Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science history

Many of Chicago's finest medical teachers and practitioners who had been associated with Jenner Medical School transferred to CMS when Jenner closed in 1917.

In 1945, the school put its founding principles into writing when it added a nondiscrimination amendment to the CMS constitution.

In 1967, the University of Health Sciences was established.

The university, granted full accreditation by the North Central Association in 1980, represented one of the first educational institutions in the country devoted exclusively to educating men and women for a broad range of professional careers in health care and research.

It first offered distance learning courses in 1993.

In October 2002, the university opened its new Health Sciences Building, a 140,000-square-foot (13,000 m) facility that houses laboratories, auditoriums, classrooms, a student union, a bookstore, and the Feet First Museum.

In July 2003, the university opened its first phase of student housing, making the institution a residential campus for the first time in its history.

The name change became legal on March 1, 2004, at which time the School of Related Health Sciences also changed its name to the College of Health Professions.

In 2011, the university opened its fifth school, the College of Pharmacy, which is housed in the William J. and Elizabeth L. Morningstar Interprofessional Education Center (IPEC). The IPEC, which opened in July 2011, is a three-story, 23,000-square-foot building.

In 2013, the DeWitt C. Baldwin Institute for Interprofessional Education, which now includes our Office of Global Health, was established at RFU. That same year, four Chicago Medical School students also initiated the Interprofessional Community Clinic.

A statue of namesake Rosalind Franklin was also unveiled in front of the school in May 2014; in attendance at this ceremony were the niece and nephew of Doctor Rosalind Franklin.

The College of Pharmacy graduated its first class in 2015.

A new research park, called the Innovation and Research Park, was announced on September 8, 2017.

The building is scheduled to open in the fall of 2019.

The university's most recent campus expansion, the first structure of a planned three-building Innovation and Research Park (IRP), is slated to open in early 2020, providing a collaborative and supportive environment for scientific discovery.