The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
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CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY - The Encyclopedia of Cleveland HistoryCASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY (est. 1826) occupies 150 acres in UNIVERSITY CIRCLE and is the largest private university in Ohio. Of the institution's 9 schools, 3 are undergraduate: the College of Arts and Sciences, Case School of Engineering, and Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing. Graduate schools include the School of Law, the School of Medicine, the Dental School, the Mandel School of Applied Social Science, the Weatherhead School of Management, and the School of Graduate Studies. In addition, there are institutional affiliations with , the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF MUSIC and the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART. CWRU evolved from Western Reserve College founded by David Hudson in 1826 in Hudson, OH. For several years the school struggled to keep its solvency and its faculty, who often went without pay. By 1860, 5 years after Henry Lawrence Hitchcock assumed the college's presidency, Western Reserve College was fiscally and academically sound. In addition to retiring the college's debt, Hitchcock encouraged the study of the sciences, bringing chemist EDWARD W. MORLEY to campus. The Cleveland Medical College, founded in 1843, was then a department of Western Reserve College. Located at E. 9th St. and St. Clair, it led a virtually autonomous existence until brought under the control of the Board of Trustees and the university president in 1893. In 1880, LEONARD CASE,
JR., bequeathed a portion of his estate to
found the Case School of Applied Science. AMASA STONE then
donated over $500,000 to move Western Reserve College to Cleveland. The site
would be provided by others. Contributors raised
upwards of $100,000 to purchase 43 acres for both it and the fledgling Case
School, so they could be located adjacent to one another. In recognition of
Stone's donation, Western Reserve Univ.'s men's undergraduate college was named
Adelbert College, after Stone's son, Adelbert, who drowned while a student at Yale. In 1888 the
trustees of WRU decided to stop admitting women to Adelbert
College and established the College for Women, which in 1932 was renamed in
honor of FLORA STONE MATHER,
the college's second council president. In addition to the liberal arts, the
school offered courses in home economics and education. Thus, in 1890, the
university consisted of 2 undergraduate colleges and a medical school. During the presidency, (1890-1921) of CHAS.F. THWING,the school achieved a national reputation and
became a true university with the establishment of 6 additional schools: the
Law, Dental, and Graduate schools, in 1892; the Library School, 1904 (closed in
1986); the Pharmacy School, 1908 (closed in 1949); and the School for Applied
Social Science, 1916.
The Law School opened with no
endowment, but it was one of the first schools to, adopt the case method of
study initiated at Harvard Law School. The school's higher-than-required
standards quickly put it among the country's best, and an endowment came in
1893 from a bequest by the widow of FRANKLIN T. BACKUS. In 2001 the
School of Law at CWRU had 746 students enrolled and published 4 academic legal
journals: Law Review, The Canada/U.S.
Law Journal, Health Matrix: Journal of Law-Medicine, and Journal
of International Law. The Law School is also the home for the Center for
Professional Ethics and the National Institute on the Future of the Legal
Profession. The Dental School was a department of
the Medical School until 1906, when, because of financial difficulties, it was
sold to a private operator, Henry M. Brown. In 1916 the university repurchased
the school and invested in equipment and personnel, regaining the Dental
Educational Council's top rating in 1922. The Graduate School of the university
initially faced such a dearth of students that in 1921 it was closed. In 1926
the school reopened with ELBERT JAY BENTON; as dean and it
flourished. At the Case School, no formal graduate school was established until
1955, although the first doctorate had been conferred in 1939. Except for
several women who studied special programs during World War II, the school
would not be truly coeducational until 1960. The Library School was founded by WM. HOWARD BRETT, head of the CLEVELAND PUBLIC LIBRARY and the school's
first dean. Despite a $100,000 endowment from, Andrew Carnegie, the school faced
deficits annually, but managed to survive. After World War II, Dean JESSE HAUK SHERA brought national
recognition to the school, especially in the area of documentation and the
doctoral program, but declining enrollment led to the school's closing in 1986.
