April 2006 – Paul Peng Deng

使用XHTML+CSS来表示信息；
使用JavaScript操作DOM（Document Object Model）进行动态显示及交互；
使用 XML 和 XSLT 进行数据交换及相关操作；
使用 XMLHttpRequest对象与Web服务器进行异步数据交换；
使用 JavaScript 将所有的东西绑定在一起。
参见Ajax的提出者Jesse James Garrett的英文原文中文译文

类似于DHTML或LAMP，AJAX不是指一种单一的技术，而是有机地利用了一系列相关的技术。事实上，一些基于AJAX的“派生/合成”式（derivative/composite）的技术正在出现，如“AFLAX”。

AJAX的应用使用支持以上技术的Web浏览器作为运行平台。这些浏览器目前包括：Mozilla、Firefox、Internet Explorer、Opera、Konqueror及Mac OS的Safari。但是Opera不支持XSL格式对象，也不支持XSLT。

与传统的Web应用比较
传统的Web应用允许用户端填写表单(form)，当提交表单时就向Web服务器发送一个请求。服务器接收并处理传来的表单，然后送回一个新的网页。这个做法浪费了许多带宽，因为在前后两个页面中的大部分HTML代码往往是相同的。由于每次应用的交互都需要向服务器发送请求，应用的响应时间就依赖于服务器的响应时间。这导致了用户界面的响应比本地应用慢得多。

与此不同，AJAX应用可以仅向服务器发送并取回必需的数据，它使用SOAP或其它一些基于XML的页面服务接口，并在客户端采用JavaScript处理来自服务器的响应。因为在服务器和浏览器之间交换的数据大量减少（大约只有原来的5%），结果我们就能看到响应更快的应用。同时很多的处理工作可以在发出请求的客户端机器上完成，所以Web服务器的处理时间也减少了。

发展史
该技术在1998年前后得到了应用。允许客户端脚本发送HTTP请求(XMLHTTP)的第一个组件由Outlook Web Access小组写成。该组件原属于微软Exchange Server，并且迅速地成为了Internet Explorer 4.0[2]的一部分。部分观察家认为，Outlook Web Access是第一个应用了Ajax技术的成功的商业应用程序，并成为包括Oddpost的网络邮件产品在内的许多产品的领头羊。但是，2005年初，许多事件使得Ajax被大众所接受。Google在它著名的交互应用程序中使用了异步通讯，如Google讨论组、Google地图、Google搜索建议、Gmail等。Ajax这个词由《Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications》一文所创，该文的迅速流传提高了人们使用该项技术的意识。另外，对Mozilla/Gecko的支持使得该技术走向成熟，变得更为易用。

优点、前提和批评

使用Ajax的最大优点就是能在不更新整个页面的前提下维护数据。这使得Web应用程序更为迅捷地响应用户交互，并避免了在网络上发送那些没有改变的信息。

Ajax不需要任何浏览器插件，但需要用户允许JavaScript在浏览器上执行。就像DHTML应用程序那样，Ajax应用程序必须在众多不同的浏览器和平台上经过严格的测试。随着Ajax的成熟，一些简化Ajax使用方法的程序库也相继问世。同样，也出现了另一种辅助程序设计的技术，为那些不支持JavaScript的用户提供替代功能。

对应用Ajax最主要的批评就是，它可能破坏浏览器后退按钮的正常行为（参见Jakob Nielsen’s的《Web设计10大错误（1999年）》）。在动态更新页面的情况下，用户无法回到前一个页面状态，因为浏览器仅能记忆历史记录中的静态页面。一个被完整读入的页面与一个已经被动态修改过的页面之间的差别非常微妙；用户通常会希望单击后退按钮能够取消他们的前一次操作，但是在Ajax应用程序中，这将无法实现。开发者们想出了种种办法来解决这个问题，大多数都是在用户单击后退按钮访问历史记录时，通过创建或使用一个隐藏的IFRAME来重现页面上的变更。（例如，当用户在Google Maps中单击后退时，它在一个隐藏的IFRAME中进行搜索，然后将搜索结果反映到Ajax元素上，以便将应用程序状态恢复到当时的状态。）

一个相关的观点认为，使用动态页面更新使得用户难于将某个特定的状态保存到收藏夹中。该问题的解决方案也已出现，大部分都使用URL片断标识符（通常被称为锚点，即URL中#后面的部分）来保持跟踪，允许用户回到指定的某个应用程序状态。（许多浏览器允许JavaScript动态更新锚点，这使得Ajax应用程序能够在更新显示内容的同时更新锚点。）这些解决方案也同时解决了许多关于不支持后退按钮的争论。

