Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

About

Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (FUM, Persian: دانشگاه فردوسی مشهد, romanized: Daneshgah-e Ferdusi-ye Mashhad) is a public university in Mashhad, the capital city of the Iranian province of Razavi Khorasan. FUM is named after Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi, who is considered to be the national epic poet of Greater Iran. Having been established in 1949, FUM is the third-oldest modern university in Iran. FUM is among the most prestigious universities in Iran, and was ranked as the 3rd best Iranian university in the 2018 ISC rankings published by the Iranian government. FUM offers 180 bachelors, master's, and Ph.D. programs to 30,000 students. It has 810 faculty members and 2500 staff members. FUM has the highest number of enrollments of foreign students in Iran, especially from neighboring countries such as Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq.

The mission of the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad is to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders of society based on divine principles of Islam and scientifically qualified centers of excellence. FUM has some mosques, the most prominent of which is the mosque of Imam Reza which was built in 1993.

If the upgrading of the College of Health to the status of Faculty of Medicine in 1949 is regarded as the first step in establishing the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, the university is the fifth oldest in Iran after the universities of Tehran (1934), Tabriz (1947), Shiraz (1946) and Isfahan (1946), not counting the founding of other academic colleges such as the Westminster Medical College (1878), now Urmia University. Mashhad Faculty of Medicine is part of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, which merged with the Faculty of Literature to form the University of Mashhad in 1954 when the new faculty opened with five different fields. With the expansion of higher education, the following faculties were subsequently established: Faculty of Theology, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Dentistry, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Nutrition, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Faculty of Agriculture, Faculty of Engineering, the Institute of Optometry, the university's high school, and the Teaching Center. Mashhad University was renamed Ferdowsi University in 1974. Before the 1979 Iranian revolution, the curriculum and research agenda at Ferdowsi were designed with the collaboration of Georgetown University, but this was halted after the revolution. The university has one of the largest campuses in Iran. After emerging regional health organizations in the universities of medical sciences in 1994, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences was separated from Ferdowsi University. Meanwhile, a number of new faculties and schools such as Faculty of Administration and Economics, Faculty of Veterinary Sciences, Shirvan Agricultural College, Faculty of Physical Education and Sports, Faculty of Mathematical Sciences, Neishaboor Faculty of the Arts, Institute of Plantation Science, The Seismology Research Center, the University's College, Faculty of Natural Resources and Environment, Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning were established one after the other.

Founded in 1955, the School of Letters and Humanities offers graduate and postgraduate degrees in the fields of Persian language and literature, English language and literature, Arabic language and literature, French language and literature, Russian language and literature, geography, Iranian history, social sciences, and linguistics. The Faculty has 83 academic members, 4500 undergraduate and 500 graduate students. The departments offer B.A., M.A., and PhD programs. Moreover, the Department of Persian Language and Literature is designated by the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, as a Center of Excellence in Ferdowsi Studies.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.