The School of Applied Social Science was founded at a time when the concept of
social work as a profession was questioned. Twice the Board of Trustees
considered closing it down, but its future was secured after World War II, when
Dean Leonard Mayo raised endowment funds and erected a new building for the
school. The Dept. of Architecture evolved from the Cleveland School of
Architecture, incorporated in 1924 with ABRAM GARFIELD as president. Chas. Morris and Chas.S. Schneider were important Cleveland architects associated with the school. In 1929 the architecture school became a department of WRU, until its closing in 1972 In spite of the deficits incurred with the founding of these new schools, the university flourished
until 1930, when the Depression and a $6.5 million debt pushed it close to
bankruptcy. The Case School survived relatively untroubled, as the businesslike
leadership of the institution seldom borrowed money for expansion. The
Depression also ended the phenomenal growth of the, university's extension
school, Cleveland College, founded in 1925 in a downtown building at E. 20th
and Euclid. It was dedicated to noncredit adult education and evening credit
courses for part-time students. By 1929, when the school moved to PUBLIC SQUARE, the student body had
quadrupled to 6,000, but success came to a halt along with the nation's economy.
Despite a brief postwar revival due to the GI Bill, by 1953 the veterans were
gone, and the university decided to move the school to Univ. Circle, where the
faculties of Adelbert, Mather, and Cleveland College
merged into 1 body. In 1947 the Case School of Applied Science changed its name
to Case Institute of Technology to better reflect the institution's rank and
independence. The school expanded dramatically after World War II under
President T. KEITH GLENNAN; (1947-66). In 1948
Case established a Div. of Humanities & Social Science, the first among
engineering schools. Research grants and contracts increased and became the
school's largest source of operating income. In 1986 the CWRU Community Laboratory established the CLEVELAND FREENET Community Computer System, a free public computer network which allowed dial-in users Internet access. The Freenet was the first of its kind and helped inspire an international trend. CWRU continued as the sponsor of the Freenet until September 30, 1999. CWRU in 1989 became the first campus in the world to use fiber optics to create a computer network linking all campus buildings, including residence halls. Since the 1990s CWRU's physical environment has seen many renovations and new building projects. Under the administration of Agnar Pytte, the Univ. successfully campaigned for a $400 million endowment. Nearly destroyed by fire in the summer of 1991, the Adelbert College administration building was renovated and then rededicated in 1993. Newly erected structures include the Mandel School of Applied Social, Sciences (1990), the Richard F. Celeste Biomedical Research Bldg. (1993), the Kent Hale Smith Engineering and Science Bldg. (1993), the George S. Dively Executive Education Center (1994), the Kelvin Smith Library (1995), the Veal Convocation, Athletic, and Recreation Center (1997), the Agnar Pytte Center for Science Education and Research (2001), and the Weatherhead School of Management's Frank Gehry-designed Peter B. Lewis Building (2002). In 1999, David H. Auston was named president as CWRU's total annual funding through grants and private donations surpassed $75.3 million. As the 1990s came to a close, the university enrolled approximately 9,500 students and employed over 4,800 faculty and staff. The eyes of the world were, focused on CWRU in the first decade of the new millennium. In 2004, the university hosted the vice presidential debate between John Edwards and Richard Cheney. From 2001 to 2002 James W. Wagner served as CWRU interim president during which the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University was created. During Edward M. Hundert’s tenure as university president (2002-2006), CWRU opened The Village at 115, its first new student housing in over three decades. As the 2000s came to a close, the once separate institutions of Case and Western Reserve were more unified than ever. A symbol of this unification was the creation of the Alumni Association of Case Western Reserve. Gregory Eastwood, who served as interim president in 2006, was the first recipient of the Case Western Reserve University Distinguished Alumni Award.In the 2010s, CWRU has continued to be one of the nation's top universities. Current CWRU president Barbara R. Snyder assumed the presidency in 2007 she became the first woman in the university's history to do so. Under her leadership, undergraduate applications increased significantly and the university set fundraising records. The Tinkham Veale University Center opened its doors to students in 2014. Known affectionately as "The Tink," the architecturally distinct (designed by Perkins + Will) student center was built as a symbolic bridge to the east and west sides of campus. At the time of this writing, the university enrolled approximately 10,700 students and employed over 6,200 faculty and staff. The percentage of international students (undergraduate, graduate, and professional) totaled 17% according to th Center for International Affairs. These enrollment and employment figures represented 91 countries, confirming CWRU's status as a global influencer. Last Modified: 11 Nov 2014 12:32:06 AM
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