University of St. Thomas (Minnesota)
The University of St. Thomas is a private, Roman Catholic, liberal arts, archdiocesan university located in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded in 1885 as a Catholic seminary, it is named after Thomas Aquinas, the medieval Catholic theologian and philosopher, the patron saint of students. St. Thomas enrolls nearly 10,000 students, making it Minnesota's largest private, non-profit university. Julie Sullivan became its 15th president in 2013. Founded in 1885 by John Ireland, archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, St. Thomas began as an all-male, Catholic seminary. In 1894, the liberal arts program became an independent college through a gift from local railroad tycoon James J. Hill, who provided funds to establish the Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity apart from the college. In 1903, the College of St. Thomas established a military program on campus, it was termed a military school by the U. S. War Department in 1906; the school gave out two-year diplomas in commercial and classical programs before awarding its first academic degrees in 1915.
In 1922, military training became optional. From the late 1920s through the mid-1930s, the Holy Cross Fathers, who run the University of Notre Dame, controlled the college's administration; the diocese called. During World War II, St. Thomas served as a training base for naval officers, which kept the school open when men who would have attended college were fighting in the war. After the war, in 1948, the college established "Tom Town" on the eastern end of the lower quadrant, the site to the O'Shaughnessey-Frey Library and O'Shaughnessey Education Center. Tom Town, made of 20 double-dwelling huts, consisted of white, barrack-like housing units for faculty and their families; the units helped to meet housing demand after World War II. In the latter half of the 20th century, St. Thomas started two of its most notable graduate programs: Education in 1950 and Business Administration in 1974; the school became co-educational in 1977 and although women were not allowed to enroll until female students from St. Catherine University took classes at St. Thomas.
Women were present as instructors and administrators on campus but the staff and administration has seen a vast increase in female employment since the move to co-education. In 1990, the College of St. Thomas became the University of St. Thomas and the following year, the university opened the Minneapolis campus. In 2001, St. Thomas reinstated its School of Law at its Minneapolis Campus. U. S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was the speaker at the Grand Opening; the St. Paul campus is home to most undergraduate students; the main campus, built on a farm site once considered "far removed from town", is located where St. Paul's Summit Avenue meets the Mississippi River; the site was farmed by ex-Fort Snelling soldier William Finn, who received the property as a pension settlement after he accidentally shot himself in the hand while on guard duty. The western edge of the campus borders the Mississippi Gorge Regional Park. Summit Avenue, which runs through the middle of the campus, is the country's longest span of Victorian homes.
This tree-lined avenue includes the Governor's Mansion, F. Scott Fitzgerald's townhome, James J. Hill's mansion. In 2005, a new apartment-style residence hall was built on an existing parking lot. McNeely Hall was built the following year, it is a large classroom building for business. A new residential village, more parking ramps, general planning all have been negotiated with the surrounding neighborhood; these developments are expected to begin within the next five years. In early 2012, St. Thomas completed the final stage of its three building expansion on the St. Paul campus; the two main additions that were completed are the Anderson Athletic and Recreation Center and the Anderson Student Center. These projects were completed in the summer of January 2012, respectively; the Anderson Athletic and Recreation Center has a field house, basketball arena, weight room, swimming pool. The track in the field house is home to the most dominant track team in the MIAC conference. Other St. Thomas sports that use the AARC's facilities have had recent success, including a playoff run for the football team, a national championship for the men's basketball team.
The new Anderson Student Center is home to new food venues as well as entertainment options including a game room and a bowling alley, a coffee shop. An art gallery on the second floor is home to the American Museum of Asmat Art. In fall 1992, the university opened a permanent, 150,000 square feet campus at 1000 LaSalle Ave. in Minneapolis. The first building, named Terrence Murphy Hall in May 2000, is headquarters to the university's Opus College of Business. Artist Mark Balma created one of the largest frescoes in the United States on the arched ceiling of its atrium; the seven-panel, 1,904 square feet fresco was completed in the summer of 1994 and portrays the seven virtues discussed in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas; the Minneapolis campus holds St. Thomas' School of Education, the School of Law, Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. On May 15, 2014, it was announced that the Daniel C. Gainey Conference Center was sold to Meridian Behavioral Health, LLC with a plan to convert it to a treatment facility for addiction and behavioral disorders.
