HistoryMIT has a long and glorious history. It was founded in 1861 by William Barton Rogers, a distinguished natural scientist, who wished to create a new kind of independent educational institution relevant to an increasingly industrialized America. The Institute's opening was delayed by the Civil War, and it admitted its first students in 1865. In the following years, it established a sterling reputation in the sciences and in engineering, but it also fell on hard financial times. These two factors made it a perfect fit in many peoples' eyes to merge with nearby Harvard University, which was flush with cash but much weaker in the sciences than it was in the liberal arts. Around 1900, a merger was proposed with Harvard University, but was cancelled after protests from MIT's alumni. The two schools still maintain a friendly rivalry today. In 1916, MIT moved across the Charles River to its present location in Cambridge. MIT's prominence increased as a result of World War II and the United States government's investment in science and technology in response to Sputnik. MIT's contributions to the twentieth century advancement of science and technology include project Whirlwind, the pioneering computer built under the direction of Jay W. Forrester between 1947 and 1952, and notable for its technological achievement (including the invention of magnetic core memory), as well as for its cultural contribution to the development of personal computing. MIT has been at least nominally coeducational since admitting Ellen Swallow Richards in 1870, if not earlier. For some years past, it has admitted slightly more women students than men. A strong female presence did not appear until 1963 when a women’s dormitory was built. In 2001 president Charles Vest made history by being the first university official in the world to admit that his institution had severely restricted the career of women faculty members and researchers through sexist discrimination, and to make steps to redress the issue. In August 2004 Susan Hockfield, a molecular neurobiologist, was appointed as MIT's first female president. She took office as the Institute's 16th president on December 6, 2004.
Campus MIT's 168-acre (68.0 ha) campus spans approximately a mile of the north side of the Charles River basin in the city of Cambridge. The campus is divided roughly in half by Massachusetts Avenue, with most dormitories and student life facilities to the west and most academic buildings to the east. MIT buildings all have a number and most have a name as well. Typically, academic and office buildings are referred to only by number while residence halls are referred to by name. A network of underground tunnels connects many of the buildings, providing protection from the Cambridge weather. Students agree that this maze is a welcome feature, enabling them to get from class to class without getting cold or wet. The bridge closest to MIT is the Harvard Bridge. It is the longest bridge crossing the Charles River. The bridge is marked off in the fanciful unit called the Smoot: 364.4 Smoots and One Ear. The neighborhood of MIT is a mixture of high tech companies seeded by MIT alumni combined with working class neighborhoods of Cambridge. Undergraduates are guaranteed four-year housing in one of MIT's 12 undergrad dormitories, although 8% of students live off campus or commute. On-campus housing provides live-in graduate student tutors and faculty housemasters who have the dual role of both helping students and monitoring them for medical or mental health problems. New undergrad students specify their dorm and floor preferences a few days after arrival on campus, and as a result diverse communities arise in living groups. MIT also has 5 dormitories for single graduate students and 2 apartment buildings on campus for married student families. MIT's on-campus nuclear reactor is one of the largest university-based nuclear reactors in the United States. The prominence of the reactor's containment building in a densely populated area has been controversial, but MIT maintains that it is well-secured. Other notable campus facilities include a pressurized wind tunnel and a towing tank for testing ship and ocean structure designs. MIT's campus-wide wireless network was completed in the fall of 2005 and consists of nearly 3,000 access points covering 9,400,000 square feet (870,000 m2) of campus.
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