139 Fun Facts About College & University

Which university, teaching since around 1088, is regarded as the oldest in continuous operation?

The University of Bologna, teaching since about 1088, is the oldest in continuous operation; in 1988 rectors from across Europe signed the Magna Charta Universitatum there for its 900th anniversary.

In which city is al-Qarawiyyin, founded in 859 and cited by UNESCO as the world's oldest higher-learning institution?

Al-Qarawiyyin is in Fez, Morocco; founded by Fatima al-Fihri in 859, it became a leading centre of learning in the Islamic Golden Age.

The word 'university' comes from the Latin universitas, meaning what?

The full phrase universitas magistrorum et scholarium meant a community of teachers and scholars.

Teaching at Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world, is documented as early as which year?

Teaching at Oxford is documented as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world; a legend that Alfred the Great founded it was long believed.

Which Oxford college did Cardinal Wolsey found in 1525 as Cardinal College?

Christ Church began as Wolsey's Cardinal College in 1525; after his fall Henry VIII refounded it in 1546 as Christ Church, whose chapel doubles as Oxford's cathedral.

In which year was the University of Cambridge founded by scholars who had fled Oxford?

Cambridge was founded in 1209 by scholars who left Oxford after the town hanged two students following a local woman's death.

In which year was Harvard, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, founded?

Harvard was founded in 1636 by a vote of the Massachusetts Bay Colony's legislature; it took its name in 1639 from clergyman John Harvard, who left it half his estate and his library.

Harvard's Widener Library honours an alumnus who died in the sinking of which ship?

Harry Elkins Widener, Harvard class of 1907, died on the Titanic in 1912; his mother Eleanor funded Widener Library in his memory, and it opened in 1915.

America's second-oldest college, chartered in 1693 and named for William III and Mary II, is in which state?

The College of William & Mary is in Williamsburg, Virginia; chartered in 1693, it educated Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and John Tyler.

Yale, founded in 1701, took its name in 1718 from Elihu Yale, who was asked for money to do what?

Cotton Mather asked Elihu Yale to help construct a new building in New Haven; Yale sent goods that sold for £562, and the college took his name in 1718.

Which Yale secret society meets in a windowless Egypto-Doric 'tomb' built in 1856?

Skull and Bones, founded in 1832, has met since 1856 in its windowless 'Tomb' on High Street in New Haven; members have included William Howard Taft and both Presidents Bush.

Princeton was founded in 1746 under what name?

Princeton was chartered in 1746 as the College of New Jersey and took its present name in 1896; bronze tigers have flanked Nassau Hall's entrance since 1911.

How many universities make up the Ivy League?

Eight: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale; the name became official in 1954 when the athletic conference was formed.

Which is the only Ivy League school not founded during the colonial period?

Cornell was chartered in 1865, after the Civil War; the other seven Ivies were all founded as colonial colleges before the Revolution.

Stanford University was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford in memory of whom?

Leland Stanford Jr, their only child, died of typhoid in 1884 aged 15; the university opened on the family's Palo Alto farm in 1891.

Which Stanford provost is called a "father of Silicon Valley" for urging students to start local tech firms?

Frederick Terman, Stanford's engineering dean and later provost, pushed students such as Hewlett and Packard to found firms nearby, earning the title 'father of Silicon Valley'.

MIT was founded in 1861 by which geologist?

Geologist William Barton Rogers secured MIT's Massachusetts charter in 1861 to teach applied science; classes began in 1865 after the Civil War.

In what year was the Rhodes Scholarship, which funds postgraduate study at Oxford, established?

The Rhodes Scholarship was created in 1902 under the will of Cecil Rhodes, who died that March; the first scholars came up to Oxford in 1903.

The 1862 Morrill Act created which kind of American college?

The Morrill Act gave each state federal land to endow land-grant colleges teaching agriculture, engineering and military tactics alongside classical studies.

Which Indian city's university was founded in 1857, the same year as Bombay and Madras?

The University of Calcutta was founded in January 1857, months before Bombay and Madras; the three were modelled on the University of London as examining bodies.

What does the Latin phrase 'alma mater' literally mean?

Alma mater is Latin for 'nourishing mother'; Romans used it for goddesses such as Ceres, and Cambridge's old printer's device shows 'Alma Mater Cantabrigia' as a nursing figure.

Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest academic honour society in the US, was founded in 1776 at which college?

Five students held the first meeting on December 5, 1776; chapters reached Harvard and Yale in 1779.

The Kappa Alpha Society, the first purely social college fraternity, was founded in 1825 where?

Kappa Alpha Society was founded at Union College in Schenectady, New York, in November 1825; Union is nicknamed the 'Mother of Fraternities' for it and its successors.

The word 'campus', first used academically at Princeton in 1774, is Latin for what?

Campus is Latin for 'field'; at Princeton in 1774 it referred to the open field in front of Nassau Hall, and the usage spread to other colleges.

Which ancient Buddhist centre in Bihar is called the world's first residential university?

Nalanda, near Rajgir in Bihar, was founded under the Gupta king Kumaragupta I in the 5th century and housed thousands of monks until it was sacked around 1200.

Which is Germany's oldest university, founded in 1386?

Heidelberg, founded in 1386, is Germany's oldest university and was the third in the Holy Roman Empire after Prague (1348) and Vienna (1365).

The Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race, first held in 1829, is rowed on which river?

The Boat Race is rowed on the Thames in London over the 4.2-mile course from Putney to Mortlake; the first race, in 1829, was held at Henley.

In which year did the Boat Race famously end in a dead heat?

The 1877 race was declared a dead heat by finish judge 'Honest John' Phelps; Oxford always maintained they had won by several feet.

For much of its history, what did the letters SAT stand for?

It was the Scholastic Aptitude Test from its first sitting until 1990, briefly the Scholastic Assessment Test, and the College Board later declared the letters stand for nothing.

In what year was the first SAT administered?

The first SAT was given on June 23, 1926 to about 8,000 students; psychologist Carl Brigham adapted it from the Army's First World War intelligence tests.

The term MOOC, for massive open online course, was coined in which year?

Dave Cormier coined MOOC in 2008 for the course Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (CCK08) run by Siemens and Downes; the New York Times later dubbed 2012 'the year of the MOOC'.

Isaac Newton studied at, and later became a fellow of, which Cambridge college?

Newton entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1661 and was elected a fellow in 1667; Roubiliac's statue of him stands in the college chapel.

Which Oxford college did Bill Clinton attend as a Rhodes Scholar from 1968?

Bill Clinton studied at University College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar from 1968 to 1970, then left for Yale Law School without taking an Oxford degree.

How many 'colonial colleges' were chartered in America before the Revolution?

Nine: Harvard, William & Mary, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Penn, Brown, Rutgers and Dartmouth; seven of them became Ivy League schools.

Which of these headgear is NOT a traditional form of academic cap?

The tricorne is an 18th-century civilian and military hat; the mortarboard, Tudor bonnet and John Knox cap are all worn with academic dress.

Rutgers, the New Jersey colonial college chartered in 1766, was originally called what?

Rutgers was chartered in 1766 as Queen's College, named for Charlotte, George III's queen; it was renamed in 1825 for benefactor Henry Rutgers.

What is MIT's not-for-profit online arm, launched in 2012, called?

MITx, announced in December 2011, opened its first course, 6.002x Circuits and Electronics, in March 2012; MIT and Harvard then founded edX that May.

Which Oxford library is entitled to a free copy of every book published in the UK?

The Bodleian is one of the UK and Ireland's six legal deposit libraries, entitled to a copy of every UK publication; the Radcliffe Camera is one of its reading rooms.

Which building, finished in 1720, is Harvard's oldest still standing?

Massachusetts Hall, completed in 1720, is Harvard's oldest surviving building; it quartered Continental soldiers during the 1775 siege of Boston.

Which Oxford chancellor secured a charter for the University Press in the 1630s?

Archbishop William Laud, as chancellor, obtained the Great Charter of 1636 that secured Oxford's right to print; Parliament had him executed in 1645.

Which sportswriter first used 'Ivy' to describe a group of colleges?

Stanley Woodward of the New York Herald Tribune wrote of 'our eastern ivy colleges' in October 1933, two decades before the athletic conference was formed in 1954.

In which newspaper did the term 'Ivy League' first appear in print, in 1935?