进行Ajax开发时，网络延迟——即用户发出请求到服务器发出响应之间的间隔——需要慎重考虑。不给予用户明确的回应，没有恰当的预读数据，或者对XMLHttpRequest的不恰当处理，都会使用户感到延迟，这是用户不希望看到的，也是他们无法理解的。通常的解决方案是，使用一个可视化的组件来告诉用户系统正在进行后台操作并且正在读取数据和内容。

开发Ajax应用面临的挑战及解决方案

对程序员而言，开发Ajax应用最头痛的问题莫过于以下几点：

Ajax在本质上是一个浏览器端的技术，首先面临无可避免的第一个问题即是浏览器的兼容性问题。各家浏览器对于JavaScript/DOM/CSS的支援总有部分不太相同或是有Bug，甚至同一浏览器的各个版本间对于JavaScript/DOM/CSS的支援也有可能部分不一样。这导致程序员在写Ajax应用时花大部分的时间在调试浏览器的兼容性而非在应用程序本身。因此，目前大部分的Ajax程序库或开发框架大多以js程序库的形式存在，以定义更高阶的JavaScript API 、JavaScript对象（模板）、或者JavaScript Widgets来解决此问题。如prototype.js。
Ajax技术之主要目的在于局部交换客户端及服务器间之数据。如同传统之主从架构，无可避免的会有部分的业务逻辑会实现在客户端，或部分在客户端部分在服务器。由于业务逻辑可能分散在客户端及服务器，且以不同之程序语言实现，这导致Ajax应用程序极难维护。如有使用者接口或业务逻辑之更动需求，再加上前一个JavaScript/DOM/CSS之兼容性问题，Ajax应用往往变成程序员的梦靥。针对业务逻辑分散的问题，Ajax开发框架大致可分为两类：
- 将业务逻辑及表现层放在浏览器，数据层放在服务器：因为所有的程序以JavaScript执行在客户端，只有需要数据时才向服务器要求服务，此法又称为胖客户端（fat client）架构。服务器在此架构下通常仅用于提供及储存数据。此法的好处在于程序员可以充分利用JavaScript搭配业务逻辑来做出特殊的使用者接口，以符合终端使用者的要求。但是问题也不少，主因在第一，JavaScript语言本身之能力可能不足以处理复杂的业务逻辑。第二，JavaScript的执行效能一向不好。第三，JavaScript存取服务器数据，仍需适当的服务器端程序之配合。第四，浏览器兼容性的问题又出现。有些Ajax开发框架如DWR企图以自动生成JavaScript之方式来避免兼容的问题，并开立通道使得JavaScript可以直接叫用服务器端的Java程序来简化数据的存取。但是前述第一及第二两个问题仍然存在，程序员必须费相当的力气才能达到应用程序之规格要求，或可能根本无法达到要求。
- 将表现层、业务逻辑、及数据层放在服务器，浏览器仅有使用者接口引擎（User Interface engine）；此法又称为瘦客户端（thin client）架构，或中心服务器（server-centric）架构。浏览器的使用者接口引擎仅用于反映服务器的表现层以及传达使用者的输入回到服务器的表现层。由浏览器所触发之事件亦送回服务器处理，根据业务逻辑来更新表现层，然后反映回浏览器。因为所有应用程序完全在服务器执行，数据及表现层皆可直接存取，程序员只需使用服务器端相对较成熟之程序语言（如Java语言）即可，不需再学习JavaScript/DOM/CSS，在开发应用程序时相对容易。缺点在于使用者接口引擎以及表现层通常以标准组件的形式存在，如需要特殊组件（使用者接口）时，往往须待原框架之开发者提供，缓不济急。如开源码Ajax开发框架ZK目前支援XUL及XHTML组件，尚无XAML之支援。
Ajax是以异步的方式向服务器提交需求。对服务器而言，其与传统的提交表单需求并无不同，而且由于是以异步之方式提交，如果同时有多个Ajax需求及表单提交需求，将无法保证哪一个需求先获得服务器的回应。这会造成应用程序典型的多程序（process）或多线程（thread）的竞争（racing）问题。程序员因此必须自行处理或在JavaScript里面动手脚以避免这类竞争问题的发生（如Ajax需求未回应之前，先disable提交按钮），这又不必要的增加了程序员的负担。目前已知有自动处理此问题之开发框架似乎只有ZK。

外部连接

工具

Atlas, 微软AJAX工具箱。
Dojo工具箱, AJAX/DHTML工具箱。
Prototype, 开放源代码框架。
Sajax, 简单AJAX工具箱
Rialto, Rich Internet AppLication TOolkit.
ZK, 开放源代码AJAX/XUL框架。
MochiKit 一个不自称AJAX的轻量级js库，支持Json。

门户

Ajax Goals, AJAX Goals.
Ajaxmatters, Ajaxmatters.
Ajax Impact, Ajax Impact.

