building includes two proscenium theatres. The Storch is used primarily by the Drama Department and the Archbold is used primarily by Syracuse Stage, a professional regional theatre.
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The Comstock Tract Buildings, a historic district of older buildings on the campus, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.[73] Three buildings on campus—the Crouse Memorial College and the Hall of Languages, and the Pi Chapter House of Psi Upsilon Fraternity—are individually listed on the National Register.[74]
In 2017, the university released a campus framework report detailing plans to align the campus's physical landscape, buildings, and infrastructure over the next 20 years.[75][76]
After World War II, a large, undeveloped hill owned by the university was used to house returning veterans in military-style campus housing. During the 1970s, this housing at Skytop was replaced by permanent two-level townhouses equipped with kitchen, bathroom, and private bedrooms for two or three undergraduate students each or graduate families.[77] There are also three small residence halls that feature open doubles. More than 2,000 students live on the South Campus, which is one mile away from the Main Campus and connected by frequent shuttle bus service.[78][77]
South Campus is home to the Institute for Sensory Research, Tennity Ice Skating Pavilion, Comstock Art Facility, Skytop Softball Stadium, Skytop Track, Goldstein Student Center, Outdoor Education Center, Skytop Office Building, and the InnComplete Pub, a graduate student bar.[78][79]
Just north is the headquarters of SU Athletics, the John A. Lally Athletics Complex, formerly known as Manley Field House.[80][81] Named after alumnus John Lally, the academic and athletics village is home to 20 Syracuse University athletics teams.[80] The complex is surrounded by other athletic facilities, including the Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center, J.S. Coyne Stadium, Ensley Athletic Center, and SU Soccer Stadium.[79]
In December 2004, the university announced that it had purchased or leased twelve buildings in downtown Syracuse. Five design programs—Communication, Advertising, Environmental and Interior Design, Industrial and Interactive Design, and Fashion—reside permanently in the newly renovated facilities, fittingly called The Warehouse, which was renovated by Gluckman Mayner Architects. Both programs were chosen to be located in the downtown area because of their history of working on projects directly with the community. The Warehouse also houses a contemporary art space that commissions, exhibits, and promotes the work of local and international artists in a variety of media. Hundreds of students and faculty have also been affected by the temporary move of the School of Architecture downtown for the $12 million renovation of its campus facility, Slocum Hall.
Since 2009, the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems, led by Syracuse University in partnership with Clarkson University and the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, creates innovations in environmental and energy technologies that improve human health and productivity, security, and sustainability in urban and built environments.[82][83] The Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company and the Community Folk Art Center will also be located downtown. On March 31, 2006, the university and the city announced an initiative to connect the main campus of the university with the arts and culture areas of downtown Syracuse and The Warehouse.[84] Using natural gas, the Green Data Center generates its electricity on-site, providing cooling for servers and for a neighboring building.[85]
The Connective Corridor project, supported by of public and private funds, will be a strip of cultural development that will connect the main campus of the university to downtown Syracuse, NY. In 2008, an engineering firm is studying traffic patterns and lighting to commence the project. A design competition was held to determine the best design for the project.[86][needs update]
SU has established an admissions presence in Los Angeles, California, that will enhance the university's visibility on the West Coast and will join the university's West Coast offices of alumni relations, institutional advancement, and the LA semester program in the same location. Syracuse University has also established an admissions presence in New York City, Atlanta, Georgia, Chicago, Illinois, and Boston, Massachusetts.[87] Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs maintains their Washington D.C. operations in collaboration with Center for Strategic and International Studies.[88][89] Also in Washington, D.C. is the newly launched Center for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship, a research center jointly run by the Newhouse School and Maxwell School.[90]
Syracuse is home to the Syracuse University Art Museum.[91] The main gallery space is located in the Shaffer Art Building on the main campus.[92]
The Warehouse Gallery is a new contemporary art space that is operated under the umbrella of the SU Art Museum. Housed in a former furniture warehouse off-campus, the Warehouse Gallery features works from international artists in a variety of media.[93]
The Louise and Bernard Palitz Gallery is located on the second floor of the Lubin House in New York City.[94] It has a rotation of exhibitions, including two annual public shows, local and regional artists, featured items from the university's art collection, and professional artists.[95]
There are many other venues for student work at Syracuse University, including the Lowe Art Gallery in Shaffer Art Building,[96] the Robert B Menschel Photography Gallery that features work from professional photographers as well as students and local artists, and the White Cube Gallery in Schine Student Center that showcases work for the student body outside of the school of art and design.[97]
SU has a permanent art collection of over 45,000 objects from artists including Picasso, Rembrandt, Hopper, Tiffany and Wyeth. More than 100 important paintings, sculptures, and murals are displayed in public places around campus. Notable sculptures on campus include Sol LeWitt's Six Curved Walls, Anna Hyatt Huntington's Diana, Jean-Antoine Houdon's George Washington, Antoine Bourdelle's Herakles, James Earle Fraser's Lincoln, Malvina Hoffman's The Struggle of Elemental Man, and Ivan Meštrović's Moses, Job and Supplicant Persephone.
