King Arthur
King Arthur was a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. The details of Arthur's story are composed of folklore and literary invention, his historical existence is debated and disputed by modern historians; the sparse historical background of Arthur is gleaned from various sources, including the Annales Cambriae, the Historia Brittonum, the writings of Gildas. Arthur's name occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin. Arthur is a central figure in the legends making up the Matter of Britain; the legendary Arthur developed as a figure of international interest through the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's fanciful and imaginative 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae. In some Welsh and Breton tales and poems that date from before this work, Arthur appears either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associated with the Welsh otherworld Annwn.
How much of Geoffrey's Historia was adapted from such earlier sources, rather than invented by Geoffrey himself, is unknown. Although the themes and characters of the Arthurian legend varied from text to text, there is no one canonical version, Geoffrey's version of events served as the starting point for stories. Geoffrey depicted Arthur as a king of Britain who established a vast empire. Many elements and incidents that are now an integral part of the Arthurian story appear in Geoffrey's Historia, including Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, the magician Merlin, Arthur's wife Guinevere, the sword Excalibur, Arthur's conception at Tintagel, his final battle against Mordred at Camlann, final rest in Avalon; the 12th-century French writer Chrétien de Troyes, who added Lancelot and the Holy Grail to the story, began the genre of Arthurian romance that became a significant strand of medieval literature. In these French stories, the narrative focus shifts from King Arthur himself to other characters, such as various Knights of the Round Table.
Arthurian literature thrived during the Middle Ages but waned in the centuries that followed until it experienced a major resurgence in the 19th century. In the 21st century, the legend lives on, not only in literature but in adaptations for theatre, television and other media; the historical basis for King Arthur has long been debated by scholars. One school of thought, citing entries in the Historia Brittonum and Annales Cambriae, sees Arthur as a genuine historical figure, a Romano-British leader who fought against the invading Anglo-Saxons some time in the late 5th to early 6th century; the Historia Brittonum, a 9th-century Latin historical compilation attributed in some late manuscripts to a Welsh cleric called Nennius, contains the first datable mention of King Arthur, listing twelve battles that Arthur fought. These culminate in the Battle of Badon. Recent studies, question the reliability of the Historia Brittonum; the other text that seems to support the case for Arthur's historical existence is the 10th-century Annales Cambriae, which link Arthur with the Battle of Badon.
The Annales date this battle to 516–518, mention the Battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut were both killed, dated to 537–539. These details have been used to bolster confidence in the Historia's account and to confirm that Arthur did fight at Badon. Problems have been identified, with using this source to support the Historia Brittonum's account; the latest research shows that the Annales Cambriae was based on a chronicle begun in the late 8th century in Wales. Additionally, the complex textual history of the Annales Cambriae precludes any certainty that the Arthurian annals were added to it that early, they were more added at some point in the 10th century and may never have existed in any earlier set of annals. The Badon entry derived from the Historia Brittonum; this lack of convincing early evidence is the reason many recent historians exclude Arthur from their accounts of sub-Roman Britain. In the view of historian Thomas Charles-Edwards, "at this stage of the enquiry, one can only say that there may well have been an historical Arthur the historian can as yet say nothing of value about him".
These modern admissions of ignorance are a recent trend. The historian John Morris made the putative reign of Arthur the organising principle of his history of sub-Roman Britain and Ireland, The Age of Arthur. So, he found little to say about a historical Arthur. In reaction to such theories, another school of thought emerged which argued that Arthur had no historical existence at all. Morris's Age of Arthur prompted the archaeologist Nowell Myres to observe that "no figure on the borderline of history and mythology has wasted more of the historian's time". Gildas' 6th-century polemic De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, written within living memory of Badon, mentions the battle but does not mention Arthur. Arthur is not mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or named in any surviving manuscript written between 400 and 820, he is absent from Bede's early-8th-century Ecclesiastical History of the English People, another major early source for post-Roman history that mentions Badon. The historian David Dumville wrote: "I think.