图书

《Ajax基础教程》, Foundations Of Ajax 中文版，人民邮电出版社图灵公司出版，第一本讲述Ajax技术的中文图书。ISBN 7-115-14481-8
《Ajax实战》，Ajax in Action 中文版，人民邮电出版社图灵公司出版，人称Ajax圣经的经典著作。ISBN 7-115-14717-5
《Head Rush Ajax》O’Reilly出版社

其他资源

Ajax内部交流文档(新增DEMO)，AJAX简明教程。
AJAX 上手篇，AJAX 上手篇
掌握 Ajax，掌握 Ajax

April 27, 2006/by pdeng

乱七八糟

两款DELL产品进入视线

Dell^TM Axim^TM X51v 624MHZ 掌上电脑

Microsoft^® Windows Mobile^TM 5.0操作系统含Windows移动媒体播放器10和移动PowerPoint软件
配置强大的英特尔^® XScale^TM PXA270处理器，624MHz
明亮的3.7"彩色TFT VGA显示屏，640×480分辨率
集成英特尔^® 2700G多媒体加速器，含16MB显存
集成802.11b和蓝牙^TM 无线技术
配备64MB SDRAM和256MBFlash ROM
集成CompactFlash Type II和安全数字/ SDIO Now! / MMC卡插槽提供灵活扩展性
可选VGA展示工具包支持VGA输出支持
可拆卸基本电池，可选高容量电池
3.5毫米耳机/头戴设备插孔支持VoIP和语音识别应用
内置麦克风和扬声器提供移动时的便捷录音
USB支架包含电池充电插槽
流线、时髦设计

Dell^TM Axim^TM Latitude D820 笔记本电脑

全新英特尔^® 945芯片组提供强大的下一代技术:
-PCI-Express:下一代串行I/O和显卡总线
-高速FSB(前端总线):667MHz
正版Windows^® XP专业版
正版Windows^® XP家用版
可选最快的英特尔^® Core^TM Duo处理器
超强的领先显卡选项: 256MB NVIDIA^® Quadro NVS 110M, 或512 MB NVIDIA^® Quadro NVS 120M – 最大化PCI Express的技术性能^TM
明亮的宽屏15.4" LCD显示屏和三种分辨率选项: WXGA, WSXGA+和WUXGA。
Dell的UltraSharp LCD技术实现理想的视效清晰度和更高的亮度。
高性能、高容量硬盘选项。
标配的所有通讯技术包括56Kbps V.92调制解调器¹和10/100/1000 以太网²LAN卡和可选英特尔^® PRO Wireless LAN (标配)或Dell^TM Wireless LAN (可选)
集成智能卡读卡器和可选指纹识别器
Dell Tri-Metal^TM 机箱
D系列兼容性。D820可共享相同的D/Dock、D/Port、D系列模块和A/C适配器。
全新Wi-Fi Catcher网络定位器实现快速查找无线网络或切换无线模式。

April 27, 2006/by pdeng

乱七八糟

NETGEAR Skype WiFi Phone

感谢黄世仁同志给我发来的链接。NETGEAR（网件）终于决定于今年6月30日推出世界首款Skype wifi Phone。Amazon已经开始接受预订了，价格249.99USD。如果待机时间和通话时间与目前手机差不多，就可以考虑购买了。

April 25, 2006/by pdeng

乱七八糟

UCL和IIT

都是相当强悍的学校，从著名校友看。

曾在UCL学习的有：

明治维新主力伊藤博文

圣雄甘地

发明电话的亚历山大贝尔

小泉纯一郎

……

曾在IIT学习的有：

立陶宛前总统 Valdas Adamkus

发明磁带的 Marvin Camras

发明手机的 Martin Cooper

发明射电天文望远镜的 Grote Reber

……

April 23, 2006/by pdeng

乱七八糟

University College London

摘自http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_College_London

University College London, commonly known as UCL, is one of the colleges that make up the University of London. There are 21,800 staff and students at UCL, making the college larger than most universities in the United Kingdom. It is a member of the Russell Group of Universities, and a part of the ‘G5’ super-elite sub-group along with Oxford, Cambridge, LSE and Imperial. UCL consistently ranks among the top five universities in the UK league tables and in the top thirty global universities. It has an annual turnover of over £550m, and accounts for more than 40% of the Russell Group’s research funding. On September 27, 2005 UCL was granted the power to award its own degrees, although it continues to award degrees of the University of London.

