Linfield College
Linfield College is a private college in McMinnville, Oregon. It has a campus in Portland and an adult degree program located online and in eight communities throughout the state. Linfield Wildcats athletics participates in the NCAA Division III Northwest Conference. There are a combined 2,282 students at Linfield. Linfield traces its history back to 1849 when the Oregon Baptist Educational Society was created in Oregon City; that group organized in order to start a Baptist school in the region, which started as Oregon City College in 1849. In 1855, Sebastian C. Adams began to agitate for a school in McMinnville. Adams and his associates were members of the Christian Church, so the school became a Christian School. To begin, 6 acres of property were donated by W. T. Newby and a group was formed to establish the school; the group included William Dawson, James McBride and Adams and they bore the major part of the expenses of starting the school. These men built a building and convinced Adams, a teacher, to operate the school.
After about a year and a half and because of the difficulty of running the school alone and funding problems, Adams suggested that the school be turned over to the Baptists who were attempting to start up the West Union Institute, chartered in 1858 by the Oregon Territorial Legislature. The Adams group imposed the condition that the Baptists keep at least one professor employed continuously in the college department. Other accounts indicate that the Baptist group purchased the land in 1857 in order to start their school; the Baptist College at McMinnville was chartered in 1858 by the Oregon Territorial Legislature, became McMinnville College before acquiring its current name. In 1922, the name was changed to Linfield College in memory of a Baptist minister, the Rev. George Fisher Linfield whose widow, Frances Eleanor Ross Linfield, gave a substantial donation to the college to promote Christian education and as a memorial to her late husband. Mrs. Linfield served as Dean of Women from 1921 to 1928, sat on the Board of Directors from 1922 to her death in 1940.
Her gift included real estate in Spokane, valued at $250,000. In his 1938 book, Bricks Without Straw: The Story of Linfield College, Professor Jonas A. "Steine" Jonasson quotes from the minutes of the college's board of trustees to explain Mrs. Linfield's motivation for her large land gift to the college: "Mrs. Linfield's dual purpose in making the gift to McMinnville College was to'perpetuate the name, scholarly attainments and Christian influence of her late husband, Rev. George Fisher Linfield, to promote the cause of Christian education.'"The Linfield Division of Continuing Education began in 1975. Today it serves eight communities in Oregon as well as online degree programs giving working adults the opportunity to complete a bachelor's degree or certificate program. In 1982, the Linfield College-Portland Campus was established when the college entered into an affiliation with Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital & Medical Center and began offering a bachelor's degree program in nursing; the Portland Campus, home of the Linfield-Good Samaritan School of Nursing, was established in 1982 and is located in historic Northwest Portland adjacent to the Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital and Medical Center.
The Portland Campus became the successor to the Good Samaritan Hospital Diploma School of Nursing, established by Emily Loveridge in 1890. Linfield College is regionally accredited by the Northwest Commission on Universities. Specialized accreditation is granted to individual programs; the Linfield-Good Samaritan School of Nursing is accredited by the Oregon State Board of Nursing and the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education. The education program is approved for training of education and secondary teachers by the State of Oregon's Teachers Standards and Practices Commission. Linfield College's music program is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music, its athletic training program is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education. For six consecutive years, as of 2006, Linfield was named the No. 1 college in the western region by US News & World Report for the Comprehensive Colleges-Bachelor's category. In the U. S. News and World Report College Rankings for 2007, Linfield College was recategorized and ranked as a Liberal Arts College in a restructuring of rankings.
In 2011, it was ranked 121st among liberal arts colleges. Linfield has been named by The Princeton Review as one of the Best Colleges in the Western Region. 93 percent of Linfield professors have the highest degree in their field. In 2009, Language Professor Peter Richardson was awarded Oregon Professor of the Year. In 2010 the Chronicle of Higher Education named Linfield a top producer of Fulbright Scholars. A 2015 study from The Economist ranked Linfield 27th nationally out of 1,275 colleges and universities when it came to the economic value of a degree. In 2015, Linfield was ranked among the best in the Pacific Northwest when it comes to admitting students from disadvantaged families and helping them move up the economic ladder; the study, "The Equality of Opportunity," was conducted by researchers from University of California, Stanford University, Brown University and the U. S. Department of the Treasury. Linfield ranked as the top liberal arts college in Washington and Oregon in Washington Monthly's "Best Bang for the Buck" list in 2016 and 2017.
