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Stevens Institute of Technology

Stevens Institute of Technology is a private research university in Hoboken, New Jersey. Founded in 1870, it is one of the oldest technological universities in the United States and was the first college in America solely dedicated to mechanical engineering. The 55-acre campus encompasses Castle Point, the highest point in Hoboken, a quad, and 43 academic, student and administrative buildings.

Established through an 1868 bequest from Edwin Augustus Stevens, enrollment at Stevens includes more than 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students representing 47 states and 60 countries throughout Asia, Europe and Latin America. Stevens comprises four schools that deliver technology-based STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) degrees and degrees in business, arts, humanities and social sciences: The Charles V. Schaefer Jr., School of Engineering and Science, School of Business, School of Systems and Enterprises, and the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. For undergraduates, Stevens offers the Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.), Bachelor of Science (B.S.) and Bachelor of Arts (B.A.). At the graduate level, Stevens offers programs in engineering, science, systems, engineering, management and the liberal arts. Graduate students can pursue advanced degrees in more than 50 different designations ranging from graduate certificates and master's degrees to Ph.D. levels.

Stevens is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity." The university is home to two national Centers of Excellence as designated by the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Two members of the Stevens community, as alumni or faculty, have been awarded the Nobel Prize: Frederick Reines (class of 1939), in physics, and Irving Langmuir (Chemistry faculty 1906–1909), in chemistry.

Establishment and the Stevens family
Stevens Institute of Technology is named for "America's First Family of inventors" – the Stevens family. The Stevenses influenced American engineering for decades, designing steamboats, locomotives, railroad tracks and a host of other technical innovations that powered the early United States.

In 1784, the land now occupied by Stevens Institute of Technology was purchased by John Stevens, who would later reverse-engineer the British steam locomotive to American standards for domestic manufacture. This innovation would be employed by ferries to Manhattan. Later generations of ferries still run from Hoboken's piers. Robert Stevens, one of John's sons, invented the flanged T rail, a form of railroad rail in prevalent use today, including from the Lackawanna Terminal of Hoboken whose docks are also in a style Robert designed. Along with his brother Edwin A. Stevens, Robert created America's first commercial railroad presently operating as a large portion of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.

John Cox Stevens, John Stevens' eldest son, was the first commodore of the New York Yacht Club. He and his brother Edwin built the yacht America and were aboard its 1851 regatta victory in England, later recognized as the first winner of the America's Cup; the competition bears the name of the Stevenses' yacht. The New York Yacht Club would defend its title until the 1983 race.

Edwin died in 1868. In his will, he left a bequest for the establishment of an "institution of learning," providing his trustees with land and funds. Edwin's will was executed by surviving wife, Martha Bayard Stevens, who would also serve as a lifetime Trustee of the institute that now bears the family's name. Martha Stevens oversaw much of the family's philanthropy toward the City of Hoboken, including founding of the Church of the Holy Innocents as a free Episcopal church; a foundling hospital and birthing center at St Mary's Hospital; the Robert L. Stevens Fund for Municipal Research; manual training schools for both boys and young girls in Hoboken; the Hoboken Public Library and Manual Training School.

Early years
Stevens Institute of Technology opened in 1870, offering a rigorous engineering curriculum grounded in scientific principles and the humanities. The original course of study was a single, rigorous curriculum based upon the European Polytechnic model of engineering science (following the French and German scientific and polytechnic schools), rather than the shop schools that were common at that time. The original degree offered was the mechanical engineer (M.E.), in addition to a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, chemistry and physics. Stevens granted several doctoral degrees between 1870 and 1900, making it one of the earliest Ph.D.-granting institutions in the United States. The broad-based interdisciplinary philosophy was put into practice by the founders from the first graduating class. Despite the title of the degree and concentration in mechanical engineering, the curriculum included courses in all engineering disciplines of the time: mechanical, civil, chemical and electrical. In 1880, Robert H. Thurston, professor of mechanical engineering, was nominated the first president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

The campus was situated at the periphery of the family estate at Castle Point in Hoboken. It occupied a single building now designated Edwin A. Stevens Hall, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. Stone designs on the building's facade are believed to be derived from a pattern repeated in the floor mosaic of Hagia Sophia, the great cathedral in Istanbul, which Edwin Stevens is believed to have visited in the late 19th century.

1900–1999
In its first century, Stevens grew quickly, evolving from a small, four-year undergraduate engineering college into a comprehensive technological university with strengths in key fields such as quantum computing, artificial intelligence, resilience engineering, robotics, complex systems, healthcare, biomedical research, brain research and fintech. The university produced a Nobel Prize winner (Frederick Reines '39 M.S. '41) and thousands of new technologies, products, services and research insights.

In 1906, students, under the guidance of President A.C. Humphreys, created the honor system – a moral and ethical code governing the life of Stevens students and preaching equality and honest work. The student-run system still exists to this day, in which the accused are tried by their peers with a punishment recommended to the faculty. Stevens was the first technical school to implement such a system.

During World War II, Stevens Institute of Applied Science was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission. During this time, the institute was also honored by the naming of the Victory Ship, SS Stevens Victory, a merchant cargo ship built by the Bethlehem Fairfield Shipyard at Baltimore. Launched on May 29, 1945, the ship was one of 150 named for U.S. colleges and universities.

In 1959, the undergraduate engineering degree was changed to the bachelor of engineering (B.E.) to reflect the broad-based interdisciplinary engineering curriculum (the M.E. degree of that time was a baccalaureate degree, not to be confused with the present Engineer's degree, which is a terminal professional graduate degree).

Also in 1959, the land occupied by the 40-room Victorian mansion, "Castle Stevens" or "Villa on the Hudson", was repurposed for the 14-story administration building completed in 1962, later renamed the Wesley J. Howe Building. Serving as a campus building since in 1911, it was used as a dormitory, cafeteria, and office space. The unsupported cantilevered staircase, with its elegant hand-carved balustrade, was one of only two such "floating staircases" in America.

Stevens' graduate program admitted women for the first time in 1967. Undergraduate women were first admitted in 1971. The Lore-El Center for Women's Leadership promotes the empowerment of women at Stevens.

In 1982, Stevens became the first institution in the U.S. to require all incoming first-year undergraduate students to purchase and use a personal computer. Around this time, an intranet was installed throughout campus, which placed Stevens among the first universities with a campus network.

WCPR: Castle Point Radio, the radio station of Stevens Institute of Technology since 1961, has over 10,000 LPs, one of the largest record collections in New Jersey.

2000 and beyond
Stevens has continued to grow since the turn of the millennium, expanding its enrollment, facilities, partnerships and research programs. The university's collaborations with industry and government include numerous grant awards, contracts and collaborative projects, as well as two National Centers of Excellence designated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense.

Since 2010, undergraduate enrollment has increased 67 percent and full-time graduate enrollment has increased 73 percent. Stevens has adapted and expanded to accommodate that growth, with a focus on modernizing campus facilities and infrastructure. Under the 2012–22 university strategic plan, Stevens made AV and IT upgrades to 100 percent of its classrooms. Improvements also included two new anchor facilities. The Gateway Academic Center, an 89,500-square-foot teaching and research facility, opened in 2019. In 2022, Stevens opened the University Center Complex, providing residential housing for approximately 1,000 students, as well as a campus hub with meeting, collaboration, event spaces, a fitness center and dining facilities.

Stevens has also focused on increasing access and opportunity for students from underrepresented groups. Among undergraduates, there was a 98 percent increase in women and 149 percent increase in the number of underrepresented minorities between 2011 and 2021. Initiatives developed to provide financial, academic and professional development support for students – including the Accessing Careers in Engineering and Science (ACES), A. James Clark Scholars and Lawrence T. Babbio Pinnacle Scholars programs – have played a role in this growth.

In recognition of the progress Stevens made through its strategic plan, the American Council on Education presented the university with its 2018 ACE/Fidelity Investments Award for Institutional Transformation. The award is given to "institutions that have responded to higher education challenges in innovative and creative ways and achieved dramatic changes in a relatively brief period."

Stevens was named one of the healthiest campuses in the nation by Active Minds, a national nonprofit dedicated to student wellness. It has also been recognized for its commitments to environmental sustainability, including receiving the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) STARS Gold Rating in 2020. In 2021, Stevens announced it would source 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy starting in that year's fall semester.

In April 2021, Stevens became one of the first higher education institutions in the United States to require COVID-19 vaccination not only for students, but also faculty and staff. In December 2021, the university announced it would require all students, faculty and staff to receive the COVID-19 booster vaccine to be compliant with the rule.

