1.
Union College
–
Union College is a private, non-denominational liberal arts college located in Schenectady, New York, United States. Founded in 1795, it was the first institution of higher learning chartered by the New York State Board of Regents, in the 19th century, it became the Mother of Fraternities, as three of the earliest such organizations were established there. After 175 years as a traditional institution, Union College began enrolling women in 1970. The college offers an arts curriculum across some 21 academic departments, as well as opportunities for interdepartmental majors. Approximately 25% of students major in the sciences, 10% in psychology, 11% in engineering, 10% in biology, 9% in history. By the time they graduate, about 60% of Union students will have engaged in some form of study or study abroad. Places of higher learning were few in the days of the Americas. Officially chartered in 1795, Union can trace its beginnings to 1779, by 1799, another 16 surviving colleges had been chartered or founded in the United States, to bring the total to 25 at the end of the 18th century. But, in the years between the American Revolution and Civil War, the foundations of 182 permanent colleges were laid in the United States. Hundreds more were born but proved short-lived, largely because of financial limitations, of the 182 colleges and universities founded in those years, well over a hundred appeared outside the original thirteen colonies. Union College, like many of these, was founded in what was nearly a wilderness, in the town of Schenectady, New York on the Mohawk River, at the time, the town had fewer than 4,000 residents. The cities of Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo did not yet exist, and western New York was very sparsely settled, Unions charter was 16 years in the making. Even before the Revolution had ended, a new rising democratic tide was overtaking the colonists, the old ways, and in particular the old purposes and structure of higher education, were being pushed aside. Practical education for the new man of commerce and politics was the new desire, not just classical education for the professions, every hamlet and rude settlement aspired to become an Athens of the West, and Schenectady was no exception. The Mohawk and Hudson River regions were for the most part dominated by the Dutch in those years, Queens College, while intended in part to provide a classical education, had also been founded specifically to train ministers in the Dutch Reformed Church. This has been said by some to be the first expression in America of a demand for higher education. This petition, along with a one in 1782, failed in its purpose. In the meantime, the Dutch Church continued to show an interest in establishing an academy or college under its control in Schenectady
2.
Schenectady, New York
–
Schenectady /skᵻˈnɛktədi/ is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 66,135, the name Schenectady is derived from a Mohawk word skahnéhtati meaning beyond the pines. The city was founded on the side of the Mohawk River by Dutch colonists in the 17th century. They were prohibited from the fur trade by the Albany monopoly, residents of the new village developed farms on strip plots along the river. Connected to the west via the Mohawk River and Erie Canal, by 1824 more people worked in manufacturing than agriculture or trade, and the city had a cotton mill, processing cotton from the Deep South. Numerous mills in New York had such ties with the South, the city was part of emerging technologies, with GE collaborating in the production of nuclear-powered submarines and, in the 21st century, working on other forms of renewable energy. The city is in eastern New York, near the confluence of the Mohawk and it is in the same metropolitan area as the state capital, Albany, which is about 19 miles southeast. In December 2014, the announced that the city was one of three sites selected for development of off-reservation casino gambling, under terms of a 2013 state constitutional amendment. The project would redevelop an ALCO brownfield site in the city along the waterfront, with hotels, housing, when first encountered by Europeans, the Mohawk Valley was the territory of the Mohawk nation, one of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, or Haudenosaunee. They had occupied territory in the region since at least 1100 AD, in the 1640s, the Mohawk had three major villages, all on the south side of the Mohawk River. The easternmost one was Ossernenon, located about 9 miles west of present-day Auriesville, about 3200 acres of this unique ecosystem are now protected as the Albany Pine Bush. Eventually, this word entered the lexicon of the Dutch settlers, the settlers in Fort Orange used skahnéhtati to refer to the new village at the Mohawk flats, which became known as Schenectady. In 1661 Arent van Curler, a Dutch immigrant bought a big piece of land on the side of the Mohawk River. Other colonists were given grants of land by the government in this portion of the flat fertile river valley. The settlers recognized that these bottomlands had been cultivated for maize by the Mohawk for centuries, Van Curler took the largest piece of land, the remainder was divided into 50-acre plots for the other first fourteen proprietors. As most early colonists were from the Fort Orange area, they may have anticipated working as fur traders, the settlers here turned to farming. Their 50-acre lots were unique for the colony, laid out in strips along the Mohawk River, with the narrow edges fronting the river and they relied on rearing livestock and wheat. From the early days of interaction, early Dutch traders in the valley had unions with Mohawk women and their children were raised within the Mohawk community, which had a matrilineal kinship system, considering children born into the mothers clan
3.