Washington Monthly identifies Linfield as one of the top liberal arts colleges nationally, ranking it 81st out of 240 liberal arts colleges overall Linfield has a dual enrollment agreement with Portland Com
Smithville Seminary
The Smithville Seminary was a Freewill Baptist institution established in 1839 on what is now Institute Lane in Smithville-North Scituate, Rhode Island. Renamed the Lapham Institute in 1863, it closed in 1876; the site was used as the campus of the Pentecostal Collegiate Institute and the Watchman Institute, is now the Scituate Commons apartments. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978; the buildings on the knoll were built in 1839 and comprised a large three-story central building with columns and two wings. The wings, with 33 rooms each, were separated by 20 feet from the main building and connected to it via two-story covered passageways; the central building housed classrooms, staff apartments, dining facilities, a library and reading room on the second floor, a large room on the third floor which might serve as a chapel, while the other two buildings served as separate male and female dormitories. The two-mile-long Lake Moswansicut could be seen from the third-floor chapel.
The buildings were designed by Russell Warren, the leading Greek Revival architect in New England in the 20th century,After the close of the renamed Lapham Institute, the campus became the site of the Pentecostal Collegiate Institute from 1902 to 1919 and the Watchman Institute in 1923. The site became part of the National Register of Historic Places in 1978; the buildings were renovated in the 1970s and converted into apartments known as Scituate Commons. Smithville Seminary was founded in 1839 by the Rhode Island Association of Free Baptists. At the time, the Free Baptists had two academies, one in New Hampshire, the other in Maine, the Rhode Island Baptists desired to have one of their own. Reverend Hiram Brooks was asked to start the school, raised $20,000, all of which he put toward buildings. Sadly, the entire commitment of these monies to brick and mortar rather than an endowment fund may have caused financial difficulties for the institution, as it was unable to support itself through tuition revenue.
The first principal was Rev. Hosea Quimby, who had come from the Maine academy to serve at Smithville. Quimby worked for the school buying the property when financial trouble struck, until in closed temporarily in 1854 with only 20 students, it was revived the next year when Quimby rented the property to a Samuel P. Coburn, who became principal, enrollment again reached over 100 that year; the property was sold to Reverend W. Colgrove in 1857, who operated it for another two years before it closed again, this time for three years; the site of Henry Barnard’s first Rhode Island Teachers Institute in 1845, the school began giving normal instruction for teachers with public funding in 1867, but ceased in 1871 when the state's Education Commissioner re-established the Rhode Island Normal School and cut program funding for other institutions. In 1863 the school changed hands and changed its name after a minister and former professor at the school, returned in 1861 to find much of the campus dilapidated and in disrepair.
With the Free Baptist Association unwilling or unable to help, William Winsor recruited Congressman Benedict Lapham, after whom the new Lapham Institute was named. In addition to its connections to what would become Rhode Island College, the school had connections to Bates College in Maine, another Free Baptist institution, its first principal, Benjamin F. Hayes, was called to a professorship at Bates, his successor, Thomas L. Angell, was called to a professorship there after two years as principal in North Scituate. George H. Ricker took over as principal for seven years before being called to Hillsdale College in Michigan in 1874, his successor was Arthur G. Moulton, a trustee of Bates, who died just over a year after taking the position, he was followed as principal by W. S. Stockbridge, under whom the school closed in 1876. William Winsor was the last benefactor of the Institute, when no one replaced him, the school went bankrupt without an endowment to support it. In 1883 Winsor donated the library of the Lapham Institute to the Greenville Public Library.
James Burrill Angell, President of the University of Michigan, University of Vermont Thomas L. Angell, Professor at Bates College Lewis Boss, director of Dudley Observatory George T. Day, writer, professor Henry Howard, Governor of Rhode Island 1873-1875 Oscar Lapham, U. S. Congressman National Register of Historic Places listings in Providence County, Rhode Island
Charter
A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority, that the recipient admits a limited status within the relationship, it is within that sense that charters were granted, that sense is retained in modern usage of the term; the word entered the English language from the Old French charte, via Latin charta, from Greek χάρτης. It has come to be synonymous with a document that sets out a grant of privileges; the term is used for a special case to an institutional charter. A charter school, for example, is one that has different rules and statutes from a state school. Charter is sometimes used as a synonym for "tool" or "lease", as in the "charter" of a bus or boat or plane by an organization, intended for a similar group destination. A charter member of an organization is an original member. Anglo-Saxon charters are documents from the early medieval period in Britain which make a grant of land or record a privilege.