Attorney general matter
In 2009, after a two-year investigation by the New Jersey Attorney General, Stevens and the attorney general filed competing lawsuits against one another. The Stevens suit against the attorney general contended that she had overstepped her legal authority over a private institution and sought that any case be pursued by confidential arbitration. The attorney general suit against Stevens, its then-president, Harold J. Raveché, and chairman of the board of trustees, Lawrence Babbio Jr., now referred to as the attorney general matter or allegations of the attorney general. On January 15, 2010, a settlement was reached in which Raveché was ordered to repay the low-interest loans offered to him by the university and increased oversight by the state of New Jersey until 2016. The president and chairman stepped down shortly after - succecceded by Nariman Farvardin and Virginia P. Ruesterholz, respectively. It concluded with no admission of liability or unlawful conduct by any party.

Campus
Stevens Tech's 55 acre (22 ha) campus is in Hoboken, New Jersey, a city defined by its proximity to New York City and high density. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and is primarily along the waterfront of Hoboken, directly west of Manhattan. The area has a humid subtropical climate and consists of a prominent hill known as Castle Point, the highest point in Hoboken. There are 17 academic, 3 athletic, 11 administrative, and 9 non-Greek residential buildings. Also, there are 13 Greek residences and additional buildings associated with the university in Hoboken.

Of the 60+ buildings associated with the university, 3 are listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).

Edwin A. Stevens Hall

When the institution opened in 1870 it consisted of a single building, Edwin A. Stevens Hall, named after its benefactor. The building was designed by renowned architect Richard Upjohn and featured a five-story, 80,000-square-foot hall in the High Victorian Gothic style adorned with heavy-stone masonry, brickwork, pointed arches, and intricately carved sculptures and ornaments. The majority of the building was finished in 1870, with the east wing being completed in 1872, and it functioned as the only building for the college until 1902. Notably, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers was chartered within the prominent main hall in 1880, now known as Debaun Auditorium. To celebrate the 125th anniversary of the institution a 40 ft spire was added atop the building, which is now featured as the logo of the university. Modernly, the building is home to the Charles V. Schaefer Jr. School of Engineering and Sciences, performing arts space, laboratories, offices, and lecture halls. The building was added to the NRHP in 1994 for its significance to education, architecture, and social history.

Carnegie Mechanical Laboratory
In 1900, trustee and benefactor Andrew Carnegie, offered a sum of $65,000 for the construction of a new engineering workshop, Carnegie Mechanical Laboratory. The architectural style of the building includes an arcade atop a cement basement with a Corinthian entablature. Structurally, a steel frame and cement make up the building, making it completely fireproof. The building is now home to labs, offices, and classroom space. Carnegie Laboratory is inter-linked with the Gateway Academic Center, which wraps around the north and east sides of the building.

Morton Memorial Laboratory of Chemistry

While Carnegie Laboratory was being constructed, President Henry Morton was developing plans for a suitable building to house a chemical laboratory, then known as the Alumni Chemical Hall. After Dr. Morton's death in 1902, the building was renamed to honor him and redesigned, as Jacobus said, to make it “look more imposing.” Construction began in 1905. In 1906, the building was opened as the Morton Memorial Laboratory of Chemistry. The building was designed by Ackerman & Partridge and featured three-stories, ten prominent brick chimneys rising high above its roofline, with limestone and copper trimings in a Classical Revival style. The building was added to the NRHP in 2022 for its significance to architecture.

William Hall Walker Gymnaisum

When William Hall Walker Gymnasium was completed in 1916 the student newspaper, The Stute, noted: "Stevens is now a real college, for we have a real place for college dances." The building was destinctive for its elliptical form (due to site conditions) and architects Ludlow & Peabody designed the structure in a classical revival style based on ancient Greek and Roman designs. The exterior of the building was made of variegated deep-toned brick with raked joints, lime and terracotta stone trim, and a green shingled tile roof. The second floor housed the main gymnasium under a trussed ceiling 27 feet above with a gallery running track. Modernly, the building's purpose is much the same, predominately as a space for athletics with occasional activities for student life. The building was added to the NRHP in 2019 for its significance to architecutre.

Distinct Buildings
In addition to the three buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, Stevens is also home to a few distinct features as part of its campus, whether at present or historically. This includes four sculptures, three historic plaques, an anchor, and the famous boat dorm.

S.S. Stevens (dorm boat)

The SS Stevens, a 473-foot, 14,893-ton ship, served as a floating dormitory from 1968 to 1975 for approximately 150 students. Moored on the Hudson River at the foot of campus across from New York City, this first collegiate floating dormitory became one of the best-known college landmarks in the country.

Purchased by the institute to fill a shortfall in student housing, the ship's operating costs during the initial years of service were comparable to conventional land-based dormitory housing. In later years, however, the ship's burgeoning operating and repair costs, combined with a more favorable housing outlook, forced the institute to sell Stevens in 1975. In tribute, one of her 6-ton anchors was prominently placed on the campus grounds by the graduating Class of 1975. In August 1975, the ship was towed to a shipyard in Chester, Pennsylvania, and she was subsequently scrapped in 1979. The anchor was briefly removed during the construction of the UCC Towers, but was brought back after student advocacy in April 2024.

S.C. Williams Library Archives
Stevens’ S.C. Williams Library houses the university's special collections, which contain the largest compendium of items relating to Frederick Winslow Taylor; prints, manuscripts in facsimile and books by and about Leonardo da Vinci; and artwork by Alexander Calder, who studied at Stevens. The other collection hallmark, the "Leonardo da Vinci Room," was donated by John W. Lieb, Class of 1880.

The library's archives also house Stevens family documents and artifacts from early American and New Jersey history dating to the American Revolutionary War. The Hoboken Historical Museum hosted a six-month exhibition on the Stevens Family and their contributions to American life and featured many of the library's contents.

Governance & Administration
The 7th and current president of Stevens is Nariman Farvardin, who was appointed by the institute's board of trustees in 2011 following the resignation of Harold J. Raveché and chairman of the board Lawrence Babbio Jr. The board is currently chaired by Stephen T. Boswell, the former President and CEO of Boswell Engineering. The board is responsible for the overall direction of the university. It consists of no fewer than 3 and no more than 42 members at any one time, with the president of the university serving as ex officio members. It approves the operating and capital budgets, supervises the investment of the university's endowment, and oversees campus real estate and long-range physical planning. The trustees also exercise prior review and approval concerning changes in major policies such as those in instructional programs and admission as well as tuition and fees and the hiring of faculty members.

The president also has a cabinet of 11 vice-presidents. Furthermore, the president and board are advised by a 21-member group known as the Presidents Leadership Council, including Marques Brownlee. The Provost is advised by 12-member Academic Council, including the deans for each of the schools and colleges.

Stevens is composed of four academic schools: the Charles V. Schaefer Jr. School of Engineering and Science, the School of Systems and Enterprises, the School of Business, and the School of Humanitis Arts and Social Sciences. Additionally, the university is home to the College of Online and Professional Education, which is focused on providing online education following a 25-year WebCampus program.

Academic Affiliations
Stevens is a member of National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and a founding-member of Association of Independent Technological Universities since 1957. The Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) serves as an acredidating body of Stevens since 1927. For Engineering and Computer Science, ABET provides further accredidation. In 1937, Stevens and Columbia were the first two engineering programs accredited. Furthermore, the chemistry program at Stevens is accredited by American Chemical Society (ACS){, undergraduate and graduate business programs are accredited by Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), and project management programs are accredited by the Project Management Institute (PMI).

Finances
Stevens Tech reports an endowment of $319 million (per 2023 figures) which, over the last five-years, has grown by $112 million - including $63 million in donations. According to Citizens Bank, the institute ranks as the 324th largest endowment in the United States with at least 100 undergraduates. The endowment is about $66,000 per undergraduate student or $32,400 per student (graduate and undergraduate). A portion of the endowment, $475,000 as of 2020, is managed by the students in the Stevens Student Managed Investment Fund.

Student Governance
Stevens Institute of Technology is home to a long tradition of student leadership. The Stevens Student Government Association (SGA) is an undergraduate governing body that retains complete control over the allocation of the funds raised by the student activity fee, which is about $800,000 per semester as of 2020. The SGA consists of a seven-person cabinet appointed by a president and vice-president of operations who are elected by the student body. The Senate of the SGA consists of senators per 75-undergraduates in each school.

The Honor Board is a student-run and student elected committee of the school, tasked with upholding the honor system and consulting on academic policies for the university. It is overseen by a faculty-student panel. The primary function of the board is to process academic conduct cases. The honor system was established in 1906 under the guidance of President Alexander Crombie Humphreys.

Colleges
Stevens is composed of four academic schools: the Charles V. Schaefer Jr. School of Engineering and Science, the School of Systems and Enterprises, the School of Business, and the School of Humanitis Arts and Social Sciences. Stevens offers 35 undergraduate majors and has a 12:1 student-to-faculty ratio. Graduate offerings include 20 (plus three interdisciplinary) Ph.D. programs, 58 master's programs, 194 certificate programs and graduate-level offerings custom designed for corporations.