He owes his place in our history books to a'no smoke without fire' school of thought... The f
Bitch (magazine)
Bitch is an independent, quarterly magazine published in Portland, Oregon. Its tagline is "a feminist response to pop culture". Bitch is published by the non-profit Bitch Media feminist media organization, dedicated to providing and encouraging an engaged, thoughtful feminist response to mainstream media and popular culture; the magazine includes analysis of current political events and cultural trends, television shows, books, music and artwork from a feminist perspective. It has about 80,000 readers; the first issue of Bitch was a ten-page feature, Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, which started as a zine distributed out of the back of a station wagon in 1996, published in January 1996 in Oakland, California. Today, in addition to the quarterly magazine, they publish daily online articles, weekly podcasts; the founding editors, Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler, along with founding art director Benjamin Shaykin, wanted to create a public forum in which to air thoughts and theories on women and feminist issues, interpreted through the lens of the media and popular culture.
In 2001, a loan from San Francisco's Independent Press Association allowed Jervis and Zeisler to quit their day jobs and work on Bitch full-time and the magazine became a non-profit. Bitch celebrated its 10th anniversary in August 2006 by publishing a Bitch anthology entitled BITCHfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine. Edited by Bitch founders Jervis and Zeisler, BITCHfest includes essays and raves, reviews reprinted from previous issues of Bitch magazine, along with new pieces written for the anthology. In March 2007, Bitch relocated from its offices in Oakland, California, to Oregon; the magazine's 50th issue was published in 2011. That same year, Bitch won an Utne Reader Independent Press Award for Best Social/Cultural Coverage. Bitch Media hosts two Podcasts entitled "Popaganda" hosted by Amy Lam and Sarah Mirk who discuss politics and media. Jervis and Zeisler, Harpo eds. BITCHfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine. New York: Farrar and Giroux.
ISBN 0-374-11343-2 Official website "Bitch Media cofounder Andi Zeisler on the word "Bitch" Guide to the Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture Records at Duke University
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private Ivy League research university located in the University City neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is one of the nine colonial colleges founded prior to the Declaration of Independence and the first institution of higher learning in the United States to refer to itself as a university. Benjamin Franklin, Penn's founder and first president, advocated an educational program that trained leaders in commerce and public service, similar to a modern liberal arts curriculum; the university's coat of arms features a dolphin on its red chief, adopted from Benjamin Franklin's own coat of arms. University of Pennsylvania is home many professional and graduate schools including, the first school of medicine in North America, the first collegiate business school and the first "student union" building and organization were founded at Penn; the university has four undergraduate schools which provide a combined 99 undergraduate majors in the humanities, natural sciences and engineering, as well twelve graduate and professional schools.
It provides the option to pursue specialized dual degree programs. Undergraduate admissions is competitive, with an acceptance rate of 7.44% for the class of 2023, the school is ranked as the 8th best university in the United States by the U. S. News & World Report. In athletics, the Quakers field varsity teams in 33 sports as a member of the NCAA Division I Ivy League conference and hold a total of 210 Ivy League championships as of 2017. In 2018, the university had an endowment of $13.8 billion, the seventh largest endowment of all colleges in the United States, as well as an academic research budget of $966 million. As of 2018, distinguished alumni include 14 heads of 64 billionaire alumni. S. House of Representatives. Other notable alumni include 27 Rhodes Scholars, 15 Marshall Scholarship recipients, 16 Pulitzer Prize winners, 48 Fulbright Scholars. In addition, some 35 Nobel laureates, 169 Guggenheim Fellows, 80 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, many Fortune 500 CEOs have been affiliated with the university.