'Ivy League' first appeared in print in the Christian Science Monitor on February 7, 1935, in an Associated Press story by sports editor Alan Gould.

Which colour is Harvard's official one, also the name of its student newspaper?

Harvard's colour is crimson, dating from crimson scarves worn by its rowers at an 1858 regatta; the student daily is The Harvard Crimson.

Yale was established in 1701 under what original name?

Yale began in 1701 as the Collegiate School, founded by Congregationalist clergy of the Connecticut Colony and first based in Saybrook; it was renamed for Elihu Yale in 1718.

In what year was the first PhD in the United States awarded, at Yale?

Yale awarded the first three American PhDs in 1861; it formally reorganised as Yale University in 1887.

Which songwriter wrote Yale's official fight song 'Bulldog' as an undergraduate?

Cole Porter wrote 'Bulldog' in 1911 as a Yale undergraduate, along with 'Bingo Eli Yale'; he graduated in 1913, long before his Broadway fame.

In which New Jersey town was Princeton originally founded in 1746?

The College of New Jersey first met in Elizabeth at the home of its president Jonathan Dickinson, moved to Newark in 1747 after his death, and settled at Princeton in 1756.

Under what name was Columbia University founded in 1754?

Columbia was chartered by George II in 1754 as King's College, holding its first classes in Trinity Church's schoolhouse in Manhattan; it was renamed after the Revolution.

Which famous journalism and arts award does Columbia University administer each year?

The Pulitzer Prize came from publisher Joseph Pulitzer's bequest; Columbia was also the first US school to grant the MD degree.

Which two former students headed Columbia's board of trustees when it went private in 1787?

Columbia's 1787 charter placed it under a private board of trustees headed by former students Alexander Hamilton and John Jay; it had been renamed Columbia College in 1784.

Which statesman founded the University of Pennsylvania and served as its first president?

Benjamin Franklin proposed the Academy of Philadelphia in 1749 and was the first president of its trustees; Penn's medical school, opened in 1765, was the first in North America.

Which Ivy adopted an 'Open Curriculum' with no general education requirements in 1969?

Brown adopted the Open Curriculum in 1969 after the student-led Magaziner-Maxwell report; students design their own programme with no distribution requirements.

Dartmouth was founded in 1769 to train what group as Christian missionaries?

Eleazar Wheelock founded Dartmouth in 1769 under a charter to educate Native Americans; Mohegan preacher Samson Occom raised much of the money in Britain.

Which Dartmouth alumnus argued the college's charter case before the Supreme Court in 1818?

Daniel Webster, class of 1801, argued Dartmouth College v. Woodward in 1818; his plea 'It is a small college, and yet there are those who love it' became Dartmouth lore.

Which Dartmouth student group started the Winter Carnival tradition in 1911?

The Dartmouth Outing Club, founded by student Fred Harris in 1909, staged the first Winter Carnival in February 1911; it is the oldest collegiate outing club in the US.

Which live bear, introduced in 1915, inspired Cornell's unofficial mascot?

A black bear cub named Touchdown was brought to Cornell football games in 1915; later live bears carried the same name before a costumed Big Red Bear took over.

Who co-founded Cornell University with Ezra Cornell in 1865?

Andrew Dickson White, a fellow New York state senator, co-founded Cornell with Ezra Cornell in 1865 and served as its first president until 1885.

MIT moved from Boston's Back Bay to its current Cambridge campus in which year?

MIT moved across the Charles River to its new Cambridge campus, designed by William Welles Bosworth, in 1916; the move was celebrated with a pageant and a ceremonial barge crossing.

Which MIT hallway, 251 metres long, runs from Lobby 7 through the main campus buildings?

The Infinite Corridor runs 251 metres east-west through Bosworth's original buildings from Lobby 7; twice a year the setting sun aligns with it, an event nicknamed MIThenge.

MIT's Pantheon-like Great Dome overlooks which space, where graduation is held each year?

Killian Court, facing the Charles River beneath the Great Dome, hosts MIT's commencement; the friezes around it carry names such as Aristotle, Newton and Darwin.

MIT's Radiation Laboratory made it the top non-industrial R&D contractor during which war?

MIT's Radiation Laboratory developed radar during World War II, making MIT the largest non-industrial wartime R&D contractor; Vannevar Bush then helped shape federal science funding.

