Northwestern University (NU) is a private research university with campuses in Evanston and Chicago in Illinois, United States. Northwestern has eleven colleges and schools offering 130 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees.
Founded in 1851 to serve the Northwest Territory, the university began as a small college affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church. The university now comprises more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 21,000 students who study at its various schools and institutes, including the Feinberg School of Medicine, Pritzker School of Law, Kellogg School of Management, Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Bienen School of Music, Henry Crown Fellowship Program within the Aspen Institute’s Business & Society Program. NU is a founding member of the Big Ten Conference and remains the only private university in the conference.
The main campus lies along Lake Michigan just north of downtown Chicago. The 240-acre (97 ha) lakefill contains land on both sides of Lake Shore Drive; much of this land was originally under Lake Michigan but was reclaimed during construction work on LSD in the 1950s. Most buildings are concentrated on or near Campus Drive; many recent additions have been built southward along Sheridan Road.