The main part of the college is located in Bloomsbury, central London, on Gower Street. The nearest stations on the London Underground are Euston, Euston Square, and Warren Street.

Founding and Development

UCL was founded in 1826 under the name "University of London" as a secular alternative to the strictly religious universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It was founded from the beginning as a University, not a College or Institute. However its founders encountered strong opposition from the Church of England which prevented them from securing the Royal Charter that was necessary for the award of degrees, and it was not until 1836, when the University of London was established, that the college was legally recognised and granted the power to award degrees of the University of London[1].

The College was the first UK higher education institution to accept students of any race or religious or political belief. It was possibly the first to accept women on equal terms with men (the University of Bristol also makes this claim – as both were admitting students to University of London degrees at the time, it is quite possible that this was a simultaneous action), the first in England to establish a students’ union (although men and women had separate unions until 1945), and the first to have professorships in chemical engineering, chemistry, Egyptology, electrical engineering, English, French, geography, German, Italian, papyrology, phonetics, psychology, and zoology.

In 1907 the University of London was reconstituted and many of the colleges, including UCL, lost their separate legal existence. This continued until 1977 when a new charter restored UCL’s independence. In 1985 the main Gower Street building was finally finished – 158 years after the foundations were laid.

In 1973, UCL became the first international link to the ARPANET, the precursor of today’s internet.

In August 1998 the medical school at UCL merged with The Royal Free Hospital Medical School to create the new Royal Free and University College Medical School. This, together with the incorporation of several major postgraduate medical institutes (Institute of Child Health, Institute of Neurology, Eastman Dental Institute and the Institute of Ophthalmology) make UCL one of the leading centres for biomedical research in the world. Indeed, 65% of UCL’s turnover resides within biomedicine. 10 Nobel Laureates in Physiology and Medicine either studied at or carried out their research at UCL. UCL is particularly strong in cell biology, neuroscience, physiology, pediatrics, neurology and ophthalmology. UCL’s strengths in biomedicine will be significantly augmented with the move of the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) from Mill Hill to UCL. Founded in 1913 and the Medical Research Council’s first and largest laboratory, its scientists have garnered five Nobel prizes. NIMR today employs over 700 scientists and has an annual budget of £27 million.

Even today UCL retains its strict secular position, and unlike most other UK universities has no designated Muslim prayer rooms, although it has recently (2005) gained a Christian chaplaincy. Due to this, in general, secularistic attitude, UCL has also been known as "the godless institution of Gower Street". However, there is no restriction on religious groups among students, and a quiet room allows prayer for staff and students of all faiths. The very reason for secularity was that students of different denominations (specifically Catholics and Protestants) could study alongside each other without conflict. The tradition is continued today, where many of the students who attend UCL come from London, and reflect both its ethnic and religious diversity.

UCL Union repeats this policy, and is also constitutionally forbidden from being tied to a political party. Candidates for positions cannot campaign on party tickets, to which many might attribute the repeated descriptions of UCL as relatively ‘apolitical’, especially in contrast to nearby institutions like LSE. But we might equally pin this on social/cultural tendencies within the student body and university administration.

The UCL Library is famous in its own right, its collection including a first edition of Newton’s Principia.

In October 2002, a plan to merge UCL with Imperial College London was announced by the universities. The merger was widely seen as a de facto takeover of UCL by Imperial College and was opposed by both staff and UCL Union, the students’ union; but what particularly angered many staff and students was the perceived lack of consultation before the proposal was made. At an Emergency meeting organised by University College London Union to discuss the merger and the union´s stance on it, the then provost Sir Derek Roberts stormed out of the Bloomsbury theatre, refusing to listen to a speaker who opposed the merger. He himself had just finished delivering a speech in favour. One month later after a vigorous campaign the merger was called off.

On 1 August 2003, Professor Malcolm Grant took the role of President and Provost (the principal of UCL), taking over from Sir Derek Roberts, who had been called out of retirement as a caretaker provost for the college.

