<p>So what was it called before University of Pennsylvania?</p>
<p>Check the link to get the objective detail.</p>
<p>macsuile: you're link says it all.</p>
<p>"Penn does not claim to be America's first college, but it is America's first University. In the Anglo-American model, a college, by definition, is a faculty whose subject specialization is in a single academic field. This is usually arts and sciences (often referred to as "liberal arts"), but may also be one of the professions: law, medicine, theology, etc. A university, by contrast, is the co-existence, under a single institutional umbrella, of more than one faculty. Penn founded the first medical school (1765) in America. In that year, therefore, Penn became "America's first university." If you wish to take the position that "first university" means first institution of higher learning with the name "university," Penn also qualifies as first. In 1779, the Pennsylvania state legislature conferred a new corporate charter upon the College of Philadelphia, renaming it the "University of the State of Pennsylvania" (in 1791 still another new charter granted Penn its current name). No other American institution of higher learning was named "University" before Penn. So whether you take the "de facto" position (1765) or the "de jure" position (1779), Penn is indeed "America's first university."</p>
<p>so essentially On Nov, 27th the word "university" was included as it was renamed the "University of the State of Pennsylvania." 8 days later on Dec, 4th 1779: "Under the leadership of Thomas Jefferson, then governor of Virginia and a member of the Board of Visitors, William and Mary became a university. The grammar and divinity schools were discontinued, and a professorship of anatomy and medicine, and the first American chairs of law and police and modern languages were established." (14 after penn did this with its med school)</p>
<p>Thus Penn can "technically" be considered the first "university:"
1. because it was the first to have multiple faculties (in 1765 thus 14 years before W&M was technically a "university")
2. because it was the first to include the word "university" in its name.</p>
<p>You are copy/pasting from the section of the link that was excerpted from the Penn website. Again, Penn was not officially proclaimed "University of Pennsylvania" until 1791. This is 12 years after William & Mary began graduate level instruction. Also, "medical schools" did not exist in the 1700s in the sense we know them today. There was "medical instruction" and it was not considered graduate level. Penn did not grant MD degrees until the late 1800s.</p>
<p>still it was the "UNIVERSITY of the State of Pennsylvania" in 1779 --> 8 days before W&M was proclaimed a university. :)</p>
<p>and the point that the med schools were different back then doesn't really matter in a technical sense as by definition a "university" can be defined as the "co-existence, under a single institutional umbrella, of more than one faculty"...which the med school accomplished even though it might not teach what it does now...it is "technically" a separate faculty that was co-exisiting with the arts & science faculty at the time under the institutional umbrella known as the "college of philadelphia" later renamed the "university of the state of pennsylvania" later renamed the "university of pennsylvania." </p>
<p>so "TECHNICALLY" because Penn was the first institution to have 2 faculties, doesn't really matter which ones and what they taught, under a single institution it can claim to be the first "university." Plus it was "technically" proclaimed a "UNIVERSITY" (as the university of the state of pennsylvania) 8 days before W&M...so in this sense technically it still is the first.</p>
<p>Penn did not adopt the "University of Pennsylvania" moniker until 1791. The earlier title, University of the State of Pennsylvania, was a political maneuver foisted on the president and never embraced. Anyway, W&M's university mandate was explicit and "program-driven" according to the British model whereas Penn's was indirect and tenuously based on the addition of a single faculty member. There also seems to be some uncertainty as to when this faculty member began teaching his class...</p>
<p>btw by faculty I don't mean like a "faculty member" I mean it in the sense of a faculty as a division...and still the university of the state of pennsylvania was officially the name of the university from 1779 to 1791...although it was never really embraced by the univ community it was the official name. :)</p>
<p>this is getting boring...im done</p>
<p>Penn is always trying to back-date. They are even trying to nuance their way to a "founding" date before Princeton! See Note 3 in:
<a href="http://en.wikilib.org/wiki/Colonial_colleges%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikilib.org/wiki/Colonial_colleges</a></p>
<p>From the Princeton website:
Institutional pride can result in tenuous claims for precedence, and this is certainly true of the University of Pennsylvania, which believes itself to be the fourth oldest college in the United States. This would place Princeton University in fifth place, after Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, and, of course, Penn. Penn bases its claims on the fact that it is an outgrowth of a "charity school" founded in 1740. The school was never operational, and the building was used for religious services until, in 1749, Benjamin Franklin and his associates acquired it for the purposes of establishing an "academy."</p>
<p>Gotcha. Did a little sleuthing on the Penn website. Penn degrees did not use the title "University of Pennsylvania" until 1791. "College of Philadelphia" was used right up until 1791. Also, the "medical school" did not grant an MD degree until 1788! The degree awarded before that time was an AB or college-level degree. Man, you Penn types are really reaching!</p>
<p>from your link:</p>
<p>"1b. A related question: Do you need to have "university" in your name in order to be a university? Probably not. Boston College, Dartmouth College, and the College of William and Mary continue to name themselves as "colleges" for historical reasons, but no one argues that any of these three institutions is not, in fact, a university."</p>
<p>Please stop using the fact that it was not called the University of Penn until 1791 as an arguement.</p>
<p>thank you</p>
<p>Wasn't Princeton originally called the College of New Jersey?</p>
<p>^^
Yes, it was.</p>
<p>I am countering the titular "university" usage employed by Penn's website and the earlier poster (Bern700).</p>
<p>Wow, who cares? Being old doesn't make something good. Rutgers is older than a few Ivies, and, well...</p>
<p>Upitt is very old (1787) and has a very interesting history with the city of Pittsburgh back in the old days and it benefited from many of the philanthropists at the time. </p>
<p>However, I would not classify Upitt as a top tier school when compared to the newer schools such as UChicago (1890), Carnegie Mellon (1900/1913 though technically 1967 when it merged), etc. </p>
<p>Older is not always better.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Wow, who cares? Being old doesn't make something good. Rutgers is older than a few Ivies, and, well...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, nor is Rutgers bad, really.</p>