New York (state)
–
New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
4.
United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
5.
College
–
College is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university. In ancient Rome a collegium was a club or society, a group of living together under a common set of rules. Aside from the educational context - nowadays the most common use of college - there are various other meanings also derived from the original Latin term. In the United States, college can be a synonym for university, in Singapore and India, this is known as a junior college. The municipal government of the city of Paris uses the sixth form college as the English name for a lycée. In some national education systems, secondary schools may be called colleges or have college as part of their title, in Australia the term college is applied to any private or independent primary and, especially, secondary school as distinct from a state school. Melbourne Grammar School, Cranbrook School, Sydney and The Kings School, there has also been a recent trend to rename or create government secondary schools as colleges. In the state of Victoria, some high schools are referred to as secondary colleges. Interestingly, the pre-eminent government secondary school for boys in Melbourne is still named Melbourne High School, in Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory, college is used in the name of all state high schools built since the late 1990s, and also some older ones. In New South Wales, some schools, especially multi-campus schools resulting from mergers, are known as secondary colleges. In Queensland some newer schools which accept primary and high school students are styled state college, in Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, college refers to the final two years of high school, and the institutions which provide this. In this context, college is an independent of the other years of high school. Here, the expression is a version of matriculation college. This is because these schools have traditionally focused on academic, rather than vocational, subjects. Some private secondary schools choose to use the college in their names nevertheless. Some secondary schools elsewhere in the country, particularly ones within the school system. In New Zealand the word normally refers to a secondary school for ages 13 to 17
6.
University
–
A university is an institution of higher education and research which grants academic degrees in various academic disciplines. Universities typically provide undergraduate education and postgraduate education, the word university is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means community of teachers and scholars. Universities were created in Italy and evolved from Cathedral schools for the clergy during the High Middle Ages, the original Latin word universitas refers in general to a number of persons associated into one body, a society, company, community, guild, corporation, etc. Like other guilds, they were self-regulating and determined the qualifications of their members, an important idea in the definition of a university is the notion of academic freedom. The first documentary evidence of this comes from early in the life of the first university, the University of Bologna adopted an academic charter, the Constitutio Habita, in 1158 or 1155, which guaranteed the right of a traveling scholar to unhindered passage in the interests of education. Today this is claimed as the origin of academic freedom and this is now widely recognised internationally - on 18 September 1988,430 university rectors signed the Magna Charta Universitatum, marking the 900th anniversary of Bolognas foundation. The number of universities signing the Magna Charta Universitatum continues to grow, the university is generally regarded as a formal institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting. The earliest universities were developed under the aegis of the Latin Church by papal bull as studia generalia and it is possible, however, that the development of cathedral schools into universities was quite rare, with the University of Paris being an exception. Later they were founded by Kings or municipal administrations. In the early period, most new universities were founded from pre-existing schools. Many historians state that universities and cathedral schools were a continuation of the interest in learning promoted by monasteries, the first universities in Europe with a form of corporate/guild structure were the University of Bologna, the University of Paris, and the University of Oxford. The students had all the power … and dominated the masters, princes and leaders of city governments perceived the potential benefits of having a scholarly expertise develop with the ability to address difficult problems and achieve desired ends. The emergence of humanism was essential to understanding of the possible utility of universities as well as the revival of interest in knowledge gained from ancient Greek texts. The rediscovery of Aristotles works–more than 3000 pages of it would eventually be translated–fuelled a spirit of inquiry into natural processes that had begun to emerge in the 12th century. Some scholars believe that these represented one of the most important document discoveries in Western intellectual history. Richard Dales, for instance, calls the discovery of Aristotles works a turning point in the history of Western thought and this became the primary mission of lecturers, and the expectation of students. The university culture developed differently in northern Europe than it did in the south, Latin was the language of the university, used for all texts, lectures, disputations and examinations. Professors lectured on the books of Aristotle for logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics, while Hippocrates, Galen, outside of these commonalities, great differences separated north and south, primarily in subject matter
7.