The deal closed in August 2014. The deal included th
Chicago American Gears
The Chicago American Gears were a National Basketball League team who played from 1944 to 1947. They are notable in professional basketball history for two things. First, they were the rookie year pro team of basketball legend George Mikan. Mikan had starred at local DePaul University as a collegian. After holding out for several weeks for money he felt owed him by the Gears, Mikan joined the team early enough to help them finish with a third-place record in the West Division of the 10-team National Basketball League that season. Nearly seven feet tall, Mikan led playoff upsets for the Gears over three teams en route to the 1947 NBL Championship widely considered the most prestigious title in pro basketball. Secondly, Gears owner Maurice White was so impressed with Mikan that, after winning the 1947 NBL title, he announced he was leaving the NBL to form his own league, the ambitious 24-team Professional Basketball League of America. Start-up costs proved prohibitive and crowds for PBLA games were very small.
After several weeks the entire league collapsed, with the Gears folding as well. Previous to their NBL pro success, the Gears had been a notable AAU team
Detroit Pistons
The Detroit Pistons are an American professional basketball team based in Detroit, Michigan. The Pistons compete in the National Basketball Association as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central Division and plays its home games at Little Caesars Arena; the team was founded in Fort Wayne, Indiana as the Fort Wayne Pistons in 1941, a member of the National Basketball League where it won two NBL championships: in 1944 and 1945. The Pistons joined the Basketball Association of America in 1948; the NBL and BAA merged to become the NBA in 1949, the Pistons became part of the merged league. Since moving to Detroit in 1957, the Pistons have won three NBA championships: in 1989, 1990 and 2004; the Detroit Pistons franchise was founded as the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons, a National Basketball League team, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Owner Fred Zollner's Zollner Corporation was a foundry that manufactured pistons for car and locomotive engines; the Zollner Pistons were NBL champions in 1944 and 1945.
They won the World Professional Basketball Tournament in 1944, 1945 and 1946. In 1948, the team became the Fort Wayne Pistons. In 1949, Fred Zollner brokered the formation of the National Basketball Association from the BAA and the NBL at his kitchen table. There are suggestions that Pistons players conspired with gamblers to shave points and throw various games during the 1953–54 and 1954–55 seasons. In particular, there are accusations that the team may have intentionally lost the 1955 NBA Finals to the Syracuse Nationals. In the decisive Game 7, the Pistons led 41–24 early in the second quarter before the Nationals rallied to win the game; the Nationals won on a free throw by George King with twelve seconds left in the game. The closing moments included a palming turnover by the Pistons' George Yardley with 18 seconds left, a foul by Frank Brian with 12 seconds left that enabled King's winning free throw, a turnover by the Pistons' Andy Phillip in the final seconds which cost them a chance to attempt the game winning shot.
Though the Pistons enjoyed a solid local following, Fort Wayne's small size made it difficult for them to be profitable as other early NBA teams based in smaller cities started folding or relocating to larger markets. After the 1956–57 season, Zollner decided that Fort Wayne was too small to support an NBA team and announced the team would be playing elsewhere in the coming season, he settled on Detroit. Although it was the fifth largest city in the United States at the time, Detroit had not seen professional basketball in a decade, they lost the Detroit Eagles due to World War II, both the Detroit Gems of the NBL and the Detroit Falcons of the BAA in 1947, the Detroit Vagabond Kings in 1949. Zollner decided to keep the Pistons name, believing it made sense given Detroit's status as the center of the automobile industry; the Pistons played in Olympia Stadium for their first four seasons moved to Cobo Arena. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Pistons were characterized by strong individuals and weak teams.