Shortly after his inauguration, UCL began the ‘Campaign for UCL’ initiative, in 2004. It aimed to raise £300m from alumni and friends. This kind of explicit campaigning is traditionally unusual for UK universities, and is similar to US university funding. UCL had a financial endowment in the top ten among UK universities at £81m, according to the Sutton Trust (2002). Professor Malcolm Grant has also aimed to enhance UCL’s global links, declaring UCL London’s Global University. Significant interactions with France’s Ecole Normale, Columbia University, NYU, University of Texas and universities in Osaka, Japan have developed during the first few years of his tenure as provost.

UCL was named Sunday Times University of the Year in 2004. The Sunday Times 2005 University Guide describes UCL as "physically and academically at the centre of the University of London. Mergers with a number of medical and other academic schools have created a multidisciplinary college that rivals Oxford and Cambridge for breadth, exclusivity and cutting-edge teaching and research."

Following a similar move by Imperial College, UCL applied to the Privy Council for the power to award degrees in its own right. This was granted in September 2005 although the powers are being held in reserve and will only be used should the college find it necessary to change its status within the federation of the University of London.

In January 2006, UCL decided to become a member of the League of European Research Universities (LERU), a network of research-intensive universities with common viewpoints on higher education and research policy. Membership of LERU, which is by invitation, is periodically evaluated against a broad set of quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as research volume, impact and funding, strengths in PhD training, size and disciplinary breadth, and peer-recognised academic excellence. Professor Malcolm Grant, President and Provost of UCL, said: “European research universities have common values and common cause, and we welcome this opportunity to become part of so outstanding a network of research institutions. I think that groupings such as this are particularly important at a time when the EU is thinking seriously about the function of research-intensive universities, about the European Research Commission and a possible European Institute of Technology. It also reflects UCL’s global vision and our extensive collaborative engagement with continental universities through research and student exchanges, including the recently announced programme in neurosciences with three Parisian institutions.”

Famous alumni

UCL alumni include legions of the "Great and Good", ranging from Mahatma Gandhi to the members of Coldplay. A historical bent towards the arts has tended to mean a higher output of authors, including Robert Browning and Raymond Briggs, than scientists and engineers, although it still has its fair share, such as Francis Crick, John Ambrose Fleming, Colin Chapman, and perhaps most notably Alexander Graham Bell. Politicians figure highly in the lists, notably both the first prime minister of Japan, Hirobumi Ito and the current prime minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Campus networking
UCL provides students and staff with wired and wireless internet access at a number of locations on campus, through a service called RoamNet. However, access to this service requires the use of a proprietary Cisco VPN client, which is not supported on handhelds, non-Intel Linux systems, or other alternative platforms.

UCL user names are seemingly random: e.g. "ucxxxxx". According to the UCL Education and Information Support Division, network users in student halls are not allowed to participate in IRC, network game playing, or chain mail; or host services such as HTTP, mail, FTP, NNTP, or telnet; or run software that uses RPC-based services (such as NFS) or IP multicast services; connect more than one machine at a time to a single network jack, or attach any device other than their personal workstation to the jack. Plugging a machine into another active port without authorization will cause a security violation, and the port will be disabled. As of September 2005, the fee for activating a port in a room is 70 GBP per year, and cannot be refunded or issued at a discount for intervals of less than one year.

Students’ accommodation
Many UCL students are accommodated in the college’s own halls of residence or other accommodation; UCL students are also eligible to apply for places in the University of London intercollegiate halls of residence, such as Connaught Hall.

Most students in college or university accommodation are first-year undergraduates. The majority of second and third-year students and postgraduates find their own accommodation in the private sector.

There is also limited UCL accommodation available for married students and those with children at Bernard Johnson House, Hawkridge, Neil Sharp House and the University of London’s Lilian Penson Hall.

Filming at UCL
Due to its position within London and the attractiveness of the front quad, UCL has been frequently used as a location for film and television recording.

