ETH Zürich (German: Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich)

   

  ETH Zürich (German: Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich) is an engineering, science, technology, mathematics and management university in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. Like its sister institution Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), it is an integral part of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain (ETH Domain) that is directly subordinate to Switzerland's Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research.

ETH Zürich is consistently rated among the top universities in the world. It is currently ranked 4th in Europe overall, and 3rd best university in the world in engineering, science and technology. Twenty-one Nobel Prizes have been awarded to students or professors of the Institute in the past, the most famous of which is Albert Einstein in 1921, and the most recent is Richard F. Heck in 2010. It is a founding member of the IDEA League and the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU) and a member of the CESAER network.

The school was founded by the Swiss Federal Government in 1854 with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists, serve as a national center of excellence in science and technology and provide a hub for interaction between the scientific community and industry.

History
ETH was founded in 1854 by the Swiss Confederation and began giving its first lectures in 1855 as a polytechnic institute (Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule). It was initially composed of six faculties: architecture, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry, forestry, and an integrated department for the fields of mathematics, natural sciences, literature, and social and political sciences. It is locally still known as Poly, derived from the original name Eidgenössische polytechnische Schule,which translates to "Federal polytechnic school".

ETH is a federal institute (i.e., under direct administration by the Swiss government), whereas the University of Zürich is a cantonal institution. The decision for a new federal university was heavily disputed at the time, because the liberals pressed for a "federal university", while the conservative forces wanted all universities to remain under cantonal control, worried that the liberals would gain more political power than they already had. In the beginning, both universities were co-located in the buildings of the University of Zürich.

From 1905 to 1908, under the presidency of Jérôme Franel, the course program of ETH was restructured to that of a real university and ETH was granted the right to award doctorates. In 1909 the first doctorates were awarded. In 1911, it was given its current name, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule. In 1924, another reorganization structured the university in 12 departments. However, it now has 16 departments.


Interior skylights in the main building
ETH Zürich, the EPFL, and four associated research institutes form the "ETH Domain" with the aim of collaborating on scientific projects.      

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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology                        (MIT)                                                                  is a private reasearch university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1861 in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States, MIT adopted a European polytechnic university model and stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering. Researchers worked on computers, radar, and inertial guidance during World War II and the Cold War. Post-war defense research contributed to the rapid expansion of the faculty and campus under James Killian. The current 168-acre (68.0 ha) campus opened in 1916 and extends over 1 mile (1.6 km) along the northern bank of the Charles River basin.

MIT, with five schools and one college which contain a total of 32 departments, is traditionally known for research and education in the physical sciences and engineering, and more recently in biology, economics, linguistics, and management as well. The "Engineers" sponsor 31 sports, most teams of which compete in the NCAA Division III's New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference; the Division I rowing programs compete as part of the EARC and EAWRC.

MIT is often cited as among the world's top universities.As of 2014, 81 Nobel laureates, 52 National Medal of Science recipients, 45 Rhodes Scholars, 38 MacArthur Fellows, and 2 Fields Medalists have been affiliated with MIT. MIT has a strong entrepreneurial culture and the aggregated revenues of companies founded by MIT alumni would rank as the eleventh-largest economy in the world.

History
In 1859, a proposal was submitted to the Massachusetts General Court to use newly filled lands in Back Bay, Boston for a "Conservatory of Art and Science", but the proposal failed. A proposal by William Barton Rogers a charter for the incorporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, signed by the governor of Massachusetts on April 10, 1861.

Rogers, a professor from the University of Virginia, wanted to establish an institution to address rapid scientific and technological advances.He did not wish to found a professional school, but a combination with elements of both professional and liberal education, proposing that
"The true and only practicable object of a polytechnic school is, as I conceive, the teaching, not of the minute details and manipulations of the arts, which can be done only in the workshop, but the inculcation of those scientific principles which form the basis and explanation of them, and along with this, a full and methodical review of all their leading processes and operations in connection with physical laws."

The Rogers Plan reflected the German research university model, emphasizing an independent faculty engaged in research, as well as instruction oriented around seminars and laboratories.      