Some of the superstars who played for the team included Dave DeBusschere, Dave Bing, Bob Lanier. At one point, DeBusschere was the youngest player-coach in the history of the NBA. A trade during the 1968–69 season sent DeBusschere to the New York Knicks for Howard Komives and Walt Bellamy, both of whom were in the stages of their careers. DeBusschere became a key player in leading the Knicks to two NBA titles. In 1974, Zollner sold the team to glass magnate Bill Davidson, who remained the team's principal owner until his death in 2009. While the Pistons did qualify for the postseason in four straight seasons from 1974 to 1977, they never had any real sustained success. In 1978, Davidson became displeased with Cobo Arena, but opted not to follow the Red Wings to the under-construction Joe Louis Arena. Instead, he moved the team to the suburb of Pontiac, where they played in the 82,000 capacity Silverdome, a structure built for professional football; the Pistons stumbled their way out of the 1970s and into the 1980s, beginning with a 16–66 record in 1979–80 and following up with a 21–61 record in 1980–81.
The 1979–80 team lost its last 14 games of the season which, when coupled with the seven losses at the start of the 1980–81 season, comprised a then-NBA record losing streak of 21 games. The franchise's fortunes began to turn in 1981, when they drafted point guard Isiah Thomas from Indiana University. In November 1981, the Pistons acquired Vinnie Johnson in a trade with the Seattle SuperSonics, they would acquire center Bill Laimbeer in a trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers in February 1982. Another key move by the Pistons was the hiring of head coach Chuck Daly in 1983; the Pistons had a tough time moving up the NBA ladder. In 1984, the Pistons lost a tough five-game series to the underdog New York Knicks, 3–2. In the 1985 playoffs, Detroit won its first-round series and faced the defending champion Boston Celtics in the conference semifinals. Though Boston would prevail in six games, Detroit's surprise performance promised that a rivalry had begun. In the 1985 NBA draft, the team selected Joe Dumars 18th overall, a selection that would prove to be wise.
They acquired Rick Mahorn in a trade with the Washington Bullets. However, the team took a step backwards, losing in the first round of the 1986 playoffs to the more athletic Atlanta Hawks. After the series, changes were made in order to make the team more defensive-minded. Prior to the 1986–87 season, the Pistons acquired more key players: John Salley (
Minnesota Golden Gophers men's basketball
Minnesota Golden Gophers men's basketball team represents the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus. The Golden Gophers have played in the Big Ten since the conference began sponsoring basketball in 1905 and play their home games in Williams Arena; the Gophers had great success in the early years of basketball, but have been overshadowed by other programs since the end of World War I. In total, the Gophers have won nine Big Ten championships, but only four since 1919. College basketball research organizations have retroactively awarded Minnesota national championships in 1902, 1903, 1919; the team has had several instances of NCAA sanctions on the program that have affected performance and recruiting. In the 1970s, the Gophers were in a violent brawl with the Ohio State Buckeyes and were barred from post-season appearances for two seasons after an incident involving the illegal resale of tickets. Still more severe was the mid-1990s academic scandal under then-coach Clem Haskins that resulted in the forfeit of a Final Four appearance.
The Gophers team formed without any organized coach. L. J. Cooke took over the team in 1897. Cooke was put on the University payroll on a part-time basis in early 1897 and full-time by the fall. Cooke remained the coach of the Gophers for 28 seasons, his.649 winning percentage is the second highest in school history. Dave MacMillan, who coached the team from 1927 to 1942 and 1945 to 1948, had the second longest tenure as coach at 18 seasons. John Wooden succeeded McMillan as Gophers head coach; the Gophers have had several NBA coaches grace the sidelines. John Kundla took over as Gophers head coach. George Hanson was assistant coach under both Kundla and Fitch and was head coach for the 1970-71 season. Bill Fitch and Bill Musselman both coached the team for a couple seasons before departing for the NBA and ABA where each had success and coached for many years; the program has had a fair degree of stability with their coaching staff. Tubby Smith became the 16th head coach in Gopher basketball history when hired in 2007.
