Northwestern University history

In 1853, the founders purchased a 379-acre tract of land on the shore of Lake Michigan 12 miles north of Chicago.

In November 1855 the university held its first classes in a newly built three-story wooden building located on the northwest corner of Hinman and Davis Streets in what is today downtown Evanston.

In 1869, Northwestern became one of the early universities to admit women students and opened its first permanent building, University Hall, which still stands as a signature campus landmark.

In 1872, the Reverend Seine Bolks became the first pastor of Orange City’s First Reformed Church.

When the university merged with the Evanston College for Ladies in 1873, educator and reformer Frances Willard became its first dean of women.

After considerable economic hardship, the area’s Dutch Reformed people, led by Bolks and Hospers, incorporated the Northwestern Classical Academy on July 19, 1882.

Zwemer Hall, the first permanent building, was erected in 1894; it is now the college’s administration offices and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1895, only two years after the opening of the Cherokee Outlet, the first bill to establish a normal school at Alva was introduced in the territorial legislature.

In a meeting on August 8, 1897, a newly-formed Board of Regents for Normal Schools named James E. Ament of Illinois as Northwestern's first president.

By the fall of 1899, the first building, The Castle on the Hill, had been completed and the school was transferred to its present site.

Beginning with only seven students in 1902, Northwestern Bible and Missionary School was founded.

From its normal school beginning, Northwestern in 1919 was expanded into a four-year teachers college and was designated at that time as Northwestern State Teachers College.

Despite the suggestion from the Reformed Church’s Board of Education in 1932 that the junior college close temporarily, President Jacob Heemstra kept Northwestern afloat.

In June 1933, Robert Maynard Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago, proposed a merger of the two universities, estimating annual savings of $1.7 million.

In 1941, a constitutional amendment established the present Oklahoma State System of Higher Education and provided for the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.

Stephen M. Shortell, (born November 9, 1944, New London, Wisconsin, United States), American scholar and leader in the study of health services delivery systems in the United States.

In 1948, prominent anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits founded the Program of African Studies at Northwestern, the first center of its kind at an American academic institution.

Beginning with the summer term of 1954, Northwestern was authorized to institute a fifth-year program in education leading to a Master of Education degree.

Northwestern became a four-year teacher-training college, awarding its first bachelor’s degrees in 1961, the same year the academy ceased operation.

Despite gaining national prominence under Graham, the college temporarily closes in 1966 for restructuring and relocation.

Guided by the leadership and faith of William B. Berntsen, the college reopens in 1972 on its current St Paul campus and begins to expand.

The football team won the college’s first NAIA national championship in 1973, and Northwestern began offering opportunities to intern in Chicago and study abroad a year later.

In 1978, the first and second Unabomber attacks occurred at Northwestern University.

A nursing program leading to a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree was established in the fall of 1981.

In addition to more than 200 journal articles, Shortell wrote and edited several books, including Health Care Management: A Text in Organization Theory and Behavior (1983), written with Arnold D. Kaluzny, one of the first textbooks written specifically for health services managers and researchers.

These campuses offered their first classes during the 1996-97 academic year.

In 1999, Northwestern student journalists uncovered information exonerating Illinois death-row inmate Anthony Porter two days before his scheduled execution.

On January 11, 2003, in a speech at Northwestern School of Law's Lincoln Hall, then Governor of Illinois George Ryan announced that he would commute the sentences of more than 150 death-row inmates.

The Getty Foundation awarded Northwestern a generous Campus Heritage Grant in 2004 which led to extensive research on our historic buildings and the development of a preservation plan for them.

In 2008 the university opened a campus in Qatar, which offers degree programs in journalism and communications.

Shortell stepped down as dean in 2013 to focus on research and teaching.

In 2014, President Barack Obama delivered a seminal economics speech at the Evanston campus.

In 2015, Queen Máxima and King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands visited Northwestern to announce research collaborations between Northwestern and several Dutch institutions focused on the study of aging.

The latest addition to campus is the $24.5 million DeWitt Family Science Center, built in 2018 and home to Northwestern’s standout biology, chemistry and nursing departments.