University of Pennsylvania considers itself the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, though this is contested by Princeton and Columbia Universities. The university considers itself as the first university in the United States with both undergraduate and graduate studies. In 1740, a group of Philadelphians joined together to erect a great preaching hall for the traveling evangelist George Whitefield, who toured the American colonies delivering open air sermons; the building was designed and built by Edmund Woolley and was the largest building in the city at the time, drawing thousands of people the first time it was preached in. It was planned to serve as a charity school as well, but a lack of funds forced plans for the chapel and school to be suspended. According to Franklin's autobiography, it was in 1743 when he first had the idea to establish an academy, "thinking the Rev. Richard Peters a fit person to superintend such an institution". However, Peters declined a casual inquiry from Franklin and nothing further was done for another six years.
In the fall of 1749, now more eager to create a school to educate future generations, Benjamin Franklin circulated a pamphlet titled "Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania", his vision for what he called a "Public Academy of Philadelphia". Unlike the other Colonial colleges that existed in 1749—Harvard, William & Mary and Princeton—Franklin's new school would not focus on education for the clergy, he advocated an innovative concept of higher education, one which would teach both the ornamental knowledge of the arts and the practical skills necessary for making a living and doing public service. The proposed program of study could have become the nation's first modern liberal arts curriculum, although it was never implemented because William Smith, an Anglican priest who became the first provost and other trustees preferred the traditional curriculum. Franklin assembled a board of trustees from among the leading citizens of Philadelphia, the first such non-sectarian board in America.
At the first meeting of the 24 members of the Board of Trustees, the issue of where to locate the school was a prime concern. Although a lot across Sixth Street from the old Pennsylvania State House, was offered without cost by James Logan, its owner, the Trustees realized that the building erected in 1740, still vacant, would be an better site; the original sponsors of the dormant building still owed considerable construction debts and asked Franklin's group to assume their debts and, their inactive trusts. On February 1, 1750, the new board took over the building and trusts of the old board. On August 13, 1751, the "Academy of Philadelphia", using the great hall at 4th and Arch Streets, took in its first secondary students. A charity school was chartered July 13, 1753 in accordance with the intentions of the original "New Building" donors, although it lasted only a few years. On June 16, 1755, the "College of Philadelphia" was chartered, paving the way for the addition of undergraduate instruction.
All three schools shared the same Board of Trustees and were consider
San Mateo, California
San Mateo is a city in San Mateo County, California 20 miles south of San Francisco, 31 miles northwest of San Jose. San Mateo had an estimated 2017 population of 104,748. Documented by Spanish colonists as part of the Rancho de las Pulgas and the Rancho San Mateo, the earliest history is held in the archives of Mission Dolores. In 1789 the Spanish missionaries had named a Native American village along Laurel Creek as Los Laureles or the Laurels. At the time of Mexican Independence, there were 30 native Californians at San Mateo, most from the Salson tribelet. Captain Fredrick W. Beechey in 1827 traveling with the hills on their right, known in that part as the Sierra del Sur, began to approach the road, which passing over a small eminence, opened out upon "a wide country of meadow land, with clusters of fine oak free from underwood… It resembled a nobleman's park: herds of cattle and horses were grazing upon the rich pasture, numerous fallow‑deer, startled at the approach of strangers, bounded off to seek protection among the hills… This spot is named San Matheo, belongs to the mission of San Francisco."
An 1835 sketch map of the Rancho refers to the creek as Arroyo de Los Laureles. In the 21st century, most of the laurels are gone. In 1810 Coyote Point was an early recorded feature of San Mateo. Beginning in the 1850s, some wealthy San Franciscans began building summer or permanent homes in the milder mid-peninsula. While most of this early settlement occurred in adjacent Hillsborough and Burlingame, a number of important mansions and buildings were constructed in San Mateo. A. P. Giannini, founder of the Bank of Italy, lived here most of his life, his mansion, Seven Oaks, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Located at 20 El Cerrito Drive, it has been deteriorating as it has not been preserved or occupied for years. In 1858 Sun Water Station, a stage station of the Butterfield Overland Mail route, was established in San Mateo, it was located 9 miles south of Clarks Station in what is now San Bruno and 9 miles north of the next station at Redwood City. The Howard Estate was built in 1859 on the hill accessed by Crystal Springs Road.