Five coaches led the team for more than 10 seasons: Cooke, McMillan, O. B. Cowles, Jim Dutcher, Clem Haskins. On March 25, 2013, Tubby Smith was fired after failing to reach the Sweet Sixteen again; the Gophers hired Richard Pitino on April 3, 2013. The Golden Gophers have had many successful players come through the program throughout its history. In the early years of basketball, when the Gophers had success, they recruited some of the best players in the country. George Tuck was a dominant center, the first All-America for the Gophers in 1905. Frank Lawler was another early star: he led the Big Ten in scoring in 1911 and was named to the All-America team, helped the Gophers to a contested conference title. In 1950, Lawler was named the greatest player in Gopher basketball history, but the subsequent decades of Gopher basketball have forgotten his legacy. Hall of Fame coach John Kundla was a Gophers star and helped lead the team to its 1937 Big Ten Championship. With the decline of the stature of the Gophers program, fewer elite players have joined the team.
The diminished reputation has not, prevented some superior athletes from coming to the Minneapolis campus. Lou Hudson had his number retired. Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield played for the Gophers in the early 1970s, he played at the same time as star post player Jim Brewer. Mychal Thompson was the first overall pick in the 1978 NBA Draft. Among Thompson's teammates were former Minnesota Timberwolves, Detroit Pistons and Washington Wizards head coach Flip Saunders, as well as basketball hall of fame forward Kevin McHale. Trent Tucker led the 1982 squad to the Big Ten Championship. Voshon Lenard was a key player for the Gophers in the early 1990s and went on to play more than a decade in the NBA. Willie Burton once scored 53 points in an NBA game with the Philadelphia 76ers. Other former Gophers with long NBA careers include Randy Breuer, Mark Olberding, Archie Clark, Jim Petersen, Ray Williams. Five players from the 1997 Final Four team played in the NBA: Bobby Jackson, Sam Jacobson, Quincy Lewis, John Thomas, Trevor Winter.
No former Gophers play in the NBA. Jamal Abu-Shamala, a Jordanian-American, plays internationally for the Jordan national basketball team; this roster is current for the 2018–19 men's basketball season. The precise founding of the Gophers men's basketball program at the University of Minnesota is somewhat nebulous. Unlike many other universities with foundations, the team did not form as a conscious act of the campus administration; the University's student newspaper at the time, the Ariel, reported on basketball throughout 1895 as the sport was introduced to the campus from a rival school, Minnesota A&M in St. Paul incorporated into the larger University of Minnesota Twin Cities. In 1896, a team from the school began to participate in a league with the Agriculture school, YMCA teams, other local associations; the establishment of the Armory on-campus gave the team a new place to play. In February 1897, L. J. Cooke, a director of the Minneapolis YMCA, was hired on a part-time basis to coach the basketball program, became the full-time coach and director of physical education by the fall of that year.
Cooke was one of the first full-time professional coaches in all of college basketball and would remain at the program for 28 seasons. Cooke began to
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is a men's professional basketball league in North America. It is considered to be the premier men's professional basketball league in the world; the NBA is an active member of USA Basketball, recognized by FIBA as the national governing body for basketball in the United States. The NBA is one of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. NBA players are the world's best paid athletes by average annual salary per player; the league was founded in New York City on June 1946, as the Basketball Association of America. The league adopted the name National Basketball Association on August 3, 1949, after merging with the competing National Basketball League; the league's several international as well as individual team offices are directed out of its head offices located in the Olympic Tower at 645 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. NBA Entertainment and NBA TV studios are directed out of offices located in New Jersey; the Basketball Association of America was founded in 1946 by owners of the major ice hockey arenas in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and Canada.