Stevens offers the Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) degree and Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree. At the graduate level, Stevens offers the Master of Engineering (M.Eng.), Master of Technology Management (M.T.M.), Master of Science (M.S.), Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.), Engineer (E.E., M.E., Comp. E., C.E. and Ch. E.), and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees.

Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering and Sciences (SES)
In 1996, the school acquired its name from then chairman of the Board of Trustees, Charles V. Schaefer Jr., following a four-year $102 million fundrasing campaign. Jean Zu is the current Dean of the school. The Schaefer school offers 15 bachelor's, 29 master's and 16 doctoral degrees with a variety of certificates in engineering and scientific disciplines for full-time students and part-time professionals. As of 2022, the school is home to approximately 5,100 students and 194 faculty across 9 departments.

Stevens Institute of Technology had a dual degree program in engineering with New York University until NYU acquired the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 2008. Since then, the Schaefer school has also launched a number of dual-degree programs with institutions such as Drew University, Saint Peter's University, and Montclair State University. SES has joined nine NYC-area graduate engineering schools in Inter-University Engineering Doctoral Consortium (IUEDC) which beginning in Fall 2024 will allow students to take courses at each other's institutions without any additional tuition.

School of Business (SSB)
The School of Business offers certificates and undergraduate, master's, M.B.A. and doctoral degrees in a variety of technology management specialties. The Stevens undergraduate program emphasizes mathematical business models, applications of hard science to the concept and marketing of products, financial engineering (stochastic calculus, probability and statistics as descriptors of the dynamic behavior of financial markets) and the case-study method of business analysis. The capstone project in the business curriculum is the design of a technology-based business, including an accompanying business plan, operations research, market analysis, financial prospectus, and risk analysis. Several projects have been developed into real companies.

School of Systems and Enterprises (SSE)
The School of Systems and Enterprises (SSE) features faculty with industry and government experience to provide real-world applications to its students. SSE offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees, along with a combined bachelor's and master's program and graduate certificates. SSE offers flexibility in its graduate course delivery. Options include on campus in Hoboken or online through StevensOnline. The school's education and research reaches across industries, including defense, homeland security, intelligence, nuclear weapons, communications, space, infrastructure, finance and business solutions. The school follows an open academic model, which emphasizes the interplay between academia, industry and government.

School of Humanities Arts & Social Sciences (HASS)
The College of Arts and Letters (CAL) approaches the humanities, social sciences and the arts from a science and technology perspective. While every undergraduate at Stevens is required to take a set of humanities courses, CAL offers B.A. degrees in literature, history, philosophy and the social sciences. CAL was established as a separate college in 2007 as part of a larger institutional realignment. CAL's formation followed a history of integrating humanities and liberal arts education, which dates back to the university's founding in 1870. In fall 2011, CAL began offering a new M.A. and graduate certificate in Technology, Policy and Ethics. CAL also offers an accelerated, six-year combined bachelor's/J.D. degree program in partnership with New York Law School and Seton Hall University School of Law. In July 2023, Stevens renamed CAL to the School of Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences.

Cooperative education and career placement
Undergraduate students may elect to follow the cooperative education program, usually extending their timeline from four to five years, to gain about 18 months of increasingly progressive work experience. The program helps students confirm their choice of major, and clarify their interests and career goals while working in full-time, paid positions. Approximately 30% of undergraduate students follow this path while the remaining engage in research, externships or internships.

The combination of rigorous coursework and real-world application allows 73% of students to finalize their path prior to graduation, with 97% securing their intended outcomes within six months after graduation. The average accepted salary across all majors for the Class of 2021 was $75,400, with a maximum of $90,600, from over 300 companies recruiting on campus. Majors among those ranking the highest were computer science, computer engineering and software engineering. The value of a Stevens degree is often quantified through return on investment, in which the university ranks among the top in the United States.

Research
The research enterprise at Stevens features three national Centers of Excellence designated by the U.S. government: the National Center for Secure and Resilient (CSR) Maritime Commerce and the National Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC).

Stevens also features the Center for the Advancement of Secure Systems and Information Assurance (CASSIA), dedicated to advancements in cybersecurity. The center was developed in response to Stevens' designations by the Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education for the academic years 2003 through 2014, and as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research for the years 2008 through 2013.

The Center for Maritime Systems at Stevens works to preserve and secure America's maritime resources and assets. The center includes the Davidson Laboratory, a research facility focused on physical modeling and computer simulation of marine craft designs. The lab houses a 313-foot-long wave tank capable of recreating a variety of wave types for maritime testing. Work at the lab was dedicated to the war effort during World War II. The facility is one of only two designated International Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmarks in the United States.

The Center for Maritime Systems contributed to the US Airways Flight 1549 Miracle on the Hudson recovery in 2009 by analyzing water currents to identify the best location to tow the plane and locate the plane's missing engine.

The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education (CIESE), part of the Schaefer School, provides expertise to improve K–12 science, mathematics, engineering and technology education, with the goal to increase the number of students pursuing STEM majors and careers in technological fields. CIESE received the Presidential Award for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring in 2011.

The Center for Environmental Systems (CES) develops environmental technologies through collaboration between faculty in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering, the Department of Defense, and private enterprise. Principal research areas for CES include drinking water technologies, wastewater treatment, air pollution control, environmental systems modeling and monitoring, pollution prevention and minimization, and life-cycle assessment.

The Highly Filled Materials Institute (HfMI) develops the theoretical, experimental, and numerical analysis techniques for providing solutions for the problems of the industrial processing, especially with twin-screw extrusion, of highly filled materials. HfMI research areas include extrusion, die and extruder design, crystallization, surface science, particle size analysis and rheology.

The Center for Research toward Advancing Financial Technologies (CRAFT), co-led by Stevens and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is the first NSF-backed industry-university cooperative research center devoted specifically to financial technology and science. CRAFT is designed to create a community for industry to engage with university researchers to advance fintech innovation.

Other research centers at Stevens are the Center for Complex Systems and Enterprises (CCSE), Center for Decision Technologies, Center for Quantum Science and Engineering, Center for Environmental Systems, MicroDevice Lab, Center for Healthcare Innovation, Center for Neuromechanics, Hanlon Financial Systems Center, Maritime Security Center, NJ Center for Microchemical Systems, STAR Center, Stevens Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and Systems Engineering Research Center.

The U.S. Department of Energy invited Stevens to compete in the 2015 Solar Decathlon held at Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California, among 19 other universities. Stevens’ entry, SURE HOUSE, was inspired by Hurricane Sandy. A net-zero home resilient enough to withstand Hurricane-force winds and flooding, the entry won the competition. SURE HOUSE achieved a total score of 950.685, ranking first in architecture, market appeal, communications, appliances, engineering, commuting and home life. It also received second place in the comfort zone contest.

Stevens also competed as one of 20 teams in the 2013 Solar Decathlon, the first time the competition was held outside of Washington, D.C. Stevens' independent entry, "Ecohabit," placed fourth overall and second among United States entries.

Through a partnership with Parsons The New School for Design and Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy, Stevens designed an affordable green home as part of the 2011 Solar Decathlon. The entry, "Empowerhouse," won first place in affordability during the 2011 competition. The team partnered with Habitat for Humanity of Washington, D.C., to provide the home to a low-income family in the Deanwood section of Washington at the conclusion of the competition.

Entrepreneurship
Stevens embraces a culture of entrepreneurship instilled in the institute from its founding family, who transformed their inventions into a number of successful enterprises like the first steam-driven locomotive. More recently, there have been significant sales of Stevens intellectual property, including PlasmaSol and Hydroglobe. The university's Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship was established in 2008 to enhance scientific discoveries by facilitating technology transfer.

ISTEM@Stevens is a four-year entrepreneurship coaching program for incoming first-year students. The program focuses not only on technology and innovation, but also the process required to transform the idea into a fully developed company or nonprofit. The curriculum includes both classes and independent studies.

Launchpad@Stevens is a one-year program that gives undergraduate students the chance to learn about entrepreneurship and innovation alongside professionals who are building technology-based businesses. Participants learn how to identify ideas with potential commercial viability and work in teams to build those ideas into viable businesses.

Stevens' Innovation Expo, also referred to as "Senior Design Day" or simply "D-Day" by students, is an annual event at the end of the spring semester to feature capstone projects from undergraduate seniors of all schools and majors. Capstone projects take place over two semesters. The day of activities is also marked by the Project Plan Pitch and Elevator Pitch Competition in which students are judged on presentation of their idea and feasibility; many competitors spin-out companies and business ventures from their projects. The panel of judges typically consists of entrepreneurs, CEOs and venture capitalists.

Additionally, the institute hosts the "Thomas H. Scholl Lecture by Visiting Entrepreneurs." Guest lecturers include Paul R. Sanberg, Jeong H. Kim, Winslow Sargeant, and Ann Fandozzi. The campus is also home to monthly summits of "NJ Tech Meetup," branded as "NJ's largest technology and entrepreneurial community." It is composed of over 150 entrepreneurs and innovators.