Stanford's sports teams are called the Cardinal, a name that refers to what?

Stanford's teams have been the Cardinal, after the school colour cardinal red, since 1981; the Stanford Tree is the band's mascot, not the university's.

What was established in 1951 as the first of its kind at any university?

Stanford Research Park opened in 1951 as Stanford Industrial Park, the first university research park; Varian Associates and Hewlett-Packard were early tenants.

Which natural disaster damaged much of Stanford's campus in 1906?

The April 1906 San Francisco earthquake wrecked Stanford's Memorial Church, library and gymnasium; the university had already struggled financially after Leland Stanford's death in 1893.

Caltech was founded in 1891 as a preparatory and vocational school by whom?

Amos G. Throop, a Pasadena businessman and politician, founded Throop University in 1891; it became the California Institute of Technology in 1920.

Which NASA facility, founded by Caltech researchers, has Caltech managed for the agency since 1958?

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's antecedents were set up under Theodore von Kármán between 1936 and 1943, before NASA existed.

Caltech's mascot is which animal, described as 'nature's engineer'?

Caltech's teams are the Beavers, the animal chosen as 'nature's engineer'; its Division III sides are better known for record losing streaks than titles.

The first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction happened under which Chicago stadium's stands?

Chicago Pile-1 went critical on 2 December 1942 in a squash court beneath the west stands of Stagg Field; Henry Moore's sculpture Nuclear Energy marks the site.

The University of Chicago is located in which community area of the city?

The University of Chicago's campus is in Hyde Park on the South Side, on land given by Marshall Field; John D. Rockefeller funded its founding in 1890.

In what year did Johns Hopkins, considered America's first research university, open?

Johns Hopkins University opened in 1876, modelled on German research universities with graduate study at its core; it had been incorporated in 1867 under Hopkins's bequest.

How large was Johns Hopkins's founding bequest, then the largest philanthropic gift in US history?

Johns Hopkins, a Baltimore merchant and Quaker, left $7 million in 1873, split between a university and a hospital, then the largest philanthropic bequest in US history.

Who was Johns Hopkins University's first president?

Daniel Coit Gilman, previously president of the University of California, led Johns Hopkins from 1875 to 1901 and built it around graduate seminars and research.

The university renamed for the Duke family in 1924 honours which relative of James B. Duke?

Tobacco magnate James B. Duke created the Duke Endowment and named the school for his late father, Washington Duke.

Which architect largely designed Duke's Gothic West Campus?

Julian Abele, chief designer at Horace Trumbauer's Philadelphia firm and one of America's first Black architects, designed Duke's Gothic West Campus around the 210-foot Duke Chapel.

Duke's Cameron Crazies famously 'tent' for home basketball games against which rival?

North Carolina, at Chapel Hill, is the game students camp out for; Cameron Indoor Stadium sits on Duke's West Campus.

Northwestern's mascot before Willie the Wildcat was a live bear cub named what?

Furpaw, a bear cub borrowed from Lincoln Park Zoo in 1923, was blamed for a losing season; Northwestern's teams became the Wildcats the following year.

Northwestern University, founded in 1851, is located in which Illinois city?

Northwestern's main campus is in Evanston on the Lake Michigan shore north of Chicago; the town was named for university founder John Evans.

Which Catholic religious order founded the University of Notre Dame in 1842?

Father Edward Sorin of the Congregation of Holy Cross founded Notre Dame in Indiana in 1842; its Golden Dome and the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes are campus landmarks.

Notre Dame's Word of Life mural on the Hesburgh Library is nicknamed what by students?

The Word of Life mural (1964) is nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because Christ's raised arms mirror a referee's touchdown signal and it is visible from Notre Dame Stadium.

In what year did Bishop John Carroll found Georgetown, America's oldest Catholic university?

John Carroll founded Georgetown in 1789, the year he was named America's first Catholic bishop; in 1815 Congress gave it the first federal university charter.

Georgetown's 'Hoyas' nickname comes from a student chant meaning roughly what?

'Hoya Saxa' mixes Greek hoia ('what' or 'such') with Latin saxa ('rocks'), so roughly 'what rocks'; the chant predates 1893 and 'Hoyas' stuck as the team name.