On November 1, 1946, in Toronto, Canada, the Toronto Huskies hosted the New York Knickerbockers at Maple Leaf Gardens, in a game the NBA now refers to as the first game played in NBA history. The first basket was made by Ossie Schectman of the Knickerbockers. Although there had been earlier attempts at professional basketball leagues, including the American Basketball League and the NBL, the BAA was the first league to attempt to play in large arenas in major cities. During its early years, the quality of play in the BAA was not better than in competing leagues or among leading independent clubs such as the Harlem Globetrotters. For instance, the 1948 ABL finalist Baltimore Bullets moved to the BAA and won that league's 1948 title, the 1948 NBL champion Minneapolis Lakers won the 1949 BAA title. Prior to the 1948–49 season, however, NBL teams from Fort Wayne, Indianapolis and Rochester jumped to the BAA, which established the BAA as the league of choice for collegians looking to turn professional.
On August 3, 1949, the remaining NBL teams–Syracuse, Tri-Cities, Sheboygan and Waterloo–merged into the BAA. In deference to the merger and to avoid possible legal complications, the league name was changed to the present National Basketball Association though the merged league retained the BAA's governing body, including Podoloff. To this day, the NBA claims the BAA's history as its own, it now reckons the arrival of the NBL teams as an expansion, not a merger, does not recognize NBL records and statistics. The new league had seventeen franchises located in a mix of large and small cities, as well as large arenas and smaller gymnasiums and armories. In 1950, the NBA consolidated to eleven franchises, a process that continued until 1953–54, when the league reached its smallest size of eight franchises: the New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, Philadelphia Warriors, Minneapolis Lakers, Rochester Royals, Fort Wayne Pistons, Tri-Cities Blackhawks, Syracuse Nationals, all of which remain in the league today.
The process of contraction saw. The Hawks shifted from the Tri-Cities to Milwaukee in 1951, to St. Louis in 1955; the Rochester Royals moved from Rochester, New York, to Cincinnati in 1957 and the Pistons relocated from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Detroit in 1957. Japanese-American Wataru Misaka broke the NBA color barrier in the 1947–48 season when he played for the New York Knicks, he remained the only non-white player in league history prior to the first African-American, Harold Hunter, signing with the Washington Capitols in 1950. Hunter was cut from the team during training camp, but several African-American players did play in the league that year, including Chuck Cooper with the Celtics, Nathaniel "Sweetwater" Clifton with the Knicks, Earl Lloyd with the Washington Capitols. During this period, the Minneapolis Lakers, led by center George Mikan, won five NBA Championships and established themselves as the league's first dynasty. To encourage shooting and discourage stalling, the league introduced the 24-second shot clock in 1954.
If a team does not attempt to score a field goal within 24 seconds of obtaining the ball, play is stopped and the ball given to its opponent. In 1957, rookie center Bill Russell joined the Boston Celtics, which featured guard Bob Cousy and coach Red Auerbach, went on to lead the club to eleven NBA titles in thirteen seasons. Center Wilt Chamberlain entered the league with the Warriors in 1959 and became a dominant individual star of the 1960s, setting new single game records in scoring and rebounding. Russell's rivalry with Chamberlain became one of the greatest rivalries in the history of American team sports; the 1960s were dominated by the Celtics. Led by Russell, Bob Cousy and coach Red Auerbach, Boston won eight straight championships in the NBA from 1959 to 1966; this championship streak is the longest in NBA history. They did not win the title in 1966–67, but regained it in the 1967–68 season and repeated in 1969; the domination totaled nine of the ten championship banners of the 1960s.