They are written on parchment, in Latin but with sections in the vernacular, describing the bounds of estates, which correspond to modern parish boundaries. The earliest surviving charters were drawn up in the 670s; the British Empire used three main types of colonies as it sought to expand its territory to distant parts of the earth. These three types were royal colonies, proprietary colonies, corporate colonies. A charter colony by definition is a "colony chartered to an individual, trading company, etc. by the British crown." Although charter colonies were not the most prevalent of the three types of colonies in the British Empire, they were by no means insignificant. A congressional charter is a law passed by the United States Congress that states the mission and activities of a group. Congress issued federal charters from 1791 until 1992 under Title 36 of the United States Code. A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, towns, charter townships and boroughs.
Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which they are located. This event is marked by the award or declaration of a municipal charter. Charters for chivalric orders and other orders, such as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. In project management, a project charter or project definition is a statement of the scope and participants in a project, it provides a preliminary delineation of roles and responsibilities, outlines the project objectives, identifies the main stakeholders, defines the authority of the project manager. It serves as a reference of authority for the future of the project. In medieval Europe, royal charters were used to create cities; the date that such a charter was granted is considered to be when a city was "founded", regardless of when the locality began to be settled. At one time a royal charter was the only way in which an incorporated body could be formed, but other means are now used instead.
A charter of "Inspeximus" is a royal charter, by which an earlier charter or series of charters relating to a particular foundation was recited and incorporated into a new charter in order to confirm and renew its validity under present authority. Where the original documents are lost, an inspeximus charter may sometimes preserve their texts and lists of witnesses. Articles of Incorporation Atlantic Charter Charter Roll Charter school Chartered company Earth Charter Freedom Charter Fueros General incorporation law Magna Carta Medieval Bulgarian royal charters Papal Bull United Nations Charter
Dracut, Massachusetts
Dracut is a town in Middlesex County. The town's population is 31,352. Before Europeans arrived in the mid-17th century and the surrounding area were known as Augumtoocooke. Important Pennacook Indian settlements were served by fishing at Pawtucket Falls on the Merrimack River and abundant game in the surrounding marsh areas. From the late 16th to mid-17th centuries, the powerful sachem Passaconaway and his family spent much of their lives on this land. Europeans began to settle in the area around 1653, established the town of Chelmsford, incorporated in 1655, on the opposite side of the Merrimack River from modern Dracut. In October 1665, wife of Nobb How and daughter of Passaconaway, sold the Augumtoocooke land to Captain John Evered known as Webb of Draucutt of Norfolk County for four yards of duffill and one pound of tobacco. Webb had months earlier sold 11,000 acres of the land — which he did not own — to Samuel Varnum for 400 four hundred pounds. Webb sold land to Richard Shatswell, who traded it to Edward Colburn for his home and land in Ipswich, Massachusetts.
Colburn and his family were the first settlers in Dracut who owned land with the intention of permanently living on it. Though this area, now known to the new settlers as Dracut, was across the Merrimack River from the Chelmsford town center, they agreed to pay taxes and relied on Chelmsford for protection, according to 1667 Middlesex Court documents. By summer 1669, protection became too costly and difficult, so the Chelmsford Mayor Henchman declared: Wherefore and Worshipful, I judge it needful and necessary that we have relief, that speedily of about twenty men or more for the repulsing of the enemy and guarding some outplaces, which are considerable on each side of the Merrimac, as Messrs. Howard, Coburn & company who must otherwise come in to us, leave what they have to the enemy, or be exposed to the merciless cruelty of bloody and barbarous men. On the morning of March 18, 1676, the Wamesit Indians burned down four of Edward Colburne's buildings attacked Samuel Varnum and family as they crossed the river to milk the cows grazing in the Dracut pastures.
The Indians fired upon their boat, killing Samuel's two sons, one died in his daughter's arms as she sat behind him. The accompanying soldiers and Samuel fired back. By the late 17th century the Varnum, Coburn and other families of the Dracut section of Chelmsford, dissatisfied with the protection provided, began to petition to the General Court to lay out their own township. To the Hon. Council & Representatives of his Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England in General Court assembled February 1701; the petition of Samuel Sewall Esq. Benjamin Walker, John Hunt & Jonathan Belcher, proprietors of part of the Tract of Land called Dracut beyond Chelmsford in the County of Middlesex on the North Side of Merrimack River and of Samuel Varnum... Thomas Colburne... James Richardson... Ezra Colburn... Inhabitants and Proprietors of the said Tract of Land called Dracut... lyes commodious for a Township & hath about twenty families settled thereupon in which are about Eighty Souls & Forasmuch as the making said place a Township will not only be a great Encouragement to the Inhabitants thereof & be the means for a settlement of the Ministry among them but will be of considerable benefit to the Publick, be a great strengthening of the Frontier parts by reason of the people which will be desirous to settle at said place when made a Township because of the convenient positionship thereof.