Library
–
A library is a collection of sources of information and similar resources, made accessible to a defined community for reference or borrowing. It provides physical or digital access to material, and may be a building or room, or a virtual space. Libraries range in size from a few shelves of books to several million items, in Latin and Greek, the idea of a bookcase is represented by Bibliotheca and Bibliothēkē, derivatives of these mean library in many modern languages, e. g. French bibliothèque. The first libraries consisted of archives of the earliest form of clay tablets in cuneiform script discovered in Sumer. Private or personal libraries made up of books appeared in classical Greece in the 5th century BC. In the 6th century, at the close of the Classical period. A library is organized for use and maintained by a body, an institution. In addition to providing materials, libraries also provide the services of librarians who are experts at finding and organizing information, Libraries often provide quiet areas for studying, and they also often offer common areas to facilitate group study and collaboration. Libraries often provide facilities for access to their electronic resources. Modern libraries are increasingly being redefined as places to get unrestricted access to information in many formats, the first libraries consisted of archives of the earliest form of writing—the clay tablets in cuneiform script discovered in temple rooms in Sumer, some dating back to 2600 BC. These archives, which consisted of the records of commercial transactions or inventories, mark the end of prehistory. Things were much the same in the government and temple records on papyrus of Ancient Egypt, the earliest discovered private archives were kept at Ugarit, besides correspondence and inventories, texts of myths may have been standardized practice-texts for teaching new scribes. There is also evidence of libraries at Nippur about 1900 BC, philosopher Laozi was keeper of books in the earliest library in China, which belonged to the Imperial Zhou dynasty. Also, evidence of catalogues found in some destroyed ancient libraries illustrates the presence of librarians, the Library of Alexandria, in Egypt, was the largest and most significant great library of the ancient world. It flourished under the patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty and functioned as a center of scholarship from its construction in the 3rd century BC until the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC. The library was conceived and opened either during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter or during the reign of his son Ptolemy II, an early organization system was in effect at Alexandria. The Library of Celsus in Ephesus, Anatolia, now part of Selçuk, Turkey was built in honor of the Roman Senator Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus by Celsus’ son, the library was built to store 12,000 scrolls and to serve as a monumental tomb for Celsus. Private or personal libraries made up of books appeared in classical Greece in the 5th century BC
8.
Lecture
–
A lecture is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to critical information, history, background, theories. A politicians speech, a sermon, or even a businessmans sales presentation may be similar in form to a lecture. Usually the lecturer will stand at the front of the room, though lectures are much criticised as a teaching method, universities have not yet found practical alternative teaching methods for the large majority of their courses. Critics point out that lecturing is mainly a one-way method of communication that does not involve significant audience participation, therefore, lecturing is often contrasted to active learning. Lectures have a significant role outside the classroom, as well, academic and scientific awards routinely include a lecture as part of the honor, and academic conferences often center around keynote addresses, i. e. lectures. The public lecture has a history in the sciences and in social movements. Union halls, for instance, historically have hosted numerous free, similarly, churches, community centers, libraries, museums, and other organizations have hosted lectures in furtherance of their missions or their constituents interests. Lectures represent a continuation of tradition in contrast to textual communication in books. Lectures may be considered a type of grey literature, the noun lecture dates from 14th century, meaning action of reading, that which is read, from the Latin lectus, pp. of legere to read. Its subsequent meaning as oral discourse on a subject before an audience for purposes of instruction is from the 16th century. The verb to lecture is attested from 1590, the noun lectern refers to the reading desk used by lecturers. The practice in the university was for the instructor to read from an original source to a class of students who took notes on the lecture. The reading from original sources evolved into the reading of glosses on an original, throughout much of history, the diffusion of knowledge via handwritten lecture notes was an essential element of academic life. Even in the century, the lecture notes taken by students. Many lecturers were, and still are, accustomed to reading their own notes from the lectern for exactly that purpose. Nevertheless, modern lectures generally incorporate additional activities, e. g. writing on a chalk-board, exercises, class questions and discussions, or student presentations. The use of presentation software such as Microsoft PowerPoint has changed the form of lectures, e. g. video, graphics, websites
9.
Dormitory
–
A dormitory or hall of residence, is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people, often boarding school, college or university students. In the United States dorm is the most common term, which comes originally from the Latin word dormitorium, on the other hand, in the United Kingdom the term hall is more usual, especially in a university context. A dormitory can also be a room containing several beds – see Sleeping dormitories. Most colleges and universities provide single or multiple rooms for their students. These buildings consist of such rooms, like an apartment building. The largest dormitory building is Bancroft Hall at the United States Naval Academy, many colleges and universities no longer use the word dormitory and staff are now using the term residence hall or simply hall instead. Outside academia however, the dorm or dormitory is commonly used without negative connotations. Indeed, the words are used regularly in the marketplace as well as routinely in advertising, College and university residential rooms vary in size, shape, facilities and number of occupants. Typically, a United States residence hall holds two students with no toilet. This is usually referred to as a double, often, residence halls have communal bathroom facilities. In the United States, residence halls are segregated by sex, with men living in one group of rooms. Some dormitory complexes are single-sex with varying limits on visits by persons of each sex, for example, the University of Notre Dame in Indiana has a long history of Parietals, or mixed visiting hours. In the early 2000s, dorms that allowed people of opposite sexes to share a room available in some public universities. Some colleges and university coeducational dormitories also feature coeducational bathrooms, most residence halls are much closer to campus than comparable private housing such as apartment buildings. Universities may therefore provide priority to students when allocating this accommodation. Halls located away from university facilities sometimes have extra amenities such as a room or bar. Catered halls may charge for food by the meal or through a termly subscription and they may also contain basic kitchen facilities for student use outside catering hours. Most halls contain a laundry room, as of 2015 there was an expanding market for private luxury off-campus student residences which offered substantial amenities in both the United States and Britain, particularly in London
10.
