A Brief History Of Jhu
The Johns Hopkins University opened Feb. 22, 1876, with the inauguration of
its first president, Daniel Coit Gilman. "What are we aiming at?" Gilman asked
in his installation address. "The encouragement of research ... and the advancement
of individual scholars, who by their excellence will advance the sciences they
pursue, and the society where they dwell."
Building from scratch, rather than taking over an existing institution, freed
Gilman to create something entirely new, at least in the United States. He established
a research university, dedicated not just to advancing students' knowledge but
also to advancing the state of human knowledge generally, through research and
scholarship.
Gilman dismissed the notion that teaching and research are separate endeavors;
he believed that success in one depended on success in the other. "The best
teachers are usually those who are free, competent and willing to make original
researches in the library and the laboratory," Gilman said. "The best investigators
are usually those who have also the responsibilities of instruction, gaining
thus the incitement of colleagues, the encouragement of pupils, the observation
of the public." The realization of Gilman's philosophy at Hopkins, and at other
institutions that later attracted Hopkins-trained scholars, revolutionized higher
education in America, leading to the research university system as it exists
today.
Hopkins remains a leader, in both teaching and research. The School of Medicine
is one of the best anywhere, and the Bloomberg School of Public Health is
renowned for contributions worldwide to preventive medicine and the health of
large populations. The other divisions, though smaller -- by design -- than
similar schools in other institutions, include eminent scholars and numerous
highly ranked departments.
In recent years, Johns Hopkins has won more federal research and development
funding than any other university. This is due in large measure to the work
of the Applied Physics Laboratory, a division of the university devoted entirely
to research and development. The School of Medicine, however, is the largest
recipient of National Institutes of Health research grants to medical schools.
The Bloomberg School of Public Health, the first of its kind in this country,
ranks first among public health schools in federal research support.
In all, the university has nine academic divisions.
The Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences,
the G.W.C Whiting School of Engineering, and the
School of Education are based at the Homewood
campus in northern Baltimore. The Carey Business
School has headquarters downtown and the schools of
Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing are in east
Baltimore, sharing a campus with The Johns Hopkins
Hospital. The Peabody Institute, founded in 1857 and
a leading professional school of music, has been
affiliated with Johns Hopkins since 1977. It is located
on Mount Vernon Place in downtown Baltimore. The
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies,
founded in 1943, has been a Johns Hopkins division
since 1950. It is located in Washington, D.C.
The Applied Physics Laboratory is a division of the university co-equal to
the nine schools, but with a non-academic mission. APL, located between Baltimore
and Washington, is noted for contributions to national security, space exploration
and other civilian research and development. It has developed more than 100
biomedical devices, many in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.
Johns Hopkins also has a campus near Rockville in Montgomery
County, Md., and has academic facilities in Nanjing, China, and in
Bologna and Florence, Italy. It maintains a network of continuing
education facilities throughout the Baltimore-Washington area,
including centers in downtown Baltimore, in downtown
Washington and in Columbia.
[Updated January 2007]
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