The Parrott Estate was erected in 1860 in the same area, giving rise to two conflicting names for the hill, Howard Hill and Parrot Hill. After use of the automobile changed traffic patterns, neither historic name was applied to that hill; the Borel Estate was developed near Borel Creek in 1874. It has been redeveloped since the late 20th century for use as modern shops; the property is owned by Borel Place Associates and the Borel Estate Company. Hayward Park, the 1880 American Queen Anne-style residence of Alvinza Hayward, was built on an 800-acre estate in San Mateo which included a deer park and racetrack bounded by present-day El Camino Real, 9th Avenue, B Street and 16th Avenue. A smaller portion of the property and the mansion, was converted into The Peninsula Hotel in 1908, following Hayward's death in 1904; the Hotel burned down in a spectacular fire on 25 June 1920. In the early 20th century, Japanese immigrants came to San Mateo to work in the salt ponds and flower industry. Although Japanese-Americans only account for 2.2% of the population today, they continue to be a major cultural influence and a draw for the rest of the region.
The Eugene J. De Sabla Japanese Teahouse and Garden was established in 1894 at 70 De Sabla Road, designed by Makoto Hagiwara, designer of the Japanese garden in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, he arranged for Japanese artisans to be brought to the United States for its teahouse construction. The parcel was purchased in 1988 by San Francisco businessman Achille Paladini and wife Joan, who have restored it; the garden features hundreds of varieties of several rare trees. A large koi pond surrounds an island; the property was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. In December 1967, Sgt. Joe Artavia serving in Vietnam with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division wrote to his sister, Linda Giese, a resident of San Carlos working in San Mateo, asking if San Mateo or San Francisco could adopt the Company, saying that it would bring "the morale of the guys up as high as the clouds". San Mateo passed a resolution on March 4, 1968 adopting Alpha Company and letters and gifts began arriving from the citizens of San Mateo.
Joe would be killed in action on March 24, 1968, less than three weeks after the resolution. Linda would travel to Vietnam to meet with the men of Alpha Company for Christmas in 1968 and deliver personalized medallions from the City of San Mateo. In 1972, San Mateo requested and received permission to have Alpha Company visit the city when they left Vietnam holding a parade in January 1972, believed to be the only parade honoring the military during the Vietnam War. In 1988, Joseph Brazan wrote a screenplay entitled A Dove Among Eagles chronicling the adoption of Alpha Company by San Mateo and the real-life romance between Linda and Artavia's commander, Lt. Stephen Patterson; the city expanded its support to the entire 1st Battalion in 1991, when they were deployed to Kuwait under Operation Desert Storm. The best-known natural area is Coyote Point Park, a rock outcropped peninsula that juts out into the San Francisco Bay; the early Spanish navigators named it la punta de San Mateo. Crews of American carg
Syracuse, New York
Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo and Yonkers. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,252, its metropolitan area had a population of 662,577, it is the economic and educational hub of Central New York, a region with over one million inhabitants. Syracuse is well-provided with convention sites, with a downtown convention complex. Syracuse was named after the classical Greek city Syracuse, a city on the eastern coast of the Italian island of Sicily; the city has functioned as a major crossroads over the last two centuries, first between the Erie Canal and its branch canals of the railway network. Today, Syracuse is at the intersection of Interstates 81 and 90, its airport is the largest in the region. Syracuse is home to Syracuse University, a major research university, as well as Le Moyne College, a nationally recognized liberal arts college. In 2010, Forbes rated Syracuse fourth among the top 10 places in the U.
