Northwestern University and Evanston are closely tied. The university was chartered in 1851, making it the oldest chartered university in Illinois, and its Evanston campus covers about 240 acres along Lake Michigan, just north of downtown.
The campus
The lakefront edge of campus owes something to engineering. In the 1960s the university built out into the lake with landfill, creating land now used for athletic fields and buildings. Deering Library is among the older landmarks. Ryan Field, the football stadium that opened in 1926 as Dyche Stadium, has been rebuilt in recent years, helped by a 2021 gift of $480 million, the largest in the university’s history.
Schools and students
Northwestern had about 22,800 students in fall 2023, roughly 8,800 undergraduates and 14,000 graduate and professional students. Several of its best-known schools are in Evanston: the Kellogg School of Management, the Medill School of Journalism and the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. The Feinberg School of Medicine and the Pritzker School of Law are on the Chicago campus in Streeterville, which is also home to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Wildcats athletics
Northwestern was a founding member of the Big Ten Conference in 1896. The Wildcats field 19 intercollegiate teams in NCAA Division I, and the mascot is Willie the Wildcat. Football is played at Ryan Field on the Evanston campus. Medill, Kellogg and McCormick date to 1921, 1908 and 1909 respectively, so much of the Evanston academic core is more than a century old.
Town and gown
The relationship has often been an economic one. For more than 30 years the city and Northwestern worked together through the Evanston Inventure partnership, which the city ended in 2018, according to the Daily Northwestern. Student-run groups have had a local role too; in 2013, for example, the student microfinance nonprofit Lending for Evanston and Northwestern Development launched a loan program for young local entrepreneurs. Kellogg students have also studied city policy, including a 2012 class analysis of Evanston’s use of tax increment financing.
The campus is a short walk from the Davis Street Metra and CTA stations, and the student newspaper, the Daily Northwestern, remains one of the main sources of Evanston news.