Through this period, the NBA continued to evolve with the shift of the Minneapolis Lakers to Los Angeles, the Philadelphia Warriors to San Francisco, the Syracuse Nationals to Philadelphia to become the Philadelphia 76ers, the St. Louis Hawks moving to Atlanta, as well as the addition of its first expansion franchises; the Chicago Packers (now Wa
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball through the defender's hoop while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own hoop. A field goal is worth two points, unless made from behind the three-point line, when it is worth three. After a foul, timed play stops and the player fouled or designated to shoot a technical foul is given one or more one-point free throws; the team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but if regulation play expires with the score tied, an additional period of play is mandated. Players advance the ball by bouncing it while walking or running or by passing it to a teammate, both of which require considerable skill. On offense, players may use a variety of shots -- a dunk, it is a violation to lift or drag one's pivot foot without dribbling the ball, to carry it, or to hold the ball with both hands resume dribbling.
The five players on each side at a time fall into five playing positions: the tallest player is the center, the tallest and strongest is the power forward, a shorter but more agile big man is the small forward, the shortest players or the best ball handlers are the shooting guard and the point guard, who implements the coach's game plan by managing the execution of offensive and defensive plays. Informally, players may play three-on-three, two-on-two, one-on-one. Invented in 1891 by Canadian-American gym teacher James Naismith in Springfield, United States, basketball has evolved to become one of the world's most popular and viewed sports; the National Basketball Association is the most significant professional basketball league in the world in terms of popularity, salaries and level of competition. Outside North America, the top clubs from national leagues qualify to continental championships such as the Euroleague and FIBA Americas League; the FIBA Basketball World Cup and Men's Olympic Basketball Tournament are the major international events of the sport and attract top national teams from around the world.
Each continent hosts regional competitions for national teams, like FIBA AmeriCup. The FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup and Women's Olympic Basketball Tournament feature top national teams from continental championships; the main North American league is the WNBA, whereas strongest European clubs participate in the EuroLeague Women. In early December 1891, Canadian James Naismith, a physical education professor and instructor at the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School in Springfield, was trying to keep his gym class active on a rainy day, he sought a vigorous indoor game to keep his students occupied and at proper levels of fitness during the long New England winters. After rejecting other ideas as either too rough or poorly suited to walled-in gymnasiums, he wrote the basic rules and nailed a peach basket onto a 10-foot elevated track. In contrast with modern basketball nets, this peach basket retained its bottom, balls had to be retrieved manually after each "basket" or point scored.
Basketball was played with a soccer ball. These round balls from "association football" were made, at the time, with a set of laces to close off the hole needed for inserting the inflatable bladder after the other sewn-together segments of the ball's cover had been flipped outside-in; these laces could dribbling to be unpredictable. A lace-free ball construction method was invented, this change to the game was endorsed by Naismith; the first balls made for basketball were brown, it was only in the late 1950s that Tony Hinkle, searching for a ball that would be more visible to players and spectators alike, introduced the orange ball, now in common use. Dribbling was not part of the original game except for the "bounce pass" to teammates. Passing the ball was the primary means of ball movement. Dribbling was introduced but limited by the asymmetric shape of early balls. Dribbling was common by 1896, with a rule against the double dribble by 1898; the peach baskets were used until 1906 when they were replaced by metal hoops with backboards.
A further change was soon made, so the ball passed through. Whenever a person got the ball in the basket, his team would gain a point. Whichever team got; the baskets were nailed to the mezzanine balcony of the playing court, but this proved impractical when spectators in the balcony began to interfere with shots. The backboard was introduced to prevent this interference. Naismith's handwritten diaries, discovered by his granddaughter in early 2006, indicate that he was nervous about the new game he had invented, which incorporated rules from a children's game called duck on a rock, as many had failed before it. Frank Mahan, one of the players from the original
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota. The Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses are 3 miles apart, the St. Paul campus is in neighboring Falcon Heights, it is the oldest and largest campus within the University of Minnesota system and has the sixth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 50,943 students in 2018-19. The university is the flagship institution of the University of Minnesota system, is organized into 19 colleges and schools, with sister campuses in Crookston, Duluth and Rochester; the University of Minnesota is one of America's Public Ivy universities, which refers to top public universities in the United States capable of providing a collegiate experience comparable with the Ivy League. Founded in 1851, The University of Minnesota is categorized as a Doctoral University – Highest Research Activity in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Minnesota is a member of the Association of American Universities and is ranked 14th in research activity with $881 million in research and development expenditures in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2015.