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Imperial College London

      Imperial College London (legally The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine)is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom. Its origins lie with Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, who championed creating a centre for science, technology and the arts in the area around South Kensington, which came to be known as "Albertopolis" and also comprises the Natural History Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum and Science Museum. Imperial has grown through mergers, including with St Mary's Hospital Medical School (in 1988), the National Heart and Lung Institute (in 1995) and Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School (in 1997). Queen Elizabeth II opened the the recently established Imperial College Business School building in 2004.A former constituent college of the University of London, it became independent during its centennial celebration in 2007.

Imperial is organised into four faculties - science, engineering, medicine and business - within which there are more than 40 departments, institutes and research centres. The main campus is located in Kensington with additional campuses in Chelsea, Hammersmith, Paddington, Berkshire and in Singapore. Imperial is a major centre for biomedical research and is part of the Imperial College Healthcare academic health science centre. It is a member of numerous university associations including the Association of Commonwealth Universities, European University Association, G5, Association of MBAs, League of European Research Universities and Russell Group and forms part of the "golden triangle" of leading English universities.

Imperial is consistently included among the best universities in the world, ranking 2nd in the QS World University Rankings (2014) and 9th in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (2014).According to a corporate study in The New York Times its graduates are among the 10 most valued in the world.Imperial's faculty and alumni include 15 Nobel laureates, 2 Fields Medalists, 70 Fellows of the Royal Society, 82 Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering and 78 Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

History
The Great Exhibition was organised by Prince Albert, Henry Cole, Francis Fuller and other members of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. The Great Exhibition made a surplus of £186,000 used in creating an area in the South of Kensington celebrating the encouragement of the arts, industry, and science. Albert insisted the Great Exhibition surplus should be used as a home for culture and education for everyone. The vision built the Victoria and Albert Museum, Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Geological Museum, Royal College of Science, Royal College of Art, Royal School of Mines, Royal School of Music, Royal College of Organists, Royal School of Needlework, Royal Geographical Society, Institute of Recorded Sound, Royal Horticulatural Gardens, Royal Albert Hall and the Imperial Institute.Several Royal Colleges and the Imperial Institute merged to form what is now Imperial College London.      

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The California Institute of Technology

   The California Institute of Technology (or Caltech) is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphasis on science and engineering. Its 124-acre (50 ha) primary campus is located approximately 11 mi (18 km) northeast of downtown Los Angeles.
 

Although founded as a preparatory and vocational school by Amos G. Throop in 1891, the college attracted influential scientists such as George Ellery Hale, Arthur Amos Noyes, and Robert Andrews Millikan in the early 20th century. The vocational and preparatory schools were disbanded and spun off in 1910, and the college assumed its present name in 1921. In 1934, Caltech was elected to the Association of American Universities, and the antecedents of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which Caltech continues to manage and operate, were established between 1936 and 1943 under Theodore von Kármán.The university is one among a small group of Institutes of Technology in the United States which tends to be primarily devoted to the instruction of technical arts and applied sciences.

Despite its small size, 33 Caltech alumni and faculty have won a total of 34 Nobel Prizes (Linus Pauling being the only individual in history to win two unshared prizes) and 71 have won the United States National Medal of Science or Technology. There are 112 faculty members who have been elected to the National Academies. In addition, numerous faculty members are associated with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as well as NASA. Caltech managed $332 million in 2011 in sponsored research.

First year students are required to live on campus, and 95% of undergraduates remain in the on-campus house system. Although Caltech has a strong tradition of practical jokes and pranks, student life is governed by an honor code which allows faculty to assign take-home examinations. The Caltech Beavers compete in 13 intercollegiate sports in the NCAA Division III's Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

History

Caltech started as a vocational school founded in Pasadena in 1891 by local businessman and politician Amos G. Throop. The school was known successively as Throop University, Throop Polytechnic Institute (and Manual Training School), and Throop College of Technology, before acquiring its current name in 1920. The vocational school was disbanded and the preparatory program was split off to form an independent Polytechnic School in 1907.