Spooks (Series III, episode II) features the front quad and the Gustav Tuck Lecture Theatre
The Mummy Returns uses bits of UCL (mainly the Main Quad) to masquerade as the British Museum
Agatha Christie’s Poirot, 9th series, 5 Little Pigs episode, filmed in old main library entrance and in main quad. Also used British Museum Reading Room, and Room 34 whilst in the area.
Batman Begins features the DMS Watson library as "Gotham Print Room".
Thunderbirds used the main Quad and Building as the "Bank of London".
Doctor in the House used the Portico as the entrance to "St Swithin’s Hospital"
Gladiator used the main Quad as a model for ancient Rome.
Silent Witness uses the main Quad (carefully avoiding the Observatories), the main door, and the South and North Cloisters as well as the Octagon. And, while they were in the area, they used the ULU and Senate House (University of London) buildings/ surrounding areas for good measure!
Derren Brown: The Heist, shown at 9.00p.m. on Channel 4 on Wednesday 4th January 2006, featured brief exterior shots of the main Quad and University Street. It was implied one experiment conducted was filmed inside one UCL building, although which one was not established, it was most likely to be the Cruciform Building which is located opposite the Front Quad.
Eyes Wide Shut uses the UCL GP practice as the clinic for Tom Cruise’s character.

April 23, 2006/by pdeng

乱七八糟

Illinois Institute of Technology–Chicago-Kent College of Law

摘自http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-Kent_College_of_Law

Chicago-Kent College of Law is an ABA accredited law school in Chicago, Illinois. Chicago-Kent is part of the Illinois Institute of Technology. The School’s name is a combination of two law schools which merged in 1900 to form present day Chicago-Kent: the Chicago College of Law and the Kent College of Law. Chicago-Kent is considered one of Chicago’s top law schools – criteria for admission has increased dramatically in the past five years. The 2005 full-time entering class has a median LSAT of 161, a median GPA of 3.50.

Academics
Chicago-Kent teaches a standard first year law school curriculum with courses in Torts, Contracts, Criminal Law, Property and Civil Procedure.
The school places a heavy emphasis on Legal Research and Writing. Kent’s writing curriculum has been used as a model for other programs.
Students are well prepared to take the Illinois bar exam, with an 88.5% first time pass rate.

History
The school is founded as the Chicago College of Law in 1888.
Chicago College of Law and the Kent College of Law merge to form the Chicago-Kent College of Law in 1900.
The school received its American Bar Association accreditation in 1936.
Chicago-Kent and the Illinois Institute of Technology merged in 1969.
Landmark three year legal writing program begins in 1978.
Notable Alumni
Ida Platt, 1894. First black woman admitted to the Illinois bar, second woman of color admitted to bar in the United States.
Abraham Lincoln Marovitz, 1925. Appointed to Federal Court for the Northern District of Illinois by President Kennedy, 1963.
Richard B. Ogilvie, 1949. Illinois Governor, 1969-1973.

April 23, 2006/by pdeng

乱七八糟

Illinois Institute of Technology

摘自http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Institute_of_Technology

Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private Ph.D.-granting university with programs in engineering, science, psychology, architecture, business, communications, journalism, design and law. It was formed in 1940 by the merger of the Armour Institute of Technology (founded in 1893) and Lewis Institute (founded in 1895). Though not used in official communication, the nickname "Illinois Tech" has long been a favorite of students, inspiring the name of the student newspaper (originally Armour Tech News from 1928, now TechNews) and the former mascot of the university’s collegiate sports teams, the Techawks. During the 1950s and 1960s, the nickname was actually more prevalent than "IIT." This is reflected by the Chicago Transit Authority’s elevated train station at 35th and State being named "Tech-35th" instead of its current name, "35th-Bronzeville-IIT."

Academic units
IIT is divided into four colleges, three institutes, a school, and a number of research centers, some of which also provide academic programs independent of the other academic units. Many of these contain departments representing the academic programs offered in each. The academic structure is as follows:

Armour College of Engineering
   Department of Biomedical Engineering
   Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering
   Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering
   Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
   Department of Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering
College of Science and Letters
   Department of Applied Mathematics
   Department of Biological, Chemical, and Physical Sciences
   Department of Computer Science
   Lewis Department of Humanities
   Department of Math and Science Education
   Department of Social Sciences
      Graduate Programs in Public Administration
Chicago-Kent College of Law
   Center for Access to Justice & Technology
   Global Law and Policy Initiative
   Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future
   Institute for Law and the Humanities
   Institute for Law and the Workplace
   Institute for Science, Law and Technology
College of Architecture
Institute of Psychology
Institute of Design
Institute of Business and Interprofessional Studies
   Department of Undergraduate Business
   Interprofessional Projects Program
   IIT Leadership Academy
   Ed Kaplan Entrepreneurial Studies Program
   Jules F. Knapp Entrepreneurship Center
Stuart Graduate School of Business
   Center for Financial Markets
Center for Professional Development
   Information Technology and Management Degree Programs
   Industrial Technology and Management Degree Programs
   Professional Learning Programs (CEU/Adult Education)