Rankings

 * Stevens is ranked 14th nationally for Return on Investment for Students by PayScale's 2023 rankings
 * Stevens is ranked 13th nationally for Best Career Placement (Private Schools) by The Princeton Review in 2021
 * Stevens is ranked 4th in the U.S. for Best Value Private Colleges by PayScale in 2021
 * Stevens is ranked 36 nationally according to the Wall Street Journal in 2024

Athletics
The Stevens Ducks are composed of 25 NCAA Division III teams representing Stevens Institute of Technology in intercollegiate competition. The Ducks are members of the Middle Atlantic Conferences (MAC) and the MAC Freedom Conference for all sports except fencing. Men's fencing competes in the Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Fencing Association (MACFA) and women's fencing competes in both the Eastern Women's Fencing Conference (EWFC) and the National Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association (NIWFA).

Stevens rejoined the MAC in July 2019 after an absence of over 40 years, having most recently been in the Empire 8 conference. The Ducks spent 12 seasons as full members of the Empire 8 after a tenure in the Skyline Conference. Stevens competed as an associate member of the Empire 8 in field hockey during the 2006 season. The Ducks won a total of 62 team championships and 367 individual championships (429 total) during their time in the Empire 8.

The move to the MAC and the MAC Freedom brought 23 of the department's 25 teams under a single conference umbrella; wrestling had been competing in the Centennial Conference since 2004 and men's volleyball was a founding member of the United Volleyball Conference. Stevens has found success in the MAC, winning 23 team and 105 individual conference championships (128 total) through the Spring 2021 semester.

With an athletics lineage that dates back to 1872, Stevens was one of five schools (along with Rutgers, Princeton, Columbia and Yale) invited to establish the original set of collegiate football rules in 1873. Stevens dropped football after the 1924 season.

Stevens offers 14 club sports including ice hockey, which plays at the Barnabas Health Hockey House in Newark, New Jersey—the practice facility of the New Jersey Devils and home of the Metropolitan Riveters.

Baseball and softball
Baseball at Stevens dates back to 1873, although the first recognized season was in 1906. Stevens has had two players drafted in Major League Baseball's First Year Player Draft. David Garcia was selected by the Minnesota Twins in 1973 and Charlie Ruegger was selected by the New York Yankees in 2018.

Softball is Stevens' newest varsity sport. The team was established during the 2009–10 academic year.

Basketball
Stevens men's basketball has won two NCAA Division III statistical championships, leading the country in field-goal percentage defense during the 2007–2008 season. Spencer Cook led the country in three-point field goal percentage in 2020.

Cross-country and track & field
Doctoral student Gina Dello Russo won the NCAA Division III title in the 400-meter dash at the 2021 Outdoor Track & Field National Championships in Greensboro, N.C. Dello Russo, a 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year Top 30 selection, was the first Stevens track & field champion since Amy Regan in 2017. Between cross country and indoor and outdoor track & field, Regan won six national championships for Stevens. She was the first cross-country runner in any NCAA division from New Jersey to win a national championship and later participated in the 2020 U.S. Olympic marathon team trials. Regan was also an NCAA Today Top 10 Award recipient.

Alina Duran competed at the 2021 U.S. Olympic Trials in the hammer throw, reaching the final and finishing 12th in the country.

Stevens has also won national championships in the high jump, with Gladys Njoku securing consecutive titles in 2015 and 2016.

Fencing
Women's fencing was the first female varsity sport at Stevens, and its coach, Linda Vollkommer-Lynch, was the first tenured female faculty member and first female coach at the university. In 2018, Stevens' women's fencing team did not lose to a Division III opponent all season and finished with a 32–3 overall record. That year, they established a new school record for winning percentage at .914, the first team to achieve a percentage over .900.

In 2009–10, the men's fencing team was led by head coach Stephen Kovacs who, after being accused of two sexual assaults, died in prison in 2022. The team is currently led by former Olympian Jim Carpenter.

Lacrosse
Stevens holds the distinction of having the oldest, continuously running lacrosse program in the United States. The program won a recognized national championship four times: 1892 and 1894 in the Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association, and in 1917 and 1918 in the United States Inter-Collegiate Lacrosse League. It has also won championships in the Skyline Conference, Empire 8 and MAC Freedom.

Players to come through the program have achieved All-America and Academic All-American Conference awards and North-South All-Star Game Invitations. Some of them include:

 * Brian Lalli: All-America and Academic All-America midfielder (2004)
 * Mark Beilicky: 3× All-American Midfielder (2005, 2006, 2007 ), 2007 pre-season midfielder of the year
 * JR (Oreskovich) Maehler: 3× All-America attackman (2006, 2007, 2009 ), 2009 pre-season attackman of the year
 * Shawn Coulter: USILA Short-Stick Defensive Midfielder of the Year, the first national individual award in program history.

Stevens hosted the 2006 NCAA Division III women's lacrosse national championship game.

Soccer
The 2008 men's soccer team reached the Division III NCAA championship game, losing to Messiah College (now University) on penalty kicks. They were the first Stevens team to compete in an NCAA national championship contest.

Soccer goalkeeper Zach Carr received All-American and Academic All-American honors in 2010. Carr led the nation in 2010 with a .927 save percentage and maintained a 3.92 grade-point average. One of the best goalkeepers in NCAA history, he set the Division III record and tied for the most shutouts in NCAA history (55), played the third-most minutes in Division III history and posted the sixth-lowest goals-against average. Carr was also a recipient of an NCAA Top VIII Award.

The women's team hosts an annual Engineering Cup and has one of the longest active consecutive postseason appearance streaks in Division III. The program was also the first in department history to receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament and post an NCAA victory with a 1–0 win over Johns Hopkins on November 13, 2002.

Swimming
In 2011, Laura Barito, a two-time All-American in swimming and track and a two-time, two-sport NCAA national champion (in 50-yard freestyle swimming and the 400-meter hurdles), was awarded the NCAA Woman of the Year. Barito, who was also named by CoSIDA/Capital One to the Academic All-America First Team, was only the second Division III athlete to win the NCAA Woman of the Year Award in its 21-year history.

In 2012, Stevens swimmer Brittany Geyer won the national women's 200-yard breaststroke title. Geyer came back in 2015 to win the national 100 breaststroke and 200 breaststroke titles, making her a three-time NCAA champion.

Stevens men's swimming has won 10 straight conference championships. Simas Jarasunas won the 100-yard Breaststroke in 2013 for the first national championship in program history.

Tennis
Men's tennis is recognized as one of the top teams in the region. The Ducks have won 12 straight conference championships.

Volleyball
Both the varsity men's and women's volleyball programs were started by legendary head coach Patrick Dorywalski. Dorywalski coached 37 years at Stevens, including 31 with the men's volleyball program. His 635 victories are the most by any varsity coach at Stevens and were the fourth-most by any men's volleyball coach in NCAA at the time of his retirement in 2020.

On April 26, 2015, Stevens won the NCAA Division III men's championship on its home court of Canavan Arena, the first NCAA team championship in Stevens' history.

Women's team alumna Eva Kwan is tied for the most digs (62) in any single match in Division III history and the second-most in NCAA history.

Wrestling
Brett Kaliner posted a 29–0 season and became the first national champion in program history in 2022, winning the title at 149 pounds.

Football
Stevens was one of the first five college football teams. In 1873, representatives of Princeton, Yale, Columbia, and Rutgers met in New York City to establish the first American intercollegiate rules for football on the model of the London Football Association. As the game developed in the United States, it became progressively more violent. The alumni magazine commented that the style of the game became too difficult and required an enormous amount of time and training, which could be afforded by larger colleges but would add too much work to the already difficult academic coursework at Stevens. Stevens holds a disputed victory over the University of Michigan.

Equestrian
Kerri Rettig won an IHSA National Championship in Intermediate Flat in 2005. Stevens ceased fielding an equestrian team as of July 1, 2019.

Awards and recognition
Stevens was named ECAC Institution of the Year in 2008 and again in 2013, an honor that measures a combination of athletics success and classroom academic performance at more than 300 Division I, II and III colleges and universities. Stevens is one of only three institutions to win the award multiple times.

The athletic department's highest finish in the annual Division III Director's Cup is 13th, recorded in 2011 and 2016. The department has received an NADIIIAA Community Service Award eight times, most recently in 2022. Stevens has also won seven College Athletic Administrators of New Jersey (CAANJ) Cups as the Top Division III institution in New Jersey.

Facilities
Varsity teams compete in one of three facilities, two of which are on campus. The Schaefer Athletics and Recreation Center houses Canavan Arena, Walker Gymnasium, the DeBaun Aquatic Center, the Athletic Training Center, and the Wrestling Complex. The Schaefer Center construction was part of a $23 million investment in new facilities that also included renovations to Walker Gym and installation of a new turf field.