At a time when scientific research in the United States was still in its infancy, George Ellery Hale, a solar astronomer from the University of Chicago, founded the Mount Wilson Observatory in 1904. He joined Throop's board of trustees in 1907, and soon began developing it and the whole of Pasadena into a major scientific and cultural destination. He engineered the appointment of James A. B. Scherer, a literary scholar untutored in science but a capable administrator and fund raiser, to Throop's presidency in 1908. Scherer persuaded retired businessman and trustee Charles W. Gates to donate $25,000 in seed money to build Gates Laboratory, the first science building on campus.

World Wars
In 1910, Throop moved to its current site. Arther Fleming donated the land for the permanent campus site. Theodore Roosevelt delivered an address at Throop Institute on March 21, 1911, and he declared:

I want to see institutions like Throop turn out perhaps ninety-nine of every hundred students as men who are to do given pieces of industrial work better than any one else can do them; I want to see those men do the kind of work that is now being done on the Panama Canal and on the great irrigation projects in the interior of this country—and the one-hundredth man I want to see with the kind of cultural scientific training that will make him and his fellows the matrix out of which you can occasionally develop a man like your great astronomer, George Ellery Hale.

In the same year, a bill was introduced in the California Legislature calling for the establishment of a publicly funded "California Institute of Technology," with an initial budget of a million dollars, ten times the budget of Throop at the time. The board of trustees offered to turn Throop over to the state, but the presidents of Stanford University and the University of California successfully lobbied to defeat the bill, which allowed Throop to develop as the only scientific research-oriented education institute in southern California, public or private, until the onset of the World War II necessitated the broader development of research-based science education.The promise of Throop attracted physical chemist Arthur Amos Noyes from MIT to develop the institution and assist in establishing it as a center for science and technology.      

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Kars4Kids

        Kars4Kids is an American non-profit national car donation organization based in Lakewood, New Jersey which donates proceeds to Jewish children and their families through the funding of Oorah, a national non-profit organization.
       

Background
Kars4Kids is a registered 501(c)3 operating in 49 states, and takes donations of vehicles, accepting over 40,000 cars annually.

In 2010, Kars4Kids reported revenue of $29.1 million and expenses of $31.1 million.

Donations to Kars4Kids benefit the Oorah (Joy for Our Youth, or J.O.Y.), a national organization with a stated goal of addressing the "educational, material, emotional and spiritual needs of Jewish children and their families."

Work
The organization hosts regular coat and clothing giveaways for the needy nationwide, including in Harlem, Washington, DC, and in Newark, New Jersey where they held a give-away together with Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

Prior to the start of the 2012 school year, the Chairman of the NYC Housing Authority in partnership with Kars4Kids distributed school supplies and backpacks to more than 3,000 children in Queens Housing projects. Around that same time period with New York City Councilman James Vacca they distributed free backpacks in the Bronx as part of a "back-to-school initiative aimed at helping struggling families with the rising expenses of school supplies."  In Brooklyn, Congressman Ed Towns and Kars 4 Kids distributed winter jackets to underprivileged children, including at the legendary Marcy Avenue Houses.

The organization saw a boom in donated cars following Hurricane Sandy, with owners donating cars totaled by hurricane damage.

The charity auctioned off a 2003 Ford Explorer in which two children drowned after being swept from their mother's arms during Hurricane Sandy. The charity had been contacted by the NYPD on behalf of the parents. The auction proceeds went to raise money for coats for the needy.

Kars 4 Kids worked with United States Representative Michael Grimm to distribute over 1,000 children’s coats and other assorted clothing items to Staten Island residents affected by the hurricane.

Jingle
Kars4Kids is well known for its radio jingle, described by Peter Hartlaub as an "assault on [the] senses".

Disclosure concerns
The organization has been criticized for concealing its Jewish educational work. In 2009, Joy for Our Youth paid $65,000 in fines in Pennsylvania; while Kars4Kids paid $65,000 in fines in Oregon in settlements reached with the respective state attorneys general as a result of their contention that the organization had to more clearly state that the beneficiaries were of a "certain religious affiliation." In Oregon, the attorney general added that Kars4Kids failed to disclose that its offer of a "free vacation" for vehicle donors was designed to recruit people to attend timeshare presentations.      

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