History
Armour Institute of Technology
One of IIT’s predecessor institutions, Armour Institute of Technology, was founded with a gift from Philip Danforth Armour, Sr., a prominent Chicago meat packer and grain merchant. Armour had heard Chicago minister Frank Gunsaulus say that with a million dollars, he would build a school that would be open to students of all backgrounds, instead of just the elite as was common then. This became known as the Million Dollar Sermon. After the sermon, Armour approached Gunsaulus and asked if he was serious about his claim. When Gunsaulus said yes, Armour told him that if he come by his office in the morning, he would give him the million dollars. Armour also stipulated that Gunsaulus become the first president of the school, and Gunsaulus served as president of Armour Tech from its founding in 1893 until his death in 1921.

Centered at 33rd Street and Armour Avenue (now Federal Street), Armour Institute of Technology shared the neighborhood now known as Bronzeville with many historic places – Old Comiskey Park sat just a few blocks away, west of what is now the Dan Ryan Expressway; the land used to expand the campus in the 1940s through 1970s was home to many of Chicago’s old famous jazz and blues clubs, with performers like Louis Armstrong highlighting the neighborhood; and, as evidenced by the affluent church in which Gunsaulus ministered and the Armour family attended, some of Chicago’s most influential members frequented the area.

Lewis Institute
Founded in 1895 by the will of Chicago real estate investor Allen C. Lewis, Lewis Institute stood where the United Center now stands. Lewis was one of many real estate investors to descend on Chicago after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and helped to rebuild the city’s west side. The Institute, under its first director, George Noble Carman, quickly became a pioneer in education, offering adult education programs that were well before their time. The Institute offered courses in engineering, sciences, and technology, but also featured courses in home economics and other domestic arts. One unique program featured a young child "borrowed" from a member of the community who would be cared for by Lewis students for up to a year. Many Lewis faculty became well-known for their contributions to education and society, including Carman, who helped create the first educational accreditation board which became the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, and Ethel Percy Andrus, who became the first female high school principal in the state of California and founded the AARP.

Lewis/Armour merger
Despite success on many fronts for each Armour Institute and Lewis Institute, the Great Depression and changing educational times left both looking for ways to expand and relieve debt. In the late 1930s, the Board of Trustees at Armour was expanded greatly, with many Chicago industrialists and businessmen joining the Board to increase both funding and notoriety. However, it was a proposal from Lewis’ Chairman Alex Bailey to Armour President Henry Townley Heald and Board Chairman James Cunningham that would lead to the birth of IIT. While Armour’s faculty and trustees supported the merger, some Lewis faculty and alumni opposed it, feeling that Lewis’ legacy would be forgotten in the new school. In fact, it was Armour’s campus that became the permanent home of the new school, and Lewis’ campus was used as a civic building by the City of Chicago before the campus was leveled and the United Center eventually constructed. The resistance by Lewis supporters led to a court battle, in which the original will of Allen C. Lewis had to be dissolved. Lewis and Armour completed the merger in 1940, and the fall of 1940 marked the first academic year for the new Illinois Institute of Technology.

Growth and expansion
IIT continue to expand after the merger. As one of the first American universities to host a Navy V-12 program during World War II, the school saw a large increase in students and as a result, had to expand the Armour campus beyond its original 7 acres. Two years before the merger, German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe joined Armour to head Armour and the Art Institute of Chicago’s architecture program. The Art Institute would later pull out of the program. Mies was given the task of designing a completely new campus, and the result was a spacious, open, 120 acre campus set in contrast to the busy, crowded urban neighborhood around it. The first Mies-designed buildings were completed in the mid-1940s, and construction on what is considered the "Mies campus" continued until the early 1970s.

Engineering and research also saw great growth and expansion from the post-war period until the early 1970s. Fluid dynamicist John T. Rettaliata, whose research accomplishments included work on early development of the jet engine and a seat on the National Aeronautics and Space Council, was president of IIT during its period of greatest growth from 1952 until 1973. The period saw IIT as the largest engineering school in the United States (as a feature in the September 1953 edition of Popular Science pointed out). IIT was the home of many research organizations, including IIT Reseach Institute, formerly Armour Research Foundation and birthplace of magnetic recording wire and tape and both audio and video cassettes, as well as the Institute for Gas Technology and American Association of Railroads among others.