Field sports (soccer, field hockey, baseball, lacrosse) compete at DeBaun Athletic Complex. Softball competes at Waterfront Park in Weehawken, N.J.

Greek organizations
Stevens Institute of Technology hosts chapters of 15 social and academic fraternities and sororities, many of which were founded on campus over a century ago. In 2013, 25% of Stevens students were members of these organizations. All but one of Stevens' Greek organizations are chapters of national fraternities or sororities.

Notable faculty

 * Carlos Alomar, professional guitarist, longtime collaborator with David Bowie, Artist in Residence and Director of the Sound Synthesis Research Center at Stevens
 * John Horgan, science journalist at Scientific American, author of the controversial book The End of Science (1996), director of the Center for Science Writings at Stevens
 * Jon Jaques, professional basketball player, assistant basketball coach (Cornell University)
 * Wunibald Kamm, professor
 * Victor B. Lawrence, inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his many contributions in digital signal processing in communications
 * Deborah Sinnreich-Levi, professor of literature, specialist on Eustache Deschamps
 * Alex Wellerstein, historian of science, specialist on history of nuclear weapons
 * Jean Zu, mechanical engineer, dean of the Charles Schaefer School of Engineering & Science

title: Stevens Institute of Technology


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Fee

A fee is the price one pays as remuneration for rights or services. Fees usually allow for overhead, wages, costs, and markup. Traditionally, professionals in the United Kingdom (and previously the Republic of Ireland) receive a fee in contradistinction to a payment, salary, or wage, and often use guineas rather than pounds as units of account. Under the feudal system, a Knight's fee was what was given to a knight for his service, usually the usage of land. A contingent fee is an attorney's fee which is reduced or not charged at all if the court case is lost by the attorney.

A service fee, service charge, or surcharge is a fee added to a customer's bill. The purpose of a service charge often depends on the nature of the product and corresponding service provided. Examples of why this fee is charged are: travel time expenses, truck rental fees, liability and workers' compensation insurance fees, and planning fees. UPS and FedEx have recently begun surcharges for fuel.

Restaurants and banquet halls charging service charges in lieu of tips must distribute them to their wait staff in some US states (e.g., Massachusetts, New York, Montana), but in the state of Kentucky may keep them. A fee may be a flat fee or a variable one, or part of a two-part tariff. A membership fee is charged as part of a subscription business model.

Telecom
For telecommunications services such as high-speed Internet and mobile phones, an activation fee is commonly assessed, although most companies fail to include it in the advertised price, resulting in customer missperception on assessment and validity of the fees. An activation fee is prevalent throughout the cellphone industry and is generally assessed to cover costs of line activations and enhancements to networks.

Another fee is the early-termination fee applied nearly universally to cellphone contracts, supposedly to cover the remaining part of the subsidy that the provider prices the phones with. If the user terminates before the end of the term, he or she will be charged, often well over $100. In the U.S., mobile phone companies have come under heavy criticism for this anti-competitive practice, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering limits to prevent price gouging, such as requiring the fees to be prorated.

Many cable TV and telephone companies, including AT&T, include a regulatory-cost recovery fee in the bill each month of around $3, passing the blame onto government regulation, and essentially charging their customers for complying with U.S. law.

Banking
Bank fees are assessed to customers for various services and as penalties. There are unauthorised overdraft fees, ATM usage fees, and fees for having an account balance below the minimum daily balance. Some banks charge a fee for using tellers in an effort to encourage customers to use automated services instead. The fees have come in for criticism as excessive from consumer advocates. They have also targeted bank practices that maximize the assessment of fees and fees that can add up to many times the amount of small transactions.

U.S. banks extract fees from automatic teller machine (ATM) transactions that are made at rival banks, even if the customer's home bank has no branch in a particular area (such as when the customer is on vacation). Customers are sometimes charged twice, both by the bank that owns the ATM, and again by their bank. Bank of America charges a denial fee, literally a fee for refusing service to the customer (if there are insufficient funds or a daily limit), and a fee to simply check the account balance at a "foreign" (other banks') ATMs.

Following the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and legislation passed by Congress, banks modified many credit card agreements with customers.

Renting
Like an activation fee, a setup fee is often charged by places that rent space or other things. In the case of self-storage businesses, this negates claims of "only one dollar for the first month" made by Public Storage and others. Apartment complexes often charge fees for pets (mainly dogs and cats). Some complexes euphemistically call these a non-refundable deposit, ignoring the definition of a deposit as inherently being refundable.

Real estate
A title company or attorney collects a variety of fees in the course of handling the purchase of a house at a closing. These may include fees for tax service, flood certification, underwriting, appraisal, credit report, record deed, record deed trust, loan signing and processing.

Event tickets
With respect to events tickets, online reservations and payments, and other transactions, there is sometimes a service charge (often called a convenience fee) that serves as additional compensation for the company facilitating the transaction. Ticketmaster and others charge this, and have made a business model of it. However, such groups have a monopoly on particular events or even entire concert venues.

Air travel
Airlines have long charged fees for changing flights, and for excess luggage. However, with the oil price increases since 2003, many are increasing fees. In May 2008, it was announced that some would be charging even for just one checked bag, making it nearly impossible to avoid. Airlines have also invented fees for nearly every "service" that has always previously been included in the ticket price. While the extra income may be necessary to prevent bankruptcy, the practice of not including mandatory fees in the stated price is deceptive.

Airports also charge landing fees to airlines in order to cover costs, particularly airport security.

Customer service
Some businesses charge fees just for talking to a customer service representative. DirecTV charges this when ordering a pay-per-view movie via telephone instead of through the set-top box. Some companies charge for technical support, either prepaid or by using a premium-rate telephone number (such as the 1–900 numbers in North America). In the 2000s (decade), some banks in the U.S. began charging a fee just to visit a teller, prompting such customer anger that the banks were forced to back down.

Speaking
A speaking fee is a payment awarded to an individual for speaking at a public event.

Late fees
Late fees are charged when payment is not received by a deadline. These are supposedly intended to get people to pay rent or other charges on time, but these are sometimes exorbitant, or extremely out of proportion to the amount of money which is late. They can also add insult to injury for people who have hit hard financial times, making their situation worse. When added to credit card bills or check card statements, it may also cause an overlimit or NSF fee, creating an endless and inescapable cycle of fees that trigger other fees for people already stretched to their financial limit.

Retail
Some retail stores add fees, mainly for "guest passes" at membership warehouses like Costco and Sam's Club, where membership dues have not been paid.

There are a few other "cost-plus" stores, however, that add about ten percent at checkout, using the lower shelf price to trick consumers into erroneous comparison shopping. At Food Depot and other smaller low-end chain stores like this, the shelf price may be $1.95, when the shopper will actually be charged $2.15 in the end, in a sort of legalized bait and switch. (Furthermore, a disclaimer indicates the shelf price is not even the actual cost to the store.)

Early termination
An early-termination fee is charged by a company when a customer wants or needs to be released from a contract before it expires. One example is when a renter leaves an apartment before a year-long contract is over. If tenants rent for a shorter period, or month-to-month, they are instead charged significantly more per month, and are often denied any promotional deals. Mobile phone companies in the U.S. are notorious for huge early-termination fees, typically starting at $175, and falling by only a few dollars per month, no matter the actual cost of or subsidy to the phone.

Some mortgage companies also charge early payment penalties if the homeowner pays more than is due in order to reduce the interest owed and to shorten the remaining term of the loan. The fees typically negate this advantage at least in part.

There are also fees charged for any type of termination even if the contract was expired. In the suburban Atlanta county of Gwinnett for example, customers were hit with termination fees of over $23 when the county commission chose not to renew the contracts of the county trash collectors in November 2008. The two companies charged this both in violation of county law and in breach of contract.

Infrastructure and environment
An impact fee is a charge which a developer must pay to local government, in order to raise money for capital improvements to roads, libraries, and other services upon which the new land development places a burden. This prevents existing residents from being forced to pay in taxes, in addition to already having to put-up with the traffic, noise, and environmental damage of the new development.

Government
In government, the difference between a fee and a tax is that a fee is paid for specific goods or services rendered by the government, while a tax has no connection to the benefits received for an individual.

Public resources
A user fee is a fee paid for the use of a public resource, like a park. This is most common for national parks, and often also state parks or provincial parks, and for privately owned areas.

Licenses and permits
Fees are usually charged for various government services, including license plates and annual motor vehicle registration, as well as driver licenses and professional licensing. Fees are also charged for various permits, like demolition and building permits, rezoning, and land grading (which causes silt); and sometimes for increasing stormwater runoff, destroying native vegetation, and cutting-down healthy trees.

