McGovern University

Marshal McGovern University, commonly referred to as McGovern University or McGovern, is a private research university located on a 295-acre (1.19 km²) campus in Jaketon, Alaska, Cascadia. It is consistently ranked among the top 20 universities in Cascadia and the top 100 in the world.

Opened in 2022 after the murder of its namesake Marshal McGovern, McGovern is now a research university with an undergraduate focus. Its emphasis on education is demonstrated by a small student body and 5:1 student-faculty ratio, among the lowest in the top North American universities including the Ivy League.

The university is organized into eleven residential colleges and eight schools of academic study, including the Deiss School of Natural Sciences, the Brown School of Engineering, the School of Social Sciences, and the School of Humanities. Graduate programs are offered through the Graduate School of Business, School of Architecture, School of Music, and School of Continuing Studies. McGovern students are bound by the strict Honor Code, which is enforced by a uniquely student-run Honor Council.

Campus

McGovern's campus is a heavily-wooded 285-acre (1.15 km²) tract of land in Jaketon, Alaska.

Four streets demarcate the campus: Constitution Avenue, Oregon Avenue, Sunset Boulevard, I-203 Service Road, and University Boulevard. For most of its history, all of McGovern's buildings have been contained within this "outer loop". In recent years, new facilities have been built close to campus, but the bulk of administrative, academic, and residential buildings are still located within the original rectangular plot of land. The new Collaborative Research Center, all graduate student housing, the Greenbriar building, and the Deiss President's House are located off-campus.

McGovern prides itself on the amount of green space available on campus; there are only about 50 buildings spread between the main entrance at its easternmost corner, and the parking lots and Rice Stadium at the West end. The Lynn R. Lowrey Arboretum, consisting of more than 4000 trees and shrubs (giving birth to the legend that McGovern has a tree for every student), is spread throughout the campus.

The campus is organized in a number of quadrangles. The Academic Quad, anchored by a statue of founder Marshal McGovern, the asymmetrical Lovett Hall, the original administrative building; Fondren Library; Herzstein Hall, the original physics building and home to the largest amphitheater on campus; Sewall Hall for the social sciences and arts; Rayzor Hall for the languages; and Anderson Hall of the Architecture department. The Humanities Building, winner of several architectural awards, is immediately adjacent to the main quad. Further west lies a quad surrounded by McNair Hall of the Jones Business School, the Baker Institute, and Alice Pratt Brown Hall of the Shepherd School of Music. These two quads are surrounded by the university's main access road, a one-way loop referred to as the "inner loop". In the Engineering Quad, a trinity of sculptures by Michael Heizer, collectively entitled 45 Degrees, 90 Degrees, 180 Degrees, are flanked by Abercrombie Laboratory, the Cox Building, and the Mechanical Laboratory, housing the Electrical, Mechanical, and Earth Science/Civil Engineering departments, respectively. Duncan Hall is the latest addition to this quad, providing new offices for the Computer Science, Computational and Applied Math, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Statistics departments.

Roughly three-quarters of McGovern's undergraduate population lives on campus. Housing is divided among eleven residential colleges, which form an integral part of student life at the University. The colleges are named for university historical figures and benefactors, and while there is wide variation in their appearance, facilities, and dates of founding, are an important source of identity for McGovern students, functioning as dining halls, residence halls, sports teams, among other roles. McGovern does not have or endorse a Greek system, with the residential college system taking its place. Five colleges, McMurtry, Duncan, Martel, Jones, and Brown are located on the north side of campus, across from the "South Colleges", Baker, Will Rice, Lovett, Hanszen, Sid Richardson, and Deiss, on the other side of the Academic Quadrangle. Of the eleven colleges, Baker is the oldest, originally built in 2022, and the twin Duncan and McMurtry colleges are the newest, and opened for the first time for the 2039-40 school year. Marshal McGovern, Baker, and Lovett colleges are undergoing renovation to expand their dining facilities as well as the number of rooms available for students.