Your Petitioners humbly pray that by the grant of this Honorable Court, the Tract of land aforesaid may be made a Township, that the Inhabitants, which are or shall settle thereupon, may have and enjoy all Libertys, Privileges & Immunities as the Inhabitants of other Towns within this Province have & do enjoy. And... the Tract of Land therein described be made a Township & called by the name of Dracut... Sent up by concurrence Nehemiah Jewett, Speaker. Dracut was granted separation from Chelmsford, was incorporated as a town on February 26, 1701. Parts of the community were part of the Wamiset Praying Town, one of the preserves set aside by the colonists for Christianized Indians; the town has several large ponds and swamps, numerous brooks. Dracut's early economy relied on fishing and milling, which led in turn to the 19th century industries of paper making and cotton textile manufacturing, including the Beaver Brook Mill; these mills attracted French-Canadian immigrants. There has been intense modern development in Dracut with suburban residential pressures from Lowell.
Twice in the 19th century, Lowell annexed large sections of Dracut into its borders. However, some rural landscapes remain intact. One of the better known is the 290-year-old Colburn/Cutter House, with its massive beams, huge center chimney and fireplaces; the building, dating back from about 1717, has served as the site of the annual Dracut Craft Fair. In addition, Dracut holds an annual Old Home Day every September starting in 2001; as of 2010, it is the only town in the world with the name "Dracut". According to the United States Census Bureau, the tow
Lucretia Garfield
Lucretia Rudolph Garfield was the First Lady of the United States from March to September 1881, as the wife of James A. Garfield, the 20th President of the United States. Born in Garrettsville, Garfield first met her husband in 1849 at Geauga Seminary. After a long courtship, they married in 1858, they would have seven children together, five of whom lived to adulthood. Educated and intellectually curious, Garfield was well attuned to the internal machinations of the Republican Party, which proved to be of great aid to her husband's political career, she was well regarded during her brief period in the White House, but after only a few months contracted malaria and went to Long Branch, New Jersey, to recuperate. In July 1881, James Garfield was mortally wounded by Charles Guiteau, he lingered for two and half months before dying, during which his wife stayed at his bedside and received much public sympathy. Lucretia Garfield returned to her former residence in Ohio after being widowed, living in what is now the James A. Garfield National Historic Site.
She spent much of the rest of her life preserving her husband's papers and other materials, establishing what was the first presidential library. Born in Garrettsville, the daughter of Zeb Rudolph, a farmer and co-founder of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute at Hiram, Arabella Mason Rudolph, Lucretia "Crete" Rudolph was a devout member of the Churches of Christ, her ancestry includes German, Welsh and Irish. After attending the Geauga Seminary, where she met James Garfield, Lucretia attended the Eclectic Institute; the Institute believed in the education of women and because of this Lucretia became an educated woman of her time. Lucretia studied all of the classics, learned to speak Greek, Latin and German. Additionally, she studied science, math and philosophy, she graduated from Hiram College and became a teacher. She first met James Garfield in 1849 while she was attending school at Hiram College where James was her teacher in Chester, Ohio, he went to Williams College while she stayed behind to begin teaching in Cleveland and Bryan, Ohio.
They began correspondence and became engaged shortly after. Garfield was attracted to her keen appetite for knowledge. Never a faithful fiancé or husband, James took on several lovers. Lucretia kept up her studies and her teaching, determined to have something to fall back on if she found herself unmarried, she didn't want to have to depend on her father to support her, so she earned her own salary. Both James and Crete were 26 when they married on November 11, 1858 at the home of the bride's parents in Hiram. Although both were members of the churches of Christ, the nuptials were performed by Henry Hitchcock, a Presbyterian minister; the newlyweds did not take a honeymoon but instead set up housekeeping in Hiram. His service in the Union Army from 1861 to 1863 kept them apart, but after his first winter in Washington as a freshman Representative, the family remained together. With a home in the capital as well as one in Mentor, they enjoyed a happy domestic life. In Washington, D. C. they shared intellectual interests with congenial friends.