Deceptive use
Sometimes fee is used to mask what are actually penalties or taxes. For example, Virginia's now-repealed Civil Remedial Fees were actually a tax on drivers with certain kinds of traffic law violations.

Schooling
At public universities and community colleges, students are charged tuition and matriculation, when can themselves be considered fees charged per credit hour. However, the term student fees typically refers to additional charges which the student is required to pay, typically no matter how many hours the student is taking in the academic term.

Commonly this is a student activity fee, which helps to fund student organisations, particularly those which are academic in nature; and those which serve all students equally, like student government and student media. A newer fee is the technology fee, which is often charged to students by schools when state government funding fails to meet needs for computers and other classroom technology. Students may also be charged a health fee which usually covers the campus nurse, and possibly a visit to a local clinic if the student is ill.

Parking fees are normally optional, because students may not have their own automobiles. However, many U.S. schools are now forcing meal plans on their students, particularly those that stay in dorms, and some force freshmen to stay in the dorms. Generally, all fees except parking are covered under scholarships, whether they are from private, government, or lottery funds. However, at least one U.S. state (Georgia) began denying HOPE Scholarship money for any new fees added, even by its own state schools.

Services Charge in Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong
Services Charge is a type of consumer and additional add-on fee and charge which is in place in Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong restaurants and food outlets to cover the cost of the primary services and all staff costs. The services charge in these territories is 10 per cent. Services fee and charge is collected by the private company restaurant and is not a government tax.

Legal Requirement
It is legal to charge Services Charges in restaurant and food outlets under Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong laws. However, restaurants and food outlets in these territories must legally disclose the charge/fee to customers who dine at the venue. Refusing or declining to disclose to customers an additional services charge is illegal under consumer law. Restaurants could face heavy fines or a warning.

Circumstances
In normal circumstances in other countries the services fee charges of 10% is included in the price of the meal. The disadvantage is that this can create misunderstanding and confusion for some people. In the United States of America, restaurant add on services charge is optional, because it has a tipping system. When the customer tips the restaurant it become a form of services fee.

Australia
In Australia the restaurant and food outlet services charge add on is included in the price of the food meals. However some restaurants and food outlets make additional services charges on public holiday and Sundays, known as public holidays surcharge. The public holiday surcharge in Australia can range from 10% to 15% to cover the cost of staff working on holidays or weekends.

Hidden fees
Hidden fees, surprise fees or junk fees are fees that are not mentioned until payment is required, or only mentioned in small print. Examples include resort fees. These are illegal in some countries.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Fee


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Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency

The  Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA) was a charity, and an executive non-departmental public body (NDPB) of the Department for Education. In England and Northern Ireland, the QCDA maintained and developed the National Curriculum and associated assessments, tests and examinations, advising the minister formerly known as the Secretary of State for Education on these matters.

Regulatory functions regarding examination and assessment boards have been transferred to Ofqual, an independent regulator.

Education and qualifications in Scotland and Wales are the responsibility of the Scottish Government and Welsh Government and their agencies. In Scotland, for example, the Scottish Qualifications Authority is the responsible body.

In May 2010 the Secretary of State announced his intention to promote legislation that would transfer obligations of the QCDA to Ofqual. The newly formed Standards and Testing Agency took on the functions of the agency 3 October 2011. QCDA's Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Hall, is also a member of the Executive Board of the British examination board AQA.

Partners
QCDA worked closely with its main strategic partners, including the Department for Education, the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), employers' organisations, the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA), the Skills Funding Agency, the former General Teaching Council for England (GTCE) and the Sector Skills Councils (SSC).

QCDA also collaborated with the other public qualification agencies in the UK: the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment in Northern Ireland (CCEA).

QCDA had its headquarter in Coventry, United Kingdom.

History
The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) was formed on 1 October 1997, through a merger of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ) for vocational qualifications and the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA) for academic qualifications. The QCA had additional powers and duties granted to it by the Education Act 1997, which established the role of the QCA. Under Section 24 of this Act, QCA was granted the right to regulate all external qualifications in England.

In April 2004, the QCA also launched the National Assessment Agency to take over the delivery and administration of National Curriculum assessments. The National Assessment Agency was transformed into a subdivision and its functions subsumed within the management structure of the QCA.

Formation of Ofqual
On 26 September 2007, DCSF announced that the regulatory functions of the QCA were to become statutorily independent with transferring QCA's obligations to Ofqual.

On 8 April 2008, Ofqual began work as the independent regulator of exams and tests in England, accountable to Parliament rather than to government ministers. The remaining work of the QCA was transferred to the Ofqual. The QCA was formally reintegrated into Ofqual when Ofqual gained statutory status.

Video clips

 * QCA YouTube channel


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Feud

A feud, also known in more extreme cases as a blood feud, vendetta, faida, clan war, gang war, private war, or mob war, is a long-running argument or fight, often between social groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one party perceives itself to have been attacked, insulted, injured, or otherwise wronged by another. Intense feelings of resentment trigger an initial retribution, which causes the other party to feel greatly aggrieved and vengeful. The dispute is subsequently fuelled by a long-running cycle of retaliatory violence. This continual cycle of provocation and retaliation usually makes it extremely difficult to end the feud peacefully. Feuds can persist for generations and may result in extreme acts of violence. They can be interpreted as an extreme outgrowth of social relations based in family honor. A mob war is a time when two or more rival families begin open warfare with one another, destroying each other's businesses and assassinating family members. Mob wars are generally disastrous for all concerned, and can lead to the rise or fall of a family.

Until the early modern period, feuds were considered legitimate legal instruments and were regulated to some degree. For example, Montenegrin culture calls this krvna osveta, meaning "blood revenge", which had unspoken but highly valued rules. In Albanian culture it is called gjakmarrja, which usually lasts for generations. In tribal societies, the blood feud, coupled with the practice of blood wealth, functioned as an effective form of social control for limiting and ending conflicts between individuals and groups who are related by kinship, as described by anthropologist Max Gluckman in his article "The Peace in the Feud" in 1955.

Blood feuds
A blood feud is a feud with a cycle of retaliatory violence, with the relatives or associates of someone who has been killed or otherwise wronged or dishonored seeking vengeance by killing or otherwise physically punishing the culprits or their relatives. In the English-speaking world, the Italian word vendetta is used to mean a blood feud; in Italian, however, it simply means (personal) 'vengeance' or 'revenge', originating from the Latin vindicta (vengeance), while the word faida would be more appropriate for a blood feud. In the English-speaking world, "vendetta" is sometimes extended to mean any other long-standing feud, not necessarily involving bloodshed. Sometimes it is not mutual, but rather refers to a prolonged series of hostile acts waged by one person against another without reciprocation.

History
Blood feuds were common in societies with a weak rule of law (or where the state did not consider itself responsible for mediating this kind of dispute), where family and kinship ties were the main source of authority. An entire family was considered responsible for the actions of any of its members. Sometimes two separate branches of the same family even came to blows, or further, over some dispute.

The practice has mostly disappeared with more centralized societies where law enforcement and criminal law take responsibility for punishing lawbreakers.

Feuds in pre-industrial tribes
The blood feud has certain similarities to the ritualized warfare found in many pre-industrial tribes. For instance, more than a third of Ya̧nomamö males, on average, died from warfare. The accounts of missionaries to the area have recounted constant infighting in the tribes for women or prestige, and evidence of continuous warfare for the enslavement of neighboring tribes, such as the Macu, before the arrival of European settlers and government.

Ancient Greece
In Homeric ancient Greece, the practice of personal vengeance against wrongdoers was considered natural and customary: "Embedded in the Greek morality of retaliation is the right of vengeance... Feud is a war, just as war is an indefinite series of revenges; and such acts of vengeance are sanctioned by the gods".

Hebrew Law
In ancient Hebrew law, it was considered the duty of the individual and family to avenge unlawful bloodshed, on behalf of God and on behalf of the deceased. The executor of the law of blood-revenge who personally put the initial killer to death was given a special designation: go'el haddam, the blood-avenger or blood-redeemer (Book of Numbers 35: 19, etc.). Six Cities of Refuge were established to provide protection and due process for any unintentional manslayers. The avenger was forbidden from harming an unintentional killer if the killer took refuge in one of these cities. As the Oxford Companion to the Bible states: "Since life was viewed as sacred (Genesis 9.6), no amount of blood money could be given as recompense for the loss of the life of an innocent person; it had to be "life for life" (Exodus 21.23; Deuteronomy 19.21)".

Pre-Christian Northern Europe
The Celtic phenomenon of the blood feud demanded "an eye for an eye", and usually descended into murder. Disagreements between clans might last for generations in Scotland and Ireland.

