University of Rochester

• 1. Introduction

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  The University of Rochester traces its origins not to a grand civic vision, but to a church dispute. In 1850, a group of dissenting faculty, students, and trustees walked out of Madison University in New York state and set off for Rochester, determined to build something new. They carried with them a freshly granted charter from the Regents of the State of New York, dated the 31st of January, 1850, and a promise of $10,000 from a local businessman named John Wilder. Classes began that November with roughly 60 students.

  From that contentious beginning, the University of Rochester grew into one of the most research-intensive private universities in the United States, home to a national laser laboratory, the largest academic music library in North America, and more than 120,000 living alumni. How did an institution born of a schism, housed in a former hotel, become the largest private employer in Upstate New York? And what controversies, gifts, and transformations shaped it along the way?

• 2. A Founding from Fracture

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  Asahel C. Kendrick, a professor of Greek, was among the faculty who left Madison University for Rochester. He served as acting president while a national search was conducted, eventually handing the role to Martin Brewer Anderson of the Andover Newton Theological Seminary in Massachusetts in 1853. Anderson became the university's first formally appointed president.

  The charter carried a condition: the university needed $100,000 in endowment within five years, or it would not be reaffirmed. That pressure focused early fundraising efforts. The first classes were held in the old United States Hotel on Buffalo Street in downtown Rochester. For over a decade the university operated from that building, while expanding its endowment, student body, and faculty.

  The permanent solution came through a gift of 8 acres of farmland from Azariah Boody, a local businessman and congressman. On that land, Anderson Hall was constructed and dedicated in 1862. Over the following six decades the Prince Street Campus grew by another 17 acres to include fraternities, dormitories, the Memorial Art Gallery, and Cutler Union, a prime example of the Collegiate Gothic style. Madison University, the institution the founders had left behind, was eventually renamed Colgate University.

• 3. Susan B. Anthony and the First Women

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  The first female students were admitted in 1900, and the effort that made it happen was led by Susan B. Anthony. During the 1890s, women had taken classes and labs at the university as "visitors," but they were not officially enrolled and their records were kept out of the college register. President David Jayne Hill allowed the first woman, Helen E. Wilkinson, to enroll as a normal student, though she was not permitted to matriculate or pursue a degree.

  Thirty-three women enrolled in that first class in 1900. Ella S. Wilcoxen was the first to receive a degree, in 1901. The first female faculty member was Elizabeth Denio, who retired as professor emeritus in 1917.

  Male students moved to the new River Campus upon its completion in 1930, while female students remained on the Prince Street campus until 1955, when the separate colleges for men and women were finally merged. Anthony's influence on the university proved lasting: multiple awards, buildings, and centers have since been named in her honor. Susan B. Anthony Hall, the largest undergraduate dormitory on the River Campus, carries her name today. Mount Hope Cemetery, which borders the River Campus, is where both Anthony and Frederick Douglass are buried.

• 4. The Eastman Fortune

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  George Eastman, the founder of Eastman Kodak Company, gave more than $50 million to the University of Rochester during his lifetime. He gave this under the leadership of president Benjamin Rush Rhees, whose tenure ran from 1900 to 1935. The scale of the patronage reshaped the university's trajectory.

  In 1921, Eastman's support led to the creation of the Eastman School of Music, which now occupies its own campus in downtown Rochester and houses the Sibley Music Library, the largest academic music library in North America and the largest privately owned collection of sheet music. In 1925, with backing from Eastman, John D. Rockefeller, and the family of Henry A. Strong, the university created medical and dental schools. That same year, the university awarded its first PhD.

  When Eastman died by suicide, he left the entirety of his estate to the university. The total of all his gifts surpassed $100 million before inflation. That wealth placed the university in an extraordinary position: between 1936 and 1976, its financial ranking sat third in the country, behind only Harvard University's endowment and the University of Texas System's Permanent University Fund. The River Campus itself was funded largely by Eastman. It was acquired from the Oak Hill Country Club through a land swap deal in the late 1920s, and its first buildings were dedicated in 1930.

