Western Reserve College (1826–1882) and University (1882–1967) Western Reserve College, the college of the
Connecticut Western Reserve, was founded in 1826 in
Hudson, Ohio, as the
Western Reserve College and Preparatory School by the
Presbyterian Church. The school was called "Yale of the West"; its campus, now that of the
Western Reserve Academy, imitated that of Yale. It had the same motto, "Lux et Veritas" (Light and Truth), the same entrance standards, and nearly the same curriculum. It was different from Yale in that it was a
manual labor college, in which students were required to perform manual labor, seen as psychologically beneficial. That town, about southeast of Cleveland, had been an antislavery center from the beginning: its founder,
David Hudson, was against slavery, and founding trustee
Owen Brown was a noted
abolitionist who secured the location for the college. The abolitionist
John Brown, who would lead the
1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, grew up in Hudson and was the son of co-founder Owen Brown. Hudson was a major stop on the
Underground Railroad. With Presbyterian influences of its founding, the school's origins were strongly though briefly associated with the pre-
Civil War abolitionist movement; the abolition of slavery was the dominant topic on campus in 1831. The trustees were unhappy with the situation. The college's chaplain and Bible professor,
Beriah Green, gave four sermons on the topic Western Reserve was the first college west of the
Appalachian Mountains to enroll (1832) and graduate (1836) an
African-American student,
John Sykes Fayette.
Frederick Douglass gave the
commencement speech in 1854. In 1838, the
Loomis Observatory was built by astronomer
Elias Loomis, and today remains the second oldest
observatory in the United States, and the oldest still in its original location. In 1852, the
Medical School became the second medical school in the United States to graduate a woman,
Nancy Talbot Clark. Five more women graduated over the next four years, including
Emily Blackwell and
Marie Zakrzewska, giving Western Reserve the distinction of graduating six of the first eight female physicians in the United States. By 1875, Cleveland had emerged as the dominant population and business center of the region, and the city wanted a prominent higher education institution. In 1882, with funding from
Amasa Stone, Western Reserve College moved to Cleveland and changed its name to Adelbert College of Western Reserve University. Adelbert was the name of Stone's son.
Case School of Applied Science (1880–1947) and Institute of Technology (1947–1967) In 1877,
Leonard Case Jr. began laying the groundwork for the Case School of Applied Science by secretly donating valuable pieces of Cleveland real estate to a trust. He asked his confidential advisor, Henry Gilbert Abbey, to administer the trust and to keep it secret until after his death in 1880. On March 29, 1880, articles of incorporation were filed for the founding of the
Case School of Applied Science. Classes began on September 15, 1881. The school received its charter by the state of
Ohio in 1882. For the first four years of the school's existence, it was located in the Case family's home on Rockwell Street in
downtown Cleveland. Classes were held in the family house, while the chemistry and physics laboratories were on the second floor of the barn.
Amasa Stone's gift to relocate Western Reserve College to Cleveland also included a provision for the purchase of land in the
University Circle area, adjacent to Western Reserve University, for the Case School of Applied Science. The school relocated to
University Circle in 1885. In 1921
Albert Einstein came to the Case campus during his first visit to the United States, out of respect for the
physics work performed there. Besides noting the research done in the
Michelson–Morley experiment, Einstein also met with physics professor
Dayton Miller to discuss his own research. During
World War II, Case School of Applied Science was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the
V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission. Over time, the Case School of Applied Science expanded to encompass broader subjects, adopting the name Case Institute of Technology in 1947 to reflect the institution's growth.
Federation of two universities of Case Western Reserve University on the campus of Case Western Reserve University Although the trustees of Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve University did not formally federate their institutions until 1967, the institutions already shared buildings and staff when necessary and worked together often. One such example was seen in 1887, when Case physicist
Albert Michelson and Reserve chemist
Edward Morley collaborated on the famous
Michelson–Morley experiment. There had been some discussion of a merger of the two institutions as early as 1890, but those talks dissolved quickly. In the 1920s, the Survey Commission on Higher Education in Cleveland took a strong stand in favor of federation and the community was behind the idea as well, but in the end all that came of the study was a decision by the two institutions to cooperate in founding Cleveland College, a special unit for part-time and adult students in
downtown Cleveland. By the 1960s, Reserve President
John Schoff Millis and Case President
T. Keith Glennan shared the idea that federation would create a complete university, one better able to attain national distinction. Financed by the
Carnegie Corporation,
Cleveland Foundation,
Greater Cleveland Associated Foundation, and several local donors, a study commission of national leaders in higher education and public policy was charged with exploring the idea of federation. The Heald Commission, so known for its chair, former
Ford Foundation President
Henry T. Heald, predicted in its final report that a federation could create one of the largest private universities in the nation.
Case Western Reserve University (1967–present) In 1967, Case Institute of Technology, a school with its emphasis on engineering and science, and Western Reserve University, a school with professional programs and liberal arts, came together to form Case Western Reserve University. In 1968, the
Department of Biomedical Engineering launched as a newly unified collaboration between the
School of Engineering and
School of Medicine as the first in the nation and as one of the first
Biomedical Engineering programs in the world. The following year in 1969, the first Biomedical Engineering MD/PhD program in the world began at Case Western Reserve. The first
computer engineering degree program in the United States was established in 1971 at Case Western Reserve. On August 18, 2003, the university unveiled a new logo and branding campaign that emphasized the "Case" portion of its name. The decision to put emphasis on the "Case" portion of the name was motivated by issues related to name recognition of the existing CWRU acronym, especially outside of northeast Ohio. On May 9, 2003, the
2003 Case Western Reserve University shooting occurred when Biswanath Halder entered the Peter B. Lewis Building of the
Weatherhead School of Management where he killed graduate student Norman Wallace and wounded two professors. Halder took people in the building hostage, and they ran and barricaded themselves and hid during the seven hours that the gunman roamed the building, shooting indiscriminately. He was finally apprehended by a SWAT team. Halder was convicted on multiple felony counts and sentenced to life in prison; he lost a 2008 appeal. In March 2007, the Branding Task Group presented its recommendations; a key recommendation was to return a graphic identity that gave equal weight to both the "Case" and "Western Reserve" names. At a June 2nd meeting, the university's board of trustees approved a shift back to giving equal weight to "Case" and "Western Reserve". In an open letter to the university community, interim president Eastwood admitted that "the university had misplaced its own history and traditions" with the 2003 branding changes. Implementation of the new logo began July 1, 2007. The replacement logo, informally known as the "sunburst", would last until 2023. The "Forward Thinking" campaign was launched in 2011 by President
Barbara Snyder and raised $1 billion in 30 months. The board of trustees unanimously agreed to expand the campaign to $1.5 billion, which reached its mark in 2017. The campaign ultimately raised $1.82 billion. A
2020 United States presidential debate, the first of two, was held at the Samson Pavilion of the
Health Education Campus (HEC), shared by the
Cleveland Clinic. In February 2020, president Barbara Snyder was appointed the president of
Association of American Universities (AAU). Later that year, former
Tulane University president
Scott Cowen was appointed interim president. On October 29, 2020,
Eric W. Kaler, former
University of Minnesota president, was appointed as the new Case Western Reserve University president, effective July 1, 2021. On 2 June 2023, the 16 year old "sunburst" logo was replaced by a new logo which retained the sun element, but presented a more simple design, new fonts and brighter colors. Concerns were also expressed about the frequency of logo changes, as this was the third logo in 23 years.
Presidents ==Campus==