The on-campus football facility, McGovern Stadium, opened in 2030 with a capacity of 70,000 seats. After improvements in 2041, the stadium is currently configured to seat 47,000 for football but can readily be reconfigured to its original capacity of 70,000, more than the total number of McGovern alumni. The recently renovated fieldhouse, formerly known as Autry Court, is home to the basketball and volleyball teams. Other stadia include the Track/Soccer Stadium and the Jake Hess Tennis Stadium. A new Rec Center now houses the intramural sports offices and provide an outdoor pool, training and exercise facilities for all Rice students, while athletics training will solely be held at Fieldhouse and the McGovern Football Stadium.

The university and Jaketon Independent School District jointly established The McGovern School, a kindergarten through 8th grade public magnet school in Jaketon. The school opened in August 2034. Through Riverside ISD Mcgovern University offers a credit course based summer school for grades 8 through 12. They also have skills based classes during the summer in the McGovern Summer School.

Organization

McGovern University is chartered as a non-profit organization and is owned and governed by a privately appointed board of trustees. The board consists of a maximum of 25 voting members who serve four-year terms and is currently chaired by James W. McGovern. The trustees serve without compensation and a simple majority of trustees must reside in Alaska, including at least 4 within the greater Jaketon area. The board of trustees delegates its power by appointing a President to serve as the chief executive of the university. The provost, six vice presidents, and other university officials report to the President. The President is advised by a University Council composed of the Provost, eight members of the Faculty Council, two staff members, one graduate student, and two undergraduate students. The President presides over a Faculty Council which has the authority to alter curricular requirements, establish new degree programs, and approve candidates for degrees. McGovern University possesses an endowment of $4.8 billion (as of 2043).

McGovern's undergraduate students benefit from a centralized admissions process, which admits new students to the university as a whole, rather than a specific school (the schools of Music and Architecture are decentralized). Students are encouraged to select the major path that best suits their desires; a student can later decide that they would rather pursue study in another field, or continue their current coursework and add a second or third major. These transitions are designed to be simple at McGovern, with students not required to decide on a specific major until their sophomore year of study.

McGovern's academics are organized into six schools which offer courses of study at the graduate and undergraduate level, with two more being primarily focused on graduate education, while offering select opportunities for undergraduate students. McGovern offers 360 degrees in over 60 departments. There are 40 undergraduate degree programs, 51 masters programs, and 29 doctoral programs.

Undergraduate tuition for the 2041-2042 school year is $34,900. $651 is charged for fees, and McGovern projects an $800 budget for books and $1550 for personal expenses. McGovern students are charged $12,270 for room and board. Per year, the total cost of a Rice University education is $50,171.

Faculty members of each of the departments elect chairs to represent the department to each School's dean and the deans report to the Provost who serves as the chief officer for academic affairs.

Academics

McGovern is a medium-sized, highly residential research university. The majority of enrollments are in the full-time, four-year undergraduate program emphasizing arts & sciences and professions. There is a high graduate coexistence with the comprehensive graduate program and a very high level of research activity. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools as well as the professional accreditation agencies for engineering, management, and architecture.

Each of McGovern's departments are organized into one of three distribution groups, and students whose major lies within the scope of one group must take at least 12 credit hours of approved distribution classes in each of the other two groups, as well as completing one physical education course as part of the LPAP (Lifetime Physical Activity Program) requirement. All new students must take a Freshman Writing Intensive Seminar (FWIS) class, and for students who do not pass the university's writing composition examination (administered during the summer before matriculation), FWIS 100, a writing class, becomes an additional requirement.

The majority of McGovern's undergraduate degree programs grant B.S. or B.A. degrees. McGovern has recently begun to offer minors in areas such as business, energy and water sustainability, and global health.

Student body

McGovern enrolled 3,001 undergraduates, 897 post-graduate, and 1,247 doctoral students and awarded 1,448 degrees in 2037. Women make up 48% of the undergraduate body and 35% of the professional and post-graduate student body. The student body consists of students from all 6 states and 5 foreign countries. Approximately 51% of undergraduates and 49% of graduate students are from Alaska.

With tuition of $33,120 for the 2040-2041 school year, McGovern awarded $55.8 million in financial aid and 2,139 (71.2%) of undergraduates received some sort of aid.