Company Profile
Rosalind Franklin University Of Medicine & Science
Company Overview
A spirit of inquiry, diligence, and academic excellence characterized our university’s namesake, Dr. Rosalind Franklin, who in 1952 captured the photograph revealing the structure of DNA. Today, those same traits drive our faculty and 2,000+ students as they engage in a level of rigorous academics, pioneering research, and innovative community service that continues to shape the future of healthcare.
Formed in 1912 as the Chicago Hospital-College of Medicine, today RFU brings together five colleges and over 30 graduate health profession and science programs. The range of disciplines being taught on a single campus allows for team-based, interdisciplinary learning and practice opportunities—an approach that has made RFU a national leader in interprofessional medical and healthcare education and research.
Our students are further prepared for their careers through our state-of-the-art network of simulation and skills labs and a wide variety of clinical opportunities. Located 36 miles north of Chicago in the city’s North Shore suburbs, RFU students have access to a greater number and wider range of clinical and service learning experiences.
Finally, RFU’s 2,000+ students enjoy an engaged, supportive sense of community with peers who share their academic interests and goals, and faculty who know them by name and are committed to their individual success.
Company History
Deep roots in educating diverse health leaders.
Sharing common commitments and visions for more than a century.
More than 100 years ago, three Chicagoans came together around a common vision: creating a medical school that would help open the profession to more people, including women, African Americans, and the working class. The Chicago Hospital-College of Medicine (later the Chicago Medical School) opened its doors in 1912.
In another part of the city that same year, Dr. William M. Scholl formed the team that founded the Illinois College of Chiroprody and Orthopedics. Like the Chicago Hospital-College of Medicine, it was open and egalitarian; both schools rejected the limiting racial and ethnic quotas implemented by other schools and colleges at the time.
Five colleges joined together in a single purpose.
Today, both colleges—along with the College of Health Professions (1970), the College of Pharmacy (2011), and the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (1968)—comprise Rosalind Franklin University. We’re a cohesive learning institution, bringing together over 30 graduate health and science profession programs around a single purpose: improving the health and wellbeing of all.
Our long history of advocating for diversity and inclusion has continued to shape the University in a variety of ways today, from the diverse nature of our community to the many student organizations that support and celebrate that diversity. In 2004, the renaming of the University in honor of Dr. Rosalind Franklin made us the first medical institution in the US to recognize a female scientist through an honorary namesake.
Interprofessional, global, and innovative in a changing field.
In 2013, the DeWitt C. Baldwin Institute for Interprofessional Education, which now includes our Office of Global Health, was established at RFU. That same year, four Chicago Medical School students also initiated the Interprofessional Community Clinic. These approaches to providing care demonstrate the heart of who we are today: an institution focused on preparing diverse teams of health providers to care for increasingly diverse populations, in the U.S. and around the world.
As we look ahead, our singular focus on improving the health of the population, our outstanding facilities and faculty, and our Interprofessional approach allow us to be agile and innovative, successfully preparing students to step into a rapidly changing field and lead the way.
Notable Accomplishments / Recognition
Seventy-five years ago, Rosalind Franklin defended her devotion to science and her decision to stay at Cambridge University despite the great war that was storming through Europe and the bombs that were raining down on London.
Science, Dr. Franklin insisted, cannot and should not be separated from everyday life. Whether in war or peace, plenty or privation, despite the endless cycle of challenges and disruptions, the highest aim of science and the measure of its success is the unceasing improvement of the lot of humankind.
Rosalind Franklin’s namesake university continues its own march forward, working to better educate, develop and support the healthcare workforce of the future. We continuously strive to improve the state of our union, aim higher, learn more, drill into data to better accomplish our core mission — the interprofessional education of health and biomedical professionals and the discovery of knowledge dedicated to improving human health.
Our mission is undergirded in great measure by the hard work, generosity and support of those who believe in it. Every investment we make in the science and technology of medicine, the art of healing and the art of teaching, is an investment in the future professionals who will use those great gifts to improve the health of their fellow human beings.
This work cannot be accomplished in the isolation of personal concerns, but in the deeply human interconnection of people, science and everyday life. Grounded in this foundation for a life lived in discovery, our students and alumni can practice and explore, adapt and reach to meet the ever-shifting demands for innovation in treatment, prevention and healthcare delivery.
The direct correlation between the success of our mission and the improvement of health outcomes across our communities, the nation and the world has never been clearer at Rosalind Franklin University. We know and understand that the better we build interprofessional healthcare teams, measure our progress and continuously refine the means to our mission, the better we can put our students first, front and center.
Our students — past, present and future — who, like Dr. Franklin, courageously lead the charge into new frontiers of science and health, are the truest measure of our success.
K. Michael Welch, MB ChB, FRCP
President and CEO