Howard University

Howard University is a university located in Washington, D.C., USA. A historically black university, Howard was established in 1867 by congressional order and named for Oliver O. Howard. Howard University is the number one producer of African American Ph.D.s in the United States.[1]
Contents
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* 1 Background
* 2 History
* 3 Schools and colleges
* 4 Research Centers
o 4.1 Moorland-Spingarn Research Center
* 5 Presidents of Howard University
* 6 Alumni
* 7 Greek organizations originated at Howard University
* 8 See also
* 9 Footnotes
* 10 External links

[edit] Background

Howard was established by a charter in 1867, and much of its early funding came from endowment, private benefaction, and tuition. An annual congressional appropriation administered by the Secretary of the Interior funded the school.[2] Today, it is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund[3] and is partially funded by the US Government, which gives approximately $235 million annually.[4] The college was named after General Oliver O. Howard who was commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau and the college's third president.[5] From its outset, it was nonsectarian and open to people of both sexes and all races.[6] Howard has graduate schools of law, medicine, dentistry and divinity, in addition to the undergraduate program. The current enrollment (as of 2003) is approximately 11,000, including 7,000 undergraduates. The university's football homecoming activities serve as one of the premier annual events in Washington.[7]

[edit] History
Founders Library is an iconic building on the Howard University campus that has been declared a National Historic Landmark.
Founders Library is an iconic building on the Howard University campus that has been declared a National Historic Landmark.

Howard University has played an important role in American history and the Civil Rights Movement on a number of occasions. Alain Locke, Chair of the Department of Philosophy and first African American Rhodes Scholar, authored The New Negro which helped to usher in the Harlem Renaissance.[8] Ralph Bunche, the first Nobel Peace Prize winner of African descent, served as chair of the Department of Political Science.[9] Stokely Carmichael, also known as Kwame Toure, a student in the Department of Philosophy and the Howard University School of Divinity coined the term Black Power and worked in Lowndes County, Alabama as a voting rights activist.[10] Historian Rayford Logan served as chair of the Department of History.[11] E. Franklin Frazier served as chair of the Department of Sociology.[12] Sterling Allen Brown served as chair of the Department of English.

After being refused admission to the then-white-only University of Maryland School of Law, a young Lincoln University graduate Thurgood Marshall enrolled at Howard University School of Law instead. There he studied under Charles Hamilton Houston, a Harvard Law School graduate and leading civil rights lawyer who at the time was the dean of Howard's law school. Houston took Marshall under his wing, and the two forged a friendship that would last for the remainder of Houston's life. Howard University was the site where Marshall and his team of legal scholars from around the nation prepared to argue the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.[13]
Main Hall and Miner Hall in 1868. Miner Hall is located to the right.
Main Hall and Miner Hall in 1868. Miner Hall is located to the right.

Howard was the site of the organization of the first black Greek letter organization among black colleges when it approved the charter of Alpha Phi Alpha's second chapter in 1907. Howard was also the site for the founding of the Alpha (first) chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, Omega Psi Phi, Phi Beta Sigma and Zeta Phi Beta.[14]

Major improvements, additions, and changes occurred at the school in the aftermath of World War I. New buildings were built under the direction of architect Albert Cassell. [15] In 1918, all the secondary schools of the university were abolished and the whole plan of undergraduate work changed. The four-year college course was divided into two periods of two years each, the Junior College, and the Senior Schools. The semester system was abolished in 1919 and the quarter system substituted. Twenty-three new members were added to the faculty between the reorganization of 1918 and 1923. A dining hall building with class rooms for the department of home economics was built in 1921 at a cost of $301,000. A greenhouse was erected in 1919. Howard Hall was renovated and made a dormitory for girls; many improvements were made on campus; J. Stanley Durkee, Howard's last white president, was appointed in 1918. [16]

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered a speech to the graduating class at Howard, where he outlined his plans for civil rights legislation.[17]

In 1989, Howard gained national attention when students rose up in protest against the appointment of then-Republican National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater as a new member of the university's Board of Trustees. Student activists disrupted Howard's 122nd anniversary celebrations, and eventually occupied the university's Administration building.[18] Within days, both Atwater and Howard's President, James E. Cheek, resigned. The Board of Trustees accepted many of the students' other demands, including promised improvements to campus housing and academic credit for community work .[19]