Googleplex
–
The original complex, with 2,000,000 square feet of office space, is the companys second largest square footage assemblage of Google buildings. Once the 1,100, 000-square-foot Bay View addition went online in 2015, Googleplex is a portmanteau of Google and complex and a reference to googolplex, the name given to the large number 10, or 10googol. The site was occupied by Silicon Graphics. The project, launched in 1994 was built on the site of one of the few working farms in the area and was city owned at the time. It was a collaboration between SGI, SWA Group of San Francisco, Sausalito, and the Planning and Community Development Agency of the City of Mountain View. The objective was to develop in fashion the privately owned corporate headquarters. Key design decisions placed parking for nearly 2000 cars underground, enabling SWA to integrate the two spaces with water features, shallow pools, fountains, pathways, and plazas. The project was completed in 1997, STUDIOS Architecture was the executive architect for the original SGI campus, and provided both interior architecture and base building design. The former SGI facilities were leased by Google beginning in 2003, a redesign of the interiors was completed by Clive Wilkinson Architects in 2005. In June 2006, Google purchased some of Silicon Graphics properties, including the Googleplex, since the buildings are of relatively low height, the complex sprawls out over a large area of land. The interior of the headquarters is furnished with items like shade lamps, the lobby contains a piano and a projection of current live Google search queries. Facilities include free laundry rooms, two swimming pools, multiple sand volleyball courts, and eighteen cafeterias with diverse menus. Google has also installed replicas of SpaceShipOne and a dinosaur skeleton, since 2007 the site has featured a series of solar panels covering the rooftops of eight buildings and two solar carports, and capable of producing 1.6 megawatts of electricity. At the time of installation Google believed it to be the largest in the United States among corporations, the panels provide the power needed for 30% of the peak electricity demand in their solar-powered buildings. Four 100kW Bloom Energy Servers were shipped to Google in July 2008, in 2013 construction began on a new 1. The estimated cost of the project is $120 million with an opening date of 2015. NBBJ is the architect and this is the first time Google has designed its own rather than moving into buildings occupied by previous businesses. The addition is off the northeast corner of the complex, by the Stevens Creek Nature Study Area/Shoreline Park, googles 2012 year-end annual report noted it can develop only 7 acres of the 42-acre site
11.
Apple Campus
–
Infinite Loop is a street encircling the six main buildings of Apples headquarters in Cupertino, California. Each building has a number which corresponds to its single-digit address on the Loop, the numbers increment in the clockwise direction. Employees often refer to the buildings as IL1 through IL6, Infinite Loop is at the southeast corner of De Anza Boulevard and Interstate 280. The main office,1 Infinite Loop, directly faces De Anza Boulevard, there are other buildings on Apples campus which are in the proximity of, but not on Infinite Loop. Apple has purchased parcels of land on which to build a second campus. The name was inspired by the concept of the infinite loop. Infinite Loop is actually a private U-shaped crescent that joins up with the public street Mariani Avenue to form a loop, construction of the Infinite Loop campus was completed in 1993 by Sobrato Development Cos. Before 1997, activity on the campus was restricted to Research and Development activities, the local BJs Restaurant & Brewery, just off campus, is often jokingly referred to as IL7, as was the Peppermill bar and restaurant which previously stood on the same site. Before Infinite Loop was built, the location was occupied by Four-Phase Systems, the Infinite Loop appears on the icon of the Maps iOS application before iOS7, later versions center the icon on the new Apple Campus. It is also the default location of the Apple Find my Friends application. The Infinite Loop also appears on the icon of the third-party map app OpenMaps, cycling the Infinite Loop with interactive map on Kinomap Google Earth view of Infinite Loop