State Street VillageThree colleges merged with IIT after the 1940 merger of Armour and Lewis: Institute of Design (ID) in 1946, Chicago-Kent College of Law in 1969, and Midwest College of Engineering in 1986. IIT’s Stuart School of Business was founded by a gift from Lewis Institute alumnus Harold Leonard Stuart in the 1960s, and joined Chicago-Kent at IIT’s Downtown Campus in 1992; it phased out its undergraduate program (becoming graduate-only) after Spring 1995. (An undergraduate business program focusing on technology and IIT’s Interprofessional Projects program was launched in Fall 2004, but is administratively separate from the Stuart School and is housed on the Main Campus.) The Institute of Design, once housed on the Main Campus in S.R. Crown Hall, also cut its undergraduate programs and moved downtown in the early 1990s.

Today

McCormick Tribune Campus CenterEnrollment and financial decline from the mid-1970s through the early 1990s threatened the school so much that leaving the Mies campus behind and moving to the Chicago suburbs was considered by the National Commission on IIT in 1994. Construction of a veritable wall of high-rise Chicago Housing Authority projects replaced virtually all of IIT’s neighbors in the 1950s and 1960s, a well-meaning but flawed attempt to improve conditions in an economically declining portion of the city. One of the most notorious of these high-rise complexes, Stateway Gardens, was located just south of 35th Street, the southern boundary of campus. The past decade, though, has seen a redevelopment of Stateway Gardens into a new, mixed-income neighborhood dubbed Park Boulevard begin; the completion of the new central station of the Chicago Police Department a block east of the campus; and major commercial development at Roosevelt Road, one Green Line stop north of campus, and residential development as close as Michigan Avenue on the east boundary of the school.

Today, Illinois Institute of Technology is experiencing a resurgance both nationally and in the Chicagoland area. Bolstered by a $120 million gift in the mid-1990s from IIT alum Robert Pritzker, chairman of IIT’s Board of Trustees, and Robert Galvin, former chairman of the board and former Motorola executive, the university is in the midst of a physical rennovation and revitalization campaign for the Main Campus. The first new buildings on the Main Campus since the "completion" of the Mies Campus in the early 1970s were finished in 2003 – Rem Koolhaas’s McCormick Tribune Campus Center and Helmut Jahn’s State Street Village. S.R. Crown Hall saw renovation in 2005, and Wishnick Hall is currently under work. Undergraduate enrollment has breached 2,000 after reaching a low point of 1,500 in the mid-1990s, and plans are to reach 2,500 by 2010, as estimate that is looking increasingly conservative. Chicago-Kent College of Law has been recognized as one of the top law schools in the Midwest, with leading faculty in international and technology law. Stuart Graduate School of Business, though low on students, boasts the 11th ranked Finance/Financial Markets program in the world as ranked by Global Derivatives magazine. Older programs are still strong, as seen by strong recent growth in the College of Architecture and steady enrollment in the same period for other units. New programs including Biomedical Engineering, "techno-business," and Journalism of Technology, Science, and Business have helped to bring more modernized education to the school still dominated by engineering and architecture programs, the traditional domain of tech schools. To further boost this focus on biotechnology and the melding of business and technology, University Technology Parkis planned to begin construction soon, by remodeling former Institute of Gas Technology and research buildings on the south end of the Main Campus.

Noted alumni
Valdas Adamkus, President of the Republic of Lithuania
Dorothea Brande, writer
Marvin Camras, inventor (magnetic recording tape), educator
Roger Chaffee, astronaut (did not graduate from IIT, but attended his first year and was a member of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity)
Alvin V. Cheeks, businessman, minister
Martin Cooper, inventor (cell phone)
Mark T. Diganci
Jack Dongarra, University Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, University of Tennessee
James Ingo Freed, architect
Julius Hoffman, attorney and judge
Hans Hollein, Pritzker Prize-winning Austrian architect (attended IIT for one year)
Alfred G. Holtum, engineer
Yasuhiro Ishimoto, photographer
Helmut Jahn, architect
Martin C. Jischke, president of Purdue University
Phyllis Lambert, architect
Jan Lorenc, designer
Tim Michels, businessman, politician
Sam Pitroda, businessman
Robert Pritzker, businessman
Grote Reber, inventor (radio telescope)
James G. Roche, former U.S. Secretary of the Air Force
Vincent Sarich, educator
Jack Steinberger, physicist (Nobel Laureate, attended for two years)
James Young, musician
Rajinder singh ji, noted spritual leader