S. to raise a family. French missionaries were the first Europeans to come to this area, arriving to work with the Native Americans in the 1600s. At the invitation of the Onondaga Nation, one of the five nations of the Iroquois confederacy, a group of Jesuit priests and coureurs des bois set up a mission, known as Sainte Marie among the Iroquois, or Ste. Marie de Gannentaha, on the northeast shore of Onondaga Lake. Jesuit missionaries reported salty brine springs around the southern end of what they referred to as "Salt Lake", known today as Onondaga Lake in honor of the historic tribe. French fur traders established trade throughout the New York area among the Iroquois. Dutch and English colonists were traders, the English nominally claimed the area, from their upstate base at Albany. During the American Revolutionary War, the decentralized Iroquois divided into groups and bands that supported the British, two tribes that supported the American-born rebels, or patriots. Settlers came into central and western New York from eastern parts of the state and New England after the American Revolutionary War and various treaties with and land sales by Native American tribes.
The subsequent designation of this area by the state of New York as the Onondaga Salt Springs Reservation provided the basis for commercial salt production. Such production took place from the late 1700s through the early 1900s. Brine from wells that tapped into halite beds in the Salina shale near Tully, New York, 15 miles south of the city, were developed in the 19th century, it is the north-flowing brine from Tully, the source of salt for the "salty springs" found along the shoreline of Onondaga Lake. The rapid development of this industry in the 18th and 19th centuries led to the nicknaming of this area as "The Salt City"; the original settlement of Syracuse was a conglomeration of several small towns and villages, was not recognized with a post office by the United States Government. Establishing the post office was delayed because the settlement did not have a name. Joshua Forman wanted to name Corinth; when John Wilkinson applied for a post office in that name in 1820, it was denied because the same name was in use in Saratoga County, New York.
Having read a poetical description of Syracuse, Wilkinson saw similarities to the lake and salt springs of this area, which had both "salt and fresh water mingling together". On February 4, 1820, Wilkinson proposed the name "Syracuse" to a group of fellow townsmen; the first Solvay Process Company plant in the United States was erected on the southwestern shore of Onondaga Lake in 1884. The village was called Solvay to commemorate Ernest Solvay. In 1861, he developed the ammonia-soda process for the manufacture of soda ash from brine wells dug in the southern end of Tully valley and limestone; the process was an improvement over the earlier Leblanc process. The Syracuse Solvay plant was the incubator for a large chemical industry complex owned by Allied Signal in Syracuse. While this industry stimulated development and provided many jobs in Syracuse, it left Onondaga Lake as the most polluted in the nation; the salt industry declined after the Civil War. Throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s, numerous businesses and stores were established, including the Franklin Automobile Company, which produced the first air-cooled engine in the world.
The Geneva Medical College was founded in 1834. It is now known as Upstate Medical University, one of four medical colleges in the State University of New York system, one of only five medical schools in the state north of New York City. On March 24, 1870, Syracuse University was founded; the State of New York granted the new university its own charter, independent of Genesee College, which had unsuccessfully tried to move to Syracuse the year before. The university was founded as coeducational. President Peck stated at the opening ceremonies, "The conditions of admission shall be equal to all persons... There shall be no invidious discrimination here against woman.... Brains and heart shall have a fair chance... Syracuse attracted a high proportion of women students. In the College of Liberal Arts, the ratio between
Daughter of the Lioness
The Daughter of the Lioness series by Tamora Pierce is a series of two novels set in the Tortall universe. It is centered on Alianne of Pirate's Swoop, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Tortall's legendary lady knight, Alanna the Lioness, the subject of The Song of the Lioness quartet; the novels take place 24 years after the last book in the quartet, Lioness Rampant. The Copper Isles, the country where most of the series is set, are a group of islands west of Tortall, in the Tortall Universe, they were once ruled over by the native raka, whose inheritance came from the mother's line, who allowed the oldest child to inherit, whatever gender. The Raka are dark-skinned folk. However, the raka were engaged in disputes between tribes, when the luarin—white-skinned invaders from the Eastern Lands, led by Rittevon of Lenman and Ludas Jimajen—arrived, they were able to conquer the raka quickly, they killed the queen, her family, most of the high-ranking nobles. The raka that remained now either belonged to the luarin as slaves, or had to pay to live on luarin land.