In Scandinavia in the Viking era, feuds were common, as the lack of a central government left dealing with disputes up to the individuals or families involved. Sometimes, these would descend into "blood revenges", and in some cases would devastate whole families. The ravages of the feuds as well as the dissolution of them is a central theme in several of the Icelandic sagas. An alternative to feud was blood money (or weregild in the Norse culture), which demanded a set value to be paid by those responsible for a wrongful permanent disfigurement or death, even if accidental. If these payments were not made, or were refused by the offended party, a blood feud could ensue.

Middle Ages
According to historian Marc Bloch:

"The Middle Ages, from beginning to end, and particularly the feudal era, lived under the sign of private vengeance. The onus, of course, lay above all on the wronged individual; vengeance was imposed on him as the most sacred of duties ... The solitary individual, however, could do but little. Moreover, it was most commonly a death that had to be avenged. In this case the family group went into action and the faide (feud) came into being, to use the old Germanic word which spread little by little through the whole of Europe—'the vengeance of the kinsmen which we call faida', as a German canonist expressed it. No moral obligation seemed more sacred than this ... The whole kindred, therefore, placed as a rule under the command of a chieftain, took up arms to punish the murder of one of its members or merely a wrong that he had suffered."

Rita of Cascia, a popular 15th-century Italian saint, was canonized by the Catholic Church due mainly to her great effort to end a feud in which her family was involved and which claimed the life of her husband.

Holy Roman Empire
At the Holy Roman Empire's Reichstag at Worms in 1495 AD, the right of waging feuds was abolished. The Imperial Reform proclaimed an "eternal public peace" (Ewiger Landfriede) to put an end to the abounding feuds and the anarchy of the robber barons, and it defined a new standing imperial army to enforce that peace. However, it took a few more decades until the new regulation was universally accepted. In 1506, for example, knight Jan Kopidlansky killed a family rival in Prague, and the town councillors sentenced him to death and had him executed. His brother, Jiri Kopidlansky, declared a private war against the city of Prague. Another case was the Nuremberg-Schott feud, in which Maximilian was forced to step in to halt the damages done by robber knight Schott.

Greece
In Greece, the custom of blood feud is found in several parts of the country, for instance in Crete and Mani. Throughout history, the Maniots have been regarded by their neighbors and their enemies as fearless warriors who practice blood feuds, known in the Maniot dialect of Greek as "Γδικιωμός" (Gdikiomos). Many vendettas went on for months, some for years. The families involved would lock themselves in their towers and, when they got the chance, would murder members of the opposing family. The Maniot vendetta is considered the most vicious and ruthless; it has led to entire family lines being wiped out. The last vendetta on record required the Greek Army with artillery support to force it to a stop. Regardless of this, the Maniot Greeks still practice vendettas, even today. Maniots in America, Australia, Canada and Corsica still have on-going vendettas which have led to the creation of mafia families known as "Γδικιωμέοι" (Gdikiomeoi).

Corsica
In Corsica, vendettas were a social code (mores) that required Corsicans to kill anyone who wronged the family honor. Between 1821 and 1852, no less than 4,300 murders were perpetrated in Corsica.

Spain
In the Spanish Late Middle Ages, the Vascongadas was ravaged by the War of the Bands, which were bitter partisan wars between local ruling families. In the region of Navarre, next to Vascongadas, these conflicts became polarised in a violent struggle between the Agramont and Beaumont parties. In Biscay, in Vascongadas, the two major warring factions were named Oinaz and Gamboa. (Cf. the Guelphs and Ghibellines in Italy). High defensive structures ("towers") built by local noble families, few of which survive today, were frequently razed by fires, and sometimes by royal decree.

Caucasus
Leontiy Lyulye, an expert on conditions in the Caucasus, wrote in the mid-19th century: "Among the mountain people the blood feud is not an uncontrollable permanent feeling such as the vendetta is among the Corsicans. It is more like an obligation imposed by the public opinion." In the Dagestani aul of Kadar, one such blood feud between two antagonistic clans lasted for nearly 260 years, from the 17th century until the 1860s.

Samurai honours and feuds
In Japan's feudal past, the samurai class upheld the honor of their family, clan, and their lord by katakiuchi (敵討ち), or revenge killings. These killings could also involve the relatives of an offender. While some vendettas were punished by the government, such as that of the Forty-seven Ronin, others were given official permission with specific targets.

Feuds in modern times
Blood feuds are still practised in some areas in:
 * France (especially Corsica and within Manush communities)
 * Sardinia where a blood feud is called in the local language "Disamistade".
 * Ireland (especially Dublin and Limerick)
 * Between Mafia families in Southern Italy (especially Sicily, Campania, Calabria, Apulia and other areas of the same territory) and neighbouring Malta
 * Greece (Mani and Crete)
 * Between White British, British Asian or Black British working-class families, crime groups, street gangs, football firms and family clans throughout Britain and Ireland. Feuds amongst Traveller clans are also relatively common throughout Britain and Ireland. Multiple diaspora communities also partake in feuding, such as Turkish, Albanian and Kurdish communities.
 * Between rival crime families in Galicia, Spain
 * Between so-called woonwagenbewoners (ethnic Dutch people who live in mobile homes) in the Netherlands
 * Among Kurdish and Turkish clans in Turkey (as well as between Kurdish clans in Iraq and Iran)
 * Between Turkish Cypriots
 * Between rival clans in northern Albania and Kosovo
 * Between Canadian Aboriginal tribes
 * Among Pashtuns in Afghanistan
 * Among tribes of Montenegro
 * Among Somali clans
 * Among the Berbers of Algeria and Morocco
 * Egypt (especially among the Saidi people in Upper Egypt )
 * Between Yoruba and Igbo clans over land in Nigeria
 * Between clans in India and between rival tribes in the north-east Indian state of Assam
 * Among Sikh clans in Punjab
 * Rayalaseema of Andhra Pradesh in India
 * Between Mirpuri clans in Azad Kashmir (as well as between British Pakistanis of Mirpuri descent in England)
 * Among rival clans in China, and especially in Fujian and Guangdong provinces
 * In the Philippines (especially in Mindanao between Muslim Moro and Christian Cebuano clans)
 * Between Burakumin clans in Japan
 * In the lawless Wa territories of northern Burma
 * Among the Arab Bedouins and other Arab tribes inhabiting the mountains of Yemen
 * Between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq
 * Among Palestinian clans in Gaza
 * Between Maronite clans, and between Shiites and Sunnis, in Lebanon
 * Between Mhallami clans in Lebanon
 * In northwest and southern Ethiopia
 * Among the highland tribes of New Guinea
 * In Svaneti, in Georgia (especially between Svan clans)
 * In the mountainous areas of Dagestan
 * Between Kyrgyz and Uzbek clans
 * Between Yazidi clans in Armenia and Azerbaijan
 * In republics of the northern Caucasus, such as Chechnya and Ingushetia
 * Among Chechen teips where those seeking retribution do not accept or respect the local law enforcement authority

Gang warfare/mob war
Blood feuds within Russian communities do exist (mostly related to criminal gangs), but are neither as common nor as pervasive as they are in the Caucasus. In the United States, gang warfare also often takes the form of blood feuds. A mob war is a time when two or more rival families/gangs begin open warfare with one another, destroying each other's businesses and assassinating family members. Mafia/Mob wars are generally disastrous for all concerned, and can lead to the rise or fall of a family or gang. African-American, Italian-American, Cambodian, Cuban Marielito, Dominican, Guatemalan, Haitian, Hmong, Sino-Vietnamese Hoa, Irish-American, Jamaican, Korean, Laotian, Puerto Rican, Salvadoran and Vietnamese gangs and organized crime conflicts very often have taken the form of blood feuds, in which a family member in the gang is killed and a relative takes revenge by killing the murderer as well as other members of the rival gang. This can also be observed in particular cases in conflicts among Colombian, Mexican, Brazilian, and other Latin American gangs, drug cartels, and paramilitary groups; in turf wars among Cape Coloured gangs in South Africa; in gang fights among Dutch Antillean, Surinamese and Moluccan gangs in the Netherlands; and in criminal feuds between Scottish, White British, Black and Mixed British gangs in the UK. This has resulted in gun violence and murders in cities like Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Ciudad Juarez, Medellin, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, Amsterdam, London, Liverpool, and Glasgow, to name just a few. The Five Families of New York City New York go to great lengths to avoid a war, as not only do the families lose considerable money and valuable men, gangland killings also cause public outrage and can trigger mass crackdowns from authorities like the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI.

Southern United States
Blood feuds also have a long history within the White Southerner population (and in particular among the "Scots-Irish" or Ulster Scots American population) of the Southern United States, where it is called the "culture of honor", and still exists to the present day. A series of prolonged violent engagements in late nineteenth-century Kentucky and West Virginia were referred to commonly as feuds, a tendency that was partly due to the nineteenth-century popularity of William Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott, both of whom had written semihistorical accounts of blood feuds. These incidents, the most famous of which was the Hatfield–McCoy feud, were regularly featured in the newspapers of the eastern U.S. between the Reconstruction Era and the early twentieth century, and are seen by some as linked to a Southern culture of honor with its roots in the Scots-Irish forebears of the residents of the area. Another prominent example was the Regulator–Moderator War, which took place between rival factions in the Republic of Texas. It is sometimes considered the largest blood feud in American history.

