Michigan State University

         Michigan State University (MSU) is a public research university located in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. MSU was founded in 1855 and became the nation's first land-grant institution under the Morrill Act of 1862, serving as a model for future land-grant universities.The university was originally founded as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, one of the first institutions of higher education in the country to teach scientific agriculture.Following the introduction of the Morrill Act, the college became coeducational and expanded its curriculum beyond agriculture. Today, MSU is the eighth-largest university in the United States and has approximately 540,000 living alumni worldwide.

The history of Michigan State University (MSU) dates back to 1855, when the Michigan Legislature established the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan in East Lansing, with 3 buildings, 5 faculty members and 63 male students. As the first agricultural college in the United States, the school served as a prototype for future land-grant institutions under the Morrill Act enacted during Abraham Lincoln's presidency. The school's first class graduated in 1861 right after the onset of the American Civil War. That same year, the Michigan Legislature approved a plan to allow the school to adopt a four-year curriculum and grant degrees comparable to those of the University of Michigan (U-M).

Michigan State's NCAA Division I-A program offers 12 varsity sports for men and 13 for women.Since their teams are called the Spartans, MSU's mascot is a Spartan warrior named Sparty. The university participates in the Big Ten Conference in all varsity sports, including the new Big Ten hockey conference, featuring 6 teams. The current athletic director is Mark Hollis, who was promoted to the position on January 1, 2008.Hollis replaced Ron Mason, who served as head hockey coach from 1979 to 2002, retiring with a record total of 924 wins, and a 635–270–69 record at MSU.

In 1888 Michigan State University along with Olivet, Albion and Hillsdale Colleges was a founding member of the nation's oldest athletic conference, the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA). MAC left the conference in 1907.

Michigan State ranks 99th in the world in 2015, according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities.In its 2015-16 rankings, Times Higher Education World University Rankings also ranked it 99th in the world.The 2015 QS World University Rankings placed Michigan State University at 164th internationally.In its 2016 edition, U.S. News & World Report ranked it as tied for the 29th-best public university in the United States, tied for 75th nationally and tied for 82nd globally.

The university has over 200 academic programs. U.S. News ranked MSU's graduate-level programs in elementary teacher's education, secondary teacher's education, industrial and organizational psychology, and nuclear physics first in the nation for 2016. U.S. News also ranks MSU third nationally for graduate education in African history and fourth nationally for graduate education in Educational Psychology.

The Eli Broad College of Business was ranked No. 42nd among undergraduate institutions nationally by Businessweek. Ninety-four percent of the school's graduates received job offers in 2014.The 2016 U.S. News ranked Michigan State's undergraduate supply chain management/logistics program in the Eli Broad College of Business 1st in the nation.In addition, the Eli Broad College of Business undergraduate accounting program is ranked 13th, the master's accounting program is ranked 15th, and the doctoral program is ranked 11th, according to the 2013 Public Accounting Report's Annual Survey of Accounting Professors.The MBA program is ranked 19th in the U.S. by Forbes magazine.

East Carolina University

        East Carolina University is a public, doctoral/research university in Greenville, North Carolina, United States. Named East Carolina University by statute and commonly known as ECU or East Carolina, the university is the third-largest in North Carolina.

Founded on March 8, 1907 as a teacher training school, East Carolina has grown from 43 acres to almost 1,600 acres today. The university's academic facilities are located on four properties: Main Campus, Health Sciences Campus, West Research Campus, and the Field Station for Coastal Studies in New Holland, North Carolina.The nine undergraduate colleges, graduate school, and four professional schools are located on these four properties.All of the non-health sciences majors are located on the main campus. The College of Nursing, College of Allied Health Sciences, The Brody School of Medicine, and School of Dental Medicine are located on the health science campus. There are ten social sororities, 16 social fraternities, four historically black sororities, five historically black fraternities, one Native American fraternity, and one Native American sorority.There are over 300 registered clubs on campus including fraternities and sororities.