They read together, made social calls together, dined with each other, traveled in company until by 1880 they were as nearly inseparable as his career permitted. The Garfields had seven children. Two, their first and last, died in early childhood: Eliza Arabella "Trot" Garfield and Edward Garfield. Four sons and a daughter lived to maturity: Harry Augustus Garfield – lawyer, public official. James Rudolph Garfield – lawyer, public official. Mary "Mollie" Garfield Stanley-Brown. Educated at private schools in Cleveland and Connecticut, she in 1888 married Joseph Stanley Brown, presidential secretary during Garfield's term an investment banker, she lived in Pasadena, California. Irvin McDowell Garfield – lawyer, he followed his older brothers to Columbia Law School. He settled in Boston, where he prospered as partner in the firm of Warren & Garfield and served on the boards of directors of several corporations. Abram Garfield – architect. A graduate of Williams College and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he settled in Cleveland, where he worked as an architect from offices in the James A. Garfield Building.
He served as chairman of the Cleveland Planning Commission 1929–1942 and was active in the American Institute of Architects. James Garfield's election to the presidency brought a cheerful family to the White House in 1881. Though Lucretia Garfield was not interested in a First Lady's social duties, she was conscientious and her genuine hospitality made her dinners and twice-weekly receptions enjoyable. Aside from hosting dinners and receptions, Lucretia advised her husband on whom to select as cabinet officers and her choice for Secretary of State, James Blaine, proved to be successful. "Her diary entries show that she not only understood the implications of each appointment on the rival factions within the Republican Party but carefully calculated their effects." Her earlier education instilled in her an interest in history and she began to make plans to make the historical White House the cultural center of D. C. Lucretia went to the Library of Congress to research the history of the White House.
Her intent was not to resto
Parsonsfield Seminary
Parsonsfield Seminary, which operated from 1832-1949, was a well-known Free Will Baptist school in North Parsonsfield, Maine, in the United States. Known as the North Parsonsfield Seminary, its preserved campus of four buildings is located on State Route 160 near the New Hampshire border; the property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Free Will Baptists developed as a movement in the late eighteenth century in New Hampshire. In 1832 Rev. John Buzzell and several other Free Baptists founded the school in Parsonsfield; the Seminary, at the level of a high school, was the first Free Will Baptist school in the United States and attracted 140 students, both boys and girls, in its first year. The seminary's first principal, Hosea Quimby, was active in many other Free Will Baptist organizations; the Seminary staff and students became involved with the abolitionist movement and operated as a stop on the Underground Railroad in the 1840s, while Oren B. Cheney was principal. Students and supporters aided fugitive slaves from the South in reaching freedom in Canada.
From 1840 to 1842, the Free Baptist Biblical School, the first Free Baptist graduate school for training ministers, was located at the seminary. Parsonsfield Seminary burned mysteriously at midnight; the overall account of the burning remains unclear with sources varying on the actual occurrences. When recounting its burning, Oren Burbank Cheney, stated, "the bell tower flickered in flames while the children ran from its pillar-brick walls.." The fire was believed to have killed three school children, two fugitive slaves, leading to a brief and unsuccessful investigation. The reason as to why the Seminary burned down remains unclear, with opponents of abolitionism traditionally, but not definitively, held accountable; the seminary would go on to incorporate into the Maine State Seminary, to which early benefactor Benjamin Bates, would oppose. He advised Cheney to sell the land in Parsonsfield and reconstruct it within the newly-developing Maine State Seminary. Afterward, Cheney moved the central campus to Lewiston in 1854 to replace it with a larger Free Baptist school more centrally located in Maine.
In 1857 a smaller seminary building was rebuilt at Parsonsfield. It had weathervane. In 1889, Bartlett Doe, a wealthy San Francisco businessman, a Parsonsfield native son, purchased the land, donated funds to repair and remodel Seminary Hall, adding its rear wing and front bell tower, his gift provided for the construction of a new dormitory, to which a large annex was added in 1896. He established a school endowment of $100,000. Parsonsfield Seminary closed in 1949; the facility was subsequently used by the Consolidated School District until 1986, at which time the school offices moved to new quarters. The two main buildings of the seminary and grounds were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. To prevent loss of the historic hilltop campus, the Friends of the Parsonsfield Seminary organized to preserve and maintain the property; the non-profit, non-sectarian organization operates the handsome Victorian buildings and grounds for use for weddings, conferences and graduations.