Albania
In Albania, gjakmarrja (blood feuding) is a tradition. Blood feuds in Albania trace back to the Kanun, this custom is also practiced among the Albanians of Kosovo. It returned to rural areas after more than 40 years of being abolished by Albanian Communists led by Enver Hoxha.

In 1980, Albanian author Ismail Kadare published Broken April, about the centuries-old tradition of hospitality, blood feuds, and revenge killing in the highlands of north Albania in the 1930s. The New York Times, reviewing it, wrote: "Broken April is written with masterly simplicity in a bardic style, as if the author is saying: Sit quietly and let me recite a terrible story about a blood feud and the inevitability of death by gunfire in my country. You know it must happen because that is the way life is lived in these mountains. Insults must be avenged; family honor must be upheld...." The novel was made into a 2001 movie entitled Behind the Sun by filmmaker Walter Salles, set in 1910 Brazil and starring Rodrigo Santoro, which was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language and a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

There are now more than 1,600 families who live under an ever-present death sentence because of feuds. and since 1991, some 12,000 people were killed in them.

Kosovo
Blood feuds have also been part of a centuries-old tradition in Kosovo, tracing back to the Kanun, a 15th-century codification of Albanian customary rules. In the early 1990s, most cases of blood feuds were reconciled in the course of a large-scale reconciliation movement to end blood feuds led by Anton Çetta. The largest reconciliation gathering took place at Verrat e Llukës on 1 May 1990, which had between 100,000 and 500,000 participants. By 1992, the reconciliation campaign ended at least 1,200 deadly blood feuds, and in 1993, not a single homicide occurred in Kosovo.

Republic of Ireland
Criminal gang feuds also exist in Dublin, Ireland and in the Republic's third-largest city, Limerick. Traveller feuds are also common in towns across the country. Feuds can be due to personal issues, money, or disrespect, and grudges can last generations. Since 2001, over 300 people have been killed in feuds between different drugs gangs, dissident republicans, and Traveller families.

Philippines
Family and clan feuds, known locally as rido, are characterized by sporadic outbursts of retaliatory violence between families and kinship groups, as well as between communities. It can occur in areas where the government or a central authority is weak, as well as in areas where there is a perceived lack of justice and security. Rido is a Maranao term commonly used in Mindanao to refer to clan feuds. It is considered one of the major problems in Mindanao because, apart from numerous casualties, rido has caused destruction of property, crippled local economies, and displaced families.

Located in the southern Philippines, Mindanao is home to a majority of the country's Muslim community, and includes the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Mindanao "is a region suffering from poor infrastructure, high poverty, and violence that has claimed the lives of more than 120,000 in the last three decades." There is a widely held stereotype that the violence is perpetrated by armed groups that resort to terrorism to further their political goals, but the actual situation is far more complex. While the Muslim-Christian conflict and the state-rebel conflicts dominate popular perceptions and media attention, a survey commissioned by The Asia Foundation in 2002—and further verified by a recent Social Weather Stations survey—revealed that citizens are more concerned about the prevalence of rido and its negative impact on their communities than the conflict between the state and rebel groups. The unfortunate interaction and subsequent confusion of rido-based violence with secessionism, communist insurgency, banditry, military involvement and other forms of armed violence shows that violence in Mindanao is more complicated than what is commonly believed.

Rido has wider implications for conflict in Mindanao, primarily because it tends to interact in unfortunate ways with separatist conflict and other forms of armed violence. Many armed confrontations in the past involving insurgent groups and the military were triggered by a local rido. The studies cited above investigated the dynamics of rido with the intention of helping design strategic interventions to address such conflicts.

Causes
The causes of rido are varied and may be further complicated by a society's concept of honor and shame, an integral aspect of the social rules that determine accepted practices in the affected communities. The triggers for conflicts range from petty offenses, such as theft and jesting, to more serious crimes, like homicide. These are further aggravated by land disputes and political rivalries, the most common causes of rido. Proliferation of firearms, lack of law enforcement and credible mediators in conflict-prone areas, and an inefficient justice system further contribute to instances of rido.

Statistics
Studies on rido have documented a total of 1,266 rido cases between the 1930s and 2005, which have killed over 5,500 people and displaced thousands. The four provinces with the highest numbers of rido incidences are: Lanao del Sur (377), Maguindanao (218), Lanao del Norte (164), and Sulu (145). Incidences in these four provinces account for 71% of the total documented cases. The findings also show a steady rise in rido conflicts in the eleven provinces surveyed from the 1980s to 2004. According to the studies, during 2002–2004, 50% (637 cases) of total rido incidences occurred, equaling about 127 new rido cases per year. Out of the total number of rido cases documented, 64% remain unresolved.

Resolution
Rido conflicts are either resolved, unresolved, or reoccurring. Although the majority of these cases remain unresolved, there have been many resolutions through different conflict-resolving bodies and mechanisms. These cases can utilize the formal procedures of the Philippine government or the various indigenous systems. Formal methods may involve official courts, local government officials, police, and the military. Indigenous methods to resolve conflicts usually involve elder leaders who use local knowledge, beliefs, and practices, as well as their own personal influence, to help repair and restore damaged relationships. Some cases using this approach involve the payment of blood money to resolve the conflict. Hybrid mechanisms include the collaboration of government, religious, and traditional leaders in resolving conflicts through the formation of collaborative groups. Furthermore, the institutionalization of traditional conflict resolution processes into laws and ordinances has been successful with the hybrid method approach. Other conflict-resolution methods include the establishment of ceasefires and the intervention of youth organizations.

Well-known blood feuds

 * Three Kingdoms period, feuding warlords during the fall of the Han Dynasty (184–280 AD; China)
 * Njál's saga, an Icelandic account of a Norse blood feud (960–1020; Iceland, Ireland and Norway)
 * Svyatoslavychi Feud (975/977–980) in Kyivan Rus'
 * The Mackintosh-Cameron feud (1290s–1665; Scotland)
 * The Battle of the North Inch; the battle is fictionalised in the novel The Fair Maid of Perth by Sir Walter Scott (Michaelmas 1396; Scotland)
 * The Krummedige-Tre Rosor feud (1448–1502; Norway)
 * The Bonville–Courtenay feud (1450s; England)
 * The Percy–Neville feud (1450s; England)
 * The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487; England)
 * The Talbot–Berkeley feud (1455–1485 England; concurrent with the Wars of the Roses)
 * The Gunn–Keith feud (1464–1978; Scotland)
 * The Campbell–MacDonald feud, including the Massacre of Glencoe (1692; Scotland)
 * The Clan Forbes–Clan Gordon feud, (1500s–1571; Scotland)
 * The Clan Forbes–Clan Leslie feud, (1520s–1530s; Scotland)
 * The Clan Kerr-Clan Scott feud, (1526–1565; Scotland)
 * The Clan Forbes–citizens of Aberdeen feud, (1529–1539; Scotland)
 * The Regulator-Moderator War, (1839–1844; Republic of Texas)
 * The Punti–Hakka Clan Wars, (1855–1868; Guangdong, China)
 * The Donnelly–Biddulph community feud (1857–1880; Ontario, Canada)
 * The Lincoln County War (1878–1881; New Mexico, United States)
 * The Lincoln County Feud (1878–1890; West Virginia, United States)
 * The Hatfield-McCoy feud (1878–1891; West Virginia & Kentucky, United States)
 * The Clanton/McLaury–Earp feud (see also Earp Vendetta Ride), also known as the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" (1881; Arizona, United States)
 * The Pleasant Valley War, also known as the "Tonto Basin Feud" (1882–1892; Arizona, United States)
 * The Capone–Moran feud, including the St. Valentine's Day massacre (1925–1930; Chicago, Illinois, United States)
 * The Castellammarese War (1929–1931; New York City, New York United States)
 * The Battle of the Sunset Strip (1947–1951; Los Angeles, California United States)
 * The First Colombo Family War (1960–1963; New York City, United States)
 * The Second Colombo Family War (1971–1975; New York City, United States)
 * The Riccobene War (1982–1984; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States)
 * The Internal Patriarca War (1991–1996; Boston, Massachusetts, United States)
 * Great Mafia War (1981–1983; Sicily, Italy)
 * The Feud of Scampia (2004–2005; Naples, Italy)
 * The Maguindanao Massacre (2009; Ampatuan, Philippines)
 * The Limerick feud (2000–present; Limerick, Ireland)
 * The Montreal Mafia War (2009–present; mostly the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario)
 * The fictional feud between the House of Capulet and the House of Montague in Romeo and Juliet

title: Feud