The raka wondered why their god, did not come and save them, so priests spread the story that Kyprioth had been defeated in the Divine Realms by his brother and sister and the Great Mother Goddess. However, hope was returned to the raka in the form of a prophecy, which promised that a new half-raka queen would arrive, royal to both the raka, through one well-hidden branch of the last queen's family, to the luarin invaders, through the Rittevon line; when Trickster's Choice opens, the Copper Isles is ruled by an insane king whose heirs include an obese, pleasure-seeking man, a five-year-old boy, a scheming princess, determined to seize power through her power-hungry husband. The Raka and Luarin have intermarried, the majority of the population are mixed bloods. Social status is determined by the color of the people's skin; the Copper Isles is characterized as a place where foods are spiced with hot peppers and other Asian-sounding goods. There is a lot of jungle, though there are many wealthy cities.
Some Lords and Ladies have plantations, which mirror the plantations the American South had before the Emancipation Proclamation. "I proclaim the shallowness of fashion. I scorn those who sway before each breeze of taste that dictates what is stylish in one's dress, or face, or hair. I scoff at the hollowness of life." — Aly Alianne of Pirate's Swoop—normally called Aly—is the daughter of George Cooper, Baron of Pirate's Swoop, second-in-command of his realm's spies. However, far from wanting to follow in her mother's footsteps, the career Aly wishes to follow is her father's. Frustrated with her parents, Aly takes her boat, the "Cub", sails down the coast, but is captured by pirates along the way. Despite being a pretty girl in a bad situation, Aly keeps her head, intentionally getting herself bruised and starving herself so that she won't be bought as a sex slave, she utilizes the self-defense training her father gave her to keep other slaves from bothering her. The pirates try to sell her as a slave in Rajmuat, capital city of the Copper Isles, with no success.
Aly is given away as a general-work slave to the noble Balitang family, which consists of Duke Mequen, his wife Duchess Winnamine, their children Lady Petranne and Lord Elsren, Duke Mequen's two daughters by his first marriage to Duchess Sarugani, Lady Saraiyu and Lady Dovasary. However, shortly after Aly's arrival, the Balitang family falls out of favor with King Oron of the Copper Isles, are forced to sell most of their slaves and household goods; when it is Aly's turn to be reviewed by a slave matcher the Balitangs hire, a god appears to her and the Balitangs. Aly sees the god Kyprioth, the Trickster God and patron of the raka, who wagers her a quick, safe journey home and a recommendation to her father that she begin work as a spy, provided she can keep the Balitang children alive until the autumn equinox. He, posing as his brother—the Great God, Mithros—appears to the Balitangs and tells them to keep Aly as his messenger to them and trust her insights. Aly travels with the Balitangs to the highlands on Lombyn Isle, where they own a fiefdom called Tanair.
There, Kyprioth sends Aly help, in the form of the native crows, after agreeing to spy for her, begin to teach Aly their language. At Tanair, Aly learns of the raka conspiracy: the native raka people of the Copper Islands, led by many of the Balitangs' pure-blood raka servants and slaves, plan to overthrow the luarin invaders who oppressed them centuries ago, put Lady Sarai, on the throne, they believe Sarai, whose father is fourth in line to the luarin throne, whose mother was one of the last descendants of the old raka queens, is the prophesied Twice-Royal Queen who will lead the raka to greatness. Aly figures out the conspiracy and helps indirectly, though she doesn't agrees to join the conspiracy and serve as its spymaster until the next book. Meanwhile, many things happen in the Copper Isles; the Balitangs are visited by Prince Bronau, a close friend of the family who has fallen out of favor with the king, who flirts with Sarai. One of the crows, named Nawat
Northern Illinois University
Northern Illinois University is a public research university in DeKalb, Illinois. It was founded as Northern Illinois State Normal School on May 22, 1895, by Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld as part of an expansion of the state's system for producing college-educated teachers. In addition to the main campus in DeKalb, it has satellite centers in Chicago, Hoffman Estates, Naperville and Oregon The university is composed of seven degree-granting colleges and has a student body of 25,000 with over 240,000 alumni. Many of NIU's programs are nationally accredited for meeting high standards of academic quality, including business, nursing and performing arts, all teacher certification programs. NIU is one of only two public universities in Illinois that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association at the highest levels of all sports, Division I; the university's athletic teams compete in the Mid-American Conference. Northern Illinois University was founded as part of the expansion of the normal school program established in 1857 in Normal, Illinois.