Public Laws of North Carolina, 1907, Chapter 820 titled An Act to Stimulate High School Instruction in the Public Schools of the State and Teacher Training is the official law chartering East Carolina Teachers Training School (ECTTS) on March 8, 1907 by the North Carolina General Assembly.The chairman of its original Board of Trustees, Thomas Jordan Jarvis, a former Governor of North Carolina now known as the "Father of ECU", participated in groundbreaking ceremonies for the first buildings on July 2, 1908 in Greenville, North Carolina and ECTTS opened its doors on October 5, 1909.Although its purpose was to train "young white men and women", there were no male graduates until 1932.In 1920, ECTTS became a four–year institution and renamed East Carolina Teachers College (ECTC); its first bachelor's degrees were awarded the following year in education.A master's degree program was authorized in 1929; the first such degree granted by ECTC was in 1933.Progress toward full college status was made in 1948 with the designation of the bachelor of arts as a liberal arts degree, and the bachelor of science as a teaching degree.A change of name to East Carolina College in 1951 reflected this expanded mission.Over the objections of Governor Dan K. Moore, who opposed the creation of a university system separate from the Consolidated University of North Carolina, ECC was made a regional university effective July 1, 1967, and assumed its present name, East Carolina University.

ECU's sports teams, nicknamed the Pirates, compete in NCAA Division FBS as a full–member of the American Athletic Conference.The Pirates joined The American on July 1, 2014. Jeff Compher is the Athletic Director.The football team is supported by world-class spirit groups, such as the East Carolina University Marching Pirates, National Award winning Cheerleading squads, and spirit teams. Facilities include the 50,000 seat Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium for football, the 8,000–seat Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum for men's and women's basketball, and Clark-LeClair Stadium, with a seating capacity of 3,000 for baseball. The Ward Sports Medicine building comprises 82,095-square-foot (7,600 m2) and houses the athletic department, Pirate Club offices and the Human Performance Laboratory.

• In 2012, East Carolina was classified by U.S. News & World Report as a National University in its second-tier rankings.

• In 2010, Forbes ranked the school 36th in its America's Best College Buys story.

• In the 2012 edition of U.S. News & World Report, The Brody School of Medicine is ranked 10th in the country for primary care physician preparation, 13th in the rural medicine specialty and 14th in family medicine.In 2010, Brody was ranked seventh on the social mission scale.

In 2009, the university was awarded the Patriot Award. The Patriot Award recognizes employers who go above and beyond what the law requires in supporting their employees who serve in the National Guard or reserves.In 2010, the university was awarded the Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award. It is the highest recognition given by the U.S. Government to employers for their outstanding support of their employees who serve in the Guard and Reserve.

California State University, Long Beach

        

      California State University, Long Beach is the third largest campus of the 23 school California State University system (CSU) and one of the largest universities in the state of California by enrollment, its student body numbering 36,822 for the Fall 2014 semester. As of Fall 2014, the school had 2,283 total faculty, with 36.7 percent of those faculty on the tenure track.With 5,286 grad students, the university enrolls one of the largest graduate student populations across the CSU and in the state of California alone.The university is located in the Los Altos neighborhood of Long Beach at the southeastern coastal tip of Los Angeles County, less than one mile from the border with Orange County.The university offers 137 different Bachelor's degrees, 92 types of Master's degrees, 5 Doctoral degrees including two Doctor of Education, a Ph.D in Engineering, a Doctor of Physical Therapy and Doctor of Nursing Practice, as well as 29 different teaching credentials.

The College was established in 1949 by California Governor Earl Warren, to serve the rapidly expanding post-World War II population of Orange and Southern Los Angeles counties. Since then, CSULB has grown to become one of the state's largest universities.

The institution was first named as Los Angeles-Orange County State College. Peter Victor Peterson was its first president.It offered 25 courses, taught by 13 faculty members, in two apartment buildings at 5381 Anaheim Road in Long Beach. In June 1950, the citizens of Long Beach voted overwhelmingly to purchase 322 acres (130 ha) as a permanent campus for the college, then known as Long Beach State College. The purchase price was nearly $1,000,000. Student enrollment grew rapidly in this new, permanent location.

Also in 1972, the campus became the home of the largest library facility in the then 19-campus CSU system: a modern six-story building with a seating capacity of nearly 4,000 students.

In 1995, President Robert Maxson initiated the privately funded President's Scholars Program, providing selected qualified California high school valedictorians and National Merit finalists and semi-finalists with a full four-year scholarship package, including tuition, a book stipend, and housing. As of May 2010, over 1000 students have accepted the scholarship.For applicants for Fall 2010, National Achievement Program Semifinalists/Finalists and National Hispanic Recognition scholars were also considered.