• 5. Research and the Laser Lab

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  The University of Rochester is classified as an R1 doctoral university, the highest research activity designation, and is a member of the Association of American Universities. Its research expenditure reached $481 million in 2023.

  The Laboratory for Laser Energetics sits on the South Campus and is one of the institution's defining research assets. It is a national laboratory funded by the US Department of Energy, focused on laser-based nuclear fusion. In 2023, the university began a $42 million expansion of the facility. The university also holds the ninth highest technology revenue among US higher education institutions, with $46 million paid in 2009 for commercial rights to university technology and research.

  Notable patents developed at the university include Zoloft and Gardasil. Physicists developed a technique for etching metal surfaces such as platinum, titanium, and brass with powerful lasers, creating self-cleaning surfaces that repel water and will not rust if tilted at a 4-degree angle. The WeBWorK system, a web-based homework checking tool developed by Rochester professors Gage and Pizer, is now in use at over 800 universities and colleges as well as numerous secondary and primary schools.

  The Institute of Optics, part of the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has been regarded among the premier optics programs in the world. The school was named after trustee Edmund Hajim in 2009 after a $30-million gift.

• 6. Crisis, Scandal, and the $9.4 Million Settlement

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  By the end of the 1980s, what had once been the third-wealthiest university in the country had slipped to a ranking in the top 25, a fall attributed to financial mismanagement, declining investment values, and a lack of portfolio diversity. At the same time, the city's major employers were also declining.

  The university commissioned a study to weigh renaming itself "Eastman University" or "Eastman Rochester University." The study concluded a name change might help, partly because the word "Rochester" led people to believe the institution was public, and partly because the city name was perceived as connoting a "cold and distant outpost." That second finding triggered a sharp backlash in Rochester. The name was ultimately kept. President Thomas H. Jackson instead launched a "Renaissance Plan" that reduced undergraduate enrollment from 4,500 to 3,600 and cut doctoral programs in chemical engineering, comparative literature, linguistics, and mathematics. The proposed elimination of the mathematics doctoral program drew national outcry, and that part of the plan was reversed.

  In September 2017, eight current and former faculty filed a complaint with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging sexual misconduct by a tenure-track faculty member and faulting the administration's response. President Joel Seligman announced his resignation on the same day a new independent investigation released its findings. In 2019, federal judge Lawrence Vilardo ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on 15 of 16 legal claims. The lawsuit was settled in 2020, when the university agreed to pay the plaintiffs $9.4 million. As of January 2026, the individual named in the complaint remains a member of the faculty.

• 7. A Campus Built Around Music and Memory

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  Rush Rhees Library anchors the Eastman Quadrangle at the center of the River Campus. Its main dome is the unofficial symbol of the university, and the building houses the Hopeman Memorial Carillon, the largest carillon in New York State, with 50 bells that chime on the quarter-hour.

  Todd Union, constructed in 1930, has been recommended by New York State's Board for Historic Preservation for the State and National Registers of Historic Places because of its association with Rochester's LGBTQ+ history. The building has an early and significant connection to the University of Rochester's Gay Liberation Front, which worked to advance the gay liberation movement on campus and in the city in the 1970s.

  The Memorial Art Gallery was founded in 1913 through a gift from Emily Sibley Watson as a memorial to her son, James George Averell. It was designed by the firm McKim, Mead, and White and occupies the southern half of the Prince Street campus. The university's official flower is the dandelion, chosen because the plant was prolific on the cow pasture that became the second campus. The university's motto, "Meliora," translates loosely to "ever better." The song most often sung at university events is The Genesee, written by Thomas Thackeray Swinburne of the Class of 1892. In 2024, Tom Golisano announced a $50 million donation, the largest single gift in the university's history, to establish the Golisano Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Institute.