In which year did UCLA move to its Westwood campus?

UCLA opened its Westwood campus in 1929 with four buildings including Royce Hall; it had begun in 1919 as the Southern Branch of the University of California on Vermont Avenue.

UCLA's 'Bruins' nickname was offered by the student council of which other school in 1926?

In 1926 Berkeley's student council gave UCLA the 'Bruins' name, which Cal had used alongside 'Bears'; UCLA had just joined the Pacific Coast Conference.

The University of California's founding campus is named after which Anglo-Irish philosopher?

The town and campus were named in 1866 for George Berkeley, whose line 'Westward the course of empire takes its way' inspired the trustees; the University of California was founded there in 1868.

Which former Treasury Secretary led the founding of New York University in 1831?

Albert Gallatin, Treasury Secretary under Jefferson and Madison, led the group that founded NYU in 1831 as a non-denominational institution; classes began in 1832 near City Hall.

NYU's Bobcat mascot originated from the name of what?

'Bobcat' was short for the Bobst Library computerized catalog.

Carnegie Mellon's costumed mascot is a dog of which breed?

Carnegie Mellon's mascot Scotty is a Scottish Terrier, a nod to Andrew Carnegie's Scottish roots, echoed by The Tartan newspaper and the Thistle yearbook.

In 1966 Vanderbilt became the only private university in which athletic conference?

Vanderbilt became the SEC's only private member when Tulane left in 1966; Cornelius Vanderbilt's $1 million gift of 1873 was meant to help heal Civil War divisions.

Rice University in Houston was established after its namesake William Marsh Rice was what?

William Marsh Rice was murdered in 1900, chloroformed by his valet in a plot with lawyer Albert Patrick to forge his will; his estate funded Rice Institute, opened in 1912.

What is Ohio State's costumed mascot called?

Brutus Buckeye, a student wearing a buckeye-nut head, debuted in 1965; Ohio State's fight songs are 'Across the Field' and 'Buckeye Battle Cry'.

Which university is home to McDonald Observatory and the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library?

UT Austin operates McDonald Observatory in the Davis Mountains of West Texas and hosts the LBJ Presidential Library on its campus, alongside seven museums and seventeen libraries.

Georgia Tech's satellite campus in Europe is located in which French city?

Georgia Tech's European campus opened in Metz, in the Lorraine region, in 1990 as Georgia Tech-Lorraine, offering graduate engineering degrees.

Which US president founded the University of Virginia in 1819?

Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village is a UNESCO World Heritage Site; he counted founding the university among the three achievements on his gravestone.

Which library building sits at the centre of Jefferson's plan for the University of Virginia?

Jefferson planned the Grounds around a library rather than a church; the Rotunda burned in 1895 and was rebuilt in 1899.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison's main campus sits on the shore of which body of water?

UW-Madison's campus runs along the southern shore of Lake Mendota, the largest of Madison's lakes; the university was founded in 1848, the year Wisconsin became a state.

Which University of Wisconsin virologist co-discovered reverse transcriptase in 1970?

Howard Temin of the University of Wisconsin discovered reverse transcriptase in 1970, simultaneously with David Baltimore at MIT; the two shared the 1975 Nobel Prize with Renato Dulbecco.

Howard University's namesake, a Civil War general, was also commissioner of which agency?

General Oliver Otis Howard, commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau from 1865 to 1874, helped found Howard University in 1867 and served as its president from 1869.

Howard University, established in 1867, is in which Washington, D.C. neighbourhood?

Howard's main campus lies in the Shaw area of Northwest Washington, bordering LeDroit Park; chartered by Congress in 1867, it is nicknamed 'the Mecca' of Black higher education.

Which Purdue alumnus was the last person to walk on the Moon, in December 1972?

Eugene Cernan, Purdue class of 1956, commanded Apollo 17 and in December 1972 was the last person to step off the Moon; Neil Armstrong, class of 1955, had been the first onto it.

Purdue is home to the world's oldest degree-granting department in which subject?

Purdue founded the first computer science department in 1962, the oldest in the world; it also opened the first university-owned airport in the US in 1930.

Which university's stadium is the largest in the United States and the Western Hemisphere?

Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, 'the Big House', opened in 1927 and holds 107,601, the largest capacity of any stadium in the United States.

