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Bucknell University is private university located along the Susquehanna River in the rolling countryside of Central Pennsylvania in the town of Lewisburg, 60 miles (97 km) north of Harrisburg. It is known for having one of the most beautiful campuses in the nation and a reputation for its rigorous academic programs (especially strong in engineering and the life sciences). Student athletes compete in 27 NCAA sports.

Brief history

The university was founded under the name of the University at Lewisburg in 1846 as a private Baptist university. Bucknell University later shed its Baptist roots and was renamed for its benefactor, William Bucknell, a Philadelphian who bolstered the university during the post-Civil War recession.

Bucknell University has a historical link with Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Northeastern Pennsylvania. Wilkes University was founded in 1933 as a satellite campus of Bucknell University, and became an independent institution in 1940, naming itself Wilkes College, after English colonial politician John Wilkes. Wilkes University received university status in 1990. During a ceremony to celebrate this designation, dignitaries from Bucknell University attended a gala event at the Arnaud C. Marts Conference Center on the Wilkes University campus to celebrate this historic event and pay tribute to both institutions history.

Academics

Bucknell is a competitive university with its Class of 2009 undergraduate acceptance rate of 32.7%. It is among the best liberal-arts colleges in the USA, ranked twenty-seventh for liberal arts colleges by U.S. News and World Report as of 2006. The student-faculty ratio is 11:1.

Primarily an undergraduate institution, Bucknell offers 53 majors and 64 minors. Majors include environmental studies, management, biology, chemistry, education, art history, English, animal behavior, Caribbean studies, economics, and various foreign languages. Students can also design their own majors. The school's engineering program (with majors in electrical, chemical, computer science, mechanical, civil, and recently established bio-medical engineering) is particularly strong. Among American schools that do not offer a Ph.D. in engineering, Bucknell ranks No. 8.

Bucknell is also strong in environmental studies, animal behavior, ecology, and evolution. Because Bucknell is larger than typical liberal arts colleges, a wide diversity of courses can be offered in these fields, including, for example, entomology, limnology, mammalogy, invertebrate zoology, ornithology, tropical ecology, ecosystem and community ecology, conservation biology, and social insect courses. Faculty research in these areas is active, with many opportunities for student participation, field work, and travel. The Bucknell Environmental Center (BUEC) is having a profound impact on campus culture and regional issues. The BUEC has recently sponsored a symposium series on sustainability and the global environment and has major initiatives focused on the art, culture, and ecology of the Susquehanna River basin and the greening of the Bucknell Campus. Bucknell has recently received a Solar Scholars grant, and is building an experimental student housing unit that will rely primarily on renewable energy, including photovoltaics.

Bucknell ranks among the top universities in the number of students from liberal arts colleges that go on to gain their Ph.D's, and is No. 3 on the All-Time List (CoSida) for Producing Academic All Americans. It also ranks in the Top 100 for schools that produce America's top business leaders.

More than 40 percent of Bucknell students study abroad.

Athletics

Bucknell University is a member of the Patriot League for Division 1 sports, Division 1-AA in football. It ranks among the top universities for NCAA Division 1 in athletic graduation rates (No. 1 three times in the last 10 years).

Bucknell won the first Orange Bowl (26-0 over the University of Miami on January 1, 1935). It is also the alma mater of the legendary baseball hero Christy Mathewson who requested burial in a cemetery adjoining Bucknell's campus.

In 2005, Bucknell went to the NCAA men's basketball tournament and became the first Patriot League team to win an NCAA tournament game, in a surprising and intense upset of Kansas (64-63). The victory followed a highly successful year that included wins over #9 Pittsburgh and Saint Joseph's. They lost to Wisconsin in the following round.

In 2006, the Bison continued their success with high-profile victories at Syracuse, then ranked 19th, DePaul, and Saint Joseph's, a sequence that saw the Bison nearly enter the Associated Press's top-25 rankings. However, those wins were followed by high-profile losses against Villanova, then ranked fourth in the nation, and at Duke, then ranked first. Patriot League play began after the Duke loss, and the Bison did not lose a league game in 2006. The team was ranked 24th in the nation in both the Associated Press and ESPN/USA Today college basketball polls for the week of February 13. This was the Bucknell program's first national ranking, and the first time since the league's creation in 1990 that any Patriot League men's basketball team has been ranked. They finished the regular season ranked 25th in the ESPN poll.

The team was seeded ninth in the Oakland bracket for the 2006 NCAA tournament, and defeated the Arkansas Razorbacks in the first round (59-55). The Bison were defeated by Memphis in the second round, losing by a score of 72-56.

Bucknell has a strong Ultimate program. The men's team, the Mudsharks, was formed in 1975, making it arguably the longest running team name in college Ultimate. The women's team is known as the Peace Frogs and has also been a team since the late 70s.

Student life

First-year undergraduates are required to live on campus. The school guarantees on-campus housing for all four years, but many students choose to live off campus after their first year. All on-campus students must purchase a campus meal plan.

Because of its rural location and lack of nearby large cities, Bucknell may seem fairly isolated. However, more than 130 student organizations, a historical downtown movie theater, and year-end formal ball provide students with a wide array of activities.

The university also has a lively Greek community. Students cannot rush until their sophomore year, but approximately 50 percent of eligible students join the school's 12 fraternities and 7 sororities.

Bucknell University's student newspaper is The Bucknellian, which is printed weekly. Its radio station is 90.5 WVBU.

Notable alumni

Notes

External links

1846 establishments | Universities and colleges in Pennsylvania | Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools | Posse schools

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Bucknell University".

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