Students can also research primary sources through the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC),[98] which is composed of rare books, manuscripts, works of architecture and design, and popular culture (cartoons, science fiction, and pulp literature), photography, the history of recorded sound, and more.
| School founding | |
|---|---|
| School | Year founded |
| College of Arts and Sciences | 1871 |
| College of Visual and Performing Arts | 1873 |
| School of Architecture | 1873 |
| College of Law | 1895 |
| School of Information Studies | 1896 |
| College of Engineering and Computer Science | 1901 |
| School of Education | 1906 |
| Graduate School | 1912 |
| Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics | 1917 |
| College of Professional Studies | 1918 |
| Whitman School of Management | 1919 |
| Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs | 1924 |
| Newhouse School of Public Communications | 1934 |
Syracuse is a comprehensive, highly residential research university. The majority of enrollments are in the full-time, four-year undergraduate program that balances arts & sciences and professions. There is a high graduate coexistence with the comprehensive graduate program and a very high level of research activity.[12] It is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.[99]
The most popular majors at Syracuse University include: Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs; Social Sciences; Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services; Visual and Performing Arts; and Engineering. The average freshman retention rate, an indicator of student satisfaction, is 91 percent.[100][101] The student-faculty ratio at Syracuse University is 15:1, and the school has 58.5 percent of its classes with fewer than 20 students.
Syracuse is governed by a 70-member board of trustees with 64 trustees elected by the board to four-year terms and six elected by the alumni to four-year terms. Of the 64 board-elected trustees, three must represent specified conferences of the United Methodist Church. In addition, the Chancellor and the President of the Syracuse Alumni Association serve as ex officio voting trustees. Two students and one faculty member serve as non-voting representatives on the board.[102] The board selects, and sets the salary of, the chancellor. The university bylaws also establish a university senate with "general supervision over all educational matters concerning the University as a whole". The senate consists of administrators, faculty, students and staff.[102]
Syracuse University is organized into 13 schools and colleges.
| Undergraduate admissions statistics | |
|---|---|
| Admit rate | 41.69% (  −8.17) |
| Yield rate | 20.93% (  +0.3) |
| Test scores middle 50% | |
| SAT Total | 1280–1410 (among 24% of FTFs for Fall 2022) |
| ACT Composite | 28–32 (among 9% of FTFs for Fall 2022) |
| High school GPA | |
| Average | 3.8 |
Syracuse's admissions process is "more selective" according to the Carnegie Classification.[12] For the 2023 incoming class, Syracuse accepted 17,545 of its 42,089 applicants, or 41.69 percent. 3,672 students enrolled in the class, a yield rate of 20.93 percent.[100] In 2024, the school received around 45,000 applications.[103]
In 2018, 26% of the incoming students were students of color; 18% were first-generation college students; 21% were federal Pell grant eligible (an indicator for low-income students), and 75% received some financial aid. Students came from 48 states, along with Washington, D.C., Guam and Puerto Rico. Nearly 600 international undergraduate students from 59 countries were also admitted.[104][101][105]
In fall 2023, Syracuse University had a total acceptance rate of 42%.[100]
The university offers undergraduate degrees in over 200 majors in the nine undergraduate schools and colleges.[106] Bachelor's degrees are offered through the Syracuse University School of Architecture, the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Education, the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the School of Information Studies, Martin J. Whitman School of Management, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, and the College of Visual and Performing Arts. Also offered are Master's and doctoral degrees online[107] and in person from the Graduate School and from specialized programs in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, College of Law, among others. Additionally, SU offers Certificates of Advanced Study Programs for specialized programs for education, counseling, and other academic areas.[108][109][110]
The university has offered multiple international study programs since 1911. SU Abroad, formerly known as the Division of International Programs Abroad (DIPA), currently offers joint programs with universities in over 40 countries.[111] The university operates eight international centers, called SU Abroad Centers, that offer structured programs in a variety of academic disciplines. The centers are located at Beijing, Istanbul, Florence, Hong Kong, London (Faraday House), Madrid, Strasbourg, and Santiago.[111][112]
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In its 2021 ranking of U.S. colleges, U.S. News & World Report ranked Syracuse tied for 58th among undergraduate national universities.[124] A 2019 survey in the Academic Ranking of World Universities places Syracuse University in the top 100 world universities in social sciences.[125][126] In 2019, Syracuse University was ranked 22nd in New York State by average professor salaries.[127][128] Syracuse was ranked 1st in The Princeton Review's 2015 and 2019 list of top party schools.[129][130] SU was named as one of top Fulbright Award producing institutions for 2020–21.[131]
The