The University of Minnesota faculty and researchers have won 30 Nobel Prizes and three Pulitzer Prizes. Notable University of Minnesota alumni include two Vice Presidents of the United States, Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, Bob Dylan, who received the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature; the university organization structure consists of 19 colleges and other major academic units: The university has six university-wide interdisciplinary centers and institutes whose work crosses collegiate lines: Center for Cognitive Sciences Consortium on Law and Values in Health and the Life Sciences Institute for Advanced Study at University of Minnesota Institute for Translational Neuroscience Institute on the Environment Minnesota Population Center In 2018, Minnesota was ranked 37th in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2015 ranks Minnesota 46th in the world; the Center for World University Rankings ranked the university 35th in the world and 25th in the United States in 2018.
In 2016, the Nature Index ranked Minnesota 34th in the world based on research publication data from 2015. In 2015, Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked the university 11th in the world for mathematics; the University of Minnesota is ranked 14 overall among the nation's top research universities by the Center for Measuring University Performance. The university's research and development expenditures ranked 13th–15th among U. S. academic institutions in the 2010 through 2015 National Science Foundation reports. The U. S. News & World Report's 2016 rankings placed the undergraduate program of the university as the 69th-best National University in the United States, it ranked the Chemical Engineering program third-best, the Doctor of Pharmacy program third best, the Economics PhD program tenth, Psychology eighth, Statistics sixteenth, Audiology ninth, the University of Minnesota Medical School 6th for primary care and 34th for research. The Law School recognized as a'Top Law School' by U.
S. News & World Report, is ranked 20th in the nation, is a national leader in commercial law, international law, clinical education. Additionally, nineteen of the university's graduate-school departments have been ranked in the nation's top-twenty by the U. S. National Research Council. In 2008 and 2012 U. S. News & World Report ranked the College of Pharmacy 2nd in the nation. 2016 U. S. News & Report now rank the College of Pharmacy 2nd in the nation. In 2011, U. S. News & World Report ranked the School of Public Health 8th in the nation, home to the 2nd ranked program for the Master of Healthcare Administration degree; the University of Minnesota ranked 19th in NIH funding in 2008. Minnesota is listed as a "Public Ivy" in 2001 Greenes' Guides The Public Ivies: America's Flagship Public Universities. U. S. News & World Report has ranked the Nursing Informatics program of University of Minnesota as 2nd best in the nation; the university is known for innovation in research. The inventions by students and faculty have ranged from food science to health technologies.
Most of the public research funding in Minnesota is funneled to the University of Minnesota as a result of long standing advocacy by the university itself. The university developed Gopher, a precursor to the World Wide Web which used hyperlinks to connect documents across computers on the internet. However, the version produced by CERN was favored by the public since it was distributed and could more handle multimedia webpages; the university houses the Charles Babbage Institute, a research and archive center specializing in computer history. The department has strong roots in the early days of supercomputing with Seymour Cray of Cray supercomputers; the university became a member of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory in 2007, has led data analysis projects searching for gravitational waves – the existence of which were confirmed by scientists in February 2016. Puffed rice – Alexander P. Anderson led to the discovery of "puffed rice", a starting point for a new breakfast cereal advertised as "Food Shot From Guns".
Transistorized cardiac pacemaker – Earl Bakken founded Medtronic, where he developed the first external, battery-operated, wearable artificial pacemaker in 1957. ATP synthase – Paul D. Boyer elucidated the enzymatic mechanism for synthesis of adenosine triphosphate, leading to a Nobel Prize in 1997