Which Scottish university was founded in 1413 by a papal bull from Antipope Benedict XIII?

St Andrews, where masters had taught since 1410, received its bulls of foundation from Antipope Benedict XIII in 1413, making it the third-oldest university in the English-speaking world.

Which Scottish king's royal charter authorised the University of Edinburgh's founding in 1582?

James VI granted the 1582 royal charter under which Edinburgh's town council founded the 'Tounis College'; the Enlightenment later earned the city the nickname 'Athens of the North'.

Trinity College Dublin's library has housed which illuminated Gospel manuscript since 1661?

The Book of Kells shares the library with the Trinity College harp, there since 1782, and a copy of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic.

Which monarch founded Trinity College Dublin by royal charter in 1592?

Elizabeth I granted Trinity College Dublin its charter in 1592; its first provost, Archbishop Adam Loftus, named it after his own college, Trinity Cambridge.

The London School of Economics was founded in 1895 by members of which group?

Fabian Society members Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Graham Wallas and George Bernard Shaw founded LSE in 1895, using a bequest left to the Fabians by Henry Hutchinson.

Which economist, author of The Road to Serfdom, taught at LSE from 1931 to 1950?

Friedrich Hayek joined LSE in 1931 at Lionel Robbins's invitation and stayed until 1950; he wrote The Road to Serfdom (1944) there.

Founded in 1826, which was the first English institution to admit students of any religion?

Its founders were inspired by the radical ideas of Jeremy Bentham.

Which royal envisioned South Kensington as a cultural district, seeding Imperial College?

Prince Albert used Great Exhibition profits to plan South Kensington's 'Albertopolis' of museums and colleges; Imperial formed there in 1907 from the Royal College of Science, the Royal School of Mines and City & Guilds College.

Which Holy Roman Emperor inspired the founding of the university in Prague in 1347-48?

Emperor Charles IV founded the university in Prague in 1348, the first in Central Europe, after Pope Clement VI's bull of 1347; it is named Charles University for him.

Who founded the University of Vienna, the oldest in the German-speaking world, in 1365?

Duke Rudolph IV of Austria founded the University of Vienna in 1365, the oldest in the German-speaking world; Erwin Schrödinger is among its Nobel laureates.

Which Polish king founded the Jagiellonian University in Kraków in 1364?

Casimir III the Great founded the Kraków academy in 1364; it was refounded in 1400 by Władysław II Jagiełło and Queen Jadwiga, whose dynasty gave it its name.

Which Leonese king founded the University of Salamanca in 1218?

Alfonso IX of León founded Salamanca in 1218; his grandson Alfonso X gave it royal statutes in 1254, and it is the oldest university in the Hispanic world.

Portugal's oldest university, chartered by King Denis in 1290, is in which city?

Founded in Lisbon under King Denis in 1290, the university moved between Lisbon and Coimbra before settling permanently in Coimbra in 1537; it became a UNESCO site in 2013.

Which prince founded Leiden, the oldest surviving university in the Netherlands, in 1575?

William of Orange founded Leiden in 1575 as a Protestant university, reportedly as a reward for the city's resistance during the Spanish siege of 1574.

Uppsala, founded in 1477, is the oldest university in which region?

Uppsala, founded in 1477 by papal bull, is the oldest university in the Nordic countries; Copenhagen followed in 1479.

Sapienza University of Rome was founded in 1303 by which pope?

Pope Boniface VIII founded Rome's Studium Urbis in 1303 with the bull In supremae praeminentia dignitatis; it later became known as La Sapienza.

The Catholic University of Leuven split along language lines, creating UCLouvain, in which year?

The university split in 1968 after the 'Leuven Vlaams' protests; the French-speaking UCLouvain moved to the new town of Louvain-la-Neuve while KU Leuven stayed in Leuven.

Who was the first woman to become a professor at the Sorbonne?

Marie Curie took over Pierre Curie's chair after his death in 1906, becoming the Sorbonne's first female professor; she had come to Paris from Poland in 1891.

Robert de Sorbon founded the Sorbonne in 1257 as a college for students of which subject?

Robert de Sorbon, chaplain to Louis IX, founded the Collège de Sorbonne in 1257 to house poor students of theology; its name later stood for the whole University of Paris.