In April 2007 the head of the faculty senate called for the ouster of Howard University President H. Patrick Swygert, saying that the school is in a state of crisis and it was time to end “an intolerable condition of incompetence and dysfunction at the highest level.” This came on the heels of several criticisms of Howard University and its management. A National Science Foundation audit condemned Howard’s management of several federal research grants.[20] The Division of Nursing faced losing its accreditation and being placed on probation for a second time because of the program's deficiencies. In Division of Allied Health Science, Physical Therapy and Physician Assistant program are also on probational accreditation status.[21] In addition, the residency programs at Howard University Hospital received a much-publicized unfavorable assessment by the Accrediting Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).[22] Swygert announced in May 2007 he will retire from Howard in June 2008. [23]

In 2007, media mogul Oprah Winfrey was conferred the honorary doctorate of Humanities at the university's 139th commencement. She gave a highly publicized oration before a crowd of over 27,000 people, one of the most heavily attended in academic history. [24]

[edit] Schools and colleges
Howard Bison logo
Howard Bison logo

* College of Arts and Sciences [25]
* School of Business [26]
* John H. Johnson School of Communications [27]
* College of Dentistry [28]
* School of Divinity [29]
* School of Education [30]
* College of Engineering, Architecture & Computer Sciences [31]
* Howard University Graduate School [32]
* School of Law [33]
* College of Medicine [34]
* College of Pharmacy, Nursing & Allied Health Sciences [35]
* School of Social Work [36]
* (MS)2 Middle School of Mathematics and Science [37]

[edit] Research Centers

[edit] Moorland-Spingarn Research Center

Main article: Moorland-Spingarn Research Center

The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (MSRC) is recognized as one of the world's largest and most comprehensive repositories for the documentation of the history and culture of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and other parts of the world. As one of the university's major research facilities, the MSRC collects, preserves, and makes available for research a wide range of resources chronicling the Black experience.[38]

[edit] Presidents of Howard University
• Charles B. Boynton 1867
• Byron Sunderland 1867 – 1869
• Oliver Otis Howard 1869 – 1874
• Edward P. Smith 1875 – 1876
• William W. Patton 1877 – 1889
• Jeremiah E. Rankin 1890 – 1903
• John Gordon 1903 – 1906
• Wilbur P. Thirkield 1906 – 1912
• Stephen M. Newman 1912 – 1918
• J. Stanley Durkee 1918 – 1926
• Mordecai Wyatt Johnson 1926 – 1960
• James M. Nabrit 1960 – 1969
• James E. Cheek 1969 – 1989
• Franklyn G. Jenifer 1990 – 1994
• H. Patrick Swygert 1995 – present

[edit] Alumni

Howard University has conferred over 99,318 degrees and certificates in its 140-year history. Noteworthy alumni include Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, actor Ossie Davis, comical midget Danny Cohn, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall(School of Law), Claude Brown, Stokeley Carmichael, Roberta Flack, Shaka Hislop, Phylicia Rashad, Richard Smallwood. and many other educators, politicians, United States ambassadors, writers, prominent international figures, and corporate executives. The 1990s R&B group Shai was formed on the campus of Howard University. Their hit song "If I Ever Fall In Love" was recorded there as well. The Hollywood Reporter reported that when Howard alumna Debbie Allen became the producer-director of the popular television series A Different World, she "drew from her college experiences in an effort to accurately reflect in the show the social and political life on black campuses."

Main article: List of Howard University people

[edit] Greek organizations originated at Howard University

A number of Greek organizations were founded at Howard University, including:

* Alpha Kappa Alpha Founded - 1908
* Omega Psi Phi Founded - 1911
* Delta Sigma Theta Founded - 1913
* Phi Beta Sigma Founded - 1914
* Zeta Phi Beta Founded - 1920

Howard University is also host to other Greek letter fraternal organizations, including Gamma Iota Sigma, Kappa Alpha Psi, Iota Phi Theta, Phi Mu Alpha, Sigma Alpha Iota, Delta Sigma Pi, Phi Sigma Pi, Alpha Phi Omega, Gamma Sigma Sigma, Kappa Kappa Psi, and Tau Beta Sigma.

[edit] See also

* List of historically black colleges of the United States
* Howard University alumni

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ NACUBO Endowment Survey - Public NEWS Tables (2006). NACUBO. Retrieved on 2007-09-24.

[edit] External links

* Howard University
* University Hospital
* The Hilltop (student newspaper)
* Howard University Press
* Howard Athletics
* Howard Homecoming
* PBS
* Black Excel
* Oliver Howard Memorial at Gettysburg