In 1895, the state legislature created a Board of Trustees for the governance of the Northern Illinois State Normal School, which would grow into what is today known as NIU. In July 1917, the Illinois Senate consolidated the boards of trustees for the five state normal schools into one state Normal School Board. Over the next fifty-eight years, the school and the governing board changed their names several times. In 1921, the legislature gave the institution the name Northern Illinois State Teachers College and empowered it to award the four-year Bachelor of Education degree. In 1941, the Normal School Board changed its name to the Teachers College Board. In 1951 the Teachers College Board authorized the college to grant the degree Master of Science in Education, the institution's Graduate School was established. On July 1, 1955, the state legislature renamed the college Northern Illinois State College and authorized the college to broaden its educational services by offering academic work in areas other than teacher education.
The Teachers College Board granted permission for the college to add curricula leading to the degrees Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science. On July 1, 1957, the Seventieth General Assembly renamed Northern Illinois State College as Northern Illinois University in recognition of its expanded status as a liberal arts university. In 1965, the Illinois State Teachers College Board became the Board of Governors of State Colleges and Universities and was reorganized to include Northeastern University, Governor's State, Chicago State Universities. In 1967 authority for Northern Illinois University, Illinois State University, Sangamon State University were passed on to a newly formed Board of Regents. In 1984, the Board of Regents created the position of Chancellor for the three regent universities, to act as a chief executive for all three schools; the Board of Regents and the Chancellor governed the three Regency universities until the end of 1995. On January 1, 1996, authority for each of the three regency universities was transferred to three independent Boards of Trustees, each concerned with one university.
On February 14, 2008, the university drew international attention when a gunman opened fire in a crowd of students on campus, killing five students and injuring 17 more people, before fatally shooting himself. 13 presidents have served at the university. NIU has seven degree-granting colleges that together offer more than 60 undergraduate majors, 70 minors, nine pre-professional programs, 79 graduate programs, including a College of Law, over 20 areas of study leading to doctoral degrees. Many of NIU's academic programs are nationally accredited for meeting the highest standards of academic quality and rigor, including business, nursing and performing arts, all teacher certification programs. New interdisciplinary academic programs in Environmental Studies and Community Leadership and Civic Engagement were established in FY 2012. Northern Illinois University was ranked the 30th top college in the United States by Payscale and CollegeNet's Social Mobility Index college rankings. NIU is classified as a "National University" by U.
S. News & World Report. In the most recent 2014 edition, NIU was ranked number 177 out of 206 ranked National Universities; the same publication ranks NIU as 41st best in the country for Public Affairs programs, within that field, NIU's program in City Management & Urban Policy is ranked 3rd in the nation and the Public Finance & Budgeting program at 12th. Carnegie categorizes Northern as: "RU/H: Research Universities. Washington Monthly ranks NIU as the 135th National University in the United States, making it the 3rd highest ranked public university in Illinois. Forbes magazine, which began publishing an annual list in 2008, prepared by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, of "America's Best Colleges", uses the list of alumni published in Who's Who in America, student evaluations from RateMyProfessors.com, self-reported salaries of alumni from PayScale, four-year graduation rates, numbers of students and faculty receiving "nationally competitive awards," and four-year accumulated student debt to calculate the rankings, placed NIU as number 561 on its list.
NIU is a member of the Association of Land-Grant Universities. NIU is a member of the prominent Universities Research Ass