Which physicist graduated from ETH Zurich in 1900 and later won a Nobel Prize?

Albert Einstein graduated from ETH Zurich in 1900 with a teaching diploma in mathematics and physics, returned as a professor in 1912, and won the 1921 Nobel Prize.

In what year was Moscow University established by imperial decree?

Empress Elizabeth signed the decree founding Moscow University on 25 January 1755, a date marked as Tatiana Day; Ivan Shuvalov and Mikhail Lomonosov promoted the idea.

Peking University was founded in 1898 by charter from which Qing emperor?

The Guangxu Emperor chartered the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 during the Hundred Days' Reform; it was renamed Peking University in 1912.

Tsinghua University's campus in Beijing sits on the site of what?

Tsinghua occupies former Qing imperial gardens, the Qinghua Yuan, in northwest Beijing; founded in 1911 with Boxer Indemnity funds, its alumni include Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao.

Japan's first modern university, founded in 1877, is in which Tokyo ward?

The University of Tokyo's main Hongo campus, with its red Akamon gate, is in Bunkyō ward; it traces its precursors to the shogunate's Tenmongata astronomy office of 1684.

In 1980, the University of Singapore merged with which private institution to form NUS?

Nanyang University, a private Chinese-language university founded in 1955, merged with the University of Singapore in 1980 to form NUS; its Jurong campus later passed to NTU.

Founded in 1850, which is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania?

The University of Sydney was founded in 1850, three years before Melbourne; it admitted students regardless of religion, an early example of entry on academic merit alone.

The University of Melbourne's main campus is in which inner suburb?

The University of Melbourne's main campus is in Parkville, just north of the city centre; founded in 1853, it is one of Australia's 'sandstone' universities.

Which denomination originally controlled the University of Toronto before it went secular in 1850?

King's College was chartered in 1827 under Church of England control led by Bishop John Strachan; the province secularised it as the University of Toronto in 1850.

What is McGill's mascot, introduced at the 2005 Homecoming game, called?

Marty the Martlet, named for the heraldic bird on McGill's coat of arms, debuted at the 2005 Homecoming game; the main campus lies on the slope of Mount Royal.

The University of Cape Town began in 1829 under what name?

UCT began in 1829 as the South African College, a boys' school and college in Cape Town; it became a full university in 1918, helped by the Wernher and Beit bequests.

Which university's Ciudad Universitaria campus was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2007?

UNAM's Ciudad Universitaria in Mexico City, with murals by Diego Rivera and Juan O'Gorman, was inscribed by UNESCO in 2007; its Estadio Olímpico Universitario hosted the 1968 Olympic ceremonies.

In which year was the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico founded by royal decree?

Charles V's decree of 21 September 1551 founded the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico; Justo Sierra refounded it in secular form as UNAM in 1910.

How tall is the central tower of Moscow State University, Europe's tallest building until 1990?

Moscow State University's main building rises 240 metres including its spire, the tallest of the Stalin-era 'Seven Sisters'; built partly with Gulag labour, it opened in 1953.

Al-Azhar University in Cairo, one of the world's oldest, was founded around 970 by which caliphate?

Al-Azhar was founded around 970 by the Fatimid caliphate as the mosque of its new capital, Cairo, and is named for Fatima al-Zahra; teaching there began by 975.

Which Ohio college, founded in 1833, is the oldest coeducational liberal arts college in the US?

Oberlin, founded in 1833, admitted African Americans from 1835 and women from 1837, making it the first coeducational college in the US; it has a long record of student activism.

Which of the Seven Sisters colleges became coeducational in 1969?

Vassar admitted men in 1969 after declining a proposed merger with Yale; Radcliffe merged into Harvard in 1999, leaving five of the Seven Sisters as women's colleges.

In what year was the Rhodes Scholarship first opened to women?

Women became eligible for the Rhodes Scholarship in 1977, after a 1976 Act of Parliament amended Cecil Rhodes's will; it had been limited to men from the Commonwealth, Germany and the United States.

In what year was the EU's Erasmus student exchange programme launched?

Erasmus was launched in June 1987 and exchanged 3,244 students in its first year; it was folded into the broader Erasmus+ programme in 2014.