Oren B. Cheney, principal of Parsonfield Seminary, founder of Bates College Person C. Cheney, senator from New Hampshire Samuel W. Gould, congressman Lorenzo De Medici Sweat, congressman Bates College Blazo-Leavitt House Cobb Divinity School Lapham Institute Maine Central Institute Storer College National Register of Historic Places listings in York County, Maine Friends of the Parsonsfield Seminary Robert Greenleaf Leavitt, Maude Lougee Boothby, Dr. Bernard L. Towle, Kate E. Barker Thursto. History of Parsonsfield Seminary: 1932 Centennnial Edition. Musical Spoons at Parsem, Maine
Pension
A pension is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years, from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments. A pension may be a "defined benefit plan" where a fixed sum is paid to a person, or a "defined contribution plan" under which a fixed sum is invested and becomes available at retirement age. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the terms "retirement plan" and "superannuation" tend to refer to a pension granted upon retirement of the individual. Retirement plans may be set up by employers, insurance companies, the government or other institutions such as employer associations or trade unions. Called retirement plans in the United States, they are known as pension schemes in the United Kingdom and Ireland and superannuation plans in Australia and New Zealand. Retirement pensions are in the form of a guaranteed life annuity, thus insuring against the risk of longevity. A pension created by an employer for the benefit of an employee is referred to as an occupational or employer pension.
Labor unions, the government, or other organizations may fund pensions. Occupational pensions are a form of deferred compensation advantageous to employee and employer for tax reasons. Many pensions contain an additional insurance aspect, since they will pay benefits to survivors or disabled beneficiaries. Other vehicles may provide a similar stream of payments; the common use of the term pension is to describe the payments a person receives upon retirement under pre-determined legal or contractual terms. A recipient of a retirement pension is known as a retiree. A retirement plan is an arrangement to provide people with an income during retirement when they are no longer earning a steady income from employment. Retirement plans require both the employer and employee to contribute money to a fund during their employment in order to receive defined benefits upon retirement, it is a tax deferred savings vehicle that allows for the tax-free accumulation of a fund for use as a retirement income. Funding can be provided in other ways, such as from labor unions, government agencies, or self-funded schemes.
Pension plans are therefore a form of "deferred compensation". A SSAS is a type of employment-based Pension in the UK; some countries grant pensions to military veterans. Military pensions are overseen by the government. Ad hoc committees may be formed to investigate specific tasks, such as the U. S. Commission on Veterans' Pensions in 1955–56. Pensions may extend past the death of the veteran himself, continuing to be paid to the widow. Many countries have created funds for their citizens and residents to provide income when they retire; this requires payments throughout the citizen's working life in order to qualify for benefits on. A basic state pension is a "contribution based" benefit, depends on an individual's contribution history. For examples, see National Insurance in the UK, or Social Security in the United States of America. Many countries have put in place a "social pension"; these are tax-funded non-contributory cash transfers paid to older people. Over 80 countries have social pensions.
Some are universal benefits, given to all older people regardless of income, assets or employment record. Examples of universal pensions include New Zealand Superannuation and the Basic Retirement Pension of Mauritius. Most social pensions, are means-tested, such as Supplemental Security Income in the United States of America or the "older person's grant" in South Africa; some pension plans will provide for members in the event they suffer a disability. This may take the form of early entry into a retirement plan for a disabled member below the normal retirement age. Retirement plans may be classified as defined benefit or defined contribution according to how the benefits are determined. A defined benefit plan guarantees a certain payout at retirement, according to a fixed formula which depends on the member's salary and the number of years' membership in the plan. A defined contribution plan will provide a payout at retirement, dependent upon the amount of money contributed and the performance of the investment vehicles utilized.
Hence, with a defined contribution plan the risk and responsibility lies with the employee that the funding will be sufficient through retirement, whereas with the defined benefit plan the risk and responsibility lies with the employer or plan managers. Some types of retirement plans, such as cash balance plans, combine features of both defined benefit and defined contribution plans, they are referred to as hybrid plans. Such plan designs have become popular in the US since the 1990s. Examples include Cash Pension Equity plans. A traditional defined benefit plan is a plan in which the benefit on retirement is determined by a set formula, rather than depending on investment returns. Government pensions such as Social Security in the United States are a type of defined benefit pension plan. Traditionally, defined benefit plans for employers have been administered by institutions which exist for that purpose, by large businesses, or, for government workers, by the government itself. A traditional form