•  Cal State Long Beach was ranked the 19th top college in the United States by Payscale and CollegeNet's Social Mobility Index college rankings.

•  Money Magazine ranked Cal State Long Beach 183rd in the country out of the nearly 1500 schools it evaluated for its 2014 Best Colleges ranking.

•  The Daily Beast ranked Cal State Long Beach 92nd in the country out of the nearly 2000 schools it evaluated for its 2013 Best Colleges ranking.

•  Long Beach State has also been ranked as one of the top five public master's degree-granting institutions in the West by U.S. News and World Report's "America's Best Colleges Guide" in every year's edition from 2005 to 2013.

Fordham University

         Fordham University is a private, nonprofit, coeducational research university in New York City, United States. It was founded by the Catholic Diocese of New York in 1841 as St. John's College, placed in the care of the Society of Jesus shortly thereafter, and has since become an independent institution under a lay board of trustees, which describes the university as "in the Jesuit tradition.

Fordham is composed of ten constituent colleges, four of which are for undergraduates and six of which are for postgraduates. It enrolls approximately 15,000 students across three campuses in New York State: Rose Hill in the Bronx, Lincoln Center in Manhattan, and Westchester in West Harrison. In addition to these campuses, the university maintains a study abroad center in the United Kingdom and field offices in Spain and South Africa. Fordham awards the Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, and Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees, as well as various master's and doctoral degrees.The 2016 edition of U.S. News and World Report lists Fordham as a national university and ranks it 66th in this category.Its graduate programs in law, business, English, history, social work, education, and sociology are ranked among the top 100 in the country.The university has been historically renowned for its humanities programs, with its alumni ranking among the top 5 highest-paid humanities graduates of any university in the United States.

Fordham was founded as St. John's College in 1841 by the Irish-born coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of New York, the Most Reverend John J. Hughes. The college was the first Catholic institution of higher education in the northeastern United States. In September 1840, Hughes purchased most of Rose Hill Manor in Fordham, New York, for slightly less than $30,000 with the intent of establishing St. Joseph's Seminary following the model of Mount Saint Mary's University of which he was an alumnus. "Rose Hill" was the name originally given to the site in 1787 by its owner, Robert Watts, a wealthy New York merchant, in honor of his family's ancestral home in Scotland. The seminary was paired with St. John's College, which opened at Rose Hill with a student body of six on June 21, 1841. The Reverend John McCloskey was the school's first president, and the faculty were secular priests and lay instructors. The college presidency went through a succession of four diocesan priests in five years, including the Rev. James Roosevelt Bayley, a distant cousin of Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt and a nephew of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. In 1845, the seminary church, Our Lady of Mercy, was built. The same year, Bishop Hughes convinced several Jesuit priests from the St. Mary's Colleges in Maryland and Kentucky to staff St. John's.

In 1846, the college received its charter from the New York state legislature, and roughly three months later, the first Jesuits began to arrive. Bishop Hughes deeded the college over but retained title to the seminary property, about nine acres. In 1847, Fordham's first school in Manhattan opened. The school became the independently chartered College of St. Francis Xavier in 1861. It was also in 1847 that the American poet Edgar Allan Poe arrived in the village of Fordham and began a friendship with the college Jesuits that would last throughout his life. In 1849, he published his famed work "The Bells." Some traditions credit the college's church bells as the inspiration for this poem.

Fordham's academic ideals are drawn from its Jesuit influences. The university promotes the Jesuit principles of cura personalis, which fosters a faculty and administrative respect for the individual student and all of his or her gifts and abilities; magis, which encourages students to challenge themselves and strive for excellence in their lives; and homines pro aliis, which intends to inspire service among members of the Fordham community.

Fordham is not ranked by the Shanghai, QS, or THE global university rankings.It does, however, provide information for the Paris School of Mines' listing, which reviews over 3,000 educational institutions around the world, selects some 700 schools and ranks them according to their ability to place their graduates in Fortune 500 CEO and leading positions. The university appeared 63rd on the list in 2009 but the research has been updated and Fordham is now listed as 16th.Fordham ranked 93rd amongst the World’s top 100 universities